A Brief Interlude From Al Schnier (Beneath the Music)

Here are a few historical items you may not come across in a standard biography. Like any band we've had our share of colorful run-ins with the law and death. Just in case they never do a "where were they- huh?" on VH1 about us...

About 8 or 9 years ago, when moe.was just a wee band, had just started venturing outside of it's own haunt, had just gotten a taste for the road and all of the splendors therein, it landed at a St. Bonaventure watering hole. The Bulldog was all dark wood and neon and smelled of piss and vinegar and the morning after. There was no stage, no PA, and no room. The place was packed and sweaty before the band played a single note. The crowd droning like worker bees, alive with the warmth of alcohol's first light. It was the sort of place that would've been packed either way.

When moe. played, the crowd jumped and swayed,hot and bothered, glasses clinking bottles smashing, hollering for more. And the more they yelled, the louder and more frenetically the band beat their instruments. The band sounded like shit but nobody cared. At some point during the 2nd set,after a lengthy "Dr.Graffenburg" disco orgy, the band began playing the traditional Hebrew song, "Hava Nagila." The drunken mass jumped up and down, swayed to and fro, ebbed and flowed, all the while under the influence of some force apparently greater than gravity, eventually growing into some sort of uninformed mosh pit. And degraded as all drunken mosh pits do, into a sloppy brawl. The band kept on playing and the fighting grew more and more intense.

The blood splattered and the band stopped.

The fight was broken up. Everyone dazed and guiltily amused.

The band slowly and calmly eased back into the tune with some trepidation.

Everyone danced with the same sort of trepidation, watching out of the corners of eyes, on edge as if it were a game of musical chairs and at any minute some friend would steal their seat. The music grew with intensity, as did the dancing. It was less than a minute before the fighting broke out again. And then the whole thing happened again before the band finally gave up and just started "Long Island Girls." Who would've guessed that a festive song of weddings and bar mitzvahs centuries-old would incite such mayhem. This, a song that reeks of herring and smoked lox, chairs aloft, and dancers doing mad Horas, aunts and uncles a little tipsy on Manischewitz heavy malaga ending up a drunken brawl.

Later that night during another jam, while lost in the music, zoning out on the redlights of my effects pedals, I came to realize that there was liquid pouring down on them. I raised my head slowly in disbelief, expecting to find some well lit guy who'd lost all sense of balance spilling his beer. To my surprise and disgust I was mistaken. He was well lit and had lost his sense of balance as well as decency. I raised my head slowly and then time froze for a split hair of a nanosecond. There in his hands was not a beer, but rather that one-eyed mole, all white and clammy, never seeing the light of day and rightly so. The dude was pissing on my freaking pedals, in the bar, in front of everybody, during our show, and I'm not even sure he knew.

Later that night we crashed at a frat house. I slept under a ping pong table and was awakened at dawn by the sound of a babbling brook. Much to my disappointment, someone was pissing on the floor next to my head. Boy I sure do miss the good ol' days.