No more amps?

There is an on-line petition set up to protest the inclusion of amplification in the Drum Corps activity, specifically in DCI ( http://www.dci.org ):

I am starting a movement to make drum and bugle corps an ACOUSTIC musical activity once again. I took the first step by creating the Keep the Amps out of Drum Corps petition at petitiononline.com. You can view and SIGN the petition at this address: http://www.petitiononline.com/SCV1987/petition.html



Thank you for supporting us.

http://www.freewebs.com/noamps/index.htm



Myself, I am waiting to hear what an "amped" corps sounds like live before I join such a protest.

Belleville Drum Corps Show

The Belleville show is an exhibition and mostly a senior corps show! I found that out thanks to google. Here are the details:

July 10, 2004
Zwick's Island Soccer Pitch, Belleville, ON
gates open at 5:30 p.m., the show will start at 7:30 p.m.
The Festival Hotline: 1-613-969-1980
http://www.bellevillewaterfrontfestival.com/drum.html

Unfortunately it's not clear from the show sponsor's web site which of the three days the show will occur. However as I noticed the Optimist Alumni Corps will be at the show I checked their site and confirmed that the show is on Saturday, July 10. Kudos to the Optimists web site team for keeping an up-to-date site. That's no mean feat.

Canadian Open 2004

Further to the Dutch Boy show mentioned below:

Saturday July 17th, 2004
Centennial Stadium - Kitchener, ON
Times TBA
For Tickets call: 519-745-0303 or 1-800-265-6368

http://home.cogeco.ca/~canadianopen

The ODCA speaks!

Well Tom Bigas does anyway. Tom has written me back with information on the following Drum Corps contests that will occur in Ontario this summer:

Belleville Show July 9th, 2004
Dutch Boy Show, Kitchener July 17th, 2004
Kiwanis Kavaliers Show, Kitchener July 29, 2004

He also tells me of a show upcoming in Buffalo, New York with the following details:

Buffalo on July 26th, at Dunn Tire Park
275 Washington St.
Buffalo, NY
Ticket line: 716-846-2002 Info only: 716-867-1618

I will follow-up with some links to these shows when I can find them. Tom promises that the ODCA calendar will be updated with details on these shows soon.

Alumni Corps Report

Toronto Optimist Alumni debut at St. Joe's Classic

The Optimist Alumni Corps 2004 has debuted to a good review in Drum Corps World. Follow the link above for the entire report of the St. Joe Classic show in Greece (?) New York on April 24, 2004. There are links to photos of the event on Mighty St. Joe's site. The Optimists seem to have polished the show that I saw in Toronto last summer to good effect. Practising makes you better. Who knew?

Ambassadors, now field is yours,

Looking about for the F.A.M.Q. (http://www.famq.qc.ca), I found this article from 2002 in the Drum Corps World web site:

FAMQ plans changes for 2002

in particular:

"With only four corps, it is impossible to hold a contest proper," he said. "Corps directors therefore voted to abolish the rule that forced all events to be of a competitive nature." The new ruling will allow for various types of presentations to take place at Quebec's drum corps events during the 2002 season.

"No more timing and penalties, no more minimum or maximum," Labelle said. "Corps can add features such as charts they play in parades, individual presentations, choral pieces. Corps can now do anything they want."

I had wrongly assumed that the F.A.M.Q. was doing better than corps elsewhere in Canada. Things could be worse for the ODCA it seems.

That was no band! It was a ... ah nevermind.

HEAT WAVE HITS ONTARIO

Looking at the T.V. commercial as opposed to the graphics in the papers, I thought the snare line was a bit hard core (as it were) to be a band. I also thought that there seemed to be a lack of woodwinds. Now my suspicions are confirmed.

It's too bad that the Ontario Lotto Corporation couldn't have looked a little closer to home, but perhaps they did and were not able to find any that could fit the bill.