The last hoorah

We pull up in the Funkwagen to the last neighborhood bar in Jefferson City, Missouri – an oasis called Paddy Malone’s – and walk into a living room sized and classically decorated Irish Pub. There’s a table in the back of the room with a sign: “Reserved for Moxie 8:00 from Houston TX,” which is to be the stage once we are done eating. I know it is going to be a perfect finish for the tour – a tiny, awkward stage but an incredibly fun time with tons of people and positive feedback. And I am correct.



The owner, Allen, is the life of the bar. He’s as jovial as the come and we love him. It would be hard to explain how great and friendly he is, and how much he loved us as well. Plus he gives all of us (the band, Jane, Megan, and Jim) free food and unlimited drinks all night long. He gives us a wonderful introduction, “Moxie, an incredible band like nothing around here, is playing the last show of their national tour tonight! And for some reason they chose here.”



Everyone just had an amazing time and it was my favorite show. We played everything we could possibly play and more (a couple impromptu jam songs), we sounded awesome, people loved us, Allen was great, my girlfriend was there dancing and singing along with all of the songs, and in general I feel like everyone had an incredible time. Allen wrote "Where are our heroes, and where are our foes?" on chalkboard behind the bar - he loved our lyrics and we ended up getting into a great drunken discussion about life at the end of the night when everyone else had been kicked out of the bar.



Keep checking back for updates - there are a lot of great stories, pictures, videos, music and characters I want to share with all of you. The tour is officially over, we're all officially impoverished, and we're all officially incredibly sad to be leaving each other and going our separate ways. We'll miss Jamie and Andy and sometimes cry unofficially at night in their absence.

Two more . . .

One night in massive old theatre in Geneva on the Lake, the next in a swanky jazz club in Dayton. Caller number 9 gets free tickets to see Moxie live on their national tour, one night only. Two nights in glorious dives in Chicago. A non-unionized concrete worker tending bar at one, and an jovial, inebriated gent serving at his whims at the other. Two more offers to smoke weed (sorry we're not interested), two more sunrises, two more mornings with a marvelous one-year-old showing us her belly and touching our noses. Two more nights sleeping together on an air matress (jamie likes the gasoline), two more 4PM breakfasts at Panera. Such is the delightful life of Moxie.

Stay tuned for audio from the interview on 99.9 WLQT

for one night only!

Tomorrow we play live on air in Dayton - on WLQT 99.9. We’ve also got a hilarious thirty second commercial running on their online stream, you can Check it out sometime between the 47th and 50th minute of every hour. The only bad news is that the interview/performance is at 7:50AM. We actually considered whether or not we’d be better off staying up all night or getting a few hours of sleep. We can’t possibly go to bed early enough. Sleeping at 1AM for us is like going to bed at 6PM for normal people.

Let me tell you about the show two nights ago. The show “starts” at 9PM, and at 8:50 PM we are lost and still looking for the venue. Only Moxie. Andy doesn’t think the place exists – we drove past corn fields on farm roads for the past fifteen minutes. Evan guesses that we are probably playing in some guy’s back yard and he just calls his house “the Hot Spot” for fun. I mean seriously, the “confirmation email” for the gig said, “juli 7 is daze. can u bring bands, fans?”

Turns out every small town in the area has a “Lake Road,” and I got directions for the “Lake Road in Madison OH instead of Geneva on the Lake, OH. Only Moxie. But – and my faith in mankind’s direction giving capability is restored – a random woman draws a perfect map with precise directions to “the strip” in Geneva, fifteen minutes away, where the venue is probably located (Sidenote: we got impeccable directions to the place we stayed the night before as well).

Fifteen more minutes of residences and cornfields, one more bathroom break (all of Moxie + Megan gets out and runs to the woods while Julie and Henrik laugh in the Funkwagen) and suddenly we’re at a town that can only be described as a carnival. Neon lights, funnel cakes, people walking about everywhere, music, honking horns, the whole bit. We drive down ‘the strip,’ but “the Hot Spot” is nowhere to be found.

Second pass through I finally notice a tiny sign at chest level the says, “open mic Wednesday, the Hot Spot, live music, pool, air hockey” or something of that nature and I yell for Andy to stop driving. Julie and Henrik must think we’re absolutely insane at this point. We run inside, a solid forty minutes after the posted start time, and find the woman in charge.

To top everything off, we’re playing in an auditorium: an old theatre setup with a massive stage, and audience space that can probably fit 1800 people; and the bands playing before and after us are hardcore death metal bands.


The sound was awful and the microphones consistently shocked both Evan and me, but needless to stay we enjoyed the hell out of ourselves. Julie, Henrik, Megan, the three early teenage girls and the four or five other audience members seemed to really enjoy the show, I got hoarse (Sidenote: talking trash is pretty hilarious when you have to whisper), and we annihilated the Photohunt high score, so all in all I think it was a great success.

Two Shows

In the past couple days we had two AWESOME shows in Delaware and Long Island. There is something inexplicable about playing for a crowd of utterly unfamiliar faces. On the one hand, I feel like restricted by the desire to prove that we're an incredible band, but on the other hand I feel even more free to play and act however I want. It's also incredibly rewarding to create an enrapt audience out of strangers who might just want to relax and drink at a bar for the night.



I love playing at the small bars because I love meeting the people afterwards. We also get to see some good shows- tonight's bands were badass and "Code Anchor" reminded me of my favorite groupo Sevillano "O'Funk'illo." This evening people also starting spontaneously dancing to our music, which has always been one of my favorite things about playing live. Just knowing other people dig what we do gets me so pumped up.

I'll try to post some footage that Priya took at the show (Yeah Priya and Laura came with us and it was sweet!) but right now the camera is destroying tapes so I have to take it to anger management class. In the mean time, enjoy this video of our take on "Idioteque."



I also want to thank you all for continuously voting for us on Lollapalooza's "Last Band Standing." As I make this post, we have had 565 votes, which is amazing. Keep up the good work! I think we can make it to the top 100 by the end of the month, but we need all the help we can get. Tell your friends, make a Facebook Event, etc. Andy and I were just talking about how we'd sort of be technically opening for Pearl Jam...

Also, keep making those small changes and inviting others to join you, and post some of your thoughts on this blog in the comments section. In fact, please make more comments in general. I love feedback and interaction, so post away.