Name, age, and hometown: My name is Anna Victoria Keck, and I’m 20 years old. I’m originally from Sacramento, Calif., but I now live in Berkeley, Calif.
What corps are you in and what is your role this summer?
The Sacramento Mandarins, snare extraordinaire.
Name, age, and hometown: My name is Anna Victoria Keck, and I’m 20 years old. I’m originally from Sacramento, Calif., but I now live in Berkeley, Calif.What corps are you in and what is your role this summer? The Sacramento Mandarins, snare extraordinaire.
Full drum corps/marching music background: After joining the C.K. McClatchy High School marching band my freshman year of high school, I started learning how to play snare. I began marching snare the second semester of my freshman year. My rookie year of drum corps was the summer of 2003 in the Sacramento Mandarins snare line, and this will be the third year I march snare with them.
How did you decide to be a member of your corps? Some members of the Mandarins drum line came to my high school (as my high school drum instructor also instructs at Mandarins) and they told me to come check it out. I went to a rehearsal and haven’t turned back since.
Honestly, I didn’t even know what DCI was when I joined Mandarins. The first drum corps show I ever saw was AT the first drum corps competition I was in.
Short story time! I came back from my rookie year tour in ’03 and had to immediately move to Berkeley for school. I was at the Cal Band’s version of band camp five days after being at DCI finals, and all the Cal percussionists said to me, “You marched drum corps?” When I said yes, they wanted to play all these sprees and snare breaks from past years. But I didn’t know any of them, because I had only recently even gotten into drum corps. When I told them this, they just stared at me. I was the only person in the Cal percussion snare line that marched drum corps, yet I didn’t know any drum corps stuff! Oh well. Cal band, great!
What first attracted you to the drum corps activity? Being part of a higher level of percussive performance. After I went to my first Mandarins practice, I went back to my high school line and tried to tell them about it. All I could say was that our version of “clean” was nothing compared to what it was like at Mandarins, even when the line wasn’t playing extremely well. There’s nothing like the feeling of knowing that you are taking your passion to a higher level.
What advice would you give to young people who want to march? Do it. Start saving your money and do it! Make sure you realize the kind of commitment you will be making, and be sure you are prepared to follow through with it. Also be ready to come back from tour wanting to do the activity until you age out, even if you planned to just do it this one summer. Mostly, do it now. I know too many people who wish they had done it sooner. What’s worse are the good friends of mine who kept telling themselves that they would at least just march their ageout year. Then their ageout year comes, and lo and behold, there are complications and they can’t march.
Do you have any favorite road anecdotes? Ohh dear — there was the time at the first overnight camp my rookie year that my best friend (you know who you are, and you are SO lucky I’m not naming you!) slipped and fell while walking from the lockers to the showers. She kind of did a slip-and-slide entrance to the showers. I should have been a good friend and ran to her rescue — but I just laughed.
Or the time when the battery was in a sectional on tour, standing at attention while one of our instructors was talking. He was backing up as he was talking and didn’t realize the met box was right behind him. (You know what’s gonna happen next). He totally trips over it, screams, almost falls, and the met starts going off at 172 with a triplet check. This was a great test of our ability to focus, needless to say.
Then there’s always Eriko, a snare player from Japan who marched with us last year. One of her favorite phrases to say to some of us snares was: “As you know, I am better than you.” She was so awesome! We loved her, and we all miss her.
The last good book I read: I read about three books a week (mostly for school), but some of my favorite books are “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger, “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy (this one is probably my favorite right now), “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield, and “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig. There’s so much good literature in the world though, I could go on for ages. The only good thing about aging out will be having more time to read all these books.
The last great film I saw: I haven’t actually seen any REALLY great films lately. But my favorites are “Amelie,” “Donnie Darko,” “Batman” the movie (with Adam West), and the movie “Sally,” which Danny and I made my senior year of high school for our economics class.
Where I go to school and what I’m studying: I attend UC Berkeley and am majoring in sociology as well as gender and women’s studies.
Jobs I have/have had: I’ve worked in libraries, coffee shops, gelato shops, tutored kids, and done a lot of volunteer work in between. I am currently unemployed and lovin’ it!
Three albums I’d want on a deserted island: “HELP!” (by the Beatles), “It’s Hard to Find a Friend” (by Pedro the Lion), and “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” (by Neutral Milk Hotel). (OK, I thought it was funny …)
My favorite TV show: Um, I actually don’t own a TV. Back in the day, though, I would have to say that “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “Out of This World” were up there on my list.
Favorite performers: My roommate, Gen. She makes up some darn good jingles and dances to accompany them!
And my mother. Her songs that she sang into a silver spoon to wake me up as a child were priceless.
How do you “blow off steam?”: I generally don’t have “steam” to “blow off,” but if I’m stressed, I work out, do yoga, go running, drum, give massages, and laugh.
What I want to be when I “grow up”: “A patient better driver, keep in contact with old friends, fond but not in love, nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate, nothing so childish, at a better pace, slower and more calculated, concerned (but powerless), an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism), calm, fitter, happier and more productive.” (Radiohead)
Or rather, not a typical grown-up (no offense, typical grown-ups). Active. The cool aunt. A traveler. More like my mother, and more like my father. Exactly what I know I will be: Myself, happily.
Feel free to add anything else you’d like. If you actually read through this whole long interview of mine, you are awesome.
