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ShortAndFast

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ShortAndFast last won the day on November 2 2014

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  1. One of my favorite DCI memories is East 2002. Cadets played BWBB as an encore. The crowd completely lost it. So ... they played BWBB again.
  2. I was surprisingly "meh" about the announcement. I think April returning to the guard is possibly the biggest game changer for them. For my money, their biggest problem of late has been the inability to design complete, compelling shows that generate effect and explore their theme in an interesting way. Have they really made any changes in this area? I still see the same Artistic Director as before. I think they can ... all ... do ... better. I was also disappointed to see not a word of thanks for the departing staff. Whatever their flaws, they kept the group alive and in finals through an existential crisis. There was always a gracelessness to Cadets' handling of staff under GH, I had hoped that would improve under new administration.
  3. I don't really disagree with most of this, but I think you are overstating it to say that BD had money and the Cavies didn't circa 2011. Both were elite units that could fund their programs. The competitive fall of the Cavies was more about the loss of a critical staff member than running out of money. But the rest of it: definitely true. Management at all corps at all competitive levels should pretty much be thinking all the time about how to grow the revenue streams that support their programs. Top-level DCI programs are already very expensive, and I'd guess that costs have grown faster than inflation over the past 5 years.
  4. A lot of people would have said the Cavies were a self-fulfilling prophesy after finals 2011. At that moment in time, looking back 12 years, Cavies had 3 bronze, 3 silver, 5 gold while BD had 2 bronze, 5 silver, 4 gold. If BD has dominated since then while the Cavies fell, doesn't that show that these things are not self-fulfilling?
  5. If you want to talk about how groups rise & fall, it seems like you also need to account for Crown/Bluecoats/Scouts/PR as well as the ones you allude to. DCI definitely rewards the top groups - no argument there. If you are at the top, you have an easier time recruiting, you get better sponsorship deals, you sell more t-shirts, you get more donations, the works. But all that isn't enough to keep you on top if your on-field product slips. If BD came out with a bad show next year, they would fall. If they did it a couple of years in a row, they would fall further and their staff would start eyeing greener pastures. Kids might even, gasp, go somewhere else if they wanted a shot at a ring. Don't believe me? Look at what happened to Cavies after Gaines left. That's how quickly a group that earned 11 medals in 12 years can drop!
  6. I think it varies. Some kids really want to march Corps X, some kids really want to play for Staff Y. The kids pay the bills to march, they can have whatever motivation they please for doing so. But I agree with what you say - if you really want to study with someone, you should go to where they are teaching.
  7. GH has already settled a case with YEA that alleged wrongful termination, withheld compensation, etc. Assuming YEA has competent lawyers, they likely required him to release all claims as a condition of receiving that settlement. I doubt there's going to be any more between him and YEA.
  8. 1. Tilt 2. Inferno ------- 3. The Bluecoats 4. re:Rite of Spring 5. Mad World ..... 10. Ouroboros
  9. Indeed. I think formally putting a thumb on the scales ("BD can't win this year, they won last year!") is 100% guaranteed to produce worse adjudication that what we have at present.
  10. How about this idea: we hire qualified people to judge, we let them assign the scores they think each unit has earned according to a rubric, we do some math and award the trophy to the one with the highest total. Every adjudicated arts competition on Planet Earth, from Olympic figure skating to the kids' painting contest at your local county fair, is judged by subjective human beings who have biases and preferences. What's the alternative?
  11. I loved Bloo all season, and they certainly had a complete and compelling title-worthy show. But by semis, I felt BD had the higher performance level. The judges had to decide between two strong shows. Some picked BD, some picked Bloo. The math came out BD. That's how the scoring system is supposed to work. Pretty much the same story for Crown/SCV. They were so close, it seems stupid to say that anyone was "ripped off". The judges made their calls on finals night, and we got the result we got.
  12. Maybe my favorite Michael Klesch book before he went to Crown. As David Holsinger told him "I didn't put a ballad in TTTPS, but if I had, that's what I would have written".
  13. Hard one. I went with Side x Side, because I think that's probably my favorite DCI music book from the past decade. Barber is amazing. Even if the circus colored towers are ... unfortunate. Relentless and Session 44 and Metropolis are also real favorites of mine.
  14. Because after the 2016 DCI season, Boston/Crown hired major DCI staff from Cadets right after championships. The same staff members were still working with Cadets2 DCA, so there were a couple of awkward weeks in Allentown. You-know-who complained, the current rule was promulgated.
  15. I went with Force Of Nature, my favorite of 3 pretty strong SCV shows. It was by far the most beautiful show on the field that summer, and a fine capstone for Pete Weber's years with the corps. Runner up for me is Beneath the Surface, which narrowly edges out A Second Chance (oh, that Mahler opener...!) from this mixed bag of 4 Crown shows. Cadets 2012 and Cavies 2017 are at the bottom of this group for me.
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