From: ck10322@china.medtronic.com (Cameron Kaszas)
Subject: '79 remembrances (oldtimers ...)
Organization: Medtronic, Inc., Minneapolis, MN
                         
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 22:03:32 GMT

>  Vince
 
I knew there was an old North Star out there somewhere, to remind
me of '79 CYO!  I guess that I didn't mention it because it
didn't happen at finals - the only placing that people remember
13 YEARS LATER :)  Did you really faint?  Please 
tell me that you guys did an AWESOME
show, and I won't feel so bad.  I really can't remember how
our show was - it didn't seem to matter in '79.  When we thought
we'd done well was usually when the scores hurt the worst!  I'm
trying desperately to remember some details of that show.  The 
stadium was nice if I remember - astro turf, well lit, no? (it
was my only CYO).  We had to warm up facing a huge wall with train
tracks on the other side.  We used to end our warm-up with
the fanfare from "Slaughter On 10th Avenue" (ala 1975), and there was
a train going by at the time, and the drummers were passing by
telling us to play louder they couldn't hear us.

'79 was a strange year for Madison.  We did beat Phantom and 
27th all 1st half, and were not too far behind SCV and Spirit 
out West.   We were 5th at DCI East which had the top 8 or so 
two weeks before finals.  And the judges were still saying 
there was hope of moving up.  Then, we were shocked at 6th
in Prelims, and needless to say very shocked at 8th in 
Finals.  I mean, Madison had gone 2,2,1,2,4?,4, since 1973 - 
this was quite slide for such a powerhouse.

The season was up and down - we'd be cruising along, steadily
improving, and then our scores would drop 5 points (no lie!)
if we hit some new judges (or went out East :)  But I'm sure 
a lot of you have similar stories to tell.  If I were in charge,
I'd drop scoring altogether ...

Anyway, we had an extremely talented corps that year, maybe more
so than '80 or '81, when we placed 6th and 3rd respectively.  
Something like 40-50 age outs - lots of veterans from other
corps who wanted to march their last with Madison.  The 
judges didn't like our attempt at more "finesse", and less "beat 
and blast" if I can remember the commonly used terms used by 
the DCW writers.  I don't think it was so much that we were any
less "Madison" sounding, but that we just had a hard show that
we didn't get credit for.  Our repertoire was "Sorceror and the Latin"
(Les Brown Band, off the same album as "Ballet In Brass"), "Bohemian 
Rhaphsody" (Queen), "Granada Smoothie" (Kenton), and "Pieces Of Dreams"
(Buddy Rich played it, Michael Legrand composed it?)

Hey, I just remembered a corps we toured with in '79: Memphis Blues
Brass Band!  They were also known as MB3 (MB^3)?  Anyone remember?
They weren't too bad - I think they made Top-25.

Other remembrances from 1979:  1st year for 2-valve instruments other
than sopranos (these came in 1978), Phantom should have won DCI 
(this was their 3rd straight 2nd place finish, but that's not why they
should have won - they had a great closer by Wagner, "Elsa's something
or other ... "), I thought Birmingham was a good finals site, but didn't
like it as much as Denver, Maynard Ferguson did the color commentary
on the PBS telecast - at one point he played a bugle to compare to
his trumpet, he had some good points to add, it just took him too long
to say them!  Spirit of Atlanta had a great year, Crossmen did "Superman"
and finished 13th :(     Drum Corps News had this thing they called the
"Scavenger Hunt":  each issue you had to find little hidden pictures, and 
send in the page number, and at the end of the season, supposedly there 
were gonna be prizes awarded.  Well, my mom played religiously all year, 
didn't miss one item, and didn't ever hear from them.  We never even saw
that anyone won!  Anybody know anything about this?  This was the last year
that a score of 90 really meant something (it meant that you were in
the top three, at least). The next year, I think six corps had over 90,
and then when they stopped ticking it really got ridiculous.  When did they
stop ticking? '83?

One last thought:
        '76 Blue Devils - the greatest corps in history!!!
(That should raise an eyebrow or two:)

BTW, what was the outcome of the top 25 drum corps of all time
survey that someone did here?  Did I miss it?

Regards,

 Cam "Hey, I can finally post - look out..." Kaszas


Newsgroups: alt.drumcorps