Coming soon to a laptop near you...

Back in September I was working in a drum shop and picked up a phone call from a woman asking me to help her tune a snare drum. She said that she just couldn't get a good sound out of it.

I told her to bring it in and I would be happy to take a look at it for her.

Little did I know that the woman on the other side of that phone was drumming legend Viola Smith!!!

My coworker and I found this out while tuning her drum, which she had already done a great job with. We were asking her the normal questions.

"Is this drum yours?"

-"Oh no, I haven't played in 40 years!"

"Well you did a fine job tuning this snare drum up! You could have fooled me!"

-"It just doesn't sound like what I'm used to, it doesn't sound good to me"

The snare was an entryline Pearl. 

She tells us that the last drum kit she owned was a 1950's WFL kit. We had to tell her that nothing sounds like a 1950's WFL kit.

We get to talking and I am astonished that there is a woman who is a month shy of turning 100 years old who was a drummer in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's.

I ask her what kind of bands she used to play in and she told me she used to play on Broadway and in all kinds of Jazz bands.

I told her about Tom Tom Magazine and about how they do an awesome throwback drummer feature in every article. 

I open the page up to the throwback article and her friends were flabbergasted to see that it was her in the magazine. 

"Viola, thats you! Vi, thats you!!"

I was blown away! What a fun experience. We gave her a new drum head for the snare and they went on their way. Viola signed a copy of Tom Tom for me after I nerded out like I was a 14 year old kid meeting Mike Portnoy.

Viola and her friends invited me to her 100th birthday party! I brought some friends to help document some of this experience as well as interview Viola about her experiences. 

Next week we will be releasing it via Vimeo for Tom Tom Magazine and I am so excited!!

Special thank you to Viola, the crew over at Piecemakers, Rhianne Paz, Maria Yanez and Annie Knight, and Melissa Riggs.