Kaboom

Saw them at Stanford at 2016 DCI West and Rose Bowl. They are playing old Blue Devils charts- Happy Days, Ya Gotta Try, Pegasus, and One More Time. While kind of weird hearing BD music coming from "Freelancers" horns, they represented well. Some early season dirtiness. I'm sure they will clean that up and contend at DCA Minicorps. I was just great to feel the air pressure generated by those "G" bugles.... Kaboom

Freelancers 1979 Entire guard wore costumes that looked like Coca-cola cans. Actually the whole corps wore costumes. You cannot call what the drums and bugles wore uniforms, except fot the hat. Kaboom!

Jealous? Yes, because in North Nevada, we do not see the glitz that Vegas gets. Jealous? Yes, because we do not have or get to see "drum corps legends" like Pero and Chez out here either. I am looking forward to be slapped in the face by the minicorps and Viva. As I said originally, this is a great move. And Pero and Chez...... HEADLINERS! Kaboom

Forget the warm up acts. DCA's serious headline promotion of Viva is indicating their new entertainment direction. Looks exciting! I can't wait to see it. Kaboom

Sorry to admit it but I am a Freelancers junkie. I've always loved this corps especally the drumlines they have put out over the years. I was fortunate to get into DCI West Stanford show early (The ticket booth was horrible; more people standing in line than in the stadium). I am glad because the Freelancers Alumni did standstill preshow entertainment. AND THEY WERE AWESOME. 40 horns strong. Unfortunately, all they had was a set drummer, not the full battery that I have been familiar with. Nice sound with playing their old charts, including Bellavia, my favorite. The big buzz is their trip to DCA championships this year as a minicorps and alumni corps. I think they will be a strong contender. Looking forward to the day when I can see them suit up on the field and bring even more competetion on the west coast with Renegades and SoCal Dream; maybe reincarnate a dci world class corps. Congratulations to them and hoping to a bright future. Kaboom!

Yamaha did dabble with the 2 valve G Horn. This was at the same time when Yamaha was introducing their marching percussion to the market. I remember USC's drumline sporting the prototype set. I do recall the tenor cutaway design was different than the final distributed product. Anyway about the bugles, there was a prototype set of Yamaha sops and baritones made for the LA Chinese (or maybe it was the LA japanese) drum corps in 82-84 time frame. I knew their horn guy (a former BD'r or Freelancer) who had the connection with Nippon Gakkin Co, the parent company of Yahama. They were brass finish and not very sturdy. They were small bore 2 valves but still in R&D stage with large bore on the horizon. Design was based off their student trumpets and baritones made horizontal with valves reconfigured. Development was put on hold because of legitimate talk of DCI heading for 3 valve horns and decision to focus in that direction. Kaboom!

1978 - Note snare drum straps. In 1979, snares used a harness. Kaboom!

Up to about 1980, every March there was a standstill competition at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino in the old Swing Auditorium. It kicked off drum corps season in Southern California. First there was a parade in the morning and then the drum corp standstill. BTW, the Princemen was a SoCal corps from Redlands just east of San Bernardino. Back in the day, there was a very nice group of corps in Southern California providing competition all summer long. And when combined with Northern California, it was a fairly strong circuit. It just did not have the publicity that help east coast thrive. Kaboom

OUCH!!!!! The horn survived..... And the player bounced! Kaboom

In my opinion, corps, DCI, whoever, do not do enough to reach out to communities to noticed. That is why no one knows about our activity. Even if the perception is considered "marching band" the mere fact that an organization can be noticed is a major step. Outreach for example: Parades. Corps hate doing them because they feel they above that type of activity. But they lose the opportunity to be noticed by mainstream population by not partaking. I was on my cities annual festival that included parades and an evening concert. Turned down by three corps because they said they do not do them. Be as it may, pulling away from Al and VFW, etc to privatize to DCI took a lot of fans away (granted that most AL and VFW post are shrinking as their membership dwindles). BUT they used to have local competitions, state competitions, and national competitions with sponsored corps that created interest for competitive aspect of their Post, in general, for bragging rights even if they didn't personally care for the activity. It was a lot more than going to watch a family member perform. It was all about supporting the Post and the affiliated corps to move to the next level, local to state to nationals. My dad's friend who belonged to a neighboring AL Post could not give a crap about their corps. However, when it came to convention time, his bragging about their superiority over my corps got their name out to the community with money following. Couldn't shut him up. Flag raising, SPB at community events. When is the last time (or first time) you heard a corps being consistently present for the colors? Participate in community functions that are unrelated to corps performances, such as clean-ups, human resources or other services and asked media to follow them in tow? It would be wonderful to hear from corps who do this. I see so little mentioned on DCP Just saying, that I feel groups have created no motivation for population to notice them or become mainstream. They only cater to their inner circle. I guess this is a function of the national recruitment process. Just my opinion.

Are you talking marching surfaces or corps? DCI is full of artificial corps.... Kaboom!

Dream, Gade, Bridgemen, Minne Brass and Freelancers should get together in the lot and blow the Doubletree down! What would it be, over 100 G bugles? Kaboom!

Because you need 80 multi key Bb horns to equal the sound of 58 G bugles Kaboom!

If I recall, they are the Carson Caballeros. They had a bunch of ex-Kingsmen instructors. They always had a decent drumline taught by a guy named Bob Bonnie (or something like that). I remember them playing Mambo like the Kingsmen in 74 AT Vfw Nationals in Los Angeles in the band division.

Because of instrumentation...... This is more a DCI type corps name.... From Beantown B Flat-ulent Kaboom

Matter of fact, in terms of finalist caliber corps, Knaub took his modern ballet dance style to the Freelancers guard in 1979. IIRC, the guard, in those coke can uniforms did not use a marching step but rather a ballet toe leap step and dance throughout the show. Interesting concept back then but implemented with the wrong corps as the Freelancers abandoned that whole project by the next year....... Word was Freelancers were going to fold due to the lack of members if they tried that again. Kaboom

AND FROM ETTITITTOTOBICOKEY CANADA, THE OAKLANDS CRUDSADER! Butler PA, 1980 (I think). KABOOM!

Cannot limit it to 5... I want to see..... All the corps mentioned..... KABOOM!

.....News flash..... All corps must travel west of the Rockies to considered a full touring corps..... They are not supporting the DCI tour schedule or attracting new fans to the activity, unless they do... PC does support the DCI tour schedule AND attracts new fans to the activity. KABOOM!

Oddly, I was cleaning my closet last week and I ran across the full score arrangment of Naval Hymn that Jim Ott did in 1973(?). It even had fingering for P/R bugles. I say odd as I heard Naval Hymn played during President Reagan's procession from the Capitol Rotunda and funeral at the National Cathedral. I also have an audio recording of the Tribute to Jim Ott Memorial at Precsion West in Concord in 1980. It was played twice. The first version was as it was "musically" written, then followed by a version to make sure Jim Ott heard it (RIP). It was one of the bittersweet moments in Drum Corps. Kaboom!

P/R's!!! Back then, I was outraged when it happened. I remember the controversy, P/R to 2P. They were deformed trumpets (I'm supposed to stick my third finger where??). It took the right hand bugle grip away. Even with the horizontal piston, you still held P/R's like a standard bugle. It looked like a standard bugle from the front. Could we afford them to stay competitive? I got my hands on an OLDS Ultratone II Soprano. Modern engineering (at least for 1977), better machine quality. They played awesome and I never thought about looking back. I once got my HS band DQ'd in a parade for using my 2P (No, it did not matter much since we were the perennial cellar dwellars). At least 2P's were still unique for Drum & Bugle corps. BUT.... 3 valves???? What caused this evolution? Who wanted the change? What reasons? Was it because it made corps better? Was it to make charts easier to arrange? Was it because it made recruiting easier? Was it because the corps only had too few manufactuers to choose from? Was it because some manufacturers wanted to phase out due to a declining demand from a declining activity? All of these? None of these? Some of these? And, to me, it is not so much about the key of G or Bb. That's just tube length. Remember those old Ludwig bugles? My corp started with an old set. They played somewhere near Gb, well, okay a sharp F sharp. You had to hear our sound as we combined them with our first phase of a new set of Ultratones. Just UGLY What makes the "bugle" in a Drum and BUGLE Corps? Kaboom

To: Old Dutch Boy Cadet, You lucky dog..... 4 times, it must have been mighty fine..... No doubt in my mind they were increasing louder each time you saw them.... I only saw 1980 Spirit once..... Wish I could have seen more.... To: tlmaddox P/R bugles? Jim Ott taught you guys how to make them sing... with POWER! To: brassguy I concur with you... Still the best horn line I have ever heard, too.... KABOOM!

NO.... If you heard IT in live, it WAS better than *** It was my last corpsgasm! JIM OTT WAS BRILLIANT. AHEAD OF HIS TIME.... KABOOM

1976 - What a horn line! 48 horns with the sound of 60 1977 - Awesome drum line 12 snares at start of season 1978 - The shaft at prelims! nuf said 1979 - Ugly uni's bad show concept. 10 CONTRABASSES! 1980 - Back to traditional uniform, Back to the Freelancer Sound! 1981 - Sac is Back in Finals! 1982 - Smooooooth show! Kaboom

Remember when... There was only one yardline on the field. The back sideline was opened for off the line. Dropped equipment was a penalty THE STARTING GUN! No mallets in the drum section. Marching tympani melodies! Jim Ott writing "ballsando" on his charts when he want the sound past FFFFFF and in tune! KABOOM!!