What's going on with Crossmen?

[KeepItReal]

The turning point was last year, when there was a ton of momentum building off of 2008, probably one of the highest vet retention rates in many, many years, and tons of talented members. Unfortunately a lot of talent jumped ship after last year because they were disappointed by the show and the staff. 2010's a rebuilding year, and if they can give the members a satisfying season, take a step in the right direction, and get it so there's a good return for 2011, I think things may start looking up.

This.

In a show if you get the chance to talk to a with a few yrs they'll tell you how good the corps doing especially coming off of a 13th placement, how they can push into finals and how the show is a crowd favourite . [How 2009 never happened]

Moving back east is not an option. I hope moving away from pop tunes is, that identity doesnt pay off on the field.

[NR_Ohiobando]

Adding mirrors would be an automatic 2 point bump. Just a suggestion.

[mobrien]

To be honest, the corps has never had that strong of an identity that you could hang your hat on. They got close in the 90s with some consistency in terms of style of music, but even then, most regular fans would be hard pressed to come up with 3 or 4 adjectives that could describe the corps' persona, and that the staff could use when considering what to do and how to do it.

What's wrong this year? Uninspired arrangements (actually, kind of aggravating arrangements, given the nature of the original pieces) and a visual program that has very little in the way of style. Well, pick either a visual motif that can be consistent year to year or pick a musical approach that can be consistent year to year, and commit to it for a few years until you can perfect it.

Other corps who fell on hard times and turned themselves around did it by figuring out what was missing in the 'market' of drum corps styles, deciding on a formula and an approach, then sticking with it. If Crossmen's leadership can figure out who the corps should be and what they should sound and look like, they can start programming toward that model. But, to be honest, it appears that for a number of years they've been flailing about indiscriminately, which makes them look weakened and directionless.

But 2010, unfortunately, looks like another year of Friday and out.

Edited July 18, 2010 by mobrien

[BRASSO]

I noticed the Crossmen had beween 6-8 holes in line last nite for their performance in Minneapolis. Where are their alternates ? This was a big show too.... a Regional.... in late July .Having between 6-8 holes( with no sickness evident like last year) tells me something internally is going on with this Corps right now, where initial marchers for these spots either were unexpectedly scuttled or the marchers quit unexpectedly.

Not good.

Edited July 18, 2010 by BRASSO

[Triple Forte]

If it ever actually sounded like The First Circle, maybe I'd be one of those people. Sounds like Cirque du Soleil.

Sounds like an arranger problem......not musical selection problem.

The First Circle has been successfully performed many times in dc......

I have been a longtime Crossmen fan.....and have not been a fan of their change in the direction (away from jazz). I can understand the temptation of trying something different once in a while but.....if you have a niche/identity......why shy away from it ? You should embrace it. Especially when you have been successful with it. Successful with placements and successful with the crowd.

Crossmen are not the only corps to experience this.....many drum corps have/do.

Edited July 18, 2010 by Triple Forte

[CrossmenAlumni]

OK, I'll play...

It's easy to armchair quarterback, and they certainly have their issues for sure. Definitely not above being criticized. But a couple things I'd like to address:

1) They ain't moving back to PA. It's silly to even bring it up.

2) They ARE young and inexperienced. They can do a better job of recruiting and attracting more talent in the state, IMO, but that's a conversation for another day, and for the people who are more directly involved. They took a hit with a lot of vets jumping ship after last year and they're dealing with the fallout. A return to a show and some music the corps has had success with before was not, to me, the wrong idea. The members seem to really like it. Fans seem to be liking it more and more. We'll see how it goes by the end of the year.

3) Arrangements. I'm an enormous Pat Metheny fan. I marched in the 1991 Crossmen Metheny show, I taught the 1998 and 2002 Metheny shows. You're going to hear a lot of differing opinions when it comes to his music. I know many '91 folks who hate the '98 show. I know many '98 folks who hate the '02 show. You're not going to please everybody, especially when you decide to play music that the corps has played before. Comparisons are inevitable. I'm sure a lot of '84 Cadets and their fans hated the 2009 version of WSS. It happens. All they can do is work to make this the best and most exciting show for them THIS YEAR, and not worry about comparisons to corps from the past.

And when you choose to play songs like Heat of the Day and First Circle in drum corps, you're talking about two songs that are like 10 minutes long each. You have to chop them up to some degree. Will anything be like the 1998 show when it was about 95% faithful to the original arrangements? No. Drum corps has changed. His music is amazing. It's also repetitive and has phrases that sometimes take an extremely long time to develop. Listen to the '98 First Circle and that wonderful pit feature in the middle. Some of my favorite stuff ever. Was it absolutely necessary for them to play through essentially the same very long phrase TWICE however? Not really. I'm glad they did and it worked back then reasonably well, but they didn't absolutely have to. The show may have moved along more quickly, perhaps, if that second nearly identical phrase was cut out. My guess is the same kind of treatment of keeping all that repetition in would not work in today's DCI. One thing that gets hammered these days, right or wrong, is when a show is too laboriously paced. Too much time developing phrases and the show is perceived to lag. Do I agree with it? Not always, but sometimes I do. That's why Metheny's music is so difficult to translate to the field, and that's why so few corps have been able to pull it off with any degree of success.

As it is, all I was looking for from these arrangements for the modern day Crossmen was for them to capture the spirit and overall sound of Metheny as best as a modern corps could do. I actually think First Circle is the best thing in the show. I think it's about as faithful to what those particular phrases should sound like as I could have expected. He really doesn't mess with them much at all. The other tunes he takes more liberties (mostly in Minuano), but each song has their moments when it sounds as much like Metheny as it's supposed to. When he deviates, I think he's at least deviating in the right area, especially since the First Circle rhythm and melody are SUPPOSED to be what tie the show together. It's hard for me to knock the arranger for going back to those melodies when that's what the show is about. The circle is the whole point, visually and musically. With that in mind, I think the arrangements are suitable, way more often than not.

4) Excellence is what is currently keeping them back. A lot of that is inexperience, some of that is getting used to new staff, but that's where they're at as a drum corps right now. Inconsistent performance. Average talent. Again, would people think differently about this corps right now if all those vets who left to march other places came back and the corps was performing a lot better? I actually think they would. I like the show. It's pretty no nonsense stuff. The Crossmen. Pat Metheny. No story lines. No vampires. No narration. No abstract ideas or preaching concepts. It's all pretty simple to understand. And to be honest, as concerned as I was before I heard the show this year, when I got there and listened, it brought a smile to my face just hearing those songs coming from the corps again. Call me sentimental and naive if you like. All I expected and hoped for from the Crossmen this year was for me to like what they were doing on the field. I could always stand for better execution, but I actually like this show, and I'm a bit surprised more people don't. And maybe I'm just listening too much to the DCP folks on this. I haven't seen them perform live since their preview show in San Antonio, so I have no idea how crowds are reacting to them. Maybe more people like it than people are giving them credit for. All I know is that I like it, and based on what I know of the members, they like performing it.

5) Style and identity. People have been asking about it, wondering if the corps knows what it is or where they want to go creatively. I think this is the first year of trying to re-establish an identity. It's not going to happen in one year, and I think if they use this as the foundation, they can build upon it in years to come. Whether that means bringing in new designers as they do, or tweaking staff here and there, as I would expect, then that's what will happen. But for me, this is the closest show to what I want to see from the Crossmen as a fan and alumni than anything they've done so far since moving to Texas. And you can throw in the last several years up north as well. You can't change the world with this stuff in one season. This will take some time, and I get the sense from talking to those involved that they are using this to build forward. I'm willing to give it a chance. If people somehow expect to wake up tomorrow and see them look and sound just like the 1992 Crossmen, they're going to be disappointed. They deserve to find their own way in a rapidly changing activity. They do respect and honor the Crossmen corps of the past, and find great motivation by what those corps represent, but I think it's entirely appropriate for them to find their own voice and direction. They dropped the ball last year in a big way. They're paying the price for that and are trying to rebuild. Give it time.

[southtxbones]

I have been a longtime Crossmen fan.....and have not been a fan of their change in the direction (away from jazz). I can understand the temptation of trying something different once in a while but.....if you have a niche/identity......why shy away from it ? You should embrace it. Especially when you have been successful with it. Successful with placements and successful with the crowd.

Because jazz in drum corps is boring....especially latin jazz (i.e. Madison)

If anything makes drum corps sound like a HS group, its jazz......not even the HS that goes out to BOA competitions, or any rather.

Remember when phantom did really good when they played jazz....oh wait.

If I was a perspective member and a corps tried to market jazz to me as their forte, I would definitely bail.

...and those complaining about it sound too "soleily" , it seemed to work for phantom in 08 when they used a song straight from a cirque production and put it in their show.

old dinosaur is old.

Edited July 18, 2010 by southtxbones

[southtxbones]

OK, I'll play...

It's easy to armchair quarterback, and they certainly have their issues for sure. Definitely not above being criticized. But a couple things I'd like to address:

1) They ain't moving back to PA. It's silly to even bring it up.

2) They ARE young and inexperienced. They can do a better job of recruiting and attracting more talent in the state, IMO, but that's a conversation for another day, and for the people who are more directly involved. They took a hit with a lot of vets jumping ship after last year and they're dealing with the fallout. A return to a show and some music the corps has had success with before was not, to me, the wrong idea. The members seem to really like it. Fans seem to be liking it more and more. We'll see how it goes by the end of the year.

3) Arrangements. I'm an enormous Pat Metheny fan. I marched in the 1991 Crossmen Metheny show, I taught the 1998 and 2002 Metheny shows. You're going to hear a lot of differing opinions when it comes to his music. I know many '91 folks who hate the '98 show. I know many '98 folks who hate the '02 show. You're not going to please everybody, especially when you decide to play music that the corps has played before. Comparisons are inevitable. I'm sure a lot of '84 Cadets and their fans hated the 2009 version of WSS. It happens. All they can do is work to make this the best and most exciting show for them THIS YEAR, and not worry about comparisons to corps from the past.

And when you choose to play songs like Heat of the Day and First Circle in drum corps, you're talking about two songs that are like 10 minutes long each. You have to chop them up to some degree. Will anything be like the 1998 show when it was about 95% faithful to the original arrangements? No. Drum corps has changed. His music is amazing. It's also repetitive and has phrases that sometimes take an extremely long time to develop. Listen to the '98 First Circle and that wonderful pit feature in the middle. Some of my favorite stuff ever. Was it absolutely necessary for them to play through essentially the same very long phrase TWICE however? Not really. I'm glad they did and it worked back then reasonably well, but they didn't absolutely have to. The show may have moved along more quickly, perhaps, if that second nearly identical phrase was cut out. My guess is the same kind of treatment of keeping all that repetition in would not work in today's DCI. One thing that gets hammered these days, right or wrong, is when a show is too laboriously paced. Too much time developing phrases and the show is perceived to lag. Do I agree with it? Not always, but sometimes I do. That's why Metheny's music is so difficult to translate to the field, and that's why so few corps have been able to pull it off with any degree of success.

As it is, all I was looking for from these arrangements for the modern day Crossmen was for them to capture the spirit and overall sound of Metheny as best as a modern corps could do. I actually think First Circle is the best thing in the show. I think it's about as faithful to what those particular phrases should sound like as I could have expected. He really doesn't mess with them much at all. The other tunes he takes more liberties (mostly in Minuano), but each song has their moments when it sounds as much like Metheny as it's supposed to. When he deviates, I think he's at least deviating in the right area, especially since the First Circle rhythm and melody are SUPPOSED to be what tie the show together. It's hard for me to knock the arranger for going back to those melodies when that's what the show is about. The circle is the whole point, visually and musically. With that in mind, I think the arrangements are suitable, way more often than not.

4) Excellence is what is currently keeping them back. A lot of that is inexperience, some of that is getting used to new staff, but that's where they're at as a drum corps right now. Inconsistent performance. Average talent. Again, would people think differently about this corps right now if all those vets who left to march other places came back and the corps was performing a lot better? I actually think they would. I like the show. It's pretty no nonsense stuff. The Crossmen. Pat Metheny. No story lines. No vampires. No narration. No abstract ideas or preaching concepts. It's all pretty simple to understand. And to be honest, as concerned as I was before I heard the show this year, when I got there and listened, it brought a smile to my face just hearing those songs coming from the corps again. Call me sentimental and naive if you like. All I expected and hoped for from the Crossmen this year was for me to like what they were doing on the field. I could always stand for better execution, but I actually like this show, and I'm a bit surprised more people don't. And maybe I'm just listening too much to the DCP folks on this. I haven't seen them perform live since their preview show in San Antonio, so I have no idea how crowds are reacting to them. Maybe more people like it than people are giving them credit for. All I know is that I like it, and based on what I know of the members, they like performing it.

5) Style and identity. People have been asking about it, wondering if the corps knows what it is or where they want to go creatively. I think this is the first year of trying to re-establish an identity. It's not going to happen in one year, and I think if they use this as the foundation, they can build upon it in years to come. Whether that means bringing in new designers as they do, or tweaking staff here and there, as I would expect, then that's what will happen. But for me, this is the closest show to what I want to see from the Crossmen as a fan and alumni than anything they've done so far since moving to Texas. And you can throw in the last several years up north as well. You can't change the world with this stuff in one season. This will take some time, and I get the sense from talking to those involved that they are using this to build forward. I'm willing to give it a chance. If people somehow expect to wake up tomorrow and see them look and sound just like the 1992 Crossmen, they're going to be disappointed. They deserve to find their own way in a rapidly changing activity. They do respect and honor the Crossmen corps of the past, and find great motivation by what those corps represent, but I think it's entirely appropriate for them to find their own voice and direction. They dropped the ball last year in a big way. They're paying the price for that and are trying to rebuild. Give it time.

as always.

[CrossmenAlumni]

Other corps who fell on hard times and turned themselves around did it by figuring out what was missing in the 'market' of drum corps styles, deciding on a formula and an approach, then sticking with it. If Crossmen's leadership can figure out who the corps should be and what they should sound and look like, they can start programming toward that model. But, to be honest, it appears that for a number of years they've been flailing about indiscriminately, which makes them look weakened and directionless.

I don't disagree, but it seems they're going in the direction of NOT flailing about indiscriminately with this show. They're actually going back to an area that they've had success with before and trying to make it their own in a rapidly changing activity. Their success or failure will depend on whether or not they can 1) make this show as exciting and entertaining and competitively viable as they can for this season, and 2) whether they can provide an experience for their members that is fulfilling and fun and enjoyable and makes them want to return. They'll make changes and alterations to their staff and design team as any other corps will do, but they have to start somewhere. Unfortunately, they fell off so badly last year, they've made the road for themselves longer and more difficult, but they're doing what they have to do to turn it around.

Quick, tell me what was Carolina Crown's identity and style before 2003? I think you'd probably get a number of different answers on that one, and a lot of vagueness, but not much in the area of a solid style or identity. Then they came out with their bells show and made a commitment to a certain direction. Was that show anything great in the big scheme of things that season? No. It was OK. Not great, not bad. Decent, smartly put together, appropriate for their talent and staff. They finished 10th with an 86 something. If it was 2010 and that exact corps had done that exact show, guess where they would be? In the 13th-17th range trying to make finals.

I think the Crossmen have some strong pieces in place to be successful, and I also think they have some areas of glaring need. They're aware of this and working to address those areas. As I keep saying, this is going to take some time. You mix and match, you try certain things, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's not an exact science. If it were, a whole lotta other corps would have figured it our by now and it wouldn't have taken corps like Bluecoats, Blue Stars and Crown this long to get where they are (and where they seem to be going!).

Edited July 18, 2010 by CrossmenAlumni

[GMichael1230]

Because jazz in drum corps is boring....especially latin jazz (i.e. Madison)

If anything makes drum corps sound like a HS group, its jazz......not even the HS that goes out to BOA competitions, or any rather.

Remember when phantom did really good when they played jazz....oh wait.

If I was a perspective member and a corps tried to market jazz to me as their forte, I would definitely bail.

...and those complaining about it sound too "soleily" , it seemed to work for phantom in 08 when they used a song straight from a cirque production and put it in their show.

old dinosaur is old.

Remember when Blue Devils did really good playing jazz ?? Remember when Crossmen did really good playing Jazz ?? Silly argument, no logic.

G