RIP LeRoi Moore
Hello everyone,
On October 15th, 1994, the Dave Matthews Band played inside my store, Magic Platter. It was one of the coolest things ever.
Starting in the Fall of 1993, kids started buzzing about this band. They came thru town in a van and played at a local club called Louie Louie. It sold out instantly. Every third kid in the door was asking for anything by the DMB. Somehow or another, I got connected with Chris Tetzeli at a company called Bama Rags in Charlottesville. I started buying case lots of the only DMB release at the time called “Remember Two Things”. And I mean CASES.
I can remember talking to the great folks at Encore Distribution in Denver and telling my rep, Pam Kent, about this CD that I could not keep in stock.
Soon, Encore was stocking it nationwide. At that time, Encore was such a rocking distributor. I like to think our success helped get them their first distribution deal. Truth is, this band were already becoming superstars all up the East Coast. This was a juggernaut.
My BMG rep in 1994 was Adam Abramson, now VP Sales for Atlantic. Adam and I plotted to get the DMB to play in our little 2000 square foot store. As soon as I heard about the street date for “Under the Table and Dreaming”, I started bugging Adam to score that instore. I worked the Encore people. I worked Chris Tetzeli.
The DMB were returning to Birmingham to open for Phish at the Oak Mountain Ampetheater, now known as Verizon. They confirmed the instore. It was three weeks after release of the new record!
On the day of the instore we started to realize how nuts this was going to be. When we opened, a few kids from Athens, GA were waiting. I had my staff ready for crazy. We had as many people in the parking lot as we did in the store.
We took two cars out to get the band. We met everyone out at a Quality Inn type place a few exits away. Dave had stayed asleep on the bus from where ever they had been the night before. I met up with road manager Michael McDonald and we started rousting the band. Well, everyone was awake but Dave. He stumbled out of his bunk fully clothed as I remember it. He immediately started asking for coffee.
On the car ride back to the store, LeRoi Moore rode with me. I have no clue who else was with me. I let one of my employees, a super fan, drive Dave.
Anyway, LeRoi sat in my front seat on the drive. I had some jazz in my player and he asked who it was. I told him even though I don’t remember the artist now. Roy Hargrove or something like that. A newer artist.
We got to the store and it was really getting scary out front. There were tapers all down one side of the store. Dave sat back in my office and tuned his guitar and drank black coffee from a XL sized styrofoam cup. LeRoi was blowing some riffs walking around the office. Boyd Tinsley and Stefan Lessard were out back walking around warming up. Carter Beauford skipped the instore because we did not have room for drums.
I don’t have a recording or a set list for this instore. I have not searched for one but surely it exists on the interweb. It went on for a good while.
Thirty or fourty minutes. It was magic of course. The band could not have been tighter. Dave’s voice was morning ragged but perfect. He said they would hang out and meet everyone including those outside. We sold a bunch of CDs and the band hung out forever.
Back in those days, it was assumed that when you did an event with a hot artist, they could go on a shopping spree. The labels would throw down the credit card. Some label guys would fret but most would say “Get whatever you want guys”. Especially the promo types.
During the shopping spree, I got to hang out with LeRoi in our Jazz room. I took great pride in that room and bought most of the CD stocked there. We got to talk about the current crop of young lions and he was aware of everybody I brought up.
Michael McDonald started trying to wrap things up. They had to get out to the venue and think about sound check. By this time, most of the kids had filtered out and there was some serious shopping going down. This day was getting near perfect! LeRoi and Stefan were ready to go. Dave and Boyd were not. They were buried beneath healthy stacks of CLASSICAL CDs. Good shit too. I told Michael that I would bring Dave and Boyd out to the venue. I can remember him considering my offer for longer than I found comfortable.
Those guys left. I started doing the rounds of staff to see how things went.
Dave and Boyd finished up and disappeared. I dealt with a few things and went to find them out back where I had parked. They were sitting on the curb smoking cigarettes with about 10 kids. Laughing and joking.
Ole Larry King told me last night that LeRoi Moore died at a Los Angeles hospital. He had complications from an accident back in June. Outside of that one day, I never talked to LeRoi Moore again. But I saw him play many, many times over the past 15 years. He was just 46.
I don’t have a picture of LeRoi from that instore back in 1994. I went looking today and could not find one. I really wanted to see if he had on sunglasses which, was always. I did find a picture of Boyd, Dave and me I had put on facebook. They were getting on a fast rocket right then.
LeRoi Moore was a founding member. He made it cool to have a saxaphone in a rock band. He will be missed by many. Our hearts go out to the Dave Matthews Band and all of our friends at Red Light Management.
http://www.new.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30722&l=ee9bb&id=501042772
Don Van Cleave, President CIMS
