MikeN

I'm glad you brought this show up - it gets short shrift in the pantheon of legendary Cadets programs, but man it delivered across the board. Mike

It's been said before on here, but BD was 4th in drums in the previous two shows. If the drum judge had kept them there on Finals night, BD would have won the title. That's how close it was. Mike

Ain't that the truth. Mike

I was so excited for the black uniforms, but when they finally debuted them, it was pretty obvious from night one that they didn't work as well as the regular ones. For whatever reason, autumn colors just popped better on the field than the black and neon - the whole corps just looked smaller by comparison. It was such a shame too - that show absolutely *cooked* and I thought it was the dark horse to win it all. Mike

Yeah, but that was also 25 years ago. They've changed their rules quite a bit since then. Mike

Yeah, DCI discontinued the BR/DVD's. Mike

In 2016, DCI posted "18 percent of all World Class corps members call the great state of Texas home. California, Florida and Arizona also respectively lead the way for pumping out drum corps members on an annual basis." Mike

No corps is going to willingly give up their DCI membership and tour appearance fees. It's *never* happened. Pioneer, despite the grumbling behind the scenes from literally everyone in drum corps, kept their WC status until health and safety scandals hit, and the corps was expelled before they ever got to OC. DCI is accommodating to a fault to it's member corps. They can rearrange tour schedules, assist with logistics, even help corps get loans if the org so chooses, in order to help build for future success. Open Class and SoundSport... well, if your director makes a social media post that offends, you lose your access. (See: Arsenal) But that's a whole other story. Mike

All of these corps had issues that had nothing to do with the environment in Texas, IMO. Even Crossmen's (relative) struggles have been more self-inflicted. In some ways, Texas has an advantageous environment for running a corps, but there's definitely no "easy button" you can press to replace the same infrastructure you would need for a corps anywhere. Mike

I think the Board sets the membership criteria, not Dan. Convince the folks in the Board seats from <checks website> Boston, Mandarins, Crown, Troopers, Blue Stars and Madison. Mike

When I presented the show to my kiddo for the first time (DCI DM), I specifically called their attention to the "weaponized silence," and how the arrangers used it as much as they did the notes on the page. They said that's the part that stuck with them. I think it's obviously an amazingly cleanly performed show. Star would have played the hell out of anything that summer. But it's also an extremely sophisticated design, more than what I think anyone had ever seen to that point. Had they been allowed the percussive freedom that we see from modern pits, it would have been even further afield from convention, I think. The lasting musical influence to me is that if a corps came out and played it mostly note for note, it would sound perfectly appropriate for what we see these days. Visually, they started pushing the boundaries of big unison body movement and capturing the full-field guard moment into the drill, I think. Wasn't quite the full on dance moveset we see now, but if you look at what Vanguard was doing in '98 and '99, you can recognize the influence straight off. I still listen to this show every so often - it holds up very well. Mike

Smart move on their part. Don't overextend. Mike

Pioneer won championships in 1991, 1994 and 1995. Still not convinced they shouldn't have won in '96 - the Celtic Twilight show was a beast, and it felt like they outclassed the field all season long. Mike

MLS made $462 million in 2022, and AppleTV's contract for next year *still* has an out clause if league broadcasts don't increase subscribers to the service. DCI made 11 million a few years ago, and has managed to get booted off of *PBS* and had to self-finance its own production to get on ESPN once. Mike

Depends on what the role of the new ED is. If it's going to be to rebuild the organization's finances and employment structure to fit a touring drum corps (or two), not sure there's a whole lot of transition time needed, as they're pretty much at zero now, and the new guy or gal can do it their way. If it's to oversee the dissolution of the org (not even hinting that's the case, but it's an option) or conversion into something else, again, they're already at zero. Not a lot of transition time needed, and the new guy or gal will handle it their way here as well. Also, the last time this happened for SCV, didn't a couple of BoD members step in as temporary directors? No reason they couldn't do that again too. Mike

Yup. There was a definite mismatch between music and visual there. Mike

They did change the ending, but I think it was in general because of the discussion around gun violence. Narratively, the original ending was better, IMO. Off the top of my head: '99 Cadets - The Big Apple - the car props and especially the tarps were controversial online. There was a lot of discussion about how much was "too much." As mentioned, '02 Cadets went too far, to some, in their hyper-patriotic wrappings. There was also a debate about "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance at the time, and that was put in the show as well. Then the fire station on Finals night, etc. Boston did a patriotic show as well, but theirs was a little more understated in some ways, and kind of flew under the radar. '04 Crown was intensely controversial for their Rent vocal feature, taking advantage of mic'd vocals for the first time. Crown folks, on the few occasions when they actually addressed it, were kind of combatively defensive about it, and it fueled the online fire (source: Me. I administered DCP's forums at the time.) Boston used them as well, but got more of a pass. '05 Cadets drum feature did split people a fair bit, but not near as much as Yowza Yowza Yowza. BD decided to jump into the pool with both feet first, and that one still garners debate when brought up. '06 Cadets - the character costuming and, quite frankly, some boneheaded design choices really made that corps a flashpoint for fans. The poor guard folks really got hammered by toxic internet fans - not one of the Internet Drum Corps Community's finest summers. '07 Cadets - as discussed, the vocals again divided folks, as well as Hashgate which was seen at the time as Hop being retaliatory for the criticism. '08 Cadets - Lot of Cadets shows here... this one caused controversy due to the static prop set in the center of the field, and for some tone-deaf stories in the narration. Not sure someone's breast cancer is the right topic for the middle of a football stadium. Mike

And Kathy Black, DCI BoD President, who proposed it in 2020. Mike

I'm definitely not opposed to the attitude you promote - I'll take any drum corps (no matter the form) over no drum corps. However, I'd submit the choice isn't the either-or you propose. At the end of the day, audience butts in seats is not causing corps to fold. 20 new marching slots for WW's (or roughly $80k in revenue per year) isn't going to keep corps from folding. Corps *are* folding due to bus rental, gas and housing increases that far outpace what corps can earn. Until TPTB figure out a solution to that, doesn't matter what you bring to or put on the field. Mike

I had limited interaction with those guys, as it was usually after the fact, but man are they capable, and some of the nicest people in DCI. Mike

I'm not privy to their inner stuff anymore, but I hadn't heard anything about this either. Mike

No, you're spot on - being tax exempt means basically you can't pay out any profit as dividends or anything like that - it has to go back into the org. Mike

Technically yes. I think they're brilliant. Mike

Kind of funny in a "what goes around" sense, single tenors have made a comeback, looks like primarily in some corners of BOA and scholastic WGI. Mike

Unless you raise the member cap, that's a zero sum game. And it's still not enough to cover increased tour expenses. DCI has a (primarily) off-field financial issue, not an on-field one. Mike