"You
wanna do the moe. blog?" That was the question asked of me.
The Road Diary had been sitting there static on moe.'s website
for some time when Al Schnier and moe.'s old road manager, Skip
Richman, called me aside in the green room. We were at the State
Theater in Portland, Maine, getting ready for night 3 of a 4 night
run over New Year's. That was December 30, 2012. Considering I
had just survived the "End of the World" the week before,
I was feeling okay.
"Here's
the deal," Al said to me. "We want you to interview
the 3 winners of the '6th member of moe.' contest-put it on the
blog." True. That contest was a big deal. Out of the hundreds
of fans who sent in a video of themselves playing along to their
favorite moe. song, 3 solid musicians, one each night, were selected
to play a song with moe. over the New year's run. Provided the
Mayan Calendar was off by at least a week. "After you do
those interviews," Al continued, "you can do whatever
you want with the blog, write whatever you want."
Hmmm,
I'm thinking. This could be fun. So I said, "Yes." After
New Year's, I went ahead and interviewed the 3 winners. A nice,
enjoyable and thoughtful exchange for posterity. Then, for the
next 18 months I did just that--I turned the Road Diary into a
moe. travelogue of sorts. I wrote vignettes from the road about
what I observed of the human condition, the towns and cities,
and the music of moe. and their affable fans--that endearing subspecies,
the moe.ron. It only ended when moe.'s management revamped the
website and 86'd the blog, among a few other pages, as a new "cost
effective" strategy (at least they didn't tell me to my face
they had had enough of my ranting).
Alas,
it was a good run. I had and have no complaints. Below is a sampling
of some of the blogs. The remainder are archived in the bowels
of a digital storage bin by moe.'s webmaster. On the upside, in
the near future they are to be published as a whole. Stay tuned
for that. For now, here's a quick trip down memory lane…
January
2013, The Interviews
Winter
Tour 2013, First Road Blog: "Goodbye sunshine, hello winter
tour"
Winter
Tour 2013, Entry IV: A Midwest Flurry (or Adventures in Red Plaid,
Part 2)
Winter
Tour 2013, Entry VII: Winter Tour Breaks and the Day of the Presidents
Summer
Tour 2013, Entry III: A Quick Dip South
Summer
Tour, Entry IV: Rolling Along From NC to Colorado
Fall
Tour, Entry II: I'm really Keene on this place!
December
Run, Entry III: Bloggidy Blog
