BLUE ROCK HISTORY
FROM THOSE WHO WERE THERE
Thanks to Alumnus Edd Fishel
CHAPTER THREE - 1967 The Year of El Poundo
Late May, 1967, the first contest of the season and we just had our asses handed to us by a corps from the Bronx called the "New York Kingsmen." The Kingsmen were an unexpected early season behemoth with a talented, powerful horn-line, masterfully playing fifty English manufactured Whaley Royce stainless steel bugles and a color guard made up of beautiful Amazon women wearing short, tight skirts and fishnet stockings. They all had large breasts. I still get a chub thinking about those bad assed broads,… although I recently saw a photo of the same and truth be told, they weren’t all that hot…lol. Funny how times change the size of things... The Kingsmen drumline was not up to the caliber of their hornline. They actually played their Street Beat as a percussion feature in one short segment of their show. How cheezie is that? If they would have had a decent drumline in 1967 nobody would’ve beat them.
To this day, I believe the Kingsmen could have beaten us on starting line presentation, alone. They looked like a complete Broadway production show outshining the football field style lighting used for illumination. The all-Latin music was perfectly played to the rhythmic, musical and visual senses of the audience. Drum corps background, or not, everyone enjoyed the Kingsmens’ highly entertaining show.
I developed an immediate hatred for the Kingsmen but found myself whistling or humming their program at every available opportunity. I was not the only one…
The rehearsal immediately following the crushing defeat revealed that Ted was worked up into a tornado like frenzy. He smashes through the doors to the drum line rehearsal room stating that we needed to do something about “El Poundo!”
He was almost hard to take seriously as he had recently engaged his summer wardrobe consisting of an Italian knit shirt, plaid Bermuda shorts and sandals with knee-high socks. This was the first time I, and a few others, had seen Ted in his summer attire and it was difficult to keep from laughing.
Nobody laughed at Ted to his face, ever, especially not when he was pissed off.
Just as he was about to begin making some serious percussion changes, we reminded him that we kicked “El Poundo’s” asses in drums. On that note, Ted concurred and stormed out of the room headed for the horn-line mentioning something about the Kingsmen’s drum line sounded like trash cans blowing down the street on a windy day.
Damn if that wasn’t a spot-on description. I liked the fact that Ted hated losing and wouldn’t stand for it.
By August 1967, Blue Rock had successfully made the transition from a regional perennial powerhouse to a force with which to be recognized on a national level. We still hadn’t beaten a few of the north jersey corps, including the Kingsmen, on which we had our sights set but we were right on their collective heels. We all thought the judging was skewed to enable the continued winning of North Jersey corps, with long successful histories, that wouldn’t compete in contests out of their own comfort level regions.
The future success of Blue Rock was due to the tenacity of the directors, instructional staff and performing members who all took the unbelievably nasty punches but continually got up off the floor to fight another round for a better day. Luckily, we were able to keep the majority of the corps unit intact, and motivated enough to mature to a level that would bring the success we all knew was within our grasp.
CHAPTER FOUR: 1967 Nationals in New Orleans and Boston
Closing in on the end of the season we set out for New Orleans, LA to compete in the VFW National Championship competition. It took thirty hours of straight through driving to deliver 100 teenagers from Wilmington, Delaware to Louisiana. Thirty hours of riding in buses that spent more time over the last twenty years in the mechanics garage than on productive roadwork. Hot ass, non-air-conditioned, sweaty, stinking, uncomfortable, slow moving, diesel smoking rattle traps traversing the dusty back roads of S. Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana. The only way some of us could get any sleep was to throw the bags in the overhead luggage racks onto the seats so we could stretch out in the overhead area.
That bus ride to New Orleans beat the shit out of us.
Other competing corps from the mid-west, Wyoming, and the west coast showed up in state-of-the-art custom cruisers with comfortable seats, that reclined to a sleep enabling position, air-conditioned with clean enclosed toilets. We should have beaten those pukes in tenacity, alone.
Our “on board toilets” were 30-gallon steel milk cans with lids that continuously got stuck from the dried “stuff” around the rim. (don’t ask…) I’m not sure but I think the “girls” bus had toilet paper. I was so glad that we could provide for our lovely ladies.
In those days Blue Rock was as notorious for its nasty, rattle trap buses as it was for its show.
We had a tune-up contest in Baton Rouge, a couple days before Nationals, where were the heavy favorites. We won the show by several points over the competition. Some of whom we heard of and some we hadn’t. Hey, a win is a win and the crowd loved us.
The national championships, for drum and bugle corps, were conducted during the VFW and American Legion national conventions, each August. They required military type inspections of each corps as it was staged on the starting line awaiting their performance. They would have some old Geezer, with a clip board and piss cutter hat, walk up and down the ranks looking for Irish Pendants (Loose threads) dust or dirt on horns or drums, (remember the dusty road conditions of Alabama?) military style haircuts and fresh pressed trousers. All corps ended up with inspection penalties. What the fuck were they expecting from a bunch of road exhausted teenagers who had been pissing in milk cans and eating Hostess cupcakes the last four days?
We placed a respectable 7th, in the VFW finals, beating a couple mid-west corps for the first time. None of the North Jersey corps showed up knowing full well that one or two of them would have finished outside the top twelve. The Mid-West Powerhouses were all in attendance. Not to mention The Troopers from Casper, Wyoming who finished second, 4 ½ tenths of a point behind the awesome Chicago Cavaliers.
The next morning, we loaded up for a 36 hour, straight through, bus ride to Boston for the American Legion Nationals.
We were due on the preliminary competition starting line in 48 hours. To make already preposterous conditions even worse, the “girls” bus broke down in Tennessee, requiring repair on which we couldn’t wait. The girls now had to put up with the outstandingly putrid conditions of the bus on which all the “Groadies” rode, called the “Animal” bus. Sixty teenagers riding in horrible conditions, on buses built to accommodate forty adults, for the next seven hundred miles. We weren’t able to continue using the milk can toilets, for obvious reasons, and had to now stop more often so the girls could “freshen up”.
We arrive in Boston at 7:15 AM. We’re due on the starting line at 8AM. Ted is freaking out for worry that we will miss our designated time slot. We’re lost and don’t have a clue as to where Fenway Park is.
In one sentence Ted screams “get changed into your uniforms, pull over to the side of the road so I can get some directions, "hey Buddy (to some whacked out street bum) do you know where Fenway Park is?"
The guy had the stones to say “yea, but It’ll cost you to know!”
I never saw Ted get so Pissed off, so fast. It took four of us to keep him from attacking and strangling the son-of-a-Bitch.
Sixty teenagers in a frantic hurry, trying to get changed into their uniforms in a space the size of a walk-in closet while simultaneously playing stationary musical chairs. Clothes, deodorant, hairbrushes, drumsticks, underwear and uniform equipment flying everywhere.
We’re having fun, now………………………
We make the starting line with two minutes to spare. We were not a pretty sight.
We played a shit to bed performance.
We didn’t make the cut for finals.
The north jersey corps may have been on to something by staying home from the VFW Championships and getting plenty of rest before riding their airconditioned buses a couple hours up to Boston…
In retrospect, it appeared we lost more than gained in traversing the entire eastern USA, round trip, in a one-week time slot. We had no choice as we were building our reputation as a serious national competitor.
Win some, lose some ………………………
Late May, 1967, the first contest of the season and we just had our asses handed to us by a corps from the Bronx called the "New York Kingsmen." The Kingsmen were an unexpected early season behemoth with a talented, powerful horn-line, masterfully playing fifty English manufactured Whaley Royce stainless steel bugles and a color guard made up of beautiful Amazon women wearing short, tight skirts and fishnet stockings. They all had large breasts. I still get a chub thinking about those bad assed broads,… although I recently saw a photo of the same and truth be told, they weren’t all that hot…lol. Funny how times change the size of things... The Kingsmen drumline was not up to the caliber of their hornline. They actually played their Street Beat as a percussion feature in one short segment of their show. How cheezie is that? If they would have had a decent drumline in 1967 nobody would’ve beat them.
To this day, I believe the Kingsmen could have beaten us on starting line presentation, alone. They looked like a complete Broadway production show outshining the football field style lighting used for illumination. The all-Latin music was perfectly played to the rhythmic, musical and visual senses of the audience. Drum corps background, or not, everyone enjoyed the Kingsmens’ highly entertaining show.
I developed an immediate hatred for the Kingsmen but found myself whistling or humming their program at every available opportunity. I was not the only one…
The rehearsal immediately following the crushing defeat revealed that Ted was worked up into a tornado like frenzy. He smashes through the doors to the drum line rehearsal room stating that we needed to do something about “El Poundo!”
He was almost hard to take seriously as he had recently engaged his summer wardrobe consisting of an Italian knit shirt, plaid Bermuda shorts and sandals with knee-high socks. This was the first time I, and a few others, had seen Ted in his summer attire and it was difficult to keep from laughing.
Nobody laughed at Ted to his face, ever, especially not when he was pissed off.
Just as he was about to begin making some serious percussion changes, we reminded him that we kicked “El Poundo’s” asses in drums. On that note, Ted concurred and stormed out of the room headed for the horn-line mentioning something about the Kingsmen’s drum line sounded like trash cans blowing down the street on a windy day.
Damn if that wasn’t a spot-on description. I liked the fact that Ted hated losing and wouldn’t stand for it.
By August 1967, Blue Rock had successfully made the transition from a regional perennial powerhouse to a force with which to be recognized on a national level. We still hadn’t beaten a few of the north jersey corps, including the Kingsmen, on which we had our sights set but we were right on their collective heels. We all thought the judging was skewed to enable the continued winning of North Jersey corps, with long successful histories, that wouldn’t compete in contests out of their own comfort level regions.
The future success of Blue Rock was due to the tenacity of the directors, instructional staff and performing members who all took the unbelievably nasty punches but continually got up off the floor to fight another round for a better day. Luckily, we were able to keep the majority of the corps unit intact, and motivated enough to mature to a level that would bring the success we all knew was within our grasp.
CHAPTER FOUR: 1967 Nationals in New Orleans and Boston
Closing in on the end of the season we set out for New Orleans, LA to compete in the VFW National Championship competition. It took thirty hours of straight through driving to deliver 100 teenagers from Wilmington, Delaware to Louisiana. Thirty hours of riding in buses that spent more time over the last twenty years in the mechanics garage than on productive roadwork. Hot ass, non-air-conditioned, sweaty, stinking, uncomfortable, slow moving, diesel smoking rattle traps traversing the dusty back roads of S. Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana. The only way some of us could get any sleep was to throw the bags in the overhead luggage racks onto the seats so we could stretch out in the overhead area.
That bus ride to New Orleans beat the shit out of us.
Other competing corps from the mid-west, Wyoming, and the west coast showed up in state-of-the-art custom cruisers with comfortable seats, that reclined to a sleep enabling position, air-conditioned with clean enclosed toilets. We should have beaten those pukes in tenacity, alone.
Our “on board toilets” were 30-gallon steel milk cans with lids that continuously got stuck from the dried “stuff” around the rim. (don’t ask…) I’m not sure but I think the “girls” bus had toilet paper. I was so glad that we could provide for our lovely ladies.
In those days Blue Rock was as notorious for its nasty, rattle trap buses as it was for its show.
We had a tune-up contest in Baton Rouge, a couple days before Nationals, where were the heavy favorites. We won the show by several points over the competition. Some of whom we heard of and some we hadn’t. Hey, a win is a win and the crowd loved us.
The national championships, for drum and bugle corps, were conducted during the VFW and American Legion national conventions, each August. They required military type inspections of each corps as it was staged on the starting line awaiting their performance. They would have some old Geezer, with a clip board and piss cutter hat, walk up and down the ranks looking for Irish Pendants (Loose threads) dust or dirt on horns or drums, (remember the dusty road conditions of Alabama?) military style haircuts and fresh pressed trousers. All corps ended up with inspection penalties. What the fuck were they expecting from a bunch of road exhausted teenagers who had been pissing in milk cans and eating Hostess cupcakes the last four days?
We placed a respectable 7th, in the VFW finals, beating a couple mid-west corps for the first time. None of the North Jersey corps showed up knowing full well that one or two of them would have finished outside the top twelve. The Mid-West Powerhouses were all in attendance. Not to mention The Troopers from Casper, Wyoming who finished second, 4 ½ tenths of a point behind the awesome Chicago Cavaliers.
The next morning, we loaded up for a 36 hour, straight through, bus ride to Boston for the American Legion Nationals.
We were due on the preliminary competition starting line in 48 hours. To make already preposterous conditions even worse, the “girls” bus broke down in Tennessee, requiring repair on which we couldn’t wait. The girls now had to put up with the outstandingly putrid conditions of the bus on which all the “Groadies” rode, called the “Animal” bus. Sixty teenagers riding in horrible conditions, on buses built to accommodate forty adults, for the next seven hundred miles. We weren’t able to continue using the milk can toilets, for obvious reasons, and had to now stop more often so the girls could “freshen up”.
We arrive in Boston at 7:15 AM. We’re due on the starting line at 8AM. Ted is freaking out for worry that we will miss our designated time slot. We’re lost and don’t have a clue as to where Fenway Park is.
In one sentence Ted screams “get changed into your uniforms, pull over to the side of the road so I can get some directions, "hey Buddy (to some whacked out street bum) do you know where Fenway Park is?"
The guy had the stones to say “yea, but It’ll cost you to know!”
I never saw Ted get so Pissed off, so fast. It took four of us to keep him from attacking and strangling the son-of-a-Bitch.
Sixty teenagers in a frantic hurry, trying to get changed into their uniforms in a space the size of a walk-in closet while simultaneously playing stationary musical chairs. Clothes, deodorant, hairbrushes, drumsticks, underwear and uniform equipment flying everywhere.
We’re having fun, now………………………
We make the starting line with two minutes to spare. We were not a pretty sight.
We played a shit to bed performance.
We didn’t make the cut for finals.
The north jersey corps may have been on to something by staying home from the VFW Championships and getting plenty of rest before riding their airconditioned buses a couple hours up to Boston…
In retrospect, it appeared we lost more than gained in traversing the entire eastern USA, round trip, in a one-week time slot. We had no choice as we were building our reputation as a serious national competitor.
Win some, lose some ………………………