In 1974 the corps had been scoring in the low 40’s most of the year. Throughout the season it became customary to take a swig from a ladle of Wail Juice to wet the lips on our way to the field for competition. Unfortunately, Wail Juice is a serious concoction that sneaks up on you - usually by the time you finished the "Off the Line", making for some unusual drill moves and musical interludes. By season’s end, the drinking of Wail Juice or any other kind of alcoholic beverage before competition was banned and reserved for post-show parties or bus rides. Amazingly, our score improved to a DCA finals score of 56 and we became known as an up and coming corps as we set the stage for future greatness.
♦ Milton doing the bug
♦ Selling American beer and hamburgers to the Canadian drum corps for $4 each
♦ George Knoebel streaking
♦ The hallway parties at the Sheraton Inn in Pennsylvania
♦ The pride of marching in the Sunrisers!
♦ Weekend camps in Poughkeepsie and Camp Smith, practicing till 2AM
♦ The bus ride to Quebec on a yellow school bus with no bathroom and a lot of beer
♦ Marching the Barnum festival parade in the pouring rain and trouping the stands through 1-1/2 feet of water
♦ Tying the Caballeros in our first show in Clifton, 1977, our first win ever!
♦ The drunk Skyliner fan yelling at our director Mr. D. and our entire drum corps from atop the hill
♦ Doing a commercial at the Roslyn clock tower and watching some guy, we must have woken up, bashing his guitar through his screen window in protest
♦ Practicing at Hofstra and watching the Jets on our breaks
♦ The drumline going sailing on a washed up boat at Floyd Bennett field and having the boat sink from under us
♦ Avenue U American Legion bar with $0.90 pitchers of beer and the chicken place across the street
♦ Chicos
♦ Falstaffs
♦ Anything goes roto-bowling
♦ Bills Meadowbrook Inn
♦ Flushing American Legion post and practicing under the municipal parking lot
♦ The old Mineola post and the guy telling us about the bad experience they had with the old drum corps that used to practice there. He didn’t know it was US
♦ Rehearsal at Cluster F at Nassau Community College
♦ Rich Cesani making the drumline practice the entire show at 180 beats per minute
♦ The Fairlawn Sunrisers
♦ The Nutley Sunrisers
♦ The Brooklyn Sunrisers
Back in 1983, the corps was in a streak of 9 straight wins on our way to our 4th DCA title. We were at a show in New London, CT and the bass drum line was feeling very cocky after we and the rest of the corps did another outstanding job. We were confident of another victory since we had been beating our nearest rival, the Skyliners, by well over 4 points all year. So for the retreat ceremony we smuggled a bottle of champagne onto the field to help celebrate our expected victory. We were wrong to do so, but we were rebels! Anyway, it must have been a combination of the turbulence from marching and the hot and humid conditions of an August night that as the corps stood in formation near the 10 yard line the cork from the champagne bottle loudly popped sending the projectile straight on through the goalposts. We were horrified and turned to face the wrath of the hornline standing behind us only to find them signaling a field goal with arms raised up! Needless to say, our directors, and the Skyliners, in formation next to us, were not amused.
Undefeated in Madison Square Garden!
In 1977 and 1978 the DCA held a contest in this fabled stadium. But due to the small configurations of the arena all the corps had to shorten their drills. I remember practicing the whole week before the contest marching our program taking little baby steps. We would take about 36 counts to go 2 feet. And the echo made it very difficult to play together and all the crowd heard was a rumble. It was like doing our show in a cave.
Also exciting was warming up in the concrete canyons of W. 36th street with the hoboes dancing to our drumming and the crowds asking the name of our band. The retreat ceremony was something to behold, trying to fit 5 drum corps in a space half the size of our average high school gym. Nevertheless, we won the contest both years they had it at MSG, and DCA gave up on indoor contests.
♦ Throwing Freddy Sasso in the pool at a disco exhibition
♦ Stan jumping in the pool at Roosevelt stadium and coming up with a dead bird
♦ 1160 in the Meadowlands
♦ 1100 in Chicago
♦ Getting lost whenever trying to follow any show sponsors directions.
♦ Sitting on the bus in the Pittsburgh bus depot for 4 hours on a Sunday morning waiting to get gas because the bus driver had the wrong credit card.
♦ Watching the bus driver drive back from Rochester with his head hanging out the window to stay awake!
♦ 90 pound Ernie Hall breaking 200 pound Joe Thompson’s foot during a corps softball game!
♦ Practicing under police guard at the Boston Cup because of riots on the field the night before
♦ The NY Jets stopping practice to watch our halftime exhibition at one of their games
♦ Playing in center field of Yankee Stadium during the ’77 and ’78 World Series. Remember Jailhouse Joe and the bald security guard?
♦ Mets games
♦ The Edison Sunrisers
♦ The Long Island Sunrisers
♦ Stelton Community Center and Raritan Center
♦ Desti’s Bar
♦ Jamie winning karaoke
♦ Skarzinski’s songwriting
♦ Wild Bill’s poems
♦ Cynthia falling off the back of the equipment truck after prelims
♦ Al’s pants! You could use them for a road map
The year is 1991. The drumline did not have a great winter membership wise. By season start the corps was able to field ony 1 bass drummer, Denise Haberman, who had been in the line since 1986. It was the second show of the season somewhere in New Jersey. In attendance at the show were myself, and fellow retired bass drummers Joe Thompson, Lou Milan, and John Clougher.
After the contest Denise came over to the 4 of us with tears in her eyes upset over her fate as the lone bass drummer. We had all marched with her previously, and we were touched by her fate. Needless to say, we caved in and showed up the next saturday to join the corps. Now there was a full 5 man line and a contest that evening. There was no way we could all learn the music and the drill in the 5 hours prior to the contest that evening, so we decided to just make stuff up and follow Denise around the field. We didnt know what to play, but we figured if we were going to play anything we would play it loud as possible and maybe the judge would think we knew what we were doing.
So here we are at our first run through, winging the music and running around the field following Denise at the same time trying not to kill ourselves or anyone else for that matter.
Listening to the judges tape after the contest that evening, we were all suprised to hear the judges comments about what a great job the bass line had done during the show. Where do they get these judges anyway?
We worked hard the rest of the year, with extra practices, and by seasons end we actually ended up one of the strongest sections in the corps. Even though the corps came in 11th at DCA, this was one of my proudest years to have marched.
So many more memories I could write a book. Marching in the corps were some of the best times of my life and I just skimmed the surface of the things I will never forget.
Jack Alexandro, 1974,1977-1989, 1991, 1994, 1998; Bass Drum
