hype of the week: 1976 blue devils

When I need to energize myself -- for an event, for a hard effort, for whatever -- when I need a dose of confidence, when I need to get "hyped", I often turn to drum corps.

I marched for more than half a season in my local drum and bugle corps -- the Spartans of Vancouver, WA -- until my father lost his job, got blackballed by his union (loooong story), and we suddenly were eating a lot of macaroni and cheese and tuna casserole and my folks could no longer come up with the balance of the money needed for me to go on second [national] tour. I came home from first [Pacific NW] tour to the news that my folks had to pull me out of the corps. I was heartbroken. I went on to march in my high school band, but as anyone who has marched in both can tell you, school band is not the same. I collected drum corps recordings after that, and whenever a show came to town I would try to scrape up money for tickets, but the spring and summer of 1978 was the beginning -- and the end -- of my experience as a marching member of a corps.

Still, I hear drum corps in my head whenever I need to boost myself a little.
In anticipation of my next race tomorrow night, I went skipping around and found this delightful flashback, to what drum corps looked and sounded like when I marched.

At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I'll go out on a limb and say this is the way real drum corps was, and ought to be. Enjoy.