Yeah, everybody marches, contributes to “real corps”. I stopped attending when the pit was bigger (practically) than those on the field. Not only that, there were more flags and dancers than instruments. I don’t even bother watching any videos past late ‘90’s. Always thought the timpani dudes were badazz and I bet some of em now have major back problems.
My brother and played in drum corps 1963 to 1969, a few juniors corps but the best time were in the Kenosha Kingsmen. Sadly my brother and I got called up, Fall of 1969 We were in the Military Reserves. While I was in Japan, I received a letter winter of 1970, telling the Kingsmen folded ? Go Army Retired
Thanks for your service. No doubt, I believe that the draft affected many drum corps. Many of the older guys joined a branch or went as a result of the draft. I marched for a total of 5 years, however, I did get drafted but I was already in the Air Force for 2 years. Perhaps the draft attributed to the Corp folding?
@@thomashelm6931 Hello, Thank you for your service, A few times during the draft era I think ? the Royal Airs & Des Planes Vanguard lost many in their horn lines. There was more units that lost sections to the draft. Myself I thought I would just have to do the USNR, but got activated. The 60's were great times for drum corps there was so many.
Lloyd Pesola @ 32:52 is great to see him with his ponytail under his cap! The 1976 DCI Yearbook has a large picture of him from this finals in a section on judging. Lloyd marched with and later taught and wrote some of the music for the Menominee Mich Northernaires. He also taught and wrote brass scores for many corps in the region and Spirit of Atlanta. It was with them that he was involved in the car accident that killed Jim Otts and wrecked Lloyd’s leg.
We marched at Whitewater in 1980. Spirit of Atlanta (snareline) All I remember is having to wear our uniforms during warm up because of the huge mosquitos. Great show. Everyone was there.
Marched as a rifle in the 60s. Madison Scoits was my fav corps since then. Classic Madison music. Classic Scouts uniforms. Always loved their rifle line. Those days of drum corps no longer exist.
@@mrpoopoohead7668 I wish you very successful endeavor. Myself, and John Dowling, with the founders of American Spirit senior alumni from a beautiful Corps. May he rest in peace. What we did we sent letters out to every growing beautiful core that was active at the time this is in 19 92. Asking if they can donate any used old equipment. We ended up receiving close to 70 bugles, they were all valve Rotor at the time. I learned how to repair bugles real fast, some of them I sent to a music store that will be on my area of expertise. At the time Suncoast sound was still in existence, one thing they did wrong, they refuse to do a local parade, for Circle K, which sponsor them purchasing their 18 wheelers and assorted other vehicles. I refusing to do a local parade Circle K drop them like a hot potato. And I don't blame them. One of the problems today these course go on the road extremely expensive as you well know I'm sure. And the local communities have no interest because they have no idea who they are. They never do local parades, or local exhibitions at grand openings baseball games football Games Etc. Old school growing vehicle was a great youth activity sponsored by American Legion VFW and some local churches. When they were in a local parade the community would come out and support them, saying that's how a drone bugle Corps because many families had members in the drum and bugle Corps. So much success but if you get any local, parades exhibitions, jump at the activity to get exposure to the community. And I am sure you will be successful. A big problem I always felt with DCI, they never encourage kids to go on to a senior competing Court. Doing that perpetuates the activity even further. When you have a parade or eventually competition you will have support by the all the folks that have children in the Drum Corps, itself perpetuates. It worked for many years in the activity, I am positive it will work again. One of the negative point, American Spirit senior Corps, Suncoast sounds Administration including members would, put us down and tell the kids that were in Suncoast not to join us, they make comments like those are a bunch of old guys what do you want to waste your time with that they don't know anything. Meanwhile in all ranks we had, State national and World Champion members. Norwood Park Imperials, New York Skyliners, Long Island sunrises, Santa Clara, Garfield Cadets Riley Raiders, Syracuse brigadiers, Hawthorn Caballeros, just to name a few. We would advertise in local newspapers, things of that nature, so all of former members of Suncoast sound, pretty much gave us the finger, so we could not survive and ended up folding. I'm just trying to give you our experience and what took place. Good luck, we need more people like yourself to resurrect the demise activity. My opinion DCI is the reason for the demise, first off if you wanted to be competitive you had to compete on that tour. Most cars went bankrupt could not afford that. Then going City to City, local communities have no idea who you are what you are and why you doing that. But they also today turned it into a marching band competition, superimposed on the three-ring circus. With the variety of brass band instruments, all sorts of xylophones which I think if you can't carry it you can't use it in competition, aside from being very expensive. Today they dance and Prince, with so many props, no uniforms costumes, the drum lines play very few rudiments if any, they're more involved with visuals such as juggling, all sorts of body English as felt they did something difficult or cool, arms flaring all over the place, PA systems, singing and voice narration explaining what's going on. And so forth and so on. Their budgets are around $6,000 per person, plus their overall expense for season runs into the Millions, and for what. And one other thing they need to stop referring to themselves as Drum Corps International, that's a lie. They should refer themselves as, launching band International. Just call it what it is. Today is, December 4th 2022. God bless you and your endeavors, and I hope you succeed, again we need more people to have the gumption stand up and try to, resurrect, once again a great youth activity.
Nobody was featuring percussion like this back then. The Cavaliers, with Jim Campbell's writing and program coordination, revolutionized the approach to percussion.
ummm... not so fast....everyone had percussion features.... Campbell, who along with Kuhn, did an amazing job bringing the Cavies percussion up a notch, but gives credit to Tom Float and Mike Back (Spirit of Atlanta) for his inspiration
@@StephenKershaw1 Thanks for the reply. Good to know Campbell credited those guys. I didn’t follow drum corps closely until 1988, so I do have a blind spot with respect to the 80s. And Spirit was usually in the finals in the 80s, but rarely in the 90s, so they were mostly off my radar. Maybe I should check out some Spirit shows from the 80s. I will say that from ’88-’93 I don’t remember any corps in the top 6-12 featuring percussion as consistently and extensively as the Cavies did. Cavies always had a significant feature in the opener, followed by an extended feature in the second half of the show. So from my limited perspective as a youngster getting involved around that time, it seemed that Campbell was revolutionary. But things rarely if ever fall out of the sky, and famous “revolutionaries” usually get ideas from other less prominent artists.
Funny thing - I went to DCI headquarters around 1994 and gave a presentation about how there were a lot of phenomenal drumlines out there that didn’t necessarily get featured much at the time, like SCV. I remember them agreeing with me about that. I told them they should start putting out VHS tapes of just the drumlines, since marching percussion instruments and writing was something totally unique to drum corps and there would be such demand for it. (Plus the PBS recordings of the full shows didn’t always keep the camera on the drumlines during the features.) Then the internet happened, lol.
Man... remember when the Midwest was THE powerhouse region? Cavies, Phantom, Madison, eventually Star... Been a long time now. Only NorCal has more than one dominant corps these days. Competition for these college players is off the hook. Not crying about the good old days... just looking at the current landscape.
I loved watching this. I marched in my HS band about this time. I went to all the local Drum Corps competitions back then. Our director actually borrowed a lot from the Madison Scouts (even their cadence one year...I can still play it, lol). We did open class band competions with other marching bands. I miss those days.
Back in the late 60s early 70s drum and bugle Corps will rated the fourth largest largest spectator drawer events in the country ahead of baseball believe it or not today hardly anybody knows what's going on with these bands very few people attend contest back in the old days we had close to 7000 Roma bugle course throughout the country not all competing organizations but parade organizations included in that number The budgets today Run 1 million up to two million plus dollars per year any instruments quadrupled in price Plus members pay 2242 $5,000 just to belong to an organization
I marched with the Scouts from 1969 through 1973. In the stands at this show in 1975 I balled like a baby because I missed being on the field with my brothers so badly. YNWA.
I was in Guardsmen 75 and 76. We made Midwest finals in 75, but were 37th at the finals. So I was in the stands in Philly when Madison won the title. They cooked! The crowd loved them. Guardsmen did make finals in 76. I still get a little emotional watching my collection of shows. My favorite corps is phantom regiment, but I love all corps in all eras. I try to explain to people the hard work that goes into doing this activity. On one of my tapes is the mid 90's 27th lancers alumni show. Ok.. I admit I cried when watching it the first time. Loved that corps
I was in the stands, all day, for this. I had just become a DM in our HS band as a sophomore and a friend & I sat thru the rain. We marched drum corps style.
1975 Madison Scouts made me fall in love with Drum Corps. I am blessed to have been a part of the brotherhood and to have played under Mike Leckrone’s baton at UW. Thanks for sharing the history.
Holy Cow. What a blast from the past. Bus fire in the Rockies. Japanese contra player going blind on tour. Aladdin having to carry his equipment all over the place as punishment. Bittersweet year.
I agree with Stephen. The common notion that "wetter" or lower-tuned snare drums hide dirt is a total myth. Otherwise, quads, which are tuned _way_ lower than snare drums, would never sound dirty. Yet nobody would ever argue that a quad line's low tuning "hides their dirt." The truth is, if somebody does not hear dirt in a drum line, it is either because 1) the line is clean, or 2) the hearer doesn't know what he's listening for. The tuning of the drums has absolutely nothing to do with it.
2:30 Oh crap, kill those leisure suits and airplane wing collars! I can't believe I wore that style back when I was 18 in junior college. Seriously though, this is a great archive of drum corps past. Thanks for posting. 6:25 Did you know - that the Phantom Regiment got its name from an old Syracuse Brigadiers tune (1950's) of the same name!
That's the 1994 drumline in the photo. The photo was taken during DCI Quarterfinals in the now long gone Foxboro Stadium. (D-II/III prelims and finals were not in Foxboro, only the three D-I shows were held there.) Pioneer would perform again at Foxboro Sat night to open D-I finals with a champions encore but that was a night timeslot and this is mid-day which makes sense as Pioneer was 5th corps on for quarters in 1994. Pioneer actually received the 10th highest score that day but did not advance to semis as the top 8 corps were rained out and given a free pass into semis.
@@JohnDonovanDotBiz Yep - I was playing "squints" (as we called the double-shot drum tenors) in '94 and was 5th bass in '95 with that tasty little bass solo at 0:14 of this audio clip. Interesting side story, I actually owned a set of those Pioneer tenor drums we used 1994-95 from like 1998-2017. I don't know if they were my exact set but they were the drums Pioneer marched those two seasons. They were hand-me-downs from the Cavaliers and Pioneer in turn handed them to Cincinnati Glory which is how I acquired them. I eventually sold them to a young Cavies fan a few years ago who was also tenor player.
