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1976 Muchachos!


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Fact no. 1:         In 1976, the Caballeros went undefeated.

Fact no.2:          In 1976, after taking a year off, the Bayonne Bridgemen re-appeared on the scene in their famous long yellow coats.

                   Enough said.

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So what happened in 1975?

Just kidding. I always like to ask anyway.

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19 hours ago, traverbanking said:

Fact no. 1:         In 1976, the Caballeros went undefeated.

Fact no.2:          In 1976, after taking a year off, the Bayonne Bridgemen re-appeared on the scene in their famous long yellow coats.

                   Enough said.

The Caballeros lost the Providence, RI, show to the Sunrisers in 1976. 

Bridgemen did not take a year off. They had a rough season in 1975... among other things, they did not attend DCI championships in Philadelphia... but they were still competing.

 

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Still trying to figure out what connection the Caballeros and Bridgemen had to what the Muchachos did or did not do in 1976.  LOL.

I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the Cabs did not pick up a significant number of members for 1976 from the 1975 Muchachos.

And while the Cabs did win the DCA championship in '76 to complete a nearly-undefeated season... it wasn't as if they came out of nowhere with an influx of junior corps (Muchachos) members to do so. They lost DCA Finals in '75 by less than two tenths to the Skyliners, and won the DCA title in 1972, '73 and '74.

 

 

Edited by Fran Haring
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Their prelims recording from 1976 has a clue: they fell apart in the opener.*  One side phased an entire beat behind the other, and the contrapuntal nature of the music made it impossible for them to come together again for a long while. It's unlikely that's the only thing that kept them out of the finals, but there's a fact for you. It's actually pretty fun to listen to, in a macabre sort of way.

 

* I think it's the prelims. If not, it indicates they were having trouble that season anyway.

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I was a member of the 1976 and 77 corps. Joined in May of that year on #2 bass. The corps had a good mix of vets and talented new members. We were "hot and cold" throughout the season with the performances at the World Open and VFWs in NYC a week before DCI as our best performances of the summer. The staff was a mix of ageouts and a few seasoned staff, 2 that come to mind was Don Porter from The Blue Stars/Anaheim Kingsmen fame taking over the drumline in mid July and Charlie Groh from Anaheim Kingsmen working visuals. The percussion line was still solid IMO but too many internal problems with management in and out and a local staff that really didn't have much experience teaching was a recipe for disaster. The members gave it their all but it just wasn't clicking on the competition field. The prelims show was the cherry on the crappy season, we did fall apart right after the solo in the opener causing an awful echo effect and one side of horns finished the tune 4 counts or so before the drumline and other side of horns, a total disaster and the air was let out of our balloon for the remainder of the performance. Plus we went on a full day before the "block" in prelims and early in the morning, we were certainly doomed. We did beat a few finalists just the weekend before but ended up 20 something in prelims. I STILL wouldn't trade my time in that epic drumcorps though, made many great friends! Donnie Porter was a MADMAN ! No wonder Anaheim and Blue Stars had AWSOME drumlines back then! 

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The drumline was mostly new members and about 60% of the brassline were vets and the guard was mostly vets also. The bass line and tenor line were all from Connecticut in 1976 with  1 snare returning from 75 and the rest of the snareline were tenors from 75 or  new members traveling from Mass, Connecticut, New York. Still a really #### good drumline for almost a completely new line from the monster line of 75.

 

Edited by HBD
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4 hours ago, HBD said:

Plus we went on a full day before the "block" in prelims and early in the morning, we were certainly doomed.  

The DCI member corps block was on same day as Muchachos.  This was back when day two of prelims was same day as finals, making day one the preferred choice.

And you were not completely doomed by going on in the morning.  Seneca Optimists were on two slots earlier.

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