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OAWB with Steve Vickers from Drum Corps World
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This week we go On A Water Break with, hosts Nicole and Trish welcome the legendary Steve Vickers, Publisher of Drum Corps World, for an in-depth conversation about the magazine’s rich history, its mission, and its impact on the global drum corps community.
Since its inception in 1971 alongside the formation of Drum Corps International, Drum Corps World has been a cornerstone of the marching arts, offering a unique platform for stories, reviews, and stunning photography from around the globe. Published 17 times a year, the magazine showcases everything from World and Open Class corps to international ensembles, alumni groups, and emerging programs like SoundSport and Drumline Battle.
Join us as Steve shares insights into his decades-long journey with Drum Corps World, the evolution of the publication from a tabloid newspaper to an online magazine, and how its worldwide network of writers and photographers captures the spirit and artistry of the activity.
Whether you're a seasoned drum corps enthusiast or new to the marching arts, this episode is packed with fascinating stories and behind-the-scenes perspectives. Don’t miss it!
🎧 Available now wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction with Steve Vickers
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone and welcome back to On A Water Break, the podcast where we talk about everything that you and your friends are talking about at rehearsal on a water break. This week, we are going on a water break with Steve Vickers from Drum Corps World.
00:00:13
Speaker
um a offlf the met and go welcome you on a waterbrick podcast where we talk
00:00:31
Speaker
Hi everyone, it's Nicole, and we are having a really special on-a-water break today.
Evolution of Drum Corps World
00:00:38
Speaker
Drum Corps World began in October of 1971, and at that time, Drum Corps International was formed and was produced continuously as a tabloid newspaper until about April of 2011.
00:00:51
Speaker
and on the internet since May of 2011. The worldwide staff of writers and photographers provide show reviews during the season and interviews, feature articles, ah news, and human interest stories during the off season. The publication covers World and Open Class Drum Corps International Corps, Open and A-Class Drum Corps Associate Corps, Alumni, Mini Corps, SoundSport, Drum Battle, Parade, Exhibition, and Standstill Units,
00:01:20
Speaker
But before we get going on to any more of that, joining me on the sidelines this week is our amazing Trish. How are you? Hello. Hello. How are you? So Trish, what's your first memory of Drum Corps World? Oh my gosh. I remember being a little kid. You know, I, I always, I never wanted to be that person in this activity that was the, well, back in my day person, yet here we are. Um, I exactly i never wanted to be that person like that. The, you know, the,
00:01:50
Speaker
Older person in the activity but i guess here we are so i'm still trying to be young though and shes so i have to say what i was a kid and i was in my local hometown drunk or the sun downers and you want to jersey um it was.
Personal Reflections and Comparisons
00:02:07
Speaker
I mean getting drum corps world was like getting the daily news. Honestly, I mean it was like when that came Um, I think my dad even let us subscribe to it. Um when that arrived um, it was just like Even you know like you do they would cover so many events like not just there aren't really those local hometown, you know local circuit things anymore in drum corps, um, you know, you know everything's pretty much, you know big scale but Back in my day, all our little town little hometown drum corps used to compete again you know in in smaller shows, and Drum Corps World had it. They were on it. They had the results. They had the little write-up about our little show. And you know that was like just seeing your name or a picture of you guys competing. I mean, it was it was it was just it was like rock star status at that point. And we all looked forward to it. Yep. It's like, hey, everybody got the latest edition? Yes. Oh, totally.
00:03:07
Speaker
I will tell you, like when I started, when I got Drum Corps World, I also was getting, um well not at the same time, but um I was also getting WGI focus. That was like, I don't know, it just fed my nerd for the activity. inner like I loved having that around of course when times change and now we're all online but you know It was really nice to like open that up and like you said see a picture of yourself and it's just like oh I have been seen and Right, right. Ah Well, um, let's do this we've kept him on the sidelines long enough.
Steve Vickers' Drum Corps Journey
00:03:46
Speaker
So please welcome the publisher Steve Vickers
00:03:50
Speaker
Hi, everybody. I'm Steve Vickers from Madison, Wisconsin, and publisher of Drum Corps World, which I've done for the last 50 years. hard to Hard to believe. I started in Drum Corps in 1961 in the Skyriders' feeder corps, the Jets, marched in the Skyriders from 67 to 70 when I aged out. At that time in the late 60s, I was riding a column from the Great Plains ah for Drum Corps Digest. And then I transferred over to Drum Corps News, the Boston-based tabloid. And then in 1971, I started writing for Drum Corps World. In fact, the very first issue of the Drum Corps World that was distributed at the American Legion Uniform Groups Congress in October of 71 in Indianapolis, I had a column on the Great Plains.
00:04:45
Speaker
and i I was there at the exact same time that DCI was announced, so we both started at the same time. and ah In 1973, I was hired as the editor and I bought the magazine a year later. But where did this love for the activity start? Was it high school? like Tell us about how it began.
00:05:10
Speaker
Interestingly enough, my dad's one of my dad's friends from high school in Abilene, Kansas was the director of the Skyriders. I became aware of the Corps because my the back fence of my backyard was the Kansas State Paragrams.
00:05:29
Speaker
And at 6 o'clock in the morning, the skywriters used to practice right behind my house at 6 o'clock in the morning. And so that's how I became aware of them. And one day in 1960, this was in May of 1960, he came to our house to ask me if I wanted to be in the skywriters' feeder corps. And his name was Harlow Prof McCosh.
00:05:55
Speaker
and And his son was thick the mascot of the Corps, and I still remember him, his son Michael, sitting on the hood of the car while prof came in to talk to my parents about me joining. And I played c clarinet and band rather than a brass instrument, so I started out just playing a straight bass drum, keeping the keeping the beat.
00:06:23
Speaker
And I used to, it was a it was an old base drum, wooden base drum, and a red bio or canvas case. And I used to drive ride my bike over to the practice field holding that on the back of the um the saddle baskets. And so that's how I got my start. And my first show that I marched in was in Enard, Oklahoma.
00:06:47
Speaker
There was a ah ah great old girl over there called the Legionettes. And I marched in that first show a month after I joined. So I learned enough, I guess. so no You show in a week. Yeah, so that was the start.
00:07:08
Speaker
I had a great time in the Jets and in 1966, when I was a junior in high school, I became the director of the Jets and I was really good at recruiting.
00:07:19
Speaker
While you were a junior in high school? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but you were a junior in high school? Yes. And I recruited like crazy, Colin Clarence and kids. I got a list of kids from the band directors of the three junior high schools. And I literally had 120 kids in the Jets.
00:07:39
Speaker
We had players we had all but those little 10 inch symbols. We had a bunch of those. And so we had every kid we that wanted to be in, was in. And the next year, my parents didn't really, was weren't really thrilled about me marching the Skyriders or moving up, I should say.
00:08:00
Speaker
But finally, in 1967, they relented. And so I went into the Skyriders and marched from 67 to 70 when I aged out. And then I was on the staff doing a lot of publicity and did some other work with the Corps through June of 73 when I was asked to become the editor of them.
00:08:24
Speaker
Steve, what was your age out like? I mean, what was i mean I can remember when you know I came to that date on the calendar when I could no longer do this, you know um at least at that level. um What was it like for you, aging out? Were you just so excited to jump into the next aspect of it that you were just ready to age out? What was it like for you?
Career Transition and Business Success
00:08:48
Speaker
My age out in 1970 was at a show in, I don't remember the name of the place, it was a suburb of Kansas City and Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
00:09:03
Speaker
And I remember vividly that last performance. ah And i I was very, very sad um that I was aging out and that I hadn't really thought about anything beyond that other than I Probably can i knew that i was gonna continue writing a column at the time for drunk or digest and then drunk or news so when i aged out of the sky riders i stayed involved helping with publicity and the
00:09:36
Speaker
one of my first jobs out of college was with an advertising agency in Hutchinson and then my second job there was for a summer was with the Chamber of Commerce and the head of the Chamber of Commerce had three sons in the sky riders and I did some brochures and some sales things for the Chamber of Commerce and that was in 70 72. And then I was working for Sears full time as a ah first I was the manager of this pretty good department. And then I was the advertising manager of the store. And in the third week in June, I was still living at home, my the phone rang. And I picked up the phone, I said, Hello, and this voice on the other end said, Do you want the job?
00:10:26
Speaker
And I had to stop and realize who it was and what that question meant. And it was Don Whiteley, who I had become friends with. He was the the PR director at the ABC TV station in Denver. And was the co-founder with Jim Jones from the Troopers of Drones on the Rockies. And so I realized what he was asking me and without any hesitation, I said yes. So the next day I gave my two weeks notice at Sears, I packed up my little 1973
00:11:04
Speaker
Volkswagen Super Beetle, and drove out to Denver, lived at Don Whiteley's apartment for two or three months, and then got out on my own. I still remember the day that I arrived. I went to Cinderella City, which at the time was the world's largest shopping center. And ah Jackie Price was the business manager of drone core world, and she was the assistant to the manager of Cinderella City.
00:11:31
Speaker
She gave me a key and I drove up Hamden Avenue to this building that was a plumbing supply place and the drunk or rolled office was on the ah second floor. And I watch to went upstairs and there were all these galleys of type on ah with wax on the back lying on a table or a desk. And I had to put the first issue together and I literally had never done a paste up.
00:11:57
Speaker
hello I went to the University of Kansas, i've got a degree in journalism, but almost nothing we did in classes was practical. yeah It was just theoretical. And so I literally learned I'm jumping right in and the first is you didn't look very good but after that it looked a lot better and in the fall in october i talked jim jones and don wiley and the paying for going to a paper instead of newsprint.
00:12:33
Speaker
and The first issue was ah ah printed printed on a printing press it sheet by sheet. and We did that for a while and then in the spring of 74, the business was pretty much bankrupt.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I was let go, and the printer, Dick Winland, who was at the time the director of the Blue Knights, called me one day and he said, do you want the magazine? And I said, well, what do you mean by that? And he said, oh give I'll give it to you. And I said, and well, what does that involve? And he said, well, i I'll cut my printing bill in half, and then you pay that off and and it's yours.
00:13:20
Speaker
and for the price of a dollar. Wow. I'm not sure I ever paid them the dollar, to be honest. but but i and The first the first the first the six months before I took it over, the the business took in about $3,700. The first six months that I had, I took in $37,000.
00:13:46
Speaker
um so I was able to turn it around. Do you want to jump in and like ask a question about this? because This is a great segue into my next question like what the ah um around the time you're talking about. How old were you during this? I was 24 years old in 1973.
00:14:05
Speaker
So this is like an a plethora of like opportunity that has been like bounding down your door since you were a junior in high school. This is just unheard of. Don Wiley was an incredible person. He was he was he ran drums along the Rockies in Denver and ultimately got involved with DCI and in Ithaca in 1974, helping them with publicity. And then he was hired by Don Pestioni, the DCI Executive Director, to become to work for full full time from that point on for DCI. Unfortunately, he left DCI in 1980, and i've always been I've always felt that the activity would have been better off if he'd been able to stay with it because he was a brilliant promoter, not ah not somebody would who would go to a show and sit down and watch the course.
00:15:00
Speaker
He was more behind the scenes, ah letting people know about what this activity was. And all those shows in the South, ah he started in Atlanta and Little Rock and and so forth, called Drums Across America.
00:15:15
Speaker
So I owe all of this really to Don Whitely. Well,
Relocation and Opportunities in Madison
00:15:20
Speaker
I want to know a little bit more about the early days at Drum Corps World. So if you could tell us a little bit about that, like when you came in, what is it that you did? What is it that got done? Like how was that for Green Steve?
00:15:34
Speaker
stuff Well, I set up an office in my apartment, and I had some several several friends who were sort of interns or were helping me. A woman named Vicki Hasley, who marched in the troopers, helped me.
00:15:52
Speaker
a kind of lived in the apartment below me. I was playing some Chuck Mangione music. And he came knocking on the door. He wasn't a drunk or person, but he was a drunk Mangione fan. And he ah he helped me a bit. And I had some other people I had a young man named. I can't think of his name now. He was he was a student at the University at the Colorado School of Mines, which was in Golden, Colorado. That's where I was living at the time.
00:16:25
Speaker
is anyone Pardon? Did you say mime, mime? like like Minds. So he he helped me for quite a bit. These were all, you know, volunteer times and I wasn't paying my I wasn't making a living at it either at the time. And so those were the early days I eventually yeah I was I was on the board of the blue nights I was I helped with films on the Rockies and in nineteen seventy seven and seventy eight I ran a ah DCI tour show called it was a drums on rocky show in Greeley Colorado.
00:17:09
Speaker
The first year was with the ah world the top 12 cores, not all of them, but it was ah that that level of show. And then the second year was and what, back in those days, were associate cores, cores 13 through 25.
00:17:25
Speaker
and After those two years of DCI and 77 and 78 and those two years of Greeley, I came to the realization that Denver was a long way from a lot of drum corps shows.
00:17:39
Speaker
and so I had, in the spring of 1978, well, a couple of years before that, I had come to Madison several times to see drums on the, drum I'm sorry, drums on parade. And I met this couple, Jim and Gene Seafelt, and one day they asked me, why don't you move to Madison? And I i i thought about that, and I decided that I'm going to do that.
00:18:10
Speaker
I started telling everybody I was going to move so I wouldn't back out of it. and I arrived in madison Madison on New Year's Day in 1979 in the midst of a blizzard, a literal blizzard. It was the most snow I think Madison had ever had in a winter.
00:18:29
Speaker
and From that point on i shared an apartment or a duplex with ah alex salutas who was sort of my original business partner and i had a office set up in the basement.
00:18:48
Speaker
the unfinished basement. And so from that point on, I've been doing the magazine ever since and I have never regretted for a moment moving to Madison. to me I was on the board of the Scouts for 36 years. I helped with, I produced dozens, several dozen program books for them and was involved in 1988 when the Corps had their 50th anniversary I got a $90,000 grant from the private Cincinnati foundation wow and we took the court of Europe for two and a half weeks and I was I did all the logistics for that over the telephone we didn't have the internet back in those days and arranged for buses and ah an equipment truck and and housing and Scott Stewart the director of the scouts and I went over there in the spring and
00:19:41
Speaker
I checked out the housing sites and the place where we were going to run shows. We ran four shows in Germany, one in The Hague, Holland, and one in, or two in the United Kingdom, in Coventry and Luton. So, that was great. Why then the activity was doing that European trip. That's amazing.
Early Contributors and Milestones
00:20:04
Speaker
Steve, do you remember the first episode, the first issue? What was the lead story in the first issue?
00:20:09
Speaker
Well, there were there were a bunch of articles already typeset. And so I put those together. And back in those days, I would get half tones or photos that were like a dot pattern and with wax on the back. And so I i would build articles around the photos. And in those days, there wasn't an opportunity to ah include a lot of photos.
00:20:40
Speaker
right As opposed to today when i feel all my issues with the photos because i want people to see as many pictures as as i can give them and um've i've often said ah i can put out an issue with one page.
00:21:00
Speaker
or a thousand pages right doesn't cost me anymore other than the amount of time that it would take to put it together What is the average size of the issues that i put out for the last.
00:21:13
Speaker
eight or nine years is about 100 pages. Yeah. And so I'm i'm'm really proud of that. But back in those days, I had a ah great number of writers.
00:21:28
Speaker
Frank and Mike, or Frank McGee and Mike Boyle were writers. They had marched in the Bay on Bridgeman. They covered DC. I'm sorry. Go Jersey.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, elridgeman and Ian and Paul Stott in Canada, and several people in California, Fred Lopez in Seattle. Those are all early riders. And not too long.
00:21:59
Speaker
ah Well, I think it was in 1986, my longest continuously running column, Brian Tolzman, who does the Amazing Rule of Drum Corps, he finds all these very interesting little tidbits that I have no idea of where he finds everything. But that's that column has been going since 1986 in every issue. And so I've been very fortunate to have a wide variety of photographers and writers literally all over the world that are all volunteers. they Their payment is a byline. so Steve, when did you feel like, okay, so you started out, it seemed to be you know pretty successful right off the rip, but when did you feel like, okay, I've made it, I've arrived, this is a thing, this is really successful. what did you When did you feel like that happened?
00:22:57
Speaker
1982 is when I first first hired an employee. Linda Hilton was my editor. She had done yearbooks for the Madison Scouts. Her son Matt was in the Scouts, and her husband Dan was on the board of directors. And so Linda was a great asset at the time. um I my rented an office near the Madison airport. And so it was just the two of us for a couple or three years. And then I hired an office manager, Barb Loeffelholz, who was with me for 19 years as my office manager. And in the early 2000s, I decided I couldn't afford to have other employees. So I did this on my own and moved into a
00:23:52
Speaker
an apartment and ran it out of my apartment and ever since. i had ah I've been through three different condos. I'm now in a retirement place in Madison and still doing it out of a next spare bedroom.
00:24:10
Speaker
So 1982 was really the turnaround. And and in I don't know whether I'm jumping ahead here on things you're going to ask about, but my books that I produced in 2002 and 2003, the They were hardcover, 432-page books. They were produced by Jostens, the people that do school yearbooks. I went to them because they specialize in printing big books, small quantities.
00:24:44
Speaker
And I wouldn't still be in business if I hadn't done those two books, because they were very successful. I sold the i sold enough of the first volume to pay for the whole production before the before the books were delivered. And I had a lot of things left over. So I decided to do a second book a year later. And same thing, I was able to pay for the the total production of the book before it was released and then i re-printed volume one is a softcover book years later and ah then for a long time they were available on on the internet as a downloadable p PDF.
00:25:32
Speaker
That's so awesome, Steve.
Promotions and Partnerships
00:25:34
Speaker
You've got such a rich history in all of this, and we haven't even scratched the surface. So um I'm just going to do this for right now. So let's go back into our sectional so we can show Steve what we've been working on. um And we'll be right back with more about Drum Corps World, plus ah what are we doing in Gush and Go's. I'm good.
00:26:02
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:26:48
Speaker
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00:27:23
Speaker
So Steve, we've gotten a lot of information about you and um I will have to say that your resume is um impressive and also like I don't I mean I can only imagine how many people you met and how many ah like lives you are shows that you were around for like the inception of um There are a couple of things that stood out to me. So if I can, I wanted to um stretch my journalism leg and probably go ahead and ask you about that. um So you being the avid traveler um says that you actually went and attended DC UK and DC Europe um from like 1979 to 2019.
00:28:13
Speaker
I will tell you, 1979, I was a whopping one years old. so All right.
Cultural Comparisons in Drum Corps
00:28:21
Speaker
But um I just want to ask, what's the biggest difference that you see between UK and Europe drum corps and American drum corps?
00:28:31
Speaker
two Two major things. One, there's no universal music in the schools. So it's kind of like drone core in the 50s and 60s when kids came in and were taught by rote.
00:28:45
Speaker
And the other changes or the other differences that there's, they don't tour and they have very few shows. I think at at Drum Corps, United Kingdom's peak, there were maybe, they maybe did five or six shows the whole summer. And they started in May and went through to the end of June.
00:29:04
Speaker
or at the end of September. so And and much as much the same in Europe. So unfortunately, COVID has really made a terrible impact on Troncor over there.
00:29:20
Speaker
ah and One of the interesting things is with Trump, we're out of the kingdom. They just announced that they're going to stop doing summer and they're doing sound sport kind of like back in the 60s. There were a lot of.
00:29:36
Speaker
They used to call them small core contests on a basketball court. And I think that's where the direction they're going. And they had three cores of their championship this year. And they already have nine cores signed up ah to do sound sport. Most of the and the new ones are cores coming back.
00:30:00
Speaker
They didn't get rid of their uniforms or their equipment, and there's still a lot of enthusiasm for doing this in the wintertime, so there's not so much pressure.
00:30:14
Speaker
I do have another question for you. Your volunteer background is so vast, and I would say big, but when I say vast, I do mean that just because of how much you I went down and saw. There are some really interesting things I did see, though, and it said that you were on the board of directors for Capitol Airs, which was an all-girl Drum & Bugle Corps that was in Madison from 85 to 87, which I wish we could have more of those because I i hear it all the time that there were all-girl Drum & Bugle Corps course. At that same time though, I want to say in 1986, you also served on the board of directors of Madison. So I wanted to know if Capitol heirs and Madison, were they like a brother-sister drum corps? Were they have anything to do with each other? Like
00:30:59
Speaker
They were two separate cores, but I think the the person who started the Capital Airs did it because there was an all-boy core and they she wanted ah an all-girl core. I think her name was Pat Bargenhagen. And there were dozens and dozens of all-girl cores. For example, just in Quebec, there were 20 or 30 all-girl cores.
00:31:27
Speaker
I used to march in upstate New York, so I knew all about that, too. And I know I look a lot younger than I actually am, but just let that proceed. Let's go ahead and play our you know mind games with that. But i after hearing that, though, I just thought that that was amazing how you you know served on the board of directors there and then on Madison, because it just has everything in there, too. And I'm sure that you probably could have gotten a lot of information to put in the Drum Corps World you know magazines about both of them and any of the other.
00:31:57
Speaker
you know, all female ones. I gotta be a little careful, though, to not appear as if I'm favoring the two cores in Madison.
00:32:07
Speaker
save
00:32:11
Speaker
It's all great. The first thing that we would like to do, actually, you know what, Trish, let me let you let him into this. We're gonna go into what are we doing? What are we doing?
00:32:28
Speaker
um what are we doing? So, in this next part, ah it's very tongue-in-cheek, like, what are we doing? And I think you already know what you're doing for what are we doing. So, um Steve, I have to ask, what are we doing? one of the To me, one of the sad things about the activity today is that there hundreds if not thousands of kids who want to audit audition for a drum corps and there are so few openings available and there are far too many or far too few corps. We could use another 100 or 150 drum corps
00:33:10
Speaker
Unfortunately, it's just staggering how much it costs. but i the ah This is an incredible activity that kids want to be a part of, and it can only handle a pretty small number of people.
00:33:27
Speaker
So i I'm involved with a group of people who were restarting the Skyriders after 32 years. And they're gonna they're goingnna they were a sound sport group last summer, sound sport again this summer. This year we're doing three shows in Ankeny and Dubuque, Iowa and Weill, Illinois. And that'll be our little tour.
00:33:52
Speaker
And we're taking it very carefully. Dale Antoine, who was director of the Skyriders in 1985, 1986 and 1987, those great years of the Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, and the music, is the executive director again.
00:34:08
Speaker
We've started a performing arts foundation and we've got an incredible staff put together of alumni, mostly alumni, all volunteer. And so, you know, I guess on the side of besides doing your own core rural, I'm involved in that as well. Awesome.
00:34:29
Speaker
Trish, do you have a, do you have one? I think um what Steve just said triggered me a little bit. um And I think I'm going to, my what are we doing today is going to be, what are we doing making a core like the Skywriters do sound sport?
00:34:44
Speaker
like um Back in the day, you just, here I am with back in the day. ah Back in the day, you just started a drum corps and you just said you wanted to compete and you just competed. I mean, i'm sure I have to read up on it. I'm sure there are very logical steps and logical um you know you know reasons for the decision. you know But like what do we do in making people do sound sport for a couple of years? like Enlighten me. Somebody explain it to me. but Scott, I would be excited to see the SkyRide is back up and running right back out there. and you know that' would be That would be awesome. I would really be, you know but maybe it could have happened sooner if they didn't have to do sound sport. You know what I mean? so That's not what we're doing. <unk>ically it was It's a shame that the sound sport concept didn't happen.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah, 20 years ago, because I don't think we would think so. first I absolutely believe that. Unfortunately, a lot of the cores that we lost both I always use the example in 1972, DCI's first year, there were in North America, there were 475 active course in Canada and the United States. And one of my writers, Brian Tolsman, used to do ah an article every year, a drunk or census of the
00:36:10
Speaker
tca course and the junior course and that number just kept going down and down and down and down and you know right now between the open world world-class open class and all age i think we might come to about 70 groups maybe a little bit more than that but but You know, there have literally been thousands, of course, in the history of the activity which dates back to 1921, which was the first American Legion convention where there was a competitive parade.
00:36:49
Speaker
And that evolved into field shows a few years later. And the BFW came along in 1928. And American Legion started Sons of the American Legion Junior Corps. So that's when what we know today really started. But the activity changed a lot.
00:37:12
Speaker
in the early 50s, and there were several thousand active corps back in those days. What seriously hurt the activity in the late 60s was the Vietnam War draft and drugs.
00:37:32
Speaker
Sadly drugs and that killed a lot of course off and then DCI came along and there there were no real controls over what course did or didn't do and so the ultimate goal was to go to DCI every year and of course made that trip and shouldn't have and they went home and often folded and and But Drum Corps today, I feel pretty strongly that the corps that we still have today are much more stable. And they've figured out how to exist in the circumstances that they the activity finds itself in.
00:38:16
Speaker
Wow. um see this and then i have Well, let me go into my what are we doing. What are we doing not really diving into, I guess you could say, the legacy or the history of but where publication comes from? Because Right now, the kids that are marching and even some of the staff members, because they're not that old, um are from the area of the internet. So everything is coming off the internet. um I honestly wish that you know some people could just look at a couple of issues of of drum corps world and know, hey, this is what we used to do. like Sit around with drum corps newspapers, sip on some coffee, but I really would love for them to see that and to know like this is where this came from.
00:39:03
Speaker
And honestly, too, the fact that we really did read that and it was just like that word was bond, you know, um it was something that we all looked forward to and for it to come out. So I do have a we have a question for you, Steve, honestly, that comes up kind of comes off of that. um So as far as drum cold world is ah is concerned, one, this is a twofer. You have an apprentice. Is there someone that you're showing the ropes to right now?
00:39:32
Speaker
No, unfortunately. oh Okay, so this is going to go out to so many people. You are going to be more popular than you know, but... Well, I hope so. And you know, it is free. All you have to do is go to dronecorpeworld.com and sign up.
00:39:48
Speaker
me But the other part of this, too, is what are the goals for a drone corps world in the next like five to ten years? I want my legacy to continue, obviously. I want the publication to continue to cover all aspects of the activity. To me, the smallest corps are as important as the groups at the top.
00:40:10
Speaker
You know, they're all working hard. They're all giving the kids an incredible experience that they wouldn't be able to get in anything else that they would do.
Organizing DCI Championships
00:40:20
Speaker
I've always believed that the drunker activity is the ultimate great experience for our young people, even beyond sports. ah And so, you know, I'm i'm hopeful that drunk or well will go on for a long time.
00:40:36
Speaker
ah Oh, that's awesome. Okay. Great job, everyone. Set your equipment down. Gush and go. All right. So this next part is gush and go. You can gush and go. Basically, you're just um telling us anything that's going on in your life that you want to brag about.
00:40:54
Speaker
I think one of my proudest moments in the activity, honestly, he was in 1985, I talked to the director of the Madison scout scott stewart Scott Stewart about bringing the DCI championships to Madison. And Camp Randall was such an ideal place ah to host the championships. And so I approached the flooding department about using Camp Randall.
00:41:24
Speaker
It had never been used in its history by an outside group. and ah i I went through all kinds of hurdles working with the assistant athletic director who was about to retire and didn't want his rut to be disturbed.
00:41:45
Speaker
and We finally got the use of Camp Randall. I pointed out the value of the PR for all the kids being on campus, all the people from all over the country coming to the championships, and the money that they would make renting the stadium. And they also controlled all the concessions. So the University of Wisconsin made a lot of money off this event. And it ended up being held in Madison seven times.
00:42:15
Speaker
And I was chairman of five of those. Oh, I was going to tell you, thank you, because ah I aged out. um My age out was done at Camp Randall. Oh, cool. Yeah. So when you said that, I was just like, oh, that is a performance I will never forget. and was so Camp Randall and Madison were so are still among the very favorite places for the chorus to perform and also the spectators to come to.
00:42:44
Speaker
And we had it in 1985, 6 and 7, again in 1992. That was DCI's 20th anniversary. We had it in 1999,
00:42:57
Speaker
nine yeah 2002 and 2006 was the last time it was here in Madison. So, you know, i'm I'm really proud of the fact that we were able to get Camp Randall to use for this event. And, you know, up until DCI passed a certain, passed the number eight ah championship, we had had ah more than anybody else. And it was sort of like, go back to a
00:43:29
Speaker
a site to in ensure a successful championship. And I will add, in 1985, we had, I think today, still the largest crowd that DCI has ever had. We had a little more than 40,000 people at the finals.
00:43:53
Speaker
And we had, I think, about 85 cores. I remember tramping through almost 90 schools, counting toilets and shower heads and rooms we could use and gyms we could use and fields we could use. And the other kind of proable ah proud thing about this was that my committee was myself and a gentleman named Dan O'Meelinowski.
00:44:21
Speaker
who was on the scouts board with me and he's the one who handled all the negotiations with the school districts and there were schools we ran into that first of all said no because they had a bad experience back in the seventies or early eighties with a drunk or doing damage or or whatever. And I appeared before two or three different school boards ah to get the use of schools and was able to get each one that I appeared before. So we had almost 90 schools the first year, which was more than we needed. Unfortunately today, ah it's
00:45:08
Speaker
and an incredible challenge for local sponsors as well as DCI Championships to find housing. It's easier to say no than to let a group into a school building.
00:45:23
Speaker
um I'm going on my first, next week I'll be going to my first music convention. So Indiana Music Educators Association um and i'm I'm excited to do it. I've never been to one um and hopefully this opens a little bit more doors to me and I really want to see what actually happens there as well. So I'm very excited
Unsuccessful Ventures
00:45:44
Speaker
to go.
00:45:44
Speaker
Well, I used to go to the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic ah in Chicago at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. ah A number of years ago, I started a band magazine to go along with Tranquil World called today's music educator. It was a quarterly magazine. It only came out, I think, 10 times over a several-year period. A number of years later, I tried again working with Bands of America to start another magazine magazine called Bandbeat. It only came out twice. Maynard Ferguson, didt we did an interview with Maynard Ferguson. He was on the cover.
00:46:31
Speaker
and a lot of other articles. And the second issue had the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on the cover. interview And one of the members of Big be Bad Voodoo Daddy was a drum corps person. So that's how we were able to connect there.
00:46:52
Speaker
so You know, i unfortunately, neither one of the band magazines caught on. The first one was aimed at kids. The second one was aimed at the band directors. I had people tell me band directors have piles and piles of things on their desk that they can never get to because they're just so overwhelmed. And I sort of chalked that up to that's why it didn't catch on the second one, Bandbeat. So, you know, I i tried.
00:47:22
Speaker
Wasn't successful, but it didn't kill Drum Corps World. There you go. Well, I'm going to gushing go about how much Drum Corps World has had an impact not only on this activity as a whole, but on me as a performer, as an instructor. um I mean, I can, like I said earlier, I can remember being that little kid marching in my hometown, Drum Corps.
00:47:46
Speaker
You know couldn't wait to hear what i'm called how to say about our show to you know where i am now and just just you now bring up those memories of dc i am madison i attended one of the dc is in madison and it was just an incredible experience and um you know this is like this is such a fan girl moment me being on this episode because you know don't you and i will have just brought me just you know put it you know just brought Drum Corps into our homes so our families could read about what we were doing and you know all of that. So that's my Gush and Go. Major shout out to Drum Corps World. Thank you. Thank you for all you've done. Well, I appreciate your saying that and I enjoyed every minute of it excuse so far. Hey, it's called Gush and Go, not Gush and Stay. Let's go.
00:48:39
Speaker
All right. Well, thanks for a great rehearsal this week. And I want to thank you so much to Trish. We always have a good time when we're together. We do. I love this. um And um like just hosting with me today, especially with the incredible Steve Vickers. and And I also want to say thank you to Steve for being with us this week.
00:49:00
Speaker
not Thank you. ah So one more thing I just want to let everyone know about too. So don't forget that we have a YouTube channel now so that you can see all of our interviews in video form um on YouTube. um and You just want to go and subscribe so you don't want to miss any of those ah before you close out of your podcast listening app.
00:49:21
Speaker
please go and subscribe, write a review and share it with a friend. Okay. You can follow us on social media um at on a water break and we'll see you at rehearsal on a water break. All right. Thanks very much.
00:49:36
Speaker
like right
00:49:46
Speaker
intro and outro music was produced by Josh Lida. To learn more, visit lidamusic.com. And until next time, thanks for tuning in.