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Summer of '71


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Change rubbed some the wrong way...as it dontinues to do to this day, witness the DCP furor over new rules. Colt gives a nice midwest summary, and I'd add Garfield to that out East, as we did our Revolutionary War show in 71, complete with printed libretto a decade prior to Regiment. Dick Blake, editor (and owner??) of Drum Corps News did a scathing editorial on our three themed shows, which he later took back.

We were fairly successful, usually ending up just behind 27th and Blue Rock much of the year and ahead of the rest of the Eastern corps most of the time. That was not bad considering our average age was VERY young, esp as compared to Blue Rock, who had an amazing corps in 71 (as did 27th).

Before I forget, you have to also add two other Eastern shows to the mix...St Rita's and even Blessed Sac's "King and I" show.

St' Joes from Batavia was still active in 1971, our last year. And we were still very competitive. I believe we beat most of the aforementioned at one time or another during the season, with the exception of Blue Rock. (They were really quite good in 1971.) St. Joes just got too old and there wasnt enough young kids to replce the age outs. DCI did not want some of the eastern corps (St. Joes St. Ritas, et al.) to mix with the midwest "combine", but that was not the reason St. Joes didnt make the field in 1972, we were just too old, and had been caught at it too many times. Thus the rebirth of the Purple Lancers. Many of the younger St. Joes kids went to Auburn and showed them how we did it in Batavia. LOL.

Donny

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St' Joes from Batavia was still active in 1971, our last year. And we were still very competitive. I believe we beat most of the aforementioned at one time or another during the season, with the exception of Blue Rock. (They were really quite good in 1971.) St. Joes just got too old and there wasnt enough young kids to replce the age outs. DCI did not want some of the eastern corps (St. Joes St. Ritas, et al.) to mix with the midwest "combine", but that was not the reason St. Joes didnt make the field in 1972, we were just too old, and had been caught at it too many times. Thus the rebirth of the Purple Lancers. Many of the younger St. Joes kids went to Auburn and showed them how we did it in Batavia. LOL.

Donny

I know we saw you a few times in 71, but I have no recollection of your show. Before I was in Garfield my favorite St Joe's show was 1969...I think that is the year/show...are these tunes?????

Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning

Lassus Trombone

Brotherhood of Man (?)

Big Spender

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close but you left out the infamous...

"Bubbles was a Cheerleader".

Really we didnt do The Brotherhood of Man but an intro to "Lassus Trombones" that was kind of a rip of the theme Kilties played. The Opener was a tune called "Money" from some broadway show...maybe Sweet Charity. Corky Fabrizio was a brilliant arranger for drum corps at that point of his career.

Looking back through corpsreps, we did not beat Garfield at all that year. We beat Sac only once.

I guess we werent as good as I thought LOL...it was definitely on the decline by then.

Donny

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According to my 1969 “Spectacle of Brass” contest program, hosted by DeLaSalle Oaklands, St. Josephs of Batavia repertoire was:

“Money”

“Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”

“This is the Army Mr. Jones”

“Bubbles was a Cheerleader”

“Shades”

“Big Spender”

“Hang ‘em High”

Sometimes those old programs have typos. The scan from this program is on some old corps photos page 1294. I guess I was at this contest.

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...But to the point, that was what was happening in front of the curtain. Behind the curtain, 1971 represented the realization that the business / touring model of drum corps finally became front and center. Troopers, SCV, Anaheim were benefiting from COUNTLESS MORE hours perfecting their shows while traveling 1000's of miles, and the discipline of both staffs and members really was obvious versus the corps whom were still operating from a local rehearsal and weekend travel model. Their shows were just that more structurally, technically and musically ahead than what was possibly perceived as more GE trickery.

I recall standing by the fence at several mid-season shows watching SCV in particular, and then later, Kingsmen, saying to my mates -- wow, we're witnessing something very different here guys! It was to me, a huge transformational moment of realization that Drum Corps was about to go a whole new way. Some didn't like what then happened the next couple years as the new model under DCI started to shape itself (most of those members "left corps life" and many corps started having problems), others embraced with huge success. And some took years to reinvent and adapt...

Excellent observation. From my vantage point having competed the previous five seasons, it seemed to me that the move toward the "total show" concept was an inevitability since the activity had reached a level of achievement with the existing VFW and AL rules such that the upper levels of the activity were in danger of becoming trite and stale.

As an example of what I perceived, the 1966 and 1967 Cavaliers had really perfected the old drum corps show blueprint of the finely tuned execution machine. The time had come to move the the next level of creativity... enter Santa Clara Vanguard. Certainly, the touring model which this corps had to use because of travel distances to find high level competition was a necessary factor in attaining this next level. I would also add that there was a deeper level of musicianship evident in their sound wherein the players on the harmony and counter melodic parts needed to be stronger than in the past. In the prior drum corps show model you could get by with strong players on the lead melody lines and the weaker inner players to add beef with simpler parts. The SCV model would not work with the old structure corps with less rehearsal time. Hence, the changes became inevitable.

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According to my 1969 “Spectacle of Brass” contest program, hosted by DeLaSalle Oaklands, St. Josephs of Batavia repertoire was:

“Money”

“Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”

“This is the Army Mr. Jones”

“Bubbles was a Cheerleader”

“Shades”

“Big Spender”

“Hang ‘em High”

Sometimes those old programs have typos. The scan from this program is on some old corps photos page 1294. I guess I was at this contest.

We replaced "Shades" during the season...returning to Lassus Trombones for the 3rd year. "Shades" was a real bow wow.

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close but you left out the infamous...

"Bubbles was a Cheerleader".

Really we didnt do The Brotherhood of Man but an intro to "Lassus Trombones" that was kind of a rip of the theme Kilties played. The Opener was a tune called "Money" from some broadway show...maybe Sweet Charity. Corky Fabrizio was a brilliant arranger for drum corps at that point of his career.

Looking back through corpsreps, we did not beat Garfield at all that year. We beat Sac only once.

I guess we werent as good as I thought LOL...it was definitely on the decline by then.

Donny

Oh, that's right....the Kilts played that.

BS was at the start of their rapid decline after staying up there in 1970. Their 71 show was primarily "The King and I", though I think they also did "Stars and Stripes" and formed a big U-S-A on the field as their color pre.

My predominant pre-DCI memory of St Joe's was of them being known for a larger-than-normal drum line that was VERY good.

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Of course, now the pendulum has swung (swinged? swang? swunged?) too far in the other direction and we see a bit too much artsy fartsy pretention and not enough precision and good old crowd pleasing drum corps. Time changes everything. Who knows what it'll be like in 20 years. But I hope to continue giving my money to these hard working kids and be there in two decades to find out!

I loves me some drum corps. Even if I don't agree with the current styles.

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Of course, now the pendulum has swung (swinged? swang? swunged?) too far in the other direction and we see a bit too much artsy fartsy pretention and not enough precision and good old crowd pleasing drum corps. Time changes everything. Who knows what it'll be like in 20 years. But I hope to continue giving my money to these hard working kids and be there in two decades to find out!

I loves me some drum corps. Even if I don't agree with the current styles.

A-frigg'n-men to that!!! These kids work their a@@e@ off and Vickie and I will be spending some of our time this summer cooking for them and giving of our time. :rolleyes:

Edited by Tansea
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At the same time, Cavaliers percussion instructor Larry McCormick was taking the corps' program in a new direction. Hearing that judges would be looking for a "total show" concept -- with points to general effect -- Larry hatched The Circus Show, which was pretty revolutionary for its day, and definitely different to see the Green Machine -- always known for its military precision and maneuvers -- taking the field with a ringmaster, acrobat and clown and dancing Irish Jigs and playing circus music. Madison was also putting out its Alice and Wonderland show. By season's end, the perennial title contending Cavaliers were in 8th place, and the VFW actually crafted penalties to punish corps for members appearing in costume. Quite different from today, eh? The result was that the Cavaliers and others skipped VFW. It was the first chime in the death knell for the veterans-run shows. But fans reacted jeeringly -- audible boos from the stands, a T-Shirt reading Drum Corps Died in 1971 (with a clown above it), and a cartoon in an eastern drum corps magazine advertising that Drum Corps is Dead, with a guy looking a lot like Warren driving a farming combine (get it?) over a kid wearing a marching uniform and shako. Yikes.

Thanks for your historical perspective. I hadn’t before heard many of the details behind the alleged change in direction. I had heard before references to the ’71 Cavaliers show as an attempt to take the activity in another direction. However, what I find interesting in this historical account is the above assertion that Cavaliers (and Scouts I suppose) were merely adapting to their interpretation of what the judging community was “demanding” – a total show concept with lots of GE. To me, this implies the driving force behind the change in show design might have been outside of the corps and their organizations and more to do with a paradigm shift in the judging community. That is, its differ to me to think the Cavaliers set out to change drum corps (ala the new argument against Hopkins) as opposed to the Cavaliers merely adapting to their perception of the judging community’s expectations (even though they probably reacted more innovatively/unconventionally than some would have preferred.)

Am I off-base with this interpretation?

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