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1976 Muchachos question


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I was there. I thought Muchachos were great and I remember my uncle telling me that they were going to make finals with Garfield. I still have cassette recordings of 76 prelims. I took my tape recorder to most drum corps shows when I young.

Edited by boxingfred
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I was there. I thought Muchachos were great and I remember my uncle telling me that they were going to make finals with Garfield. I still have cassette recordings of 76 prelims. I took my tape recorder to most drum corps shows when I young.

I got to see them in June of 76 with the Bridgemen and 27th Lancers and I thought they were really good. The 76 World Open Album sounded great too, but nowhere as sharp as the 1975 show. While people complain about DCI today, back in the early days, it was even worse. Lots of Oldtimers, Lot's of Politics. The Muchachos screwed up in 75 and were not allowed to rebound from thier mistake.

Edited by Marching Mallets
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.I saw them a few days before prelims, at West Chester, and the corps was solid, and in fact beat the 5th place Cavaliers.....

GB

I'm pretty sure this is not true since I don't remember the Cadets beating us that year. I'll check my Cavalier yearbook.

What was interesting was one week before DCI we beat the Cadets by .10 for the VFW National Championship. At DCI Prelims, it was more like 8 points. Crazy days.

Edited by dc oldtimer
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Yup...I was on staff and we were cringing...that opener was one of the most exciting things I'd ever heard, when it didn't phase...sigh...common talk was that we were getting our hands slapped for the previous year, and the show was really quite cool, but with replacing a huge part of the drum line, and the obvious timing dice-shoot...well, the season didn't go as well as we would've liked...

cg

Yes sir, Charlie...that was a really nice opener! And it was NOT easy! (Some really hot mello licks!) 1976 was my first year in drum corps, and it was great being part of the Muchacho Family! Looking back, the disparity in the scoring during the last few weeks was very unfortunate. Many of us were newbies, and we were taken under the wings of many talented veterans, and staff members, like you. For those that don't know him (most of you do) Charlie is an amazing marching instructor. He worked us really hard, and pushed us harder, and with more intensity than any staff person that I've ever worked with in my marching career! And we also had a few other famous names on the staff, or marching in our ranks: Jeff Kievit, Jim Prime, Donnie Van Doren, and Frank Gerris, to name a few. There was a lot of heart, and pride in the Muchachos, and of course, a lot of talent. It was a wonderful indoctrination to the world of drum corps, especially for a quiet, inexperienced kid from Bergenfield! In 1976, this 16-yr-old rookie felt very fortunate to learn, and grow with such a fine group of people.

Of course, the scoring/placement was very demoralizing, and we always felt that some of the scoring was suspect, but after listening to recordings from our 1976 performances, I totally agree with some of the earlier posts. The tempo/phasing issue during prelims definitely kept us out of finals, but our performance was still deserving of a higher placement.

But that was a long time ago.

And there were a lot of things that were strange back then, as others have already pointed out. It was a very different world both inside, and outside of drum corps. No doubt about it!

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August 12, 1976 - West Chester, PA

  1. Blue Devils 87.3
  2. Garfield Cadets 80.65
  3. Cavaliers 80.3
  4. Kilts 70.0

Hmmm. nothing on fromthepressbox and our yearbook doesn't list anything for Westchester. You sure we were there? You sure it was 76?

It is funny about places you've been when you marched. I don't remember most of the places I've been. You travel, get off the bus, sleep, practice, shower perform and on the the next city. So, I guess we could have been there.

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Wasn't there personally, but just from the audio recording, you can tell that the Muchachos had a massive phasing problem in the second half of their opener at '76 DCI prelims. Horns went backfield at slightly different tempos, separated by a full beat or so, then turned around to play the next several rhythms in obvious disagreement. It took the rest of the OTL for the corps to arrive at a consensus once again, and I imagine there must have been quite a bit of foot-phasing and out-of-step incurred in the process.

I've always assumed that was why Muchachos score/placement suffered at '76 DCI compared to other shows.

You are correct, I marched #2 bass that year.

We had a MAJOR tear and side one of the hornline and the drumline was a full 4 beats off from side 2 hornline after the solos in the opener.

The corps never fully recovered from that blunder for the rest of the show.

What a shame.

The original poster was correct in saying we beat a few finalsts earlier in the week at Randalls Island stadium in NYC during the VFW finals.

I do believe that was the last VFW finals with top junior corps in attendance.

If you have a chance to hear the world open recording from 1976, You will be quite impressed, It was a great corps, YOUNG, But great just the same.

Jay

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