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What were we thinking? Stuff that didn't quite work


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I've got one thing to say.

1986 - closer - Puttin' on the Ritz - only lasted till mid season then was changed to a reprise of the end of the opener.

What was our staff thinking when they chose Puttin' on the Ritz as a closer.

We saw you guys fairly early on. I don't remember Puttin' on the Ritz at all. That reprise was pretty great, though. That massive octave A into the Picardy third still gets me.

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In 1976 the Scouts actually changed the entire show.

Show #1 was Shaft, Original concert piece by Ray Bamgardt that we called "concert", a pitifully slow marching version of Mac Arthur Park, Pick Up The Pieces for a drum solo (with brass) and Mahogany for a closer.

Show #2 was Stars and Stripes, Mac Arthur Park concert, Rhapsody in Blue, Ease on Down the road (drum solo) and The Way We Were for a closer.

It was a very long summer for my age out year.

That was simply amazing. You scrapped the entire show... theme and all... rewrote everything and still found enough time to clean and polish and produce a '76 show that was good enough to come in 2nd in the '76 DCI Championships against some very tough competition.

Incidentally,I still think the 1976 Madison Scouts sound great on Fan Network, even after all these years, and with so little time to put it all together. Simply incredible, imo.

Edited by BRASSO
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Incidentally,I still think the 1976 Madison Scouts sound great on Fan Network, even after all these years, and with so little time to put it all together. Simply incredible, imo.

Agreed. Although I hate the drawn-out ending to Stars & Stripes, everything else sounds like it had been practiced since day one. And Todd Weich was an absolute Frankenstein lab creation of otherwordliness.

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True dat. Sky Ryders tried to release pigeons when they unfurled the rainbow at DCI in 1980, but they wouldn't go anywhere.

I remember it differently. There was a year when Sky Ryders knew they were not going to make finals, so the corps released homing pigeons at the end of their prelims show. I remember seeing them do it and it was successful. I was told by their director at the time, George Tuthill, that the staff and researched the traits of the pigeons and got advice from the person who rented them the birds. According to George, a senior corps decided to do the same thing, but saved the effect for a night show and ended up with a dozen or so pigeons stumbling around on the field as if they were drunk because homing pigeons need the sun to get their magnetic bearings.

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I remember it differently. There was a year when Sky Ryders knew they were not going to make finals, so the corps released homing pigeons at the end of their prelims show. I remember seeing them do it and it was successful. I was told by their director at the time, George Tuthill, that the staff and researched the traits of the pigeons and got advice from the person who rented them the birds. According to George, a senior corps decided to do the same thing, but saved the effect for a night show and ended up with a dozen or so pigeons stumbling around on the field as if they were drunk because homing pigeons need the sun to get their magnetic bearings.

And of course, the senior corps was the Westshoremen.

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Phantom 09 - the show early season was an absolute mess. Hats off to the performers who had a hell of a summer trying to get all the fixes coming from the staff. But no one could have came away with a good showing at finals when you are rewriting practically half of the show in mid July.

I will always respect those performers for still performing the best they could!

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Phantom 09 - the show early season was an absolute mess. Hats off to the performers who had a hell of a summer trying to get all the fixes coming from the staff. But no one could have came away with a good showing at finals when you are rewriting practically half of the show in mid July.

I will always respect those performers for still performing the best they could!

I guess I'm just wierd because apparently I'm the only person that liked Phantom's 2009 show. :tongue:

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Bluecoats 92 - "Jazzaphonic" - Beatles

When I first heard that Bluecoats were going to do play Beatles I thought that would be awesome (I've heard some really great jazz versions of some of their songs). First time playing through the show with the corps at rehearsal in early June - it was like - WTF was that?!

Then imagine playing our opener - a seemingly (possibly actually) drug influenced arrangement of Eleanor Rigby for a July 4th parade. I guess no one saw the big FAIL sign on that one. :tongue:

Yet - as crazy as that show arrangement was - I still enjoy listening to it.

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Crossmen and Ricky Martin - oh yeah, I remember that. I have a camp recording of it buried somewhere. Actually, I thought it would have worked nicely as a closer.

Not so much a show, but a technology - those bent tenors that BD used for a while (and I think Stingray copied) are absolutely hideous. I get the thinking behind them, but they look - especially in white - like something Blue Man Group would be using.

My programming "what the heck" moment is actually a dual award, to Spirit and Capital Regiment in 2004 who gave us "The Architecture of Life" and "A Celebration of Life." Neither of which can be captured in any way, shape or form in a 11 minute music-only show. Spirit, if I recall, actually did "left brain / right brain" drill which would be very nice, if everyone in the audience had a commentary track playing along in their ears as they watched it.

My uniform moment is still Spirit's all-white uniforms. While in today's day and age they hardly cause a ripple, at the time the color combination - and the hideous material - did them no favors.

Mike

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