Wacky “Abominable” band celebrates 50th anniversary at Piccolo Spoleto

Rarely will you find a homecoming without a marching band. The two are indelibly linked, like soul food and the Deep South. For many, your marching band can become your home, a place where you build community over music and life.

For the past 50 years, Seed & Feed Marching Abominable has become exactly that for much of its “band family” in its Atlanta home and during rousing performances at the annual Piccolo Spoleto Festival.

As the legend goes, the band’s name came about one of two ways: (1) It originally practiced in a seed and feed warehouse, or (2) “seed and feed is what you do with friendship,” according to founder Kelly Morris. “You seed it, but you also have to feed it.”

Morris originally started a guerilla band while teaching at Emory University for what he called “outdoor political noises and moves” during “an era of demonstrations and protests.” After leaving Emory in 1972, to march to the (literal) beat of his own drum, he established a theater company that later evolved into the boisterous marching band many know and love today.

Based in Atlanta, Seed & Feed has become known for affectionately blitzing public areas in bright colors with various instruments and a boisterous roster of nearly 200 members. The tradition began with its first public appearance at the Inman Park Festival Parade back in 1975, and it has been a staple in the community ever since.

The band welcomes all, no matter what skill level or stage of life. Members’ ages range from 15 to 90 years old (including two original participants). Its open-door policy also helps maintain members, whether they currently live in Georgia or Wales. Like the best form of family, the band is there for you with open arms, ready when you are.

Patricia Pichardo, Seed & Feed’s booking manager (better known as “the bookie”), believes this policy has a lot to do with why it has survived for a half century, making it one of the longest-running street bands in the United States.

Long-running street band

“Fifty years is not a small feat,” Pichardo said. “We’ve figured out how to stay alive, and I think it’s because we reinvent ourselves and make space for newcomers to come and make their mark, so there’s fresh blood.”

Pichardo, who joined the band 10 years ago, likens it to “church the way church was probably intended to be.” She said she arrived after a transition in her life where she was seeking community and belonging. “I was getting a divorce and trying to figure out who I was after leaving all my family and friends, and I needed to create things. And I found the band.”

She played instruments since she was 4 years old and used that talent to forge a new path.

“I knew I could play music, so I knew I could do that.”

More than a decade later, Pichardo has not only played music but found her chosen family within the band, created a new family of her own and served as its bookie for the past five years.

She said one of her most memorable bookings was for Hugh Jackman’s birthday.

“We got the call last minute,” Pichardo said, “and they only needed a few people. But we never cut the band, so I said, ‘It could be a few more or a few less.’ We got there, and it was our full band! They had to get multiple shuttles for us. But he’s a theater guy, and he was dancing on the table with his cake. It was great.”

That party also made an impression on band manager (a role better known as “the mouth”) Joann Cebulski, who initially got the call about the gig through a friend. She realized after the fact that Jackman had just finished filming “The Greatest Showman.”

“Seeing us in wigs, tutus and false eyelashes must have been wild for him after that,” said Cebulski, who has been with Seed & Feed for 12 years. “It was serendipitous.”

Aside from the occasional A-list celebrity gig, Cebulski said she also feels the community is what keeps the band going. “It’s like a family,” she said. “If someone’s sick or going through a hard time or needs a meal train, we’ll do it.”

The feeling of community also rings true for the band’s “semiconductor,” Alicia Cardillo. After having her second child, she felt she needed more time before getting back to her regular duties.

“I was relearning how to walk, but I still needed the band for my musical therapy,” said Cardillo, a 15-year Seed & Feed veteran. She said she found different ways to be part of the band by helping with logistics as a “bruin” and now becoming the semiconductor, where she gets to train the next wave of leadership and lead the music selection for each gig.

Piccolo crowds expect the band

Piccolo Spoleto has become its own tradition for the band, starting in the early 1980s. Cebulski said a few members initially went down to visit Charleston during Spoleto and would play wherever they could. “They just had so much fun they did it the next couple of years,” she said. “And at some point, the mayor said, ‘We are going to make this official.’”

Festival crowds have learned to expect a Seed & Feed visit each year.

“Everyone recognizes us and points at us,” Pichardo said. “Sometimes people try to meet us and try to find out where we’re staying! But for the day I’m living the dream. I’m being a musician, I’m playing, I’m with friends.

“I don’t have to go to bed if I don’t want to, I don’t have to stay quiet, we dance, we sing, we do each other’s hair, we try new things, we do all kinds of crazy stuff.”

Cardillo said the experience is both fun and exhausting, with three performances all over the peninsula in just 24 hours. One of those is the Pajama March.

“It just makes me giggle in delight when you turn that corner on the street and see that audience there waiting for us,” Cardillo said. “And we have just as much anticipation as they do for us.”

Seed & Feed Marching Abominable will return to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival starting May 25 at 11 a.m. at Marion Square. As is tradition, the band will also perform that night at the Pajama March at 10:30 p.m. at the U.S. Custom House on East Bay Street. It will end the weekend with a bang at the Patriotic Parade at 11 a.m. May 26 at the U.S. Custom House.

Rayshaun Sandlin is an arts journalism graduate student at Syracuse University.