Scott Tesar
Thank you Blue Devils (and Wayne Downey specifically), for providing me with amazing memories. What a blessing it was...and continues to be...
Please allow me to share a few of those early memories with you...
I was honored and fortunate to march Marimba in the '79 line for World Championship Tour #3, along with Gary Gilroy on xylophone & Andy Marchetti on vibes...two monster players....who took me under their collective wings and helped get me ready for Tour, super quickly. I had been going to Spring Rehearsals with the newly formed "West Coast Express" drum corps with Mike Weddle (BD Snare '80) and Tom Richardson (BD quads '80/'81- "Tri-Tom") in the Spring of '79, but their tour fizzled out and I had stopped attending...
Wayne had come down to my high school (El Camino Real HS in Woodland Hills, CA) to help write the Fall '79 opener after he had judged us the previous Fall at the Live Oak marching band finals at San Jose State. Wayne told Doug Storer and me that two slots had opened up at the last minute...and were we interested in trying out...
Uh, YEAH!!!...
We flew up on June 9 out of Burbank (with the Eddie Money band (of "Two Tickets to Paradise" fame, ironically enough)) and auditioned, made the line, flew back down on Sunday the 10th, graduated high-school on June 14 and drove up to crash-learn our parts and drill from June 16 onwards...thank you, "Uncle Jerry" for letting us crash at your beautiful home (import housing was full-up with ex-Kingsmen, apparently)
Thank you, Andy, for patiently showing me how to phonetically play the 21/8 mallet feature in the opener in the parking lot at Mars, because the sheet music terrified me....literally....I did Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance" in 7/8 for a drum feature in high-school (in '78), but 21/8 was...intimidating....putting it mildly...
Marched my first show up in Oregon* around June 23/24(?), erupted with chicken-pox on June 26 (Mom's birthday) in Everett, WA - got formally diagnosed with "the worst case of chicken-pox I've ever seen" at Salem (OR) Memorial Hospital and was quarantined until July 4, when I emerged from Gary's apartment for the Danville Independence Day parade and resumed touring at UOP in Stockton...where we stayed in the "old" gym (with woven-wood walls) and I met Catherine (Float), then with the Spirit of Atlanta.
*First show was memorable because it was in Oregon (it needs to be added to the '79 Tour schedule, BTW) and the show announcer was going on and on about the Corps history & successes, and then mentioned that souvenirs and t-shirts were being sold by Fay & Marion Schwerdtfeger, parents of their son the drummer, Paul... the announcer went on and on about Paul marching in the drumline for several years, how good-looking he was and that he was single and then asked Paul to raise his hand as we trooped the stands...
EVERY...SINGLE...DUDE in the line (except the cadence bass) simultaneously raised our hands ....and then CRACKED...UP when we realized what everyone else had done!!!
Good times...
Ironically, the Funliner drum bus (only one without A/C) missed an on-ramp to I-80 in a driving rainstorm in North Platte, NE and we ended up driving past Maxwell, NE, a tiny blip of a town, where my future wife grew up and was living in 1979...
When she took me back to introduce me to her parents in North Platte, and show me where she grew up fifteen years later, I told her that I'd already been there and remembered that tiny town from our long trip from Scottsbluff, NE to Sioux City, IA in that driving thunderstorm... It was raining so hard & heavy that Bruce (Kubler) could barely see out the windshield....and the Adrienne Barbeau poster on the roof of the Funliner was getting ruined from the rain coming in through the skylight window...
My DCI championship summer tour memories will last a lifetime!
I am proud to have been part of the Blue Devils "family", if only for one year - it was truly one of the highlights of my life, and an honor to be a part of the best drum corps organization EVER.
"Won (one) and done..."
Went back to Cal State Northridge in Fall '79, got an Accounting degree (like my Dad), marched a year or two after graduation where I met and marched with Kevin Murray, and Martha Leeson Garcia of Santa Clara Vanguard tymps fame, did a couple of years with CPA firm Kenneth Leventhal & Co. (now part of Ernst & Young) and then a local CPA firm in Westlake Village, CA where I got my CPA and audit hours, then on to a residential real estate developer that got blasted in the downturn of the early '90's (but also felt the Loma Prieta quake in their offices on the 17th floor of a Sherman Oaks high-rise), then on to St. Ives Laboratories (where I met my wife), then on to several Financial Analysis roles in the pharmacy benefits management, and pharma/biotech industry...been quite a ride... if I had to do it over, I would have trusted my instincts and switched my major to Marketing....
Got an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1998.
Been with MusiciansFriend.com/Guitar Center (second stint) for almost seven years total now in e-commerce Merchandising, following a two-year stint in Denver, Colorado (where we had stopped to drop off two members on the long ride from Oakley, Kansas to Winnemucca Nevada).
I now live in Wood Ranch/Simi Valley and try to make rehearsals at Oxnard HS and now also Camarillo HS when the Corps is in the 805, along with The Rose Bowl & other SoCal shows....
Marched Xylo and played Vibes in the pit of the 2007 Kingsmen Alumni Corps (with Greg Meader, Snare '80), then trooped the stands with the marching xylophone...having done both marching and pit, I find the marching experience to be much more rewarding, personally...but I will always love mallet percussion...
Picked up drum kit along the way and now dabble with bass guitar, too... Bought a MalletKAT a couple of years ago, too...
I've become a passionate golfer and I've worked a bunch of PGA, Champions Tour and LPGA Tour events as a marshal, standard bearer, walking scorer and most recently as a TV Spotter for Golf Channel, where I worked the 2021 Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach and the last LPGA Tour event at the Dinah Shore venue in Palm Desert for Golf Channel.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotttesar/
Please allow me to share a few of those early memories with you...
I was honored and fortunate to march Marimba in the '79 line for World Championship Tour #3, along with Gary Gilroy on xylophone & Andy Marchetti on vibes...two monster players....who took me under their collective wings and helped get me ready for Tour, super quickly. I had been going to Spring Rehearsals with the newly formed "West Coast Express" drum corps with Mike Weddle (BD Snare '80) and Tom Richardson (BD quads '80/'81- "Tri-Tom") in the Spring of '79, but their tour fizzled out and I had stopped attending...
Wayne had come down to my high school (El Camino Real HS in Woodland Hills, CA) to help write the Fall '79 opener after he had judged us the previous Fall at the Live Oak marching band finals at San Jose State. Wayne told Doug Storer and me that two slots had opened up at the last minute...and were we interested in trying out...
Uh, YEAH!!!...
We flew up on June 9 out of Burbank (with the Eddie Money band (of "Two Tickets to Paradise" fame, ironically enough)) and auditioned, made the line, flew back down on Sunday the 10th, graduated high-school on June 14 and drove up to crash-learn our parts and drill from June 16 onwards...thank you, "Uncle Jerry" for letting us crash at your beautiful home (import housing was full-up with ex-Kingsmen, apparently)
Thank you, Andy, for patiently showing me how to phonetically play the 21/8 mallet feature in the opener in the parking lot at Mars, because the sheet music terrified me....literally....I did Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance" in 7/8 for a drum feature in high-school (in '78), but 21/8 was...intimidating....putting it mildly...
Marched my first show up in Oregon* around June 23/24(?), erupted with chicken-pox on June 26 (Mom's birthday) in Everett, WA - got formally diagnosed with "the worst case of chicken-pox I've ever seen" at Salem (OR) Memorial Hospital and was quarantined until July 4, when I emerged from Gary's apartment for the Danville Independence Day parade and resumed touring at UOP in Stockton...where we stayed in the "old" gym (with woven-wood walls) and I met Catherine (Float), then with the Spirit of Atlanta.
*First show was memorable because it was in Oregon (it needs to be added to the '79 Tour schedule, BTW) and the show announcer was going on and on about the Corps history & successes, and then mentioned that souvenirs and t-shirts were being sold by Fay & Marion Schwerdtfeger, parents of their son the drummer, Paul... the announcer went on and on about Paul marching in the drumline for several years, how good-looking he was and that he was single and then asked Paul to raise his hand as we trooped the stands...
EVERY...SINGLE...DUDE in the line (except the cadence bass) simultaneously raised our hands ....and then CRACKED...UP when we realized what everyone else had done!!!
Good times...
Ironically, the Funliner drum bus (only one without A/C) missed an on-ramp to I-80 in a driving rainstorm in North Platte, NE and we ended up driving past Maxwell, NE, a tiny blip of a town, where my future wife grew up and was living in 1979...
When she took me back to introduce me to her parents in North Platte, and show me where she grew up fifteen years later, I told her that I'd already been there and remembered that tiny town from our long trip from Scottsbluff, NE to Sioux City, IA in that driving thunderstorm... It was raining so hard & heavy that Bruce (Kubler) could barely see out the windshield....and the Adrienne Barbeau poster on the roof of the Funliner was getting ruined from the rain coming in through the skylight window...
My DCI championship summer tour memories will last a lifetime!
I am proud to have been part of the Blue Devils "family", if only for one year - it was truly one of the highlights of my life, and an honor to be a part of the best drum corps organization EVER.
"Won (one) and done..."
Went back to Cal State Northridge in Fall '79, got an Accounting degree (like my Dad), marched a year or two after graduation where I met and marched with Kevin Murray, and Martha Leeson Garcia of Santa Clara Vanguard tymps fame, did a couple of years with CPA firm Kenneth Leventhal & Co. (now part of Ernst & Young) and then a local CPA firm in Westlake Village, CA where I got my CPA and audit hours, then on to a residential real estate developer that got blasted in the downturn of the early '90's (but also felt the Loma Prieta quake in their offices on the 17th floor of a Sherman Oaks high-rise), then on to St. Ives Laboratories (where I met my wife), then on to several Financial Analysis roles in the pharmacy benefits management, and pharma/biotech industry...been quite a ride... if I had to do it over, I would have trusted my instincts and switched my major to Marketing....
Got an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1998.
Been with MusiciansFriend.com/Guitar Center (second stint) for almost seven years total now in e-commerce Merchandising, following a two-year stint in Denver, Colorado (where we had stopped to drop off two members on the long ride from Oakley, Kansas to Winnemucca Nevada).
I now live in Wood Ranch/Simi Valley and try to make rehearsals at Oxnard HS and now also Camarillo HS when the Corps is in the 805, along with The Rose Bowl & other SoCal shows....
Marched Xylo and played Vibes in the pit of the 2007 Kingsmen Alumni Corps (with Greg Meader, Snare '80), then trooped the stands with the marching xylophone...having done both marching and pit, I find the marching experience to be much more rewarding, personally...but I will always love mallet percussion...
Picked up drum kit along the way and now dabble with bass guitar, too... Bought a MalletKAT a couple of years ago, too...
I've become a passionate golfer and I've worked a bunch of PGA, Champions Tour and LPGA Tour events as a marshal, standard bearer, walking scorer and most recently as a TV Spotter for Golf Channel, where I worked the 2021 Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach and the last LPGA Tour event at the Dinah Shore venue in Palm Desert for Golf Channel.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotttesar/
1979
- A Corps – General Percussion
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