- 1 year ago
The weary travelers made it to St. Louis and visit some of Preston's old stomping grounds to return an artifact once thought lost.
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00:00here we go let's get the boys underway now live from somewhere in america let's check in on casey's
00:10big adventure on the president steve show on mmr all right the fellas took out a big chunk of the
00:17country last night they rolled into st louis missouri around 10 o'clock hour time after
00:22leaving here around 7 30 a.m about 24 hours ago 827 miles they traveled yesterday they put it in
00:30um uh and of course they logged the whole thing on social media and we have all the available all
00:36that available on presidency.com so today we have them set to handle a few different missions
00:43in my old hometown and this was casey's idea he wanted to do some things i i confessed something
00:48to you guys recently yes that i wanted to kind of make good on and casey's like that's perfect we'll
00:54do that while we're there all right so we now go live to parkway central high school to check in
01:01with casey and the fellas guys good morning good morning
01:05all right we can see you guys via zoom and i can tell you're already in the band wing in the music
01:16of parkway central high school yeah all your all your fellow band mates here here press say hi guys
01:22say hi here we go yeah we're we're in your your old band room although uh the band instructor says
01:29is probably not the same that that you might remember when you graduated yeah or how many years ago
01:35but he did say that uh that this thing right here yes i did was definitely there casey as as we
01:42were looking at this i told to marissa i'm like look at that bass drum i'll bet you that's the same
01:47one that i used to i used to bang on because those things last forever that is the i'll bet that's
01:52the same head that was on that thing uh 35 years ago or however long ago i i graduated well we can find
02:00out if you want to talk to the band instructor he can let you know everything that you need to know
02:03about that particular drum and everything else that's going on in this room all right yeah let's meet
02:08him well this is doug hoover press he's the guy who took over after mr becker you came in mr hoover
02:16you came in right after chris becker right i did i came the year after you the fall after you
02:22graduated yes i've heard all about you oh stop it no no i swear to god preston you're like a legend
02:28here i swear to god i was talking to the principal's uh secretary that's that ann wills is her name
02:33and she's like oh my god they were going on and on about pressing like press downplays how good of
02:39a drummer he is and it's because you listen to and you idolize like neil peart like of course you
02:45like you know like how do you compare to neil peart press like apparently like you are people still
02:52talk about you in in the halls of this he's nodding your the instructors what i'm sorry what's the
02:59gentleman's name again mr hoover mr hoover you you're here to verify that mr hoover a hundred
03:05percent when i got here i know there are some uh one of the rock and roll radio station decals stuck
03:12on walls around here that were probably stuck by press really and then he was a rush look at the
03:19rush shirt on now yeah during covid he doesn't know what to do so he he puts youtube videos of him
03:26playing rush tunes on youtube yeah yes i know uh linda press grave was the orchestra director here
03:32man and i worked with her and she she talked you are legendary oh man mrs press grave was was great
03:40a good good friend of mine nick yeah uh i and chris talked about you as well no way so let me give
03:46you i have a memory of of mr hoover do you um and and like he said i think i went back um after i
03:53had graduated and i went to watch a performance and you actually played and i'll never forget this
03:58it was a piece of music called uh the nervous percussionist i think is what it was called
04:04and you had to play like 10 different percussion parts uh you would sit you would sat in as a
04:09musician do you remember that at all that was your first year there there's a lot about my first year
04:15i mean but yeah yeah mrs press grave linda uh she had uh directed i remember that okay wow that's
04:23crazy man i and hey kudos to you for still holding that position and being there that's awesome you
04:29know they haven't figured out what i don't know yet well the fact that you've been that he's been a
04:36part of uh the musical i mean preston you cherish listen what you learned at that school i i lived in
04:43that wing of the school my senior year listen to what listen to my my classes i took symphonic band
04:49symphonic orchestra jazz lab and music theory four of my like seven hours of the day were taken up by
04:57by music classes and i i just i lived down there and it was just it's such a special part uh of the
05:03building to me who's this well this is mr chris becker who came out this morning to say oh my god
05:10mr becker
05:16holy man oh my god i never had a chance to tell you how annoying it was to have you
05:21oh
05:21he hated you man is he retired did he move on i don't know mr becker what are you rid of the guy man
05:32how are you i dude i'm i'm doing great mr becker i uh i i'm i'm filled with emotion right now
05:40casey knew this was casey i believe casey helped facilitate this but uh and we and i he mentioned
05:46it to me this is awesome i'm i'm i'm blown away i i we've we spent so much time together and it was
05:52it was all very very special to me and yes i know i was a pain in the ass i absolutely
05:57you were totally i know totally i know and you know what you know what i've told the story of
06:04many times here mr becker i actually wish that that linda pressgrave was there because i told you
06:09guys this we took a we took an orchestra trip uh to tennessee uh and we were getting a picture
06:16taken of the entire orchestra and i did and you're gonna love this mr becker i did this in
06:22the picture the tongue between the fingers i stuck my fingers up and i stuck my tongue between it
06:27and they took another picture i did it twice she was so pissed off at me badly we took that picture
06:33down and burned it we couldn't use it you know oh my god we didn't let anybody see that i i also
06:41have you know what um a very important moment in history uh took place uh with you mr becker you
06:47won't remember this but it was the day that the um uh the space shuttle uh exploded yeah um and you
06:53you broke that news to us you said hey guys this happened we're like no it didn't and you're like yes
06:58it did it happened today and i'll never forget that because you were the person that shared that
07:03information with me it was yeah that was a pretty crazy day and it's only rivaled by 9-11 that same
07:09that same morning because i remember those days so vividly like yesterday yeah so preston i want to
07:15i want to bring you up today with a guy named dave gantt do you remember dave gantt i know that name
07:19tuba player tuba player yeah so i went to i went to dave cannon's retirement party at the end of june
07:27yeah remember dave cannon he played guitar yeah he was a guitarist vaguely yeah i do remember i'm like
07:34why are you retiring you're not old enough to retire what's going on here and and so this guy's
07:40walking around this this little little pub we're in and he's serving drinks he's giving out drink
07:45tickets and then cannon goes dave that's mr becker and gantt stopped what he was doing he again owns
07:52the place now and he stopped what he was doing and go mr becker what are you doing here you should be
07:59old like now no no stop that's not gonna happen well how how old were you when you were teaching
08:08preston you you you're very you're very young i was i was 12 and uh it was one of those things where
08:17they you're a gifted kid you go ahead and do this no it was it's it's it's uh it's thankfully a you
08:26know instead of jeans that's all it is so i've i've been retired now actually from parkway for
08:30last five years preston okay so it's it's been a while but doug and i remain really good friends
08:36i kind of keep up with what's going on that's great and love being around the kids still all
08:39right are you so one of the memories i was going to share with you do you remember our long talks
08:43on the bus rides about the early letterman shows you and i got into those letterman shows in a big
08:50way yeah do you recall that at all yeah i remember that i don't remember the specific discussions but
08:55i absolutely remember talking about that with you yes because we love that quirky humor that he had
09:00you know and the way he just kind of he kind of dealt with everybody and razzed everybody and it was so
09:05cool because you know you you had you know you could remember those those monologues and stuff that
09:11he had right and it was so funny to write it made those those trips kind of interesting kind of fun
09:16well it was actually letterman that taught him to do the tongue between the fingers thing so uh
09:19that's that's who you can blame yeah we you know we we had a number of really really good musicians
09:27in that group uh uh mr becker like uh dave perkell went on to uh be a professional musician with the
09:33he was a navy musician navy musician at anapolis uh uh um um orchestra and uh carol tofoya who was in
09:40uh our orchestra class ended up going on to being in like i forgot the name it was like
09:45it's like the national orchestra or something like that no it is national symphony she was a
09:50member of the national symphony in dc yeah what the hell happened to you i've retired from the navy
09:55i've heard some years ago yeah and there were some fabulous guys yeah uh mark nemer uh was an
10:01amazing drummer incredible drummer went on to be a session guy in uh in nashville right right and so
10:08i've i've kind of watched people from afar a little bit but it was i was so much good time and
10:12and mr becker was cool enough to us drummers we were like the we were the i don't know what our
10:17story was but we had our own private little practice room yeah that we could go sneak off into
10:23while everybody else had to be stuck in the band room mr hoover just said that still happens
10:27yeah it was um well when you guys talk about your your successes as teachers um i assume preston's name
10:37does not come up right because um because he's well go ahead yeah i don't know the number one radio
10:46show in philadelphia that would come up there we go and plus he's a drummer i talk about all the
10:55drummers from parkway central all the time well they're all over the world well what you need to
11:01know is that guys from south he does his best on air all the time to promote uh drumming and musician
11:08uh taking uh classes and getting uh involved in music so he's a big proponent of what you guys taught
11:14him i keep my sticks right here next to me by the way that's really awesome preston thank you
11:19something you want to make good on by the way oh yeah um but before before we do that there was
11:25something else i was going to mention um it's time okay it's time i think it's time i i gotta
11:32throw one more name out preston mike bounds does mike bounds mean anything absolutely yeah yeah okay
11:38so believe it or not i saw him last night at a rehearsal and mike is expecting his first
11:44grandchild and i go what the hell man you can't be old enough to be having grandchildren this is it's
11:50it's troubling to hear stuff like that so he was talking about an old friend of ours uh mr bird do
11:58you remember mr bird i absolutely remember mr bird he was at the junior high that's where i got started
12:04in band yes absolutely a little quirky kind of a quirky guy but you know he was he was really into
12:10it now is there is there something we need to make good on there is something we need to make good
12:15on so this was uh uh mr becker this would have been um probably 1982 so 40 years ago and i was in
12:25mr 40 years i was in mr berg's class obviously you know beginning band and all that and for some reason
12:32or another uh he got this new set of claves and i thought they were really cool claves are uh so
12:40it's a latin instrument yeah they're essentially two pieces of wood or now they make them out of
12:45different uh you know polyurethanes and things like that and uh very recognizable instrument you
12:50can hear them they just make this clicking sound um and casey's got there now you're not playing it
12:54correctly casey mr becker could show you how to play it you gotta you have to cup your hand uh what do
13:00you think i'm doing i'm cupping okay all right he's cupping all right so play the yeah there you go okay
13:05play them
13:06yeah all right there you go wonderful amazing it's very quiet you want an actual musician to play it
13:14yeah so my god so i i lifted those i i stole them and oh yes i'm shattered
13:23and i i have always felt not always like maybe 15 years later i started to feel guilty
13:31for 15 years you were on the lam and i've still i've still had them and you know what i never
13:39used them one time to play with any musicians and that is a travesty when a musical instrument
13:45sits in a box somewhere and never gets used by a mission a musician then there is something
13:51fundamentally wrong with that and so uh i i told you guys like a few weeks ago i'm like you know
13:57what i'd like to do next time i take a trip back to st louis which i don't come back very often mr
14:01becker because i really don't have any family uh that lives there any longer my my wife's family
14:06lives in in crystal city so i get back on rare occasions but anyhow um i felt i i would like to
14:12return them i thought about mailing them or maybe bringing them back and then when casey was playing
14:16this trip he's like dude i'll take those back for you absolutely and he's done that so he has brought
14:21them with him and they have come back home yeah yes sir you know now mike downs last night he told
14:31me that he had spoken at he was the student speaker at mr berg's retirement and he said mr berg was so
14:39happy he was he was so happy about his career and the trajectory that his career had taken except for
14:44one thing but i think mike was good enough he talked him through it and it all went well oh
14:58that's wonderful this is really gonna this is kind of closes the circle we've gone gone full circle now
15:03now i have a question is mr berg still with us because he was already older when i was a kid you
15:08know doug and i were trying to figure that out we don't know we've lost track mr berg okay yeah
15:14yeah because maybe he's gone off the grid because of the clave he's pressed maybe yeah
15:19hey uh mr becker do you still play your trumpet from time to time
15:25i do in fact uh mr hoover and i get together quite often at his church we have kind of an unusual gig
15:31recently what we've been doing is we've been playing memorial services so uh this summer we
15:37had a couple of a couple of folks at this at the church where doug is uh is real involved and
15:42they passed away so the families wanted a little band to play at the at the service and then follow
15:47up with some music afterwards and so we're thinking we've got a good a good thing going here we may
15:52start checking the obituaries yeah yeah absolutely
15:55oh my god i can see why you loved him uh mr becker my name's nick i'm i'm on the show with
16:04these guys and my mom was a teacher and i wanted to ask you a question about former students because
16:08my mom always told me when she would hear from former students what what she meant to them it
16:14always warmed her heart and it's got to be cool for you to reconnect with preston because this is a
16:17guy who has talked about you lovingly and and has admired you for a long time and yes this is a
16:23little bit of a stunt but it's also something that means a lot to preston and i'm sure when you hear
16:27from former students uh it makes it makes you feel special it makes it very very special and
16:32you know i haven't been able to leave i have not been able to get away from from being involved with
16:38kids and being involved with bands for that very reason it's very special so another instance is uh i
16:44got an email a while back this is probably a year ago from a guy named rich brawn so richie was a
16:50pretty good trumpet player but he overplayed a lot he overworked it i gave him some lessons tried to
16:54get him to reign it in and he was writing me and saying mr becker i'm so sorry that i overplayed i was
17:00trying to sound like maynard ferguson and that wasn't possible and i said that's you know i emailed
17:05him back that's fine i i have have fond memories of working with you he signed the email captain rich
17:11brawn southwest airlines 36 years and i'm going oh no
17:17brawn fly airplane
17:19oh my god wow oh that is funny that is classic wow uh well i i was not expecting this at all this
17:32is just this has made my day i'm i'm so happy can we get something played in that in this room full
17:38of instruments can somebody grab well case so we have um the the band's lined up out back and um
17:44and we have a we have a set of signature preston elliott drumsticks that i think we're going to um
17:49we're going to gift to the the drum leader ah and then maybe he can play the cadence with those
17:55preston elliott signature drumsticks oh wow i wonder if we do that i wonder if you're still playing
18:00those same cadences man that uh because i i remember one of them okay yeah all right yeah we'll find
18:06out but as you were talking to mr becker i ducked into one of the closets over here preston and i
18:11i came across this old picture oh my god i don't know if uh oh my god hold it up yeah i already
18:16recognize it i'm the tall one wait wait wait where's the preston's right here that's preston yeah
18:24and to my to the left there is keith rhodi yeah jesus wow uh i i yeah i see matt steinhaus
18:33and it looks like a picture from the sandlot wow yeah
18:36there's mark i also came across on the back of this it was the it's the scrapbook okay from your
18:46your entire senior year okay uh literally it's it it says parkway central's 85 86 bands look at that
18:54oh wow that is what my scrapbook it's it's from the band but there aren't many scrapbooks
19:02in this uh thing like it was like the scrapbook from like 1998 1993 and then for some reason
19:09your scrapbook from your senior year you probably stole that as well yeah yeah two tickets from your
19:15spring concert um may what was this may 13th 1986 this is probably your last spring concert as a uh
19:23as a drummer wow these tickets were one dollar so casey can you continue the tradition and steal
19:31those as well yes i figure what what we did here is we returned something and then we'll take
19:39something else right that is the code of the felon turn these tickets yes hey i want to i want to
19:44mention something to mr becker again real quick um oh here you go because i'm remembering all this
19:48stuff now uh mr becker do you remember when the the movie whiplash came out not that long ago
19:53uh they played caravan and i'm like we played that in marching band we played caravan we played
20:00caravan and all night long from lionel richard oh it was similar awesome very similar i know all these
20:09all these years you know melt into one another because you had you know a long career but i i remember
20:16that vividly oh yeah yeah those are i actually measure my career by what shows we did what what
20:22the marching band shows were oh yeah yeah i know that show i remember that because it's always tying
20:27into the the pop culture of the time correct yeah yeah pretty much yeah and you can identify real
20:32readily with where you travel with the band and who was in the band at that time and that's kind of
20:37how you market if you're in the classroom all the time you don't have that same opportunity hey right
20:40i also have a question where did uh do you keep in touch with linda pressgrave or have you guys just
20:45kind of uh fizzled out as far as connections go pretty much allowed uh doug may occasionally talk
20:51to her but she she remarried and moved to new york city i mean she's been in the city for for quite a
20:56while okay i think she's working pretty regularly there she's a pianist plays piano more than french
21:02horn but okay she was a fine musician yeah you know she really was a great musician and um you know
21:08i don't know if you remember mrs theriac of course wanda theriac yeah wanda theriac and and she did
21:14leave us uh last year two years ago okay yeah they were they were both really cool i like them as
21:20well they they put up with my crap i mean you know i mean they didn't and they did you know like they
21:24would uh i was you know i was an idiot you guys know me absolutely and uh but uh but they they didn't
21:31mince words but they were all really cool because we had a very familial thing going on very much
21:37and that part of the uh of the building it was very much like that i guarantee you it was a it was
21:43a um it was a sanctuary for me right right yeah absolutely and you know that hasn't changed a
21:48whole lot um preston i'm actually still getting to teach i'm adjunct down at wash u and i i get to
21:54teach the work with the jazz man and the uh wind ensemble down there which is really cool and those
22:00kids are going to be doctors someday but they still look at that evening that they come in and play in
22:04jazz man as their sanctuary moment they get away from microbiology and they're hanging with friends
22:10and playing jazz you know it's very cool it's awesome it's really it makes me feel good to be
22:15able to do that and i'm i'm so glad to hear you say that because that was always the feeling i got
22:19to this is where we need to be this is what we need to be doing i want some damn music we're gonna get
22:25part of work here we're we're looking at old century resources fundraising uh brochures oh my
22:31god we used to sell like pizzas and stuff oh really yeah oh yeah i remember that you know what the
22:37most the worst worst fundraiser ever one of them said oh you should sell spice packets and so they
22:44shipped in all these spice packets and we stored them in your drum in the drum closet and that place
22:49smell like it was terrible it smelled like oregano for years exactly if you exactly what it was if
22:58you promise to mail it back do you think maybe casey could bring the scrapbook here uh you have
23:03to promise to mail it back you this guy can't be trusted he could just take pictures of he sat on
23:11clobbies i'm gonna have to let casey handle that one because i i can't speak for that all right
23:16all right so we're gonna get some music case yeah as a matter of fact that mr hoover's chomping at
23:22the bit to get out here okay let's do it these guys i don't want to hold these guys have been
23:26lined up for you know good 10 minutes or so so we're we're now walking out
23:30they're yelling but yeah case when we're lining them all up i'll let those guys get all lined up and
23:38stuff and while they do that i press him across i'll just do this one more time here because this is a
23:45different band picture this is um we're gonna put my finger here uh there's president look at
23:50that mullet yeah uh-huh yep that's me that would have been yeah that was marching band out of the
23:56stadium i remember that yeah that's a little that was your senior that's your senior year of high
24:00school wow man yeah what did you have a tux on or was that just uniform that was the uniform it was
24:05a marching band i got you uh case by the way when when you yell just to let you know it kind of uh
24:10it kills the audio uh to give you a heads up on that no problem i like the yelling early in the
24:15morning okay so i'm gonna have to walk up we're watching the video i know exactly we used to walk
24:21out that door and line up for marching band all the time yep oh my god that's crazy they got the
24:26band out there the whole band is out there the whole marching band is out there oh my god wow this
24:31is cool oh wow geez there's like no wonder why they were just telling us to hurry yeah okay man
24:38these poor kids have been there since six in the morning i know i think they gotta probably have to
24:41get to class case can you hear us what's that oh i was just wondering if you could hear us yeah oh here we
24:49go
24:57so
24:59so
25:01so
25:04so
25:09yeah that was so cool i can't believe you got mr becker there i was not expecting that
25:29at all uh this is really awesome so i was um i was surprised at how young he is i for some
25:37reason i just expected to be like an old man case i thought the same thing i i'm like i'm looking at
25:42this dude and this could be one of preston's contemporaries super cool guy too yeah uh hang
25:48on i got jackie on the phone jackie you there preston oh the memories oh these pictures baby
25:55mullet i am loving these stories um thank you jackie um so cool it's just great uh that was
26:02really super special man and uh and and i feel so much better now that the claves have been
26:08returned the musical instrument i stole from my high school back in 1982 has been returned home
26:14you
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