MikeN
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Posts posted by MikeN
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1990 is one of my favorite Cadets shows, and I'd love to see them take on an American composer-themed version again. However, in 2020 DCI you have to have a coherent visual program first, then you can soundtrack or score the music to fit. It's certainly possible to marry the two, but they *really* have to have the visual idea first.
Mike
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I posted over on the Madison thread as well, but having spent a few years up close and personal with Daniel Montoya, I'm very excited for what Madison may be doing next year! I suspect that crew is going to give the Scouts a very distinctive voice in World Class.
Mike
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Having seen Daniel Montoya up close and personal with Guardians, I think Madison's about to have a creative and distinctive voice! I'm very excited to see what they come up with.
Mike
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23 minutes ago, DFA1970 said:
Pretty sure. just like the fun topics on your Cadets. Fun right?
This is a really weird hill to die on. Everyone from the OP on down has pretty much been having fun with this. (No, I don't actually believe 1989 was rigged. But I do think Phantom should have won. So there.) Embrace the hyperbole!
Mike
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Here's hoping for announcements soon!
Mike
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1 hour ago, jwillis35 said:
I agree with this. I think the point I was trying to make and didn't is that Cavaliers don't have the full-time positions available the way BD does. I believe Blue Devils currently have 19 full-time jobs within the org. ???
I guess this is a good time to ask. With the recent bill going through the California legislature aimed at the gig economy, it feels very much like the attached A/B/C test ( is going to classify a lot of drum corps staff as employees?
https://www.vox.com/2019/8/27/20833233/ab-5-california-bill-candidates-vote
Quote"To hire an independent contractor, businesses must prove that the worker a) is free from the company’s control, b) is doing work that isn’t central to the company’s business, and c) has an independent business in that industry. If they don’t meet all three of those conditions, then they have to be classified as employees."
Mike
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Ok, I'll get opinionated. 😄
1987 - Cadets. Waaay more sophisticated than SCV.
1988 - Blue Devils. Madison had a legendary closer, but BD brought a full show's worth of highlights.
1989 - Phantom Regiment. Felt like the fix was in, no matter how ragged SCVs performance was.
1990 - Cadets. However, Star really felt like the breakout corps against some pretty "typical" corps fare above them.
1991 - Star of Indiana. Can't argue.
1992 - Cavaliers. That visual program just killed everyone else.
1993 - Star of Indiana. Cadets were good. Star was revolutionary. And good.
1994 - Blue Devils. Peak BD for me. Still waiting for them to have as good a program.
1995 - Cavaliers. Their music *and* visual program just killed everyone else.
1996 - Phantom Regiment - heart beats head, at least this year. It would be decades before a finals performance brought this much passion.
1997 - Blue Devils. By a hair over the Cadets.
1998 - Blue Devils. One Hand One Heart just felt like a championship show from top to bottom, and they nailed it.
1999 - Blue Devils. Showed SCV and BD to a non-corps fan once, and they said BD just crushed SCV; that BD performed like they knew they'd already won.
2000 - Cadets. Peak Cadets for me. Awesome show with no weaknesses.
2001 - Cavaliers. Their visual was head and shoulders above. Not sure why this one gets so little love.
2002 - Blue Devils. With the benefit of hindsight, BD was better in music than the Cavaliers were in visual.
2003 - Cavaliers. As awesome as BD's opener was, the rest of the show is meh. Cavaliers took their visual program to a whole new level.
2004 - Cavaliers. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. BD's show was a bit of a mess design-wise, but you can see them working out the kinks.
2005 - Cadets. Can't argue. Deservedly legendary.
2006 - Phantom Regiment. Cavaliers deserve all the visual credit, but their music book was one of the worst designed championship shows I've seen. Phantom nailed it start to finish.
2007 - The Cadets. Don't want to give them credit for the narration... but fine, home-stadium advantage pipped them here.
2008 - Phantom Regiment. I was there. Not sure it should have been even as close as it was.
2009 - Blue Devils. For all the Crown love, there's only about 90 seconds where they just crush it. Not enough to beat BD.
2010 - Cavaliers. Mad World's music book was head and shoulders above BD's. Cavs "what they played" was better than BD's "how they played it."
2011 - Cavaliers. They had it all that year, and while Cadets had a deservedly Hall of Fame visual book, their music wasn't on par with everyone else.
2012 - Carolina Crown. They had it all. BD... again, I'm not buying what they're selling.
2013 - Carolina Crown. Manages to just hammer home the musical tribute to modern composition.
2014 - Blue Devils. When BD manages to marry audience-favorite music and visual with their obsessive attention to detail, they're unstoppable.
2015 - Carolina Crown. Dirty show or not, their drums got a bit unfairly maligned.
2016 - Bluecoats. They probably should have added a Box 6 for the GE.
2017 - Blue Devils. I wanted SCV to win with their otherworldly music and visual, but BD, like in 2014, combined friendly music and movement with their cleanliness...
2018 - Santa Clara Vanguard. Babylon is a friggin' delight. End of story.
2019 - Bluecoats. No way no how BD, for as great as their music was this year, was in the same box as Bluecoats for GE.
Mike
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1 hour ago, MikeRapp said:
The very nature of dci ensures that there will be almost no change in the power rankings year to year. The richest corps remain so by being able to recruit away the most experienced members from second tier corps. This ensures that they will be able to remain top tier and therefore pay the best educators more money...and the cycle continues.
Mandarins remains the lone outlier so far, but they have no realistic chance of medaling in the next three years imo. Might even say five.
It seems there are two ways to break this mold: have your corps director be revealed as a fraud and habitual abuser; and/or pay a #### ton of money to a tier one corps caption leaders and have them bring their best students with them.
I don't see the correlation there. Maybe the other way around - attract the best educators and remain top tier. I really and truly don't think BD has rigged the system. I think they're just incredibly good at what they do.
Mike
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On 8/29/2019 at 10:50 AM, cybersnyder said:
I've been thinking about the topic of evolving the business model and I'm wondering if there really is much to cut on the expense side other than making tours shorter. And is there really a need to cut costs? There doesn't seem to be a shortage of people signing contracts for the season. In my opinion, GoFundMe has made higher costs more palatable. You may not raise enough from family and friends to pay the entire year, but you can get enough to bring it back down to reasonable levels. So I was thinking that the evolution needs to happen on the fundraising side, but maybe, via GoFundMe, that evolution has already happened. The best way to raise money is to ask for it. I would be more willing to give Becky $100 who is going to Blue Devils than to send $100 directly to Blue Devils.
This year, from firsthand experience -
- there was a shortage of marching members all around, from Open Class all the way up to finalists.
- very few marching members (proportionally) made any significant inroads with GoFundMe accounts
- you're right, though, the tour is the biggest cost. Buses, gas, staff and food. Anything you can do to reduce those will cause tangible savings to all corps.
Mike
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36 minutes ago, Ghost said:
The Laundro Truck parks next to the kitchen truck where the water hook up and street type drains are located. Water usage (showers/kitchen truck) is probably part of the daily rate corps pay. Corps would not use this truck every day, so it would take a few years maybe to recoup the start up costs. Or, they have other corps in the area pay them for the four hours to do all the uniforms and maybe staff/volunteers clothing.
There are many cities that would fine you for waste dumping. Trust me on this one.
Mike
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5 hours ago, xandandl said:
I went to Guardians souvenir stand to meet eye to eye the fellow (a Guardian parent) who almost never expresses anything positive about whatever I may post. Thought I might make a New friend (pun.) Turns out souvie lady told me Mr. New skipped town two days before Championships. Oh well.
Um, great. Feel better now? Carry on then.
Mike
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6 minutes ago, garfield said:
I'm thinking "mosh pit" a MM from endzone to endzone. 😁
Already been done. See Allen HS, TX. 😶
Mike
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April-ish.
Mike
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3 hours ago, E3D said:
If we go back to the end of the 80's - look at the amount of shows and corps - compare that to now does it tell us anything about the Drum Corps activity?
It will not be long until the number of corps is down to about 40 , oh wait. ummm err.
Drum corps Canada might not be around ,,,, ummmm errrrrrr
It tells us there were a lot of poorly run drum corps back in the 80's.
Mike
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I'd be much more interested in bulk bus rental or instrument purchases. Uniforms aren't that expensive in the grand scheme of things.
Mike
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2 hours ago, Fran Haring said:
Yep... Brenda's back in Monday.
She's a student aide in PA.... her student is starting his first year in high school, and is going to be in the marching band. Front ensemble.
So we might end up being surrogate band parents and going to a show or two this fall.
Texas is mostly finishing week 2 of classes this week, and the first football games are next Friday. I'd estimate little to no chance of kids getting released to go to DCA from here.
Mike
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7 minutes ago, Poppycock said:
I remember the Renegades. Knew a few BD and Vanguard people who joined too. Me, Stephan and other friends were being encouraged to join but we didn’t. Could never understand what they were trying to accomplish. Most ruined a perfectly wonderful junior drum corps career joining them, many had won DCI World Championships.
Ruined? That seems harsh. Can't fault a performer for wanting to perform.
Mike
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26 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:
And while I think your comments generally are apt, it's worth querying the other point of yours that I've bolded: weren't there once senior corps pretty much everywhere, just as there had been junior corps pretty much everywhere? And if so, the question may be: how did they persist for so long and so strong in the northeast?
I'm just theorizing into the wind now, but I suspect the rise of <and emphasis on> scholastic marching band changed the narrative in other areas. As MikeD correctly points out regularly, they took the place of many a small drum corps for music education, and without a pipeline of kids brought up in that type of system, they might likely feel less need to participate later.
Mike
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4 hours ago, FlamMan said:
I have been meaning to post this too. We get it...lines are loaded with rockstars but the non stop barrage of a million beats per second isnt musical. That's what the drum solo is for. Please write simpler more musical charts...Ala Ringo.
Looking at the Bluecoats snare chart for Ringo's drum solo this minute - it's definitely "aggressive."
Mike
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I'm watching from half a country away, obviously, but it feels like all-age corps is really just a northeast "thing" with a couple of groups from the midwest and Atlanta in for good measure. Having been on here through the short life of the Renegades, it really felt back then like the California groups were going to gain traction, especially as there were more groups growing and creating their own performance opportunities. And when it went away, it went away very quickly. In retrospect, while of course the Renegades brought their own issues, hindsight suggests that DCA suspending them pretty much killed any momentum for the movement in the entire region.
For the South, there's just zero-point-zero percent interest in adult groups down here. For better or worse, marching band is a "for the kids" thing, and DCI has positioned itself smartly as AAU/Select Marching Band. CV is the big exception/success story, but I get the impression it's more due to their unique talents and hard work than anything demographic-wise helping them.
Without questioning the talent or work of the existing corps at all, I do wonder whether this is as big as the all-age circuit is going to be. The NE groups seem to feel no pressure or obligation to expand, and it feels like the rest of the country is infertile ground.
Mike
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35 minutes ago, Rylan said:
I want him to do BDI so we can see him perform some more! Also, to show Top Secret DC how to play the snare WELL.
Hah - the Swiss invented it! (Great - rudimental trash talk... 😀)
Mike
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Was gonna say Madison '95, but I saw on Reddit someone posted a in-stands video of one of their performances that year, and honestly, it turns out the DCI video did a really good job of catching it all.
Mike
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I didn't care for the uniform, personally, but it wasn't a deal breaker. I assume they'll have something new this year, and that's ok too. I enjoyed the show itself immensely.
Mike
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I don't think there were any I didn't like. Some special mentions -
Now in my "All Time" rotation - Bluecoats, Blue Devils
Enjoyed waaaay more than I expected to - Crown, Boston, Mandarins, Spirit, Pacific Crest, Colts, Madison, Spartans, Genesis, Guardians (I definitely had the 😐 face when I first heard about it), Louisiana Stars, Colts Cadets, Les Stentors (seriously)
Mike
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Positive Brainstorming/DCA
in DCA - All-Age Corps Discussions
Posted
Partner with DCI for DCA Finals at Allentown maybe? DCI show starts at 5 each evening, have Prelims earlier on Friday and Finals on Saturday? That would also give both night's audiences the opportunity to see a pretty large chunk of senior corps.
Mike