M
Matt Bo Eder
Guest
A friend posted a picture of my time in drum corps and I thought I'd share it here. That whole time I did this activity, I never took a picture, wasn't into carrying a camera back then, and I literally had no photographic record of what I did when I was 16 in the summer of 1982.
Apparently somebody was taking pictures and finally, this person has come to light and is revealing some of what he took over the years. I'm grateful for my drum corps family to have found this.
This picture is from 1982, taken in Montreal, Canada during DCI Prelims. I was marching with the reconstituted Anaheim Kingsmen (they had folded in 1978, and this was their first time back), playing first bass drum of six. We fielded six snares, four quads, six bass drums, and three cymbal players (we also had a marimba and vibraphone as our pit percussion). The woman who I would eventually marry was in the color guard too.
When I saw the photo it was a rush of memories and that entire year of either rehearsing, performing, riding around a bus, and sleeping on gym floors. That was the first year I didn't see my parents at all for the whole summer!
For those of you who don't know, this activity for us started in November of '81, and we'd rehearse a couple of days a week until the approach of summer. When school let out, we did 10-to-10s - which was rehearsing from 10am until 10pm everyday up until the first show. Then we loaded up on two coach busses, an equipment truck, and a family following us with a Winnebago to do the kitchen-feeding duties for the 150 staff and members while on the road. We'd get into our next performance location in the evening, unload into a gym, and everyone would crash out in sleeping bags. Up at dawn, we kept up the 10-to-10s on non-performance days, or cut it short when there was a show (pretty much every night). This went on all summer with everything culminating at DCI nationals in Montreal. As much as I missed home, it was quite a rush to be on tour, and after a while you didn't even know where you were.
There were no cel phones, we were literally cut off from being able to communicate with our families. We were just out there somewhere, marching around on a steamy field and then donning a full uniform and sweating it out at night. I don't think I'd survive doing that now
Anyway, I'm the shortest bass drummer you see in the photo. This was the first year Pearl debuted their marching line of drums, and we were the first guinea pigs - they weren't the greatest drums, and couldn't take the high tensioning sometimes, but we got along with it. Those were the days!
Apparently somebody was taking pictures and finally, this person has come to light and is revealing some of what he took over the years. I'm grateful for my drum corps family to have found this.
This picture is from 1982, taken in Montreal, Canada during DCI Prelims. I was marching with the reconstituted Anaheim Kingsmen (they had folded in 1978, and this was their first time back), playing first bass drum of six. We fielded six snares, four quads, six bass drums, and three cymbal players (we also had a marimba and vibraphone as our pit percussion). The woman who I would eventually marry was in the color guard too.
When I saw the photo it was a rush of memories and that entire year of either rehearsing, performing, riding around a bus, and sleeping on gym floors. That was the first year I didn't see my parents at all for the whole summer!
For those of you who don't know, this activity for us started in November of '81, and we'd rehearse a couple of days a week until the approach of summer. When school let out, we did 10-to-10s - which was rehearsing from 10am until 10pm everyday up until the first show. Then we loaded up on two coach busses, an equipment truck, and a family following us with a Winnebago to do the kitchen-feeding duties for the 150 staff and members while on the road. We'd get into our next performance location in the evening, unload into a gym, and everyone would crash out in sleeping bags. Up at dawn, we kept up the 10-to-10s on non-performance days, or cut it short when there was a show (pretty much every night). This went on all summer with everything culminating at DCI nationals in Montreal. As much as I missed home, it was quite a rush to be on tour, and after a while you didn't even know where you were.
There were no cel phones, we were literally cut off from being able to communicate with our families. We were just out there somewhere, marching around on a steamy field and then donning a full uniform and sweating it out at night. I don't think I'd survive doing that now
Anyway, I'm the shortest bass drummer you see in the photo. This was the first year Pearl debuted their marching line of drums, and we were the first guinea pigs - they weren't the greatest drums, and couldn't take the high tensioning sometimes, but we got along with it. Those were the days!
