New drinking game: take a shot every time Mike mentions he marched under aungst at blue stars

The space is the hardest to clean, yet this line nailed it.

“the decrescendo shots that another team has been playing, that’s ours” something about one designer finally commenting about something another designer is doing is really funny to me

my favorite part of all of these is knowing that mike and evan are in a discord server somewhere with mike mcintosh

This was cool listening to insights from Mike about the creative process. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for the shout out with the "Homage to Float and Spirit 1980". We worked on that accelerando more times than I would like to remember. I didn't realize that Mike thought about Tom's line 43 years ago for this. Cool! Cavies killed it this season. So good to see old school winning with a fresh approach.

Well I said the Cavies Drumline was #1 before San Antonio so they just proved it from then on through Atlanta through Allentown and all three nights from Prelims to Semi-Finals to Finals. As Mike Fantini says: CLEAN WINS EVERYTIME!!! Congrats to the Cavies!

That was really nice, guys. Kudos to all and to the Cavies 👍

Perfect way to start the weekend. Also, for the algorithm.

Me and my wife just got married a couple weeks ago and meeting in drum corps was definitely brought up in both of our vows, and we almost put the jersey surf pure imagination wake up in the ceremony playlist

“Non-negotiable” 💀

I really appreciate the overall effect of this percussion book. This is exciting and emotional music. Well done Cavies and thank you to all involved. And yes Mike, bring back the hats!

He's right about that '97 BD line....I was there in Ogden with them blowing everybody away

11:06 Super glad this didn't happen. That quad feature was one of the coolest things I've ever heard.

32:05 "it all feels very like Cavaliers identity" - "new school body with old school flair" I couldnt agree more, very nice explanation! and isnt it fine!

Cavies richly deserved Sanford trophy 🏆 this year 🥇🥇🥇🏆🏆🏆🥁🥁🥁

17:32 split 16th note triplets in 4231 permutations, drumset tom rim crescendo decrescendo triplet roll

Here's a white hot take: If you take a moment to actually read the criteria that DCI judges use to score these groups, it becomes obvious why Cavies won so convincingly. I know it offends our delicate sensibilities when the drum line that's paid by the note isn't winning. Especially, when that group can play their absurdly difficult book clean. But, could we just entertain the idea that judges are looking for something besides rudimental difficulty?

Mac 🤝 Legend

Awesome!!! Thank you!!!

BRING BACK THE HAT!!!! BRING BACK THE HAT!!!! BRING BACK THE HAT!!!!!!

you guys should do 2017 bluecoats, id love to see what others think of that book (i personally believe its one of the best drum books of all time)

Love it gentlemen

I remember seeing the one of the first videos circulating of them "tracking". I told myself "yep, there is this years top drumline". Stuff really brings me back to the golden early 2000s era, the whole show.

What a good video, very insightful. I’m about to go into Atlanta Quest auditions and all these vids are so inspiring

Had the privilege of having some ensemble critiques from McIntosh in the regional winter circuit. And one of the comments he gave that has stuck with me is to figure out when "less is more". As a younger designer, you think density of notes, faster tempos, and complexity is what the audience/judges want. But that generally leads to higher risk of dirtiness, difficulty to clean throughout the season, and simply unclear intent; which all leads to a difficult educational environment. What if instead you removed a voicing, simplified/opened up the rhythm, slowed the tempo down, etc. Now the design is more achievable for the performers and possibly more impactful because there's more clarity in the performance and intent. Like, how much effort do you need to put into something for the impact to pop out, and at what point does diminishing returns occur when you start adding complexity? I understand the internet trolls and critics don't find that approach very exciting. But at the end of the show, the judges are scoring clarity.

Holy Diver!

Incredible season, congratulations Cavaliers!

Nice one, fellas.

Great guest.

Skye was marching BD this season!! Idk where he found the time to get these videos!

36:13 That’s me!!!

Got some of your stix, Mike. I'd never tried them out. I like'm. Good ballance and weight. Could be a tiny bit heavier. But ive got zero bad things to say really. (PM btw. The Corp style wht and gld. signature series.)

Lmao I knew I wasn’t crazy I felt like I was having an aneurism towards the beginning of the summer when mike started saying his full name in the intro and I couldn’t figure out if you’d always been doing it or not

Cavies rocked

Mo' money, mo' problems

Surly is an awesome brewery, nice taste

For the algorithm 💪

Whoever this dude is loves dci.

For the algorithm. 🤙

Not to brag but bass 2 graduated from my high school 🥹…

I didn't realize I was a troll for thinking that the content score was based on the content of the book. I'm glad the battery played as well as they did, and I won't argue for one second that they weren't a mature, blended, clean line (although there was definitely some unfair framing by one host of cavs ticks relative to other "teams"). However, the content of their book is what it is, and the scores assertion that their book was the hardest on the field simply isn't accurate. Someone even says at one point "...some of the easiest rhythms ever written" without pushback from McIntosh, so I don't think it's fair to turn around and call people haters just for pointing out the fact that the book is easier than a lot of the others this year, barring a few isolated points. Very few people are saying that they didn't play these easy rhythms well, and anyone who is saying that would be wrong, but the argument that the content scores aren't reflecting reality isn't one you can just discard as trolling. Blame the hornline, call it restraint, whatever you want to do, but understand the arguments people are making before blanket dismissing it all.

Cool video! I'm sure comments I've made on other Cavie videos might be lumped into the "Cavies troll" category. I absolutely disagree with that characterization. I actually really liked the Cavies show overall and their drumline too! I thought the whole group was fantastic and really dig their throwback references throughout! The only group that stuck out to me as a detractor this year was the Colts -- that said, the level of composition and performance this year across all the groups was pretty crazy to my tastes! My issues is not with the Cavaliers, but rather with the scoring. The Cavies were absolutely clean. And I can understand the comment about not having that "walking on a tightrope" feeling in terms of anticipating ticks from groups, probably more than anyone, BD. BUT, it's easy to not have ticks if you have an easy book, right? I've watched the Cavies show many times. Watched lots of lot videos. And I was at Finals with seats very similar to whomever shot the video you mostly featured. They were clean. But so was pretty much everyone else. Including BD. Cavies might have been one notch cleaner than the others, but man, look at the books! Mike talks about all these cold attacks - several were buzz rolls. Some were 16th notes. Few if any were actually difficult -e.g., tap diddles, open rolls, etc. And to get to the number he cited, I'm pretty sure we're counting one or two beat count rests. Is that a cold attack?? And the accel - dude, they were playing 8ths notes for a lot of it! 😂 I 100% appreciate the idea of writing an appropriate book. Mike talked about this in several places in the ballad. Clearly, other groups, like BD and Boston, have taken different approaches of shoving 10 lbs. of X into a 2 lbs. bag. If that's the best choice or not is in the eye of the beholder. I know some groups lean on playing intense stuff even when not in the spotlight and I guess it's just a stylistic choice (there was a BD ballad several years ago that had a lot going on with the bass line - forget which year, but it was cool!). But to the bigger concept of drum corp, it is, to a degree pushing the activity to new extremes. And, to my taste, executing comparatively simple books cleanly should be treated for what it is. Same with difficult books. On this playing field, Cavies, clean as they were, would not have made the top 5 for percussion IMO.

I know I will be criticized for this, but Cavaliers should not have gotten such a high content score. That is not to say that they played poorly, or that there were not hard hard parts of the book. This years line was one of the cleanest on the field and had some difficult sections of music. That being said though, the battery book OVERALL was too easy for the content score that they were given. Again, they had some crazy parts that that would put some lines to shame, but there were multiple long sections of lower world class writing. I'm sorry, but that should have been reflected in the content score. The writing was a disservice to this line because they could have handled much more. Mike mentions that 'restraint' was the name of the game and I'm sorry but that shouldn't be a descriptor for a book that wins content. It is about difficulty overall and that was not there in the book.