dsaeger

Looking on the DCI website I see that the 2008 San Diego show is scheduled for the 3rd of July. That’s six months from now. I just wonder if they are going to wait for the “Esperanza organization” to take care of the housing, practice and show sites? Or is DCI going to wait until the last minute and force (how many of) these corps to sleep in a field and have the show at a last minute venue? They've got six months.

From the good old days (aka my youth..) MOJO (one pitcher) 1 bottle of beer 5 shots dark rum 5 shots vodka 5 shots gin 5 shots whisky 4 oz of pineapple juice 4 oz of orange juice 4 oz of sprite 1 shot of lime juice dash of grenadine 5 pieces of calamansi or 1 lemon or you can try this BULLFROG (one pitcher) 5 shots white rum 5 shots vodka 5 shots gin Fill with pineapple juice Mojo is great! Especially on a hot day on Magsaysay..

If they are to follow their arranging formula, I can see them making those two songs unrecognizable (which would be a real shame).

This raises more questions than answers them. Sorry, I can't find more info. Earth Wind and Fire - Maurice White Dan

All of these songs are hits and I'm excited to be a part of the corps! It felt good to be back in the horn arc. Dan

I had a great time! It's great feeling to be back around good people like this and I can't wait for our first camp! And what was it, about 60 degrees when we were playing in the shaded area? Brrr! Dan

That's not it either.

By chance did you see the Marine drum and bugle corps this year? They played "Your beautiful" by James Blunt. I hate that song!! But you know what? They did a pretty good job of it! Top 40, imagine that. Dan

That's not it! (said in sing-song voice) While there has been a lot of great things in recent drum corps, I can also understand what these old timers are saying. I say that while also acknowledging that today while I was riding my motorcycle the 2007 Blue Knights were mostly on playback (inside of my helmet), followed by some Steely Dan and then Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen. It was a great ride. There were things wrong with past music and there are things wrong with todays esoteric and obscure music. If you can't acknowledge current music problems, then that just shows you have a compromised ear. Take Cavies 07 for example, what happened?! It was the music of Billy Joel for God's sake! I should have completely rocked the house! And I'm not calling for a return to the music of old (that ain't it), it comes down to music selection and arrangement. If you ain't got that on an accessable point, you're going to have a whole bunch of people going.. huh?... And that shouldn't be. Huh, equals another year gone by with much of corps music forgotten by the next season. The crumbs, our payback for all of this is the marvelous, wonderful, miraculous, Crown 2007 show. Phantom missed, Vanguard missed, Cadets hit (but missed for all of that #### talking), Boston too was close, but missed, PC (was close to having fun music, but missed due to arrangments), Mandarins were just way off, Blue Stars missed, Crossmen missed, Spirit missed, even Blue Devils missed (in the second half of their show). This is all about music selection and arrangements. Dan

Yes! This was the best show of the year! I just downloaded the full corps. Worth every penny..

Someone pointed out that once the lower body turned different from the upper the "gig line" got pulled off center. The first time I saw the Blue Stars I was completely distracted by it. But after that I never really was bothered by it again. (a gig line is -in this case- the seam of white to blue from the top to the pants. When a Blue Star corps member stands straight upright, the gig line is straight. When they twist their body, everything gets pulled off center. I use the term gig line from my 22 year Navy career.) But the four times that I saw them I was left asking the myself what's missing? They're good, real good. But something ain't there. I dunno if it was entirely the uniform. I loved the two color shoe though! Dan

You must have missed my post, (not hard to do with the volume of posts on DCP) but I did say that I believed that the Cadets did not win due to the narration and how I believed that DCI knew that had the Cadets won, many people would have walked away from drum corps, never to return. Cadets visuals hurt them? Maybe the "basics block" should have been an A/B block - otherwise I'd say that everything they did was better than BD - aside from the Yowza narration. Show design, musical arrangements, execution. Of the top corps, only Crown had the great show design and everyone else was second after that. This was a typical BD show? How will BD '07 compare to say, the Brubeck '03 show? (no where near). I'd even venture to say that I liked last years the godfather show better than this years. Sorry, while I'm thinking about all of the different posts, my brain is firing off in different directions... Whatever...

What got me was the A.D.D that the producers seemed to have (and do every freakin' year) in that they are panning over a kickin' part of the show and then at a critical moment, the camera switches over to some other part of the show. ...makes me want to smack a cameraman... After all of these years DCI still can't get it right?!?! Dan

I said something about this a long long time ago. If DCI took the hint (or already had) and invited numerous "important" people, they'd be able to get more remarks like this. If they didn't do the invites, as seen that Steve Young as being the first in a long time, then they have only themselves to blame. I made that suggestion back in the ramd, pre-dcp days. I respect DCI, but much of it is only because of their position. Too much, they are messing up. Dan

What were the caption results for Class A? Just imagine, all of the non-winning corps are blasting their shows in the parking lot! Wish I was there...

Hey, I like how the Renegades took a 33 point jump!! ^0^ I wish that I was there. Instead I'm sitting here in San Diego having a And it hit 91 degrees in my back yard today. *$#k it's hot! Dan

And so you missed Carolina Crown '07? and Phantom Regiment '05? and SCV '04? Wow, what a shame. Way too much good stuff going on for me to do something like that. Dan

During the course of this year, how many fields did the Cadets march on that didn't have hashmarks? I know that someone posted up pics (I think that they were from the week before at DCI West in Stanford) that showed the Cadets coming onto the field and there were no hashmarks. I didn't hear anything about them leaving the field there. And I'd venture to say that there were quite a few other fields that everyone marched on that didn't have them. So one night wasn't going to kill them. Hashmarks are critical (at least) for setting up the start of a show and DCI dropped the ball on that one. Did I hear booing? It seemed more like a general uproar with a few shouts that I can't recall what was said. Did I say anything? Yes, to the people around me I recall saying "What the heck!" and "In my day all we needed was the 50 yard line!" and other humorous, sundry things. But people are entitled to boo just as much as they are entitled to cheer. I've dealt with people that only want the good stuff and refuse to face the bad, and they are real ###holes to deal with. What GH did (to me) was a political stunt and it burdoned the marching members with having to troop completely out of the stadium and then back. Sure corps people are physically fit, but when you are lugging around 35lbs of tenors or 32lbs of a tuba, and for each member to have the mental "what the heck" going on, I think that it would be taxing on them. That's on GH. A sad moment? Not hardly! I actually had a great time with the whole weekend. And even though I am anti-amp/narration I bought a Cadets shirt and their CD and am proud to have them both. Cadet were awesome this year! Dan

Yes, Cadets should have won. There were the better corps. However, I could have seen many dc fans leaving the stadium and never returning if Cadets had won (I wonder if George realizes that - that he almost certainly would have won if he didn't have the narration in the show?) For me, after seeing them Thursday night for the first time, they won me over (on their phenomenal execution) but the the talking did get to me. Everything was better after I went down to the Cadet souvie trailer and had the implant put in behind my ear (I'M KIDDING). Cadets were a very good corps this year. BD was great, but they weren't able to come up with the set-the-grass-on-fire, leave-no-prisoners closer that would have made them a shoo-in. (sigh) See you next year! Dan

http://thumb13.webshots.net/t/52/452/4/5/25/2201405250014038133MXQOtA_th.jpg]My Webshots Webpage I don't have the highest quality camera - so many came out kinda blurry. To download them you can either download the software and join webshots (I recommend) or you can PM me with with your requests. I don't like how flickr makes your photos smaller - if there is a better website I'd use it. For image hosting, what is everyone using? r, Dan

I have to say I was completely unimpressed. Really? I happened to have been very positively impressed. Here's a small list of why: 1. Entering and leaving DURING performances That was the issue of the stadium security/ushers. And by not breaking fire code by leaving people in the tunnels. It worked itself out. 2. Talking on cell phones I made the mistake of not putting my phone on vibrate and it rang between corps. Everyone around me helped me say hi to my sister. She cried cause she couldn't be there. Then I put it on vibrate. 3. Did not applaud or stand for many of the corps - good portion of crowd That's funny because virtually everyone around me did. I had Madison Alumni to my left, Michigan fans behind me, a family from Conneticut to my right, Phantom parents and Blue Devil Alumni in front of me. Every one of us stood every time - with the exception of just about everyone of us being distracted at one time or another over the three days. I never witnessed people not standing up outside of this either. Actually sometimes we had to say sit down please! 4. Shouting rude things during corps I heard some stuff (Thursday Cadets show). I do have a lifetimes worth of recordings with things shouted that I wished were never there. But other than that I think that your statement was very general. Comments or actual hollering? 5. Extreme bias toward "their" corps (funny - SCV & BD were always treated warmly on the East coast) I agree. We were extremely biased towards: Madison, PR, BD, Crown (who wasn't?!), 'coats, Vanguard, Cadets (in a positive way) and just about every other corps that performed. We couldn't help but cheer 'cause every corps was so good (were we at the same finals?). 6. Over-drinking Not where I was. I saw an occasional beer, but nothing excessive. Not hardly at all. 7. Very little applause during songs, after solos, between songs Again, not where I was. 8. Late arrivers to stadium Are you talking because of the lovely LA traffic and long lines to get into the stadium? Are you talking about people who are not at the stadium to sit in their seats from corps one? What about going down to roam around the souvie area? I did and I never returned to my seat while a corps was performing (but that's just me). And while I'm thinking about it, it was interesting to see corps jackets (east coast corps) standing at the top of stairs and seemingly permanently planted at the end of tunnels - blocking paying ticket holders from seeing the whole field. Again, it eventually worked itself out. 9. Where was all this "West Coast Class" I kept hearing about - geez Class? I've been around drum corps since 1962 and I have seen classless people everywhere I went. I saw a lot of "class" from everyone around me. Even those horrible (sarcasm) West Coast BD Alumni people in front of me. 10. Half of the crowd didn't even applaud the Marines - I could not believe that. Folks sitting and talking during the ovation for our MARINES!!! Ugh. I don't know. Either I was lucky or you weren't. Or you're a stick in the mud. That marked the third time that I saw them this year and every time I loved them. (Did they have fewer horns than at the beginning of the season?) I sure didn't notice. As a matter of fact, they were quite powerful for the retreat! 1! 2! 3! 4! United State Marine Corps! Oorah! (I'm glad that I work at MCAS Miramar - I get to hear that several times a week). I could go on but you get the point. Boo hiss! If finals go out west ever again I will not attend. Well, that will be your loss. Crowd was a huge negative IMO Crowd was a huge positive IMHO. For this they earn my WORST AUDIENCE EVER award. (and I've attended finals since 1982) For this the people around me (and the whole stadium in general) earns a good drum corps audience.... evar award. Btw, has anyone seen what has happened with LA traffic since everyone left? It's gotten downright Medieval out there! It's almost like LA was behaving itself and then all h e double hockey sticks broke loose! I sit down here in San Diego which has gotten brutal, too! See you in Indy! Dan

1. I'm wondering if this has been thought out / addressed: Placement of the amped speakers in relation to the microphones that are used for recording? The early season (and last years finals) recordings had sometimes overbearing sound coming from the pit. From what I saw this year, most stacks were close to the stationary mics as well as the boom mic operators standing right by them. 2. Trooping the stands should be mandatory. 3. (This one might be worth it's own thread) What are the best camera settings for taking pictures from the stands?

NeutralNovice, THERE ARE NO HASH MARKS IN ANY OF YOUR PICTURES!!!!

After seeing the Cadets show for the first time last night... I can live with it. I've said it before, I am anti-amps (blah, blah, blah) but I understand what they are doing (and I've said this before, too). With the narration, Cadets are simply throwing candy at the kids, and I'm ok with that. But why does DCI have to copy BOA again? And I was wondering about an issue that came up when narration/voicings were first introduced. How do you score that stuff? If the hornline/corps is not playing, then how can they build up their score? If a corps talks for ten minutes and plays fantastically for a minute and a half, do they still get the kind of score that a corps that played for eleven and a half minutes got? When does narration/voicings cross the line and start negatively impacting other captions? Just as a fan in the stands I thought to myself "that was a bit too much... it got sour". With the hash marks thing, I just thought that it was a little dumb. For all of those kids to get hyped up for coming into the stadium and then for George to take them right back out, is a waste of energy for the marching members. Heck, in the last few years that I've marched senior corps there have been many times where there was almost nothing left to dress off of and we did ok. By this time of the season they should be on auto-pilot and be dressing the form anyways, not dot diving. And I did notice that more than once that the narrators would be the dress point for the rest of the corps. That's cheatin'! But I can see if George had forwarned DCI to keep the hash marks painted (cause he knew it would happen) then that's on DCI. Otherwise they are a phenominal corps. It's theirs to win. Dan

If you're coming into CA for finals, don't forget to play the lottery. Mega Millions is up to $105million (Friday's drawing) Super Lotto is up to $56million (tonight-Wednesday or Saturday's drawing) You barely increase your chances with playing more than a dollar. But you are guaranteed to miss one hundred percent of all the pitches that you don't take a swing at, so go play your dollar. Dan