Brotherhood of United Drummers

In the summer of 99, I asked Merrill for control of the group and I lead CSDLB down the parade route of the Big Bear Old Miners Day Parade. Dave was the only LBCC drummer with me at the time and all of the rest of the guys were LBJCB drummers and we were playing LBJCB cadences vs the LBCC set which were the same 8 cadences looped over and over with not real stopping point. While we were in the band, we had never been able to march Big Bear and everyone jumped at the chance to do it with CSDLB.

This was the beginning of the formation of BUD but there is a story behind this. James Carroll and I came up with the concept of marching the parade in Big Bear and creating a new syncopated section. He said that to get people interested in going up to Big Bear for the Saturday Parade, we should rent a cabin and have a huge party Friday night. It was brilliant! We had about 32 drummers for that parade but everyone was ass dragging early Saturday morning because they didn’t go to sleep until the keg ran dry and the sun was starting to come up. We had to be in the formation area by 8am so it was a sucky parade for those that were still buzzed and or hadn’t really slept for a day and a half. We did it though. It was a bit sloppy and the tempo dragged the whole time but we did it and liked it. At the party, James and I hatched the idea of breaking off and making our own group and in the months after but I still wanted to try to get the 100 drummer Rose Parade section together with Merrill. I think the last parade we marched as CSDLB was Seal Beach 99 and we never were able to get 100 drummers for any Y2K thing but it was a great idea. Merrill dissolved CSDLB after that but gave me permission to use the name for as long as I wanted.

After that James and I came up with the name BUD which we thought would appeal to the stoners of the group but the real meaning was clear. Brotherhood of United Drummers was born.

(side note: In 99, I joined LGSD and they marched Belmont for the first time since 1988.)

While BUD was together, we continued to march Big Bear and the Seal Beach Christmas Parade but I was never able to get it together for Belmont. I was dividing my time between BUD and LGSD and since most of my drummers were also in LBJCB, there were always conflicts in the schedule and I made a promise to Marvin and Lonny that I would never purposely schedule a conflicting gig so that it would take away from LBJCB. RSR reformed in 99 or 2000 and most of the LBJCB guys joined up with them since they were playing new cadences (I can’t really blame them) leaving me with no drummers to fill the ranks. BUD became a for hire section after 2002 and we would do paying gigs when ever someone called me for something. I would call up the reliable guys that I had and entice them with perks like free food or money or the chance to perform for a celebrity and that worked out fairly well. Eventually, I stopped getting calls from people but we would continue to do Big Bear Parades mainly because of the party opportunity. As everyone got older, the kegs turned to 24 packs, then to 12 packs and then to 6 packs and the last party we did, James and I found each other cleaning up the cabin and dumping party fouls instead of partying. The entire section was out at 11:30. Funny how aging effects everyone. I think that was the first year I had a 100% sober section for the parade but there still some guys nursing hang overs.

I need to sit down with James and a few other BUD drummers to piece together some of this.

Fred

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