And they played all night
Pictured (L-R) Rachel McAdams - Bob Moggio - Tim Robbins - Melissa Rawe
After shooting a scene from "The Return", Tim Robbins and our (now superstar owner) Bob Moggio went down to a local music and beverage establishment and rocked the house. Check it out. or watch the movie of Bob and Tim rockin...
Moviemakers to make stop in Edwardsville
By Shane Graber
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Friday, Jun. 01 2007
EDWARDSVILLE — A film starring Tim Robbins and Rachel McAdams is expected to make a stop at a music store here next week, that store's owner said Thursday.
Neil Burger, who directed "The Illusionist," is in the St. Louis area shooting "The Return," a story of three soldiers returning home from Iraq who end up on an unexpected road trip across the states, according to www.totalfilm.com.
One scene calls for McAdams to return a guitar to a music store, said Bob Moggio, owner of Mojo's Music, 142 North Main Street.
"I don't know what she does; if she buys it, sells it, trades it," Moggio said. "I think the guitar belonged to her husband who was killed in the Iraq war. I think."
Moggio said a film crew was in his store Tuesday scouting the location.
"I think it's interesting and will give us some publicity if nothing else," he said. Moggio said the scene will be shot Wednesday.
Tim Harr, the city's director of public works, said that someone representing a
film crew contacted the city about possibly shooting in the area. Harr met with
police and city officials to discuss details, but he said nothing has been
confirmed.
Film crews held auditions for extras in St. Louis recently, according to On
Location Casting, a booking service. A casting call for a scene featuring a
Hummer salesman, customer and receptionist took place Thursday at a
Chesterfield location, according to the service's website.
Award Nomination
Liberty Tree Guitar
Twang of freedom rings locally (Liberty Tree guitar featured at Mojo's Music)
NORMA MENDOZA, Of the Intelligencer March 29, 2002
A piece of America's last living Liberty Tree has taken up residence in Edwardsville in Mojo's Music store in the form of a guitar. Owner Bob Moggio just couldn't resist the beautiful guitar made with wood from the tulip poplar that stood as Maryland's Liberty Tree for 224 years. He saw it on display by Taylor Guitars at the National Association of Music Merchants in Los Angeles in January.
It arrived at Mojo's Music Tuesday via UPS, prompting Moggio to remove the American flag he hung in the store window on Sept. 12 and use it as a fitting backdrop for the Liberty Tree Guitar. Both hold a place of prominence behind the counter inside the store.
Taylor Guitars calls it the most significant instrument it has ever created, the wood itself inspiring actual reverence.
The Liberty Tree stood on the campus of St. John's College in Annapolis until 1999 when it was so severely damaged by Hurricane Floyd that four arborists who were called for consultation declared it couldn't be saved. It was "not just any tree," mourned one writer who attended the solemn ceremony before the tree was cut down.
The ceremony was attended by hundreds who were treated to speeches by the governor of Maryland and other dignitaries. They heard a St. John's professor sing the "Star Spangled Banner," which was written by a former St. John's student, Francis Scott Key, nearly 200 years before. A bell tolled 13 times for the 13 original colonies.
But the crowd was silent as the chain saws whirred into the beloved tree, some of them choking back tears. As the tree fell, people carried away small branches and clusters of leaves as souvenirs.
Some of the wood was saved, but the trunk was hauled off to a landfill and two recycling centers. It was only because a landscaper in Annapolis "rescued" the wood that was destined for the landfill that Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars was able to obtain it.
The tree was already more than 175 years old that September in 1775 when Maryland colonists gathered under it to protest taxes imposed by the British royal government. It was the story of the wood as much as the beauty of it that made Moggio want the Liberty Tree Guitar.
"It's from the last of the Liberty Trees," he said. "It almost gives you goose bumps."
Bob Taylor felt the same way about the wood. When he found it was available, he bought enough of it in June 2000 to make 400 guitars. Moggio's is No. 73.
Taylor wanted to make something that would live for another 200 years or so and tell the story of the Liberty Trees' role in the founding of the nation. The Liberty Tree Guitars were 18 months in the wood-processing, designing and building.
To Taylor, it isn't about selling guitars, but about the tree and what it means to him and what it should mean to all Americans. The story is told in Wood & Steel, a publication of Taylor Guitars.
The nation's first Liberty Tree was a stately elm, the largest of a group that stood in Boston on the corner of what is now Essex and Washington streets. The tree sheltered countless rallies, meetings and celebrations held by the Sons of Liberty. It was the tree where the colonists gathered to protest of the Stamp Act of 1765, decrying the British imposed "taxation without representation."
The rampage that ensued came to be known as the Stamp Act Riots when Bostonians trashed property, circulated petitions against the British and tarred and feathered anyone they thought loyal to the British throne.
The last act of violence by British soldiers prior to their evacuation of Boston was the chopping down of the Boston Liberty Tree. Each colony grew to have its own Liberty Tree or Pole, sites of many rallies by American revolutionaries.
Most were destroyed by the British and the others were killed by disease or storms, but the Maryland Liberty Tree somehow survived not only storms, but a gunpowder explosion inside its trunk, attempts to burn it down and lightning strikes. It was estimated to be about 400 years old at its death in 1999.
Colonists in Annapolis met under the Liberty Tree to foment their own version of the Boston Tea Party. Upon learning that Andrew Stewart, owner of the ship Peggy Stewart, had sailed into Annapolis harbor with the ship full of more than 2,300 pounds of tea, the angry mob marched from the Liberty Tree to his house, giving him an ultimatum: burn the ship and the tea or be hanged.
Stewart set the ship on fire by his own hand.
Only the sparkle of the abalone shell trim around the sinuous outline of the Liberty Tree Guitar recalls that fiery episode. The acoustic instrument is a beautiful work of guitar craftsmanship, befitting the history of the wood.
The pale top is made of Sitka spruce and the sides and back of the chocolate and vanilla colored tulip poplar wood. The burl-like wood on the sides is carefully matched as is the wood on the back of Moggio's guitar.
A laser-etched scroll of the Declaration of Independence is inlaid in very pale burly maple that reaches down the finger board onto the top of the guitar. Old Glory's stars and stripes are inlaid in a bloodwood and dyed maple swirl around one side of the rosette while on the other side, 13 stars representing the original colonies complete the rosette circle around the sound hole. A replica in dyed maple of the first post-Revolution American flag is inlaid on the peg head.
Moggio takes the guitar down and strums a few bars, the dulcet notes ringing mellow and true.
"It's like the chimes of freedom ringing true from this guitar," he said, as several customers in the store nodded in agreement. Moggio said he welcomes people who want to take a look at the historic masterpiece.
He said Taylor Guitars plans to present one of the 400 limited edition Liberty Tree Guitars to President George Bush at the White House in a few weeks. Meanwhile, back in Maryland, plant physicists are expecting to have saplings grown from cuttings of the Liberty Tree ready to transplant in the other 49 states, with the first 13 going to the original colonies.
©Edwardsville Intelligencer 2002
Click Here for a video of a story from the local NBC affiliate in Real Video Format (approx 6.6MB Download).
Note-worthy: New music store opens downtown
By Norma Mendoza - Edwardsville Intelligencer
Mojo's Music at 142 N. Main St. had its grand opening Friday and Saturday beginning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday morning.
Mayor Gary Niebur welcomed owner Bob Moggio to the Edwardsville business community and joined Chamber of Commerce President Jean Hughes in cutting the ribbon symbolizing the official opening.
The neon guitar on the front of the store signifies the store's specialty.
"Acoustic guitars are probably my most popular one category," Moggio said this week.
Mojo's offers a large selection of guitars, both acoustic and amplified, lots of electronic equipment, several kinds of percussion and other instruments, sheet music for piano, guitar, and vocalists, and music lessons. Mojo's has four separate rooms for lessons, one specifically for drummers.
"Everything here is quality stuff," Moggio said. "You can buy a guitar here for $100 or $3,000. We have things for every level of player, beginners, intermediates and professionals."
Helping Niebur welcome Moggio were City Manager Ben Dickmann, Edwardsville Township Supervisor Wanda Stille, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cathy Luttrell, Carl Weakley, and several other members of the Edwardsville-Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce.
With the opening of Mojo's Music, Moggio is fulfilling a long-time dream of having his own business. He's finally got his "mojo" working. The name comes from a nickname bestowed on Moggio growing up, a slight mispronunciation of his last name.
"Mojo has been my nickname pretty much all of my life," he said this week. "I've always been called that, so it seemed like a natural, being my name and with the musical connection - it seemed like a cool thing to do."
The word "mojo" comes from African-American terminology for a good luck amulet traditionally kept on one's person in a small bag. Several blues songs have been written about mojo, notably one by Muddy Waters, "I Got My Mojo Workin.'"
A musician most of his life, Moggio has played the trumpet since he was in fifth grade. It was his instrument of choice through his high school years until he started taking guitar lessons.
Moggio said he has always played in bands of one kind or another. In the '80s, he began to play semi-professionally.
"It was never my sole source of income, but I guess I've played in bands off and on for 20 years or so," he said. "Music is the only thing - definitely a passion, a lifelong passion."
Moggio grew up in Roxana and graduated from Roxana High School. He attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for three years, then decided it was time to go to work.
After working on the pipeline for an oil company in Texas for several years, Moggio said one day he just decided to do something else.
"I just said, 'I'm quitting this job and I'm going to do something in the music business.'"
At first, he went to a recording school to learn how to mix sound for recordings. Then in 1981, he got a job in a music store in Alton. He has 19 years experience in music stores.
"I learned from some really good people in the retail music business," he said. He later worked at a larger store in Hazlewood, Mo., and managed it for about 16 years. Moggio said he started thinking seriously about having his own store four or five years ago and started making plans and looking around.
"I just happened to visit this store at the right time," Moggio said. "The owner hadn't even considered selling, but began to think about it seriously after we talked."
Moggio was serious, too. He quit his job as manager of the store in Hazlewood to put together his business plan and see the transaction through to completion.
His business plan was based on figures the previous owner supplied, but he said so far, his expectations have been exceeded.
The refurbished and redecorated store has been doing business for several weeks before the grand opening this week.
As people registered for Moggio's grand opening prizes, a couple of musicians began to strum a couple of the acoustic guitars, checking out the sounds and playing more for themselves than the crowd.
Moggio and his wife, Margaret, a Glen Carbon trustee, live in Glen Carbon with their daughter, Melissa.
"I'm really enjoying it," Moggio said about his new business venture. "It doesn't even seem like work."
©Edwardsville Intelligencer 2001