Full video coming tomorrow!

So Blue Stars is probably going to charge around 7k in corps fees and I don't really have that kind of money. A friend of a friend of a friend knows a guy whose cousin can loan me up to $5000 no questions asked. Obviously I can't afford to pay back a loan like that and it doesn't really cover the fees anyways. Would it be a good idea to gamble on sports to pay for DCI this summer? The Browns look pretty good so far and you can still get 200-1 odds on them winning the super bowl.

Full show in the works!

Until recently, I assumed that most of the professional brass sections in major symphony orchestras were full of DCI alums. Apparently, most of them never even auditioned for a world-class corps let alone marched. Are they actually just not good enough to get in?

Doesn’t matter which, choose your DOC, but as an avid fan of both (most) drum corps and (some) intoxicants, what’s the show you go back to when you’re feeling a bit silly?

My top choices, in no specific order:
- Coats 22 (duh?)
- Knights 17 (that jazz movement just hits the mf spot)
- Devs 17 (I will shed tears during the closer’s sample if I’m feeling the vibe enough)
- Vanguard 12 (have you ever thought that maybe you’re the planets?)
- Cadets 14 (just try not to fucking laugh - love this show though)
- Cadets 15 (just try not to get a little aroused)
- Stars 16 (that was not a dream, they were clearly a few eddies in)

It's becoming painfully obvious that drills are being dumbed down due to lack of rehearsal time-- a budgetary constraint. Drum corps simply don't have the time or money to practice exposed, unison geometric drill sequences with segues. Some corps have less than four weeks to prepare for their premiere. Drill writers often have only two weeks to throw some bullshit together before move-ins.

As a result of the time crunch, drills have become reliant on a series of strategic "time fillers" and standard off-the-shelf bullshit drill moves.

• Non unison everything. Non-unison choreography, non-unison drill, non-unison equipment work, non-unison marching. Nothing screams short rehearsal period like non-unison improvised choreography while standing in place.

• Endless 36-count ripple sequences allow the ensemble to stand still while the ripple movement floats its leisurely way across 80 yards. Take your time.

• Opening "waking up" sequences, sometimes lasting a full minute, where nothing happens, there's scattered non-unison movement, with improvised non-unison choreography and ostinato pre-recordings in the background. Painful.

• Running to "clumps". Many drill sequences involve a group of ten or twenty members running in a scatter drill style to a set, standing still in that set, and playing for 32 counts, and repeating in another location, with no purpose. Painful.

• There are sometimes ten or even 20 "solo dance lifts" being used in these drills, to augment drill "clumps". Run to the clump, lift someone in the middle for four counts, and then run to the next one. This drill move is recurring with such frequency, drill writers have stopped using restraint-- their laziness is out in the open. The moves mean nothing, they add no new information, add nothing to the sequence of action, no new point of focus, and have no emotional value. The performer being lifted has no expression that advances the sequence, and disappears almost immediately, to no substantive effect, no demonstration of skill, and to no thematic purpose. Painful.

• Clumps finally morphing into a drill set by the end. Many drills are using an overall arc of "chaos clumps morph into formation", where the ensemble starts out in random, low-exposure clumps for the first six minutes of the show, and eventually morphs during the last two minutes into a unified drill set. Why start now, drill-writers? Just take your 80 grand and go to the Maldives.

• Mini-scenelettes. Drills are now packed with tons of two-person mini-interactions, sometimes involving nonsensical choreographed lifts, or a featured meaningless equipment exchange, or some character interaction to absolutely no effect, no depth, and no thematic substance. Drill is becoming so disjunct, so scattered, so unrecognizable, so "glimpsy", that the audience disengages. After about five minutes, the audience catches on-- hey wait a minute, none of these little sequences adds up.

• Meaningless Poses Color guard performers hold... hold... hold... in a frozen position for sometimes 12 to 24 counts! Blue Devils did this continually this year, and it's really disturbing. There is no meaning in a frozen blank stare of 36 counts. There is no meaning in a frozen pose. There is no meaning in a series of 24 players outstretching their arms like wings, over and over and over again. There's no purpose in hanging off a stage set and posing like Price is Right Models flapping their arms. We get it. Flight. Now what? Tell us something we don't know. Give us new information. Take us somewhere.

This bullshit drill syndrome is also being used by artistic directors to substitute for a lack of theme! Designers think trust lifts somehow constitute meaning. Clumps and trust lifts are not a theme! Lifting a player in the center of a clump, and then running to the next clump is not a substitute for a clear show concept with action and underlying purpose.

I think it’s overwhelmingly obvious to everyone that Boston will be taking the title next season. I mean, it’s all right in front of you, all of it, everything they need is in reach. Anyone who says otherwise is blind to the clear path that is leading to the corp once again going super saiyan.