danguernsey

There were many, but 1973 CYO is one that is etched in my memory--a top three moment. Others include 1975 DCI finals and the 2006 Alumni Corps at DCI finals.

August 9, 1974--Nixon resigned the office of the presidency. We heard about it while on the road during the eastern tour, just prior to '74 CYO.

1973--"Ballet in Brass," "God Bless the Child," "Brian's Song" 1974--"Ballet in Brass,""God Bless the Child," "Slaughter on Tenth Ave.," "Brian's Song" 1975-"Slaughter on Tenth Ave.," "MacPark," "The Way We Were" 1977--Prologue to West Side Story

John Price, a former Madison Scouts alum of the 1950s, formed the 32nd Hussars in 1969 after the death of C.H. Beebe in 1968. Price was a member of the Scouts's VWF championship guard of the late 1950s. The membership of the Hussars was comprised of a good number of former Madison Scouts who had migrated with Price after Beebe's death. The corps struggled financially and competitively through its brief existence. Some Hussars members filtered back to the Scouts, beginning in '71 and '72. Most migrated to the Scouts after the Hussars folded before the '73 season; some went to the '73 Blue Stars. Although their numbers were small, the ex-Hussars were a constituent part of the Scouts's upsurge of 1973-1975. They were local guys and dedicated Scouts. Dan Verhussen, the DM of the Scouts in 1980, had migrated from the Hussars to the Scouts in '73. Todd Ryan, current M&M guru of the Blue Devils, had likewise migrated from the Hussars to the Scouts in '73. Good times marching with this brethren back in the day!

Yeah, anything goes. L.H.O.O.Q is the title to Duchamps's graffiti piece of the Mona Lisa with goatee and mustache. The title is a French word play that means "She [the Mona Lisa] has a hot rear end." It's an instance of Duchamps's anti-art aesthetic (i.e., subvert fine art masterpieces of the museums like the Mona Lisa). During the segment dedicated to Duchamp, BD would also need a cross dresser replicating Duchamps's female alter ego, "Rose Selavy," which is another Dada word play that phonetically sounds like in French "Eros c'est la vie," or "eros is life." It's another Dada pun on sexuality.

Exactly. That's the irony of the matter. Drum corps is too civil, socially and aesthetically, and BD is doing the best they can given the constraints of judging and competition of DCI. Yet, at the same time, it's difficult not to assess BD's show according to the aesthetic standards set by the original Dadaists. That "confusion" seems to be at the heart of the heated debates over BD's show here on DCP.

+1 Agree. BD's show doesn't go far enough to succeed as a Dada show. The formal aspects of the show are too tame and stylized for a Dada show, the aesthetic values the Dadaists rejected. If BD wanted an authentic Dada show, they should have had the performance spill into the stands to create mayhem with the audience in a visceral way, which is what the original Dadaists attempted to accomplish in their performance pieces--i.e., to break down the aesthetic distance between the performance and the audience. Despite the subject matter pertaining to Dada, the formal style of BD's show--the "ruptures," "fissures," and "simultaneity" of discordant sound and image--is essentially the stylized dissonance we've seen from BD on replay the past few years. "Cabaret Voltaire" is PoMo (postmodern) posturing without much substance. I'd rather see again "Midnight in Paris" for an enchanting view of the European avant-garde of the 1920s than watch BD's nightmare in Indy.

If I have to distill quitessential shows or moments from first-hand observation from the early 70s to early 80s, my choices are, 1973 Santa Clara Vanguard, especially "Young Person's Guide to Drum Corps." In the early 70s, that piece upped the ante in terms musically sophistication and visual coordination. "Fanfare and Allegory" of 1972 and 1973 reinforced the ante. That opener, along with the opening to "Henry V" from 1971, fits in there as well. Superior musical and visual all around for SCV in the early 70s. SCV upgraded marching percussion in a serious way from 1970-1975. Fred Sanford, the man in that category! My beloved Scouts upped the ante in brass arrangements from c. 1970 to 1975. 1983 witness the next major transformative moment of the activity, IMHO, particularly the Garfield Cadets (Zingali bringing his visual approach from 2-7). The Cadets brought to bear on the activity even more visual demand that is still with us today.

Actually, there were two other theme shows in 1971: Scouts "Alice" show (w/ costumes) and Garfield Cadets Revolutionary War theme. Interestingly, the use of costumes and gags on the field by the '71 Scouts and Cavaliers anticipated the costumed shows of the Bridgemen a few years later.

He was part of the movement in Germany called "Neue Sachlichkeit" (The New Objectivity) of c. 1925-1933 (post-Dada). Dix shared some elements with Berlin Dada in mentality (pessimistic mood/anti-war), but radically different in style from the Dadaists (eg, Grosz). His works reveal a hard-edge realism in his treatment of subject matter (war vets, seedy underworld of Berlin), lacking in Dada (with some exceptions). Dix is arguably my favorite artist of the 1920s.

Excellent observation. I might add that the Dadaists were also radically anti-formalist. They rebelled against the prevailing notion of beauty embodied in the formalist doctrine of "art for art's sake" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Proponents of "art for art's sake" (eg, Whistler) believed that the formal properties of art making--line, color, form, composition--are autonomous, or self-referential in-and-of themselves, freeing art from having to serve non-aesthetic ends like religion, politics, and morality. The Dadaists subverted what they felt was the disconnect between "art and life" in formalist practice, using "collage" to confound the boundaries between the two, blurring art and non-art elements appropriated, or "borrowed," from social life (manufactured "junk" like urinals, bicycle wheels, glass, metal, newspaper, etc). This was done to satirize not only religion, bourgeois morality, and rationality, but also the elevated status of the artist--ie, the artistic genius who produces "original" masterpieces with an ennobling theme or beautiful form. For the Dadaists, in the age of industry and mass-production, the artist is no longer an "original" creator, but instead a mere "reproducer" of the manufactured world already provided for him/her. Hence, art is in constant "replay" and, along with it, artistic identity becomes machine-like. As for BD, the vast majority of posters on the BD threads (Brasso is an exception) focus mainly on the formal elements of BD's show (ie, coordination, or lack there of, of sound and visual) with scant attention to the Dada theme. The emphasis on the formal aspects is understandable given that most drum corps folk, including staffs and judges, probably have a limited knowledge of art history. I presume that most designers and judges are music educators or from WGI. Explicating, or assessing, fully the strengths and weaknesses of BD's Dada show, formally and thematically, requires an in-depth knowledge of art history, IMHO.

That is my sense, also. Perhaps the Fleetwood "Midwest '70" albums are a combo of the Racine and Milwaukee shows? I assume North American Nationals was Milwaukee?

Thanks, Brian. I have Dale's DVD at North American. I'm niggling, but I'm almost certain that the Scout recording at North American is not the same show that appears on the Fleetwood album (drum and horn errors at NA that don't appear on Fleetwood). It's interesting that the Troopers and Blue Stars appear twice on the Fleetwood series dedicated to "Midwest '70"--Troopers on vols. 1 & 4, Blue Stars on vols. 1 & 2, making me wonder if perhaps the "Midwest '70" series is an amalgam of two different Midwest shows? Just wondering.

If it was Racine, where did the Scouts finish? They're on the "Midwest '70" album also.

"Black is the Color" was a superior piece. It was based on an old Appalachia folk song from the early 20th century that had various permutations over the decades. I also liked the Scouts's "Cherokee" from '70 (Les Brown version). IMHO, Ray's creation of the "Madison sound" of the early to mid-70s is embodied in that piece. It seems to anticipate the Big Band sound of "Ballet in Brass" of '73-'74, though the Scouts had played it in '62, which was based on a Les Brown piece as well. I have that '70 album as well. It's "Midwest 1970" (Fleetwood). It's like 4 vols that includes SCV, Kingsmen, and Troopers. That vol reveals the moment when SCV made its presence known in the Midwest in '70. Does anyone know the particular show of that recording? Brian?

There is perhaps some validity to this, "daring the judges/drum corps system," so to speak. Perhaps BD is taking an "anti-drum corps" stance, applying the anti-art, or anti-beauty, revolt of the original Dadaists of 1916-1923. For them, that entailed an absolute negation of not just notions of beauty in art (clarity, order, proportionality, harmony), but also the institutions that supported art and art history--ie, art museums, art academies, art criticism (reception of art). In so doing, their radical skepticism asked the ultimate question: "what IS art?" In that regard, they were similar to the Italian Futurists of the pre-World War One years (1909-1914). That is, negate the past--ie, destroy classical beauty, museums, glorify violence and dissonance, strive for Nietzsche's idea of "creation through destruction." Only open-ended anarchy of the future existed for the Futurists. The Dadaists, by contrast, not only negated the past and present social order, but also the future. They were borderline nihilists, echoing the existential mood in Europe during the 1920s and 30s. Interestingly, Marcel Duchamp took his anti-art stance to its logical conclusion: he stopped making art all together, taking up chess in the mid-1920s. Applying Dada conceptual art to BD, perhaps BD is interrogating, or "daring," the drum corps activity in an aggressive way, including the judges or "art critics," to ask, "what is drum corps?" For BD's sake, hopefully they'll avoid Duchamp's negation of art making all together. As for me, I learn more about Dada by going to art museums (Dada is now mainstream--post-modernism), lectures, and reading books about the movement in order to teach it to my students. Drum corps isn't educational in that regard.

The '71 concert was an original arrangement by Ray Baumgardt. One of my favorite concert pieces by Ray in the 70s was the Scouts's "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" from 1970. That piece was quite advanced for its day. Ray was on top of his game with that arrangement as well as with the entire '71 show.

Interesting story, Brian. Thanks much. By '73, the Scouts's ties to Boy Scouts of America were more "relaxed" than they we're in the 60s. I always wondered if that BSA regulation concerning the use of rifles contributed to the delay of the Scouts in catching up with other rifle lines during the early- to mid-70s--e.g., Kingsmen and 2-7. By the early 80s, however, the Scouts put out some of the best rifles in drum corps. Scout rifles were friggin good in '81 and '82.

The pikes were called Quarter Staffs. I believe the Boy Scouts of America didn't allow scout organizations to use, or carry, rifles: quarter staffs were an acceptable alternative. I can't recall off hand the last year the Scouts stop using them (perhaps '67-'68?), but they definitely were not used in '70-'72. The first year the Scouts used rifles was '73.

'72 (prelims), '73, '74, '75, '76, '77

From my recollection, SCV's tenor line first used the fiberglass harness, worn under the tunic, in 1971. That set the standard for subsequent tenor harnesses throughout the 70s--e.g., clear plexiglass tenor harnesses worn outside the uni by Kingsmen and Kilts in 74 and Slingerland metal tubes used by many tenor lines in the 70s (corps, including Scouts, came up with variants). SCV was the first snare line to use fiberglass harnesses (under the tunic) in 1979.

Paul, Thanks for sharing the list. It was interesting seeing Larry McCormick's name on the list in '55 and '56. I didn't know that Sal Ferrera played snare (early '50s). If I recall, wasn't he the principle brass arranger for the Cavaliers in the 60s?

Yes, we had vistalites, the drums forever associated with the dreadful "disco" show. We called them "jelly beans." They were clear but with silver mylar added inside the shells. They gleamed almost like disco lights, befitting the polyester artifice of 70s disco. The pic below was taken in July '76 while we were in transition from vistalites to chrome Ludwigs. The tenors were awaiting new chrome drums when this pic was taken.

Ray marched with the St. Andrew's Bridgemen in '73--the 9-man snare line. He marched snare with the Scouts in '74, '75, and '77. I'm not sure about pre-1973.

Hey Jim, I'd like to see the facebook pics of 2-7. As for the Scouts, Laki's older brother, Chris, was a graphic designer. He designed several album covers of the DCI championship records in the late 70s and early 80s ('78, '79, and '80). If I recall, he also did some layout design for the DCI yearbooks back in the 70s. He is currently a professor of graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. A talented guy.