Madison Scouts Open House 4/29

[madalumni]

You mean like the cover of Led Zeppelin's first album?

Yes. :)

[madalumni]

Here's a glimpse. It isn't quite finished yet. I will be talking to Jeff tommorrow about

any final adjustments, but here's the basic look....

Oops...Sorry, I realized since it isn't done completely, the staff may not want me to

post it yet. :( But you will all see it soon enough when tour starts. :)

Edited April 30, 2007 by madalumni

[liebot]

Yeah, we left before it came out. I'm sure one will turn up.

It was very exciting to watch the horn line. The first trumpet soloist, (the one on the left, in the picture), plays third I think, and may be a rookie. I heard several staff tell him how good he sounded. Nothing really high, just a HUGE, FULL sound.

Bobby Bonslater. Marched East Coast in 05 and 06. Really cool, really funny guy. Glad to see him getting a solo in the "big leagues." He also posts on here occasionally.

[acn]

Bobby Bonslater. Marched East Coast in 05 and 06. Really cool, really funny guy. Glad to see him getting a solo in the "big leagues." He also posts on here occasionally.

Cool, what's his user name? He seemed like a very humble, gracious kid.

Still can't get over his sound. Someone on staff said his tone is "like butter".

[acn]

One thing I noticed about the Yamaha horns. The trumpets all appeared to be Xeno's, however some had the traditional main tuning slide with 2 braces (ala a Bach Strad), while some had 1 brace and a reversed tuning slide. Anyone know what the reason for this is?

[jjeffeory]

I had the opportunity to attend the Madison Scouts/ Capital Sound er Capital Sound/Madison Scouts Open house held at the Waunakee High School Field House in Waunakee, WI today at 1:00pm. This review was rushed, so please forgive any errors in grammar and spelling. It's nice outside today, so I should be out enjoying it instead of writing this! LOL

I would like to say that both organizations represented themselves VERY well today. The field house was pretty darned full, and the crowd was excited and enjoyed the presentations. I have no ties to either organization, so I hope that people don't think I'm being too hard or critical of the corps at this point of the year if I don't necessarily gush with praise and platitudes.

The open house started up with a color presentation done by a few members of the Madison Scouts alumni and one girl from Capital Sound's guard. You could tell that the crowd appreciated the gesture.

First up was Capital Sound's executive director Marc Gofstein. He did a great job introducing the corps and explaining the desire to work together and build bridges with the Madison Scouts organization. Also worthy of mention was Capital Sound's part in the collection drive for the tornado victims in Enterprise, AL. There were other corps around that helped out too, but I think it's great for a small corps like this to do what they can to help others in need. It seems that many students at Enterprise HS were touched enough to make Capital Sound their home for 2007! 9 people from the high school are marching in the group this year. Onto the show.

Their show this year is base on French music and is entitled: "Ooh La La: Le Spectaculaire Francais" (The French Spectacular). The selections include music from Jacques Offenbach's Gaite Parisienne and Orpheus in the Underworld, as well as from the movie Victor/Victoria. Cap Sound did not play the whole show, but what they did play was very enjoyable. Marc mentioned that there were many members who had to leave early for their rides home, so I wouldn't freak out about any numbers.

Hornline present:

6 or 7 trumpets

3 mellophones

1 baritone

3 Tubas

The percussion section had better numbers. I didn't count, but I noticed 3 or 4 tenors and decent sized snare line, 4 basses and a decent sized pit. The hornline ran through some warmups, and they had a really good sound! The percussion went through their warmup and street beat. They also sound decent! I noticed that some of the tenors didn't know the street beat yet, but the music they did know was played well!

Big props go to the baritone player! He has some decent parts and he knows how to play with a good sound in the ensemble! I hope they have some more baritone players waiting in the wings though. It's really hard for one person to take on all of that responsibility for every second of the show. The corps only played a few minutes of Victor/Victoria music, but what they decided to share was great. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I think that's what Marc said. Anyway, what they presented was very nice to listen to and should be a fan favorite show this summer. Great job everybody!

Next up, Jeff Spanos and the program coordinator gave some introductions, thank you's, requests for money, and all of the important stuff that they need to do to help generate money for the corps. They're all Yamaha ( Percussion & Brass). They've had a relationship with Yamaha for 20 years. The program coordinator went on to explain the show concept for this year's show entitled: Unbound.

Uninvited

Kashmir

Requiem from ( Gabriel Foray's Requiem: Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei)

El Tango De Roxanne

Liber Tango

** Disclaimer ** The following words are not necessarily direct quotes from the fine men of Madison. They are my take on what was said. Sometimes I try to paraphrase; sometimes I remember exactly what was said and try to quote. Please be nice! These guys are working hard to give the fans a great show!

Madison seems to really be playing the competitive game this year as far as programming and pacing is concerned. From my "Cavalier biased perspective", one of the things said that really caught my attention was the approach they are taking to this year's program. The staff has design the show around the visual aspects more than the past. They have selected and arranged music to fit into the visual, skeletal framework of the show. It was explained that it was important for the organization to stay true to "Madison" standards of entertainment and excellence, while fitting into the contemporary DCI framework. Madison has a great desire to appear current, even progressive. In other words, they insisted on selecting and arranging music that can stand alone on a CD, yet fit into the skeletal framework of a modern, competitive show. They feel they have accomplished this, and I think the musical part is there. Basically, what I got out of the presentation is that the show concept (Unbound) and the visual ideas were developed first, then juxtaposed with some kick butt music from different genres into what looks like it will probably be a great show! What we heard today was only 90% of the music. Also, it was explained that they wanted to take advantage of the extra pre-judged setup time and so there will a significant amount of pre-show music, and drill. I think there 3 minutes worth of that. That's quite a bit of pre-show entertainment if you ask me. My only question is how much is going to end up on the DVD at World Championships?

The horn line warmed up, the drum line warmed up... We heard the 2007 street cadence entitled "Groove Track", then we got to hear the 2007 parade tune: 76 Trombones. Both were tasty arrangements! Next they played the corps "history tune": Ice Castles. The arrangement is great as always. The baritone solo was good. Well, it was actually wonderful. My, how small the Bb baritones look compared to the old G bugles... They look much more manageable.

Into the show music... As many of you have heard, the "preshow" is 'Uninvited' by Alanis... Of course, the Scouts sounded much better live than the posted recording, even though they were in an enclosed field house with tons of echo. The thing that gets me is how well this song flows into Kashmir. I was a little worried that Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' wouldn't translate well into the drum corps idiom. I wondered how they were going to make it difficult enough to please the judges, while staying true to the song and the fans. I was worried for nothing. It really works! All the main themes of the song are there, and there are some loud hits here and there. Really cool! I think this part of the show was designed for the judges, but I think the fans will eat it up too. It's really entertaining music. Next part of the show included two movements from Gabriel Foray's 'Requiem'. This is the ballad and there is a nice baritone solo (gosh I hope I remember this right). I'm not sure what to comment on other than to say that it's really pretty in the beginning. I'll try to remember more details about it for the summary of this "review". For me it was the slowest part of the show, but I think people will love it. Onto the next segment of the show. This is the part of the show that is vintage Madison. The music is from "El Tango De Roxanne", "Liber Tango", and some other Tangos, I guess. It's pretty sweet music, has a trumpet duet played extremely well, and appears to be Madison's musical connection to their past musically. People will love this part of the show! The section ends loudly, and I can't wait to see what drill they put with it. Apparently, there is a minute or so left to show which will contain more music from Uninvited.

The open house closed with the combined corps playing "You'll Never Walk Alone."

**Summary**

I'm re-listening to the show right now while I write the summary. Overall, I like the use of the unamplified vocals in the "Pre-Show". The effect would have been totally lost had they decided to go with one mic'd person. The chimes and percussion generated cool musical effect through out 'Uninvited'. Uninvited starts softly and steadily builds and builds into Kashmir, and Kashmir is freaking cool. The various triplet phrases are there. The chimes get some love here too. As far as arrangement goes, Kashmir starts off relatively "tame" and straightforward, but gets progressibely wild in arranging as the piece goes on. It's pretty cool. It's creative. The arrangement has enough meat to please the judges and enough melody to please the fans. Everybody wins! The piece ends with the low brass playing a unison note and goes into the middle portion of the show. You can bet they'll have some form that will expand and lock there. You can just hear what is supposed to happen in the drill. Okay, I can! LOL The ballad is beautiful. It begins softly, but after the baritone solo becomes dissonant and sinister for a bit. The ballad ends like any good fairy tale, happily ever after sounding...

The Tango stuff starts off loudly. VERY Loudly! Each brass voice has a mini soli. You know, where they get the cool part. The cool part is passed around to each brass voice in the corps. The trumpet duets are well written and were well performed. The guy player the lower parts has monster good tone! Good for you! The ending of the Tango section definitely reminds me of the Moulin Rouge end credits with some Kashmir rhythms thrown in here and there for effect! Sweet! It's a cool ending to this section of the show...

Afterwards, we went out to the common area to have some cookies & cake, look at the souvies, donate some money, socialize, and look at the uniform. We waited for around 40 minutes for the uniform to show up, but it hadn't so we found Jeff Spanos and asked him if they were still going to unveil the uniform today. He told us that they should be doing that any minute and that he was trying to get down to the lobby and see it for himself. You see he hadn't seen it yet either. Well, a couple of minutes later, the DM showed up in uniform! I believe that this is going to be the corps uniform, not necessarily the DM uniform...

The hat is the same as last year...

The gauntlets are white. I'm not sure about trim details because I felt kind of strange staring this person up and down! LOL!

The shoes are black

The pants are the same dark green pants as last year. The big change is the jacket!

Oh, boy... I'm not sure I can describe this jacket effectively.

The back of the jacket is dark green, like the pants.

The front of the jacket is very different than anything I've seen them in from the past.

Okay, the jacket style appears to be a modified "Synergy" style. http://www.stanbury.com/popup_catalog_2006.asp?page=63

Of course, there are no buttons in the front, like the example. There are shoulder pads, shoulder wings, or whatever they're called these days... There are two MAJOR colors on the front of the jacket. The first being white, the second being the same dark green as the pants.

Bear with me. To figure out what I'm describing, picture yourself wearing the jacket. There is a diagonal line splitting the two MAJOR color areas of the front of the jacket.

So, if you're inside the jacket, the left side is white at the shoulder, dark green at bottom. The bottom of the left side of the jacket is horizontally aligned along the waist. The big, red, Fleur de Lis from last year is gone from the front of the whole jacket... Instead it much smaller and on the left chest. It's still red. The right side of the jacket is dark green at the top, dark green at the bottom, and has a little tail/tongue somewhat 'similar' in idea to what BD has had going down the front of their uniform. It's a little difficult to describe after seeing it only for a couple of minutes, bit I don't think it look too bad... The thing that is more difficult to describe follows.

There are a few more colors on the front of the uniform. There are two or three, or maybe four other greenish stripes going from the top right shoulder down to the lower left waist area of the jacket.

So the color scheme going from left to right, light to dark, along the diagonal are: white, lime-green, a darker green, maybe some more kinds of green ( I don't remember how many striped there were), dark green. After seeing all the different greens, I think I forgot the colors of the sleeves. I think the left sleeve is white and the right sleeve is dark green. Oh, I'm sure they will be using white gloves.

My only comment is that I guess I'll need to see 134 other people in this uniform, together. Maybe they look good from a distance. Also, maybe they could cover up the green stripes with a sash? The dark green is fine, the white is fine, but IMHO, the other greens are worrying. Okay, that's it.

There you have it! Hopefully someone else will post a picture, because I didn't take one. I'm trying to be careful here... Some of you will hate this uniform. Some will like it, I hope.

At any rate, I think the Madison Scouts have an absolutely fabulous show design, brass program, and percussion program. Based on the quality of music so far, I can see this show easily in finals. There were no fraks, no gaffs, or anything that would indicate that this is a corps should worry about falling out of finals just yet. Good start Madison Scouts! I am totally excited for you. The Kashmir section is my favorite part of the show so far... You've got some good stuff to work with! There's something for everyone to like in this show.

This was the color guard's first camp, so they watched and cheered for both corps. I wish them luck too!

Also, Capital Sound, You guys ROCK! Get some more baritones! That guy is good, but he needs some support. I know that you probably got it covered! I can't wait to hear and see the whole show in a couple of months! If any of you get the chance to see these guys, Do it!

Also, go buy some of the Audio that Madison will be posting on their website from today's performance. Remember to support both corps! As a matter of fact, help support all the corps this summer. Gas prices are going up, and all the corps need some extra moolah to help with the costs!

Peace!

** edited to fix grammar and make more sense than the first draft :P

Edited April 30, 2007 by jjeffeory

[jjeffeory]

Thank you. :)

The tour shirt is sweet. I had to go by a second time to notice the Fleur de Lis. Pretty cool idea.

[acn]

I believe Matt Gregg said something along the lines of that while picking music that would fit in the frame work of the visual show, the music was also picked to stand alone, in a musical sense. So you could listen to it on cd, and enjoy it. I think this is the correct approach. Sometimes I think visual is everything for some corps, and the actual music is a collection of sound effects, or an afterthought.

Edited April 30, 2007 by acn

[jjeffeory]

I believe Matt Gregg said something along the lines of that while picking music that would fit in the frame work of the visual show, the music was also picked to stand alone, in a musical sense. So you could listen to it on cd, and enjoy it. I think this is the correct approach. Sometimes I think visual is everything for some corps, and the actual music is a collection of sound effects, or an after thought.

Right, I recorded that part of the speech too. So Matt Gregg is the program coordinator, right? I couldn't remember his name, and I went to the website and tried to find it. Oh congrats to whoever it was that was going to get married at 4:00pm!

[acn]

Right, I recorded that part of the speech too. So Matt Gregg is the program coordinator, right? I couldn't remember his name, and I went to the website and tried to find it. Oh congrats to whoever it was that was going to get married at 4:00pm!

The guy getting married is Chickenhawk, the fitness guy. My brother and I talked to a snare, and I guess he worked them pretty good on Saturday. Lots of pushups, and situps.