Looking at the hate

[ShortAndFast]

Oh, come on. How about the umbrella and pointy hat? The intentionally awkward dancing on the part of the Dani troupe? The guard unis with the "faces" on the backs of their heads? As this columnist summed it up, "The Cadets, based in Pennsylvania, performed a strange number I can only describe as Cirque du Soleil meets John Philip Sousa on LSD. It had to do with Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 hit, “White Rabbit.” This act featured a female singer and lots of acrobats in weird outfits. For more details, ask Alice — when she’s 10 feet tall."

The Cadets (and I doubt even Hopkins would disagree with me on this) have spent two years putting hallucinations on the field. Yes, I call that inaccessible and abstract. I never used the word "unmelodic", by the way, and I don't know if I would label the Cadets as such--at least, no moreso than most other corps these days. (Most shows don't have music you end up humming without repeated listenings.)

OK, fair enough. "Unmelodic" was my adjective, not yours. Do you see a difference between "abstract" and "band-like"? This year's Cadets' show may not be my favorite, but it's not like they are asking me to divine "images and ideas of Alice" in some rorschach blot drill accompanied by four atonal minimalist compositions. They're telling a pretty concrete story of Alice, the White Rabbit, the tea party, etc. through an over-the-top use of costumes and props. It's not any harder to figure out than Faust, or the Godfather or the Machine. Star 1993 was "abstract". Cadets 2006 is not.

Of these top 6, I find the Cadets un-entertaining and fan-unfriendly. The other 5 have shows that presently hover somewhere between good and terrific. Actually, scratch that: out of all 5, I can't pick a single show I wouldn't love to watch over and over.

By your own standards, you'd like to watch 5 of 6 shows over and over. So is it really fair to say "Ironically, the accessible, audience-friendly shows -- like those of the Madison Scouts -- are the unique ones in an ever-increasing sea of abstract and inaccessible shows", as you quoted approvingly in your original post? Did you find a higher percentage entertaining in 2000 or 2002? I've been attending DCI shows for 2 decades. Any year in which I like 5/6th of the top shows is a pretty good one in my book.

What you are criticizing about the Cadets seems to be, plain and simple, the use of BOA-style design elements in a DCI show. If that ruins it for you, so be it. I'd recommend getting a hotdog during their show - I've certainly done that from time to time with shows that I just couldn't stand to see one more time. But I've also been honest enough to admit that a lot of other people seemed to enjoy the shows I couldn't stand.

Now here's a thought: the Cadets have spent the last three years putting rock, pop and acid house music on the field. Boy, those genres really need guitars to fill in the blanks, don't they?

Actually, in 2004, I would have said that they needed a solo flute to really complete the musical picture. Why didn't they use one? Because nearly all directors of DCI corps do not think that flutes should be allowed in a drum corps show. Unless you think that Gibbs, Fiedler, Seidling, and a bunch of their colleagues are going to change their mind about that, you don't need to worry about woodwinds or guitars or synthesizers or whatever else.

For the moment, a majority of directors agree with George Hopkins that amplified voice should be allowed. The Cadets, like about a third of the D1 corps, have been experimenting with ways of using it. If the D1 directors want to take shows in this direction, I'm certainly not going to try to tell them they're wrong. If I stop liking the shows, I'll stop going to competitions. But so far that hasn't happened.

And yes, I gathered that you seem to like the Cadets this year--and if anything, "Through the Looking Glass" isn't extreme enough for you.

I don't want to give you the wrong impression. It's not my favorite show of the year, but I've enjoyed watching it and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I really loved The Zone because I thought the Cadets put a top-notch visual and musical design on the field for the first time in 5 years. Liquid, in particular, was a fabulous "old school" Garfield-esque chart. The vocal effects last year and this year aren't my favorite thing, but nor do they ruin the shows for me.

If the Cadets were going to really make me happy, they'd return to the "abstract" and "inaccessible" style of music that they played in the 90s, and they'd march and play the snot out of it. But it's probably not going to happen. Contrary to you and the DCW quote, entertainment is much more important to the Cadets and the activity as a whole than it was in those years.

[Rusty]

By your own standards, you'd like to watch 5 of 6 shows over and over. So is it really fair to say "Ironically, the accessible, audience-friendly shows -- like those of the Madison Scouts -- are the unique ones in an ever-increasing sea of abstract and inaccessible shows", as you quoted approvingly in your original post?

Because drum corps is hopefully about corps 7-12 as well. And if finals night is back-to-back artsy statements that constantly need to be deciphered, something's gotta give.

What you are criticizing about the Cadets seems to be, plain and simple, the use of BOA-style design elements in a DCI show. If that ruins it for you, so be it. I'd recommend getting a hotdog during their show - I've certainly done that from time to time with shows that I just couldn't stand to see one more time. But I've also been honest enough to admit that a lot of other people seemed to enjoy the shows I couldn't stand.

I was able to do that in 1993 with the Blue Devils, who I didn't much care for at the time. And many people in 1993 were also able to do the same with Star. Problem is, as I said earlier, "Hopkins's agenda makes it pretty much impossible for drum corps fans to be agnostic on the Cadets." If he had just left amps out of it, and would leave saxophones and electronics alone, I probably wouldn't have done this post.

Actually, in 2004, I would have said that they needed a solo flute to really complete the musical picture. Why didn't they use one? Because nearly all directors of DCI corps do not think that flutes should be allowed in a drum corps show. Unless you think that Gibbs, Fiedler, Seidling, and a bunch of their colleagues are going to change their mind about that, you don't need to worry about woodwinds or guitars or synthesizers or whatever else.

I wonder how many people thought that about G bugles in 1996.

It's not my favorite show of the year, but I've enjoyed watching it and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Out of curiosity, what is your favorite show this year? Not looking to go after you with a baseball bat--just sincerely interested is all. (I don't know if I have a single favorite, but I'm really looking forward to seeing SCV live again.)

[Hup234]

[in an activity that isn't terribly large, where influence is held by a very small group of people, <snip> And many longtime drum corps fans are dealing with this tragic turn of events, this dumbing down and dilution of drum corps, the only way they know how.

Exactly, and this damaging elitist trend began with the Combine, and no one stepped forth to stop them.

And when the activity began to shrink, no summit conferences were held to study the reasons and attempt to correct the reverses. It was business as usual.

Any major business facing upheaval - the domestic auto industry, for example - will quickly and closely examine the trends and restructure its product and how that product is produced.

But even today, after all the decades of decline in this activity, very few voices are being raised in alarm - and when one does occasionally surface, we see the replies are almost without exception defensive shouts of sheer denial which far outweigh any rational dialogue that could and should ensue. No, productive examination is not in the forecast here.

[dckid80]

You are citing the US auto industry as an example of an industry that is self-examining?

That has to be the funniest post I have ever seen here.

Thanks for making my morning.

[Tekneek]

If any drum corps, or the whole activity itself, responds the way the domestic auto industry has, DCI will be on the verge of insolvency before the course is corrected.

[ShortAndFast]

Out of curiosity, what is your favorite show this year? Not looking to go after you with a baseball bat--just sincerely interested is all. (I don't know if I have a single favorite, but I'm really looking forward to seeing SCV live again.)

I'd say either SCV or Cavaliers is my favorite of the year so far. I love SCV's music, and I think their visual does a great job of interpreting it. I also loved the first 2/3 of the Cavies, but haven't seen them since they put a real ending on it. I think this might be one of the years where I like 6 of the top 6 shows. We'll see if I change my opinion after seeing everyone at Allentown.

I hope we haven't gone after each other with baseball bats! This has been a pretty civil dialogue by recent DCP standards.

[MikeBob]

Exactly, and this damaging elitist trend began with the Combine, and no one stepped forth to stop them.

Seriously, the Combine was 35 years ago. After three and a half decades, I think it might be too late to say "Boy, if it hadn't been for that #### Combine...." The Combine happened, and here we are. There's no going back and reversing it. Time to move on.

[kusankusho]

Seriously, the Combine was 35 years ago. After three and a half decades, I think it might be too late to say "Boy, if it hadn't been for that #### Combine...." The Combine happened, and here we are. There's no going back and reversing it. Time to move on.

True - not much chance of reversing, but if damage was in fact done, how does the activity minmize/contain/heal it for the future?

[MikeBob]

True - not much chance of reversing, but if damage was in fact done, how does the activity minmize/contain/heal it for the future?

I just think there's only so much you can blame on the Combine. Most people today don't even know what it was. Whatever "damage" may have been done by it was done long ago; whatever perceived damage is being done to drum corps now is being done by something else.

Also: No chance of reversing. The number of regional corps may increase (or not), but you're not going to see corps playing "Softly As I Leave You" every year.

Edited August 2, 2006 by MikeBob

[elphaba01]

After watching the drum corps activity in general and the discussion in particular (that is, fury directed at the Cadets/George Hopkins), I felt this might be an opportune time to weigh in about a number of things.

First, let me get all my cards on the table. I marched Sky Ryders '92-'93. And I'm a Texas native. So I approach this as a long-time fan of the activity, an alumnus of a middle- to back-of-the-pack corps, and a native of a state that many keep predicting will become a drum corps powerhouse. This perspective will color at least some of my observations, for which I make no apologies.

Let me further state that I don't in the slightest condone the harassing and threatening phone calls Hopkins was hit with recently. (What numbskulls—didn't even block their numbers from his caller ID…)

And I really find the venom directed towards the Cadets in general way beyond the pale, particularly from people on the DCP boards who seem to find some Schadenfreude in the Cadets' bus mishaps and volunteer shortages this season. To those people (and you know who you are): feel free to hate the show, but the kids don't deserve this.

However. All that fury seems to be pretty indicative of how Hopkins is viewed by many in the activity. Moreover, this raw, angry anti-Cadet animus seems to have reached a fever pitch this year. (I haven't checked RAMD lately, partially because I don't think I need to, and largely because I really don't want to.) And, of course, Hopkins has been in the practice of responding in kind on his blog via positive, supportive notes from fans.

One unfamiliar with the present landscape of drum corps might find these flame wars a bit peculiar. When I marched in '93, we spent much of our time in the Midwest, so I watched Star's "Medea"--a show to which the "Dreamscape" Cadets both owe a massive debt and paid homage--evolve during the season. But while reactions towards the decidedly abstract "Medea" were certainly polarized that summer (people either loved or hated the show; I'm among the former), as they have been towards the Cadets last year and this year, I didn't see fans or fellow members lashing out at the likes of Jim Mason or Bill Cook. (Well, nothing past the usual class envy that typically existed towards $tar of Indiana. But that's a subject for a separate post.)

So it's 12 years later, and the Cadets' staff, having taken the artsy baton from Star, has gone on an acid trip for the last two years. Why burn Hopkins in effigy over the deal?

Let's start with show design. The Cadets of the last two years are representative of where much of the activity has wandered over the last six years: from a long, proud history and tradition to a near-meaningless caricature of absurd experimentation, largely for the goal of being absurd.

This is certainly a recent development. One of the things I loved about the Cadets is that there were certain things that the corps always retained. The uniform almost never changed. I loved the old plumes, the way the uniform emulated that of West Point.

But that has pretty much eroded, piece by piece. It may seem like a nitpicky complaint, but the recent changes in the uniform are more blemishes than refinements, less about improving on an old design and more like making a forcible break with the past. And for what? As nearly as many of us can tell, for the purpose of making a pointless statement.

What I really respected about the corps is they figured out a way to make tradition and innovation work together. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Cadets were behind some of the major visual evolutions of the activity. The corps was able to do things the way they had always been done and yet do things nobody had ever thought of.

Much of that is gone now. I actually have tickets for finals; it will be my first visit to finals since 1993, and my first visit to Camp Randall since the Cavaliers punched through the glass ceiling in 1992. But if it's anything like last year, I suspect it will be DCI's answer to the Academy Awards: an opportunity for the learned elite to flatter one another and lecture the unwashed masses on what is and is not true quality.

That change started to take place in earnest in 2001, when the Madison Scouts dropped to 11th place. I can understand how 2000 backfired on Madison. I'm even willing to say that 2001 wasn't one of Madison's better shows—certainly nowhere near the firepower of 1995-1997. But it is a travesty of fairness to say that Carolina Crown outplayed or outmarched the Scouts in 2001. The activity was placed on a path that Madison either could not or would not go, and the result was the purging of Scott Stewart, one of the great directors of the activity.

And the circle, frankly, was completed last year.

That comment from Dennis DeLucia during the ESPN2 broadcast is of the sort that should apply to just a handful of corps in certain select years. But its use last year in reference to the Cadets is indicative of the massive gulf between DCI and the fan base. As one writer noted in 2002, as the Scouts were on their way to dropping out of the top 12:

So who wrote that? Some bitter RAMDian? Nope--Donald Chinn, of Drum Corps World. I would suggest that if DCW, the activity's paper of record, was willing to make such a blunt statement, that things were in reality far worse. And can anybody really say that this state of events has changed in the last four years, that shows have become more fan-friendly?

Look, I don't mind change, especially if it's innovative or amounts to progress. I hadn't seen 2000 Cadets until the Classic Countdown last year. From pretty much the opening form to the closer, I kept having to pick my jaw up off the floor about once every minute or two. As usual, some variation on the drill forms and percussion features filtered down to lower-tier corps within the next few years. Also, there are some changes that I will definitely agree don't mean a whole lot (when it comes to the Cadets' unis, I don't miss the patch or the longer cummerbund).

But one of Hopkins's publicly stated reasons for all these changes to the activity has been to make drum corps as accessible as possible to as wide a segment of the public as possible--an opportunity now much greater thanks to platforms like ESPN2. And now that we have a chance to really showcase the activity, what do we get to point to as the best we have to offer? Arguably the most inaccessible, obtuse, abstract, warped show in the history of the activity. For those of us who really are trying to introduce our uninitiated friends to the amazing stuff they've been missing out on over the summer, we face an unbelievable handicap trying to explain why they should think drum corps is cool when watching the 2005 Cadets.

If these changes were somehow quarantined only to the Cadets, that would be enough. But the alterations to the activity go well beyond the types of shows that find their way to the field.

Let's start with infamous key change of 1999. I understand all the arguments. Some of them I readily accept. B-flat horns do have a brighter timbre that a lot of people prefer, they are easier to tune, and I'm certain they're cheaper. And I have no interest in renewing the debate, because at this point the G bugle is quite dead and isn't coming back (sorry, Troopers).

But what I don't understand has been the goal of these rule changes, aside from entrenching the Cadets and other powerhouse corps as the de facto oligopoly of the activity. The math on this is quite simple. Another of Hopkins's publicly stated goals with nearly every rule change has been to give as many kids as possible the opportunity to march drum corps. Hence, B-flat horns, with saxophones and electronics in the offing if he can manage it. But with that as a backdrop, I would sure love an explanation for this recent statement:

So the changes Hopkins has lobbied for will let more kids march, but will keep a cap on the number of corps. Am I the only one who sees the rather gaping disconnect between these two schools of thought? The only way to square that circle is to conclude that these are rule changes that conveniently help the big guys at the expense of the little guys. And recent history bears me out on this. After watching so many Division I corps fold over the last ten years, what are we to conclude but that Hopkins not only condones but encourages the current atmosphere in which a new corps has to raise an insane amount of money to be viable? And if it's this difficult for Division I, then how about Division II/III, which has seen even worse hemorrhaging of units over the last two to three years? And is it any wonder that fantastic Division II corps like Pacific Crest are complete unknowns outside a small geographic area?

This is, admittedly, where I harbor my own bitterness as a native Texan. I've been asked a few times over the years by those outside the state why Texas doesn't have a bigger drum corps presence. The state has practically everything going for it: decent year-round weather and a near-bottomless pit of top-flight talent courtesy of some of the best high school marching bands in the nation. And it's not for lack of interest, as the Bluecoats, Madison Scouts and Cavaliers (among others) will readily attest.

The reason is a financial chicken-and-egg quandary. As Colts director Greg Orwoll openly said after making finals in 1993, fundraising becomes easier after achieving top 12 status. In all fairness, competitive success is no guarantee of financial viability. But the way the activity is presently structured, pretty much any fledgling corps is faced with a financial Mount Everest to climb.

Sadly, the activity has always been Darwinian; drum corps history is littered with folded organizations (VK moment of silence, please). But the changes Hopkins has imposed--particularly through amplification--have pretty much relegated most Division II/III units to an utterly irrelevant status. And the changes he threatens to bring to the table (read: electronics) will do that and worse to not a few Division I corps, who will find themselves forced to raise ever more obscene amounts of money to keep up.

But I think the source of such animus towards Hopkins is his basic, central reasoning for this change and the others he has foisted upon DCI in the last six years: "Marching band = drum corps".

Well, it almost does now, but it didn't before. And that's something else I appreciated about drum corps, and particularly about the Cadets. Pretty much anybody can join a marching band. But <em>drum corps</em>--that's a cut above. I always took a bit of pleasure in recognizing that I had participated in an activity that forced me to find that limit of my endurance and ability, and then push that limit out a notch or two. There has long been a sense of lofty separateness about the activity--if high school and college marching bands have been AA ball, drum corps has been the major leagues. But through the near-inconceivable amount of influence and clout Hopkins has held within the activity, he has changed it to the point that it is practically unrecognizable from the one I latched onto in 1991. Due in large part to his leverage on the activity, drum corps has gone from being elite and inspiring to something rather silly.

So why all the hate? I say it's really quite simple. In an activity that isn't terribly large, where influence is held by a very small group of people, George Hopkins has wielded a ridiculous amount of power. And he has made it perfectly clear over the last ten or so years (certainly since 1999) that where the Cadets go, the rest of the activity is to follow. And many longtime drum corps fans are dealing with this tragic turn of events, this dumbing down and dilution of drum corps, the only way they know how.

Am I wrong? I look forward to reading any responses on Hopkins's blog or here on DCP.

"Oppertunity to Lecture the Unwashed":

This is one of the BEST posts I have seen on any drum corps board at any time. Bravo!!!!

Elphaba

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