Some recent posts on another thread spoke about the Racine Kilties. Another great corps from the midwest with a fine history.

They have been around a long time, and were one of the first midwest corps invited to the DREAM contest in New Jersey.

Here are some comments:

I ALWAYS enjoyed the Kilts. I appreciated their music and their approach to Scottish tradition as part of their image.

During the 1950s and early1960s, we usually were beating them. But, they got way better later! Their drum line was awesome in the mid 1960s, brass too!

Regardless, they were always a favorite with the fans! And, that is important!

What did you do in the Corps? drummer: later: Quartermaster, assistant drum instructor

What years were you a Corps member? 1958- 63

Thanks for the compliments. I was proud of the fact I marched in Kilties. I was also proud to be part of Imperials. We can all go back and forth about the relative competitiveness of all the corps during certain eras or segments of the eras, but that serves no purpose now.

Each corps was distinctive during those years and had it's own following. The members of each corps were also very proud and loyal to their unit. Let's stay on track and refrain from these useless comparisons. They don't serve any purpose so long after the fact, and great cases can be made for both corps as judging was really erratic back in those days. So what's the point in bringing it up?

Let's just appreciate how good all corps were back in the golden years of drum corps. I enjoyed watching, competing with and making friends with members of all the corps in the midwest.

What did you do in the Corps? Brass Instructor, Corps Manager

Yeah, I marched with Dino. I don't remember the Yellow Vistalite drums, but they had to be in 76 or there about and didn't last long. We had them in Guardsmen and I remember fixing a tenor drum with crazy glue while on tour. Those things were horrid.

Actually after the 78 season it was crash and burn for Kilts because they were running into funding problems with all of us who were in DCI being forced to take long Southern and Western tours and spending more money than we were taking in. It was amazing how many long established corps went toes up in the late 70s and early to mid 80s.

Dave,
I wasn't really referring to your post as much as I was answering some of the earlier ones. Sorry if you thought I was reacting just to your post. In fact I agree with 99% of what you said and you were very complementary about the corps. The point I was trying to make is that the entire drum corps fraternity was a might closer back then. We had our rivalries but we respected the competition.

What did you do in the Corps? Brass Instructor, Corps Manager

I checked the Kiltie Alumni website and found the VistaLites were used in 1975 and only by the Snare section. The rest of the line had conventional wood drums with chrome laminate on top. The site also, by mere coincidence had a 1975 Ludwig VistaLite advertisement that had Muchachos and Phantom Regiment also among others using them. I guess the drums really didn't have that much of an impact because it didn't stop Kilts from having a great drum line in 75. Guardsmen used VistaLites in 76 for their Snares and toms, which is where the tenor reference came from, as I had to repair one of the large toms with crazy glue after one of the drummers tripped and broke one of them in half. Al LeMert who was head of product development at Ludwig was corps director of Guardsmen and got a free set of the drums for the corps. The Guardsmen switched back to wood in 1977.

The rest of that decade had Kilt snares on conventional wood drums. We used Premier double snares in the early 70s for better and more authentic sound to the scotch drumming.

What did you do in the Corps? Brass Instructor, Corps Manager

Jerry,

Very interesting to hear you talking about VistaLites, Al LeMert, and the Guardsmen.

I worked at Ludwig Drum Company from around 1977(??) to somewhere in 1979. I was quality control and sometimes helped show products when musicians would visit the company. I had direct supervision over the VistaLite line's quality.

I'm not going to defend VistaLites for their durability, and the sound was definitely different from wood. I wasn't even at Ludwig during the periods you had your experiences with them, but the problems I'm sure would have been the same.

Plexiglass, in the manufactured thicknesses Ludwig used, simply wasn't able to handle a lot of abuse, and I saw quite a few returns from shattering of marching shells just from head torque. Add to that the constant movement at mount points, and you were just asking for trouble. When I saw an order come through from what I would know was a corps or band, I always wondered how they'd hold up.

I did talk with Al on a couple occasions regarding possibly beefing up the mount points and seams, but I suspect that replacement was cheaper than redesign was. Snares held up better than mounted toms just because they didn't have the stress of the hangers on the sides of the drums.

I have to admit that I liked the amber tinted appearance of the Guardsmen's snares, but that's just appearance.
I could swear that I filled some orders for the Guardsmen when I worked there... but that's so long ago that I'm not willing to speak with any authority. For all I know, they recycled the A Corps drums to the cadets or something.

We used to sell some sets with lights in them, and back then we didn't have the premanufactured light tube sets you can buy for next to nothing today. We had a Korean lady who would insert custom light strings into rigid plastic tubing for the sets. The late 70's is when a lot of new products, including electronic drums and roto toms, were making a market presence. Electronic evolution could be several threads all by itself, though.

Regarding Al LeMert, I had no idea he was ever with the Guardsmen. When I knew him at Ludwig, he was with Phantom. In fact, Al tried to convince me to go to Phantom with him. He was even willing to drive me to all the practices. I never did take him up on it, though.

Strange how that Kilties thread led to those connections. Have I ever met you?

- Z -

What did you do in the Corps? Snare

What years were you a Corps member? 70's

Mike,

Interesting that you worked for Ludwig and with Al.

I think this thread took a turn to Al and Vistalites because Al really became famous with Kilts in the late 60s and with Troopers after that. He was a marvelous person and teacher. If you were a good listener and paid attention to what he said, Al would teach you something important, it's just that simple. I was lucky enough to hook up again with Al in the 90s when he started his SIlver Fox business. I was using his sticks with my high school drum line and it dawned on me that the only person I ever heard that nickname for was Al. After investigating the company and making a few phone calls, I got Al on the phone and we talked for what seemed like hours. After that, he sent me a box of snare sticks, a big box of sticks and mallets to test for him and a bunch of stickers and t-shirts for the kids in the drum line. That guy was just an amazing human being. An important teacher for me while we were both with Guardsmen and a good friend. I miss him since he passed away.

As for us meeting. I think we must have since Cookie was in the corps and you probably visited us during those years. Had the opportunity to march with your sister this last summer with Royal Airs. She is still as feisty as ever. It was fun spending time with her and marching in corps with her.

What did you do in the Corps? Brass Instructor, Corps Manager

Mike,

Good to meet you again also. Yep she was a handful but a a really nice person with a lot of heart. Hopefully we will run into each other this year at a show that RA is in....If I can break loose from family issues here so I can march again.

Yeah, I liked how the Amber drums looked too, as well as the yellow ones in Kilts. They were cool looking drums and Al knew how to tune them so they would maximize their potential for projection with GMen. He taught Jim Campbell and myself how to tune them also. If you close your eyes and closely listen to 76 Guardsmen, you don't really notice that they are playing on VistaLites and not wood. Al was a wizard at tuning drums and each individual gut in the snare strainer. The problems we had were with the toms which should have been a bit thicker ply plexiglass. They would crack at the lug areas when they were tuned up too high. Bigger washers were installed behind all of the lug screws on the last tour, which helped ward off stress cracks to keep them together and allow higher tensioning for DCI prelims and finals. We never really had many problems with the snares because Al was there to show everybody how to care and maintain them. They were a cool experiment for Ludwig.

What did you do in the Corps? Brass Instructor, Corps Manager