Keith Moon

Keith Moon

Keith John Moon (August 23, 1946 – September 7, 1978) was the drummer of the rock group The Who. He gained notoriety for his chaotic drumming style and his destructive lifestyle. Moon joined The Who in 1964, replacing Doug Sandom. He played on all albums from their debut, 1965's My Generation, to 1978's Who Are You, released two weeks before Moon's death.

Moon is known for innovative, dramatic drumming, often eschewing basic back beats for a fluid, extremely busy technique focused on fast, cascading rolls across the toms and cymbal splashes. Moon was one of the first to play the drums as a lead instrument in an era when drums were supposed to only keep the back beat. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most distinctive of rock and roll drummers.

Biography

Keith John Moon was born on 23 August, 1946 at Central Middlesex Hospital, Park Royal, London to Arthur and Kathleen Moon. He lived in Wembley as a boy, was extremely hyperactive, and had a restless imagination. Arthur's nickname for his son was "Nobby." As a youth, one thing that could hold his attention was music. A report from his secondary modern school is not encouraging – his art teacher, for example, commented: 'Retarded artistically. Idiotic in other respects.' Teacher Aaron Sofocleous praised his music skills and encouraged his chaotic style, even if one school report noted "He has great ability, but must guard against a tendency to show off." Moon failed his eleven plus exam and left school in 1961.

On 17 March 1966, Moon married his pregnant girlfriend Kim Kerrigan in secrecy. Their daughter Amanda was born four months later, on 12 July. In 1973, Kerrigan left Moon, taking Amanda with her. They divorced in 1975.

Early musical career

At twelve, Moon joined his local Sea Cadet Corps band as a bugle player, but quickly traded his position to be a drummer. Moon started drums at fourteen after his mother bought him a drum kit. Moon received drumming lessons from one of the loudest drummers at the time, Carlo Little, paying him 10 shillings a lesson. During this time he joined his first serious band "The Escorts". He later spent 18 months as the drummer for the "The Beachcombers", a London cover band most notable for their renditions of songs by Cliff Richard.

Moon initially played in the style of American surf rock and R&B drummers, utilising grooves and fills of those genres, particularly Hal Blaine of Wrecking Crew. However, he played faster and louder, with more persistence and authority.

The Who

At 17, Moon joined The Who (in April 1964), a replacement for their original drummer Doug Sandom. Sandom had left the band less than a month earlier and the remaining members hired a session drummer to fulfill a run of shows that they had already agreed to play. Keith Moon was at one of these shows. Peter Townshend later described him as looking like a "ginger man" with ginger (brown) coloured clothes and his hair dyed ginger. As stated in VH1's Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who, Keith looked up to Roger Daltrey during the show and said "I hear you're looking for a drummer. Well, I'm much better than the one you have" The band knew that they needed Moon after seeing him practically smash the drum set to pieces.

Moon started off on various four- or five-piece drumsets, but made the move to a British Premier double bass kit in late 1965. This was inspired by a conversation with Ginger Baker, who told Moon that he had ordered an American Ludwig double bass set. Moon decided to simply take two Premier drumsets and put them together. This equipment widened Moon's playing enormously: he abandoned his hi-hat cymbals almost entirely and started basing his grooves on a double bass ostinato with eighth note flams, and a wall of white noise created by riding a crash or ride cymbal. On top of this he would play fills and cymbal accents. This became his trademark style.

Moon's Classic Premier Setup comprised two 14x22 inch bass drums, three 8x14 (Tuna Can) mounted toms, two 16x16 floor toms, a 5x14 metal snare (usually Ludwig supraphonic), and one extra floor tom of several different sizes (but mainly 16x18 or 16x16). Moon's classic cymbal setup consisted of two 18" crashes and one 20" ride (Paiste). In 1973, Moon added a second row of tom-toms (firstly four and then six) and then, in 1975, two more timbales. These huge kits became well known, notably the amber set in the films Tommy and Stardust, and the footage taken by the BBC at Charlton in 1974. The 1975/76 white kit with gold effect fittings was given by Moon to young Zak Starkey. His final kit, a dark metallic one, is seen in the shots taken for The Kids Are Alright at Shepperton in 1978.

Early in The Who's career, the band used "Auto Destruction", with members destroying their equipment at the end of high profile shows (an act imitated countlessly). Moon showed a particular zeal for this, wildly kicking and smashing his drums. During an appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour television show, he loaded a drum with explosives which were detonated during the finale of "My Generation", singeing Townshend's hair (This has been credited with starting Townsend's tinnitus.) Another time, he filled a set of clear acrylic drums entirely with water and used them as tanks for goldfish, actually playing them for the concert. When an audience member asked "What happens with your goldfish?", he replied with a grin, "Well I mean, you know...even the best drummers get hungry." Antics soon earned him the nickname "Moon the Loon".

Moon was enthusiastic about singing. His determination to add his voice to The Who songs eventually led the other members to banish him from the studio when vocals were recorded. This led to an ongoing game, with Moon sneaking in to join the singing. At the tail end of "Happy Jack", Townshend can be heard shouting "I saw you!": it is said that he noticed Moon trying to join in surreptitiously. However, Moon can be heard singing on several Who tracks, including "Bell Boy" (Quadrophenia, 1973), "Bucket T" and "Barbara Ann" (Ready Steady Who EP, 1966). He was credited as the composer of "I Need You", which he also sang, and the instrumental "Cobwebs and Strange" (both on A Quick One, 1966), the single B-sides "Dogs Part Two" (1969) and "Wasp Man" (1972), and "Girl's Eyes" (from The Who Sell Out sessions; featured on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B and a 1995 re-release of The Who Sell Out). Although Moon was credited with lead vocals on "Tommy's Holiday Camp" (Tommy, 1969), they were performed on the album by Townshend.

A reputation for destruction

Moon was highly destructive. He laid waste to hotel rooms, the homes of friends, and even his own home, often throwing furniture out of high windows and destroying the plumbing with fireworks. He frequently flushed powerful fireworks down the toilet, and was known to detonate toilets for amusement. Perhaps these acts were fueled by drugs and alcohol, but it might be held that Moon was simply living out his larger-than-life persona.

One story concerns him driving a Cadillac into a swimming pool. Daltrey witnessed the resulting $50,000 bill. It occurred at a Holiday Inn hotel pool in Flint, Michigan on Bristol Road and was seen by DJ "Peter C" Cavanaugh who was the first DJ to play The Who in America Local DJ A Rock N Roll History. A video interview of Cavanaugh recounting the night's events is being edited for broadcast in 2008. Daltrey said in Top Gear that Moon did not drive a Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool, but he did drive a Chrysler Wimbledon into a duck pond. According to the book, The Who In Their Own Words, Moon said the incident was at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan and the car was a Lincoln Continental. He said this was how he broke his front tooth.

Although his behaviour was outrageous, it was was in the same humorous vein as his friend Vivian Stanshall, of the Bonzo Dog Band. (Moon produced Stanshall's version of Elvis Presley's "Suspicion".)

According to Townshend, Moon's reputation for erratic behavior was something in which he took pride and cultivated. Once, when The Who was on its way to an airport to catch a flight to their next concert, Moon suddenly insisted that they return to their hotel. "I forgot something," said Moon, frantically. "We've got to go back!" When the limo returned, Moon ran to his room, grabbed the TV, took it outside, and threw it in the swimming pool. He then jumped back into the limosine, sighing with relief, "I nearly forgot."

On January 4 1970, Moon was in an incident outside the Red Lion pub in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Trying to escape hostile skinheads from the pub who had begun to attack his Bentley, Moon ran over and killed his friend and bodyguard, Cornelius "Neil" Boland. Although the coroner said that Boland's death was an accident, and Moon was subsequently given an absolute discharge after having been charged with driving offences, those close to him said Moon was haunted by the accident for the rest of his life. Boland's daughter later investigated and suggested that Moon may not have been driving the car.

Moon's penchant for the wild life was detrimental to his drumming and his reliability as a band member. On their 1973 Quadrophenia tour, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California; Moon took 15 'horse tranquilizers' before the show. When informed this was almost four times the amount for a horse, his response was, "I'm fucking Keith Moon." He passed out in "Won't Get Fooled Again" and again in "Magic Bus". When Moon was finally incapacitated, Townsend addressed the audience, saying, "Does anybody know how to play the drums?" An audience member, Scott Halpin, filled in for Moon for the rest of the show. During the band's recording sabbatical between 1975 and 1978 Moon put on a great deal of weight.

Moon owned a lilac Rolls-Royce, which he had painted with house paint. On Top Gear (aired 2004/12/12), Daltrey commented that Moon liked to take upper class icons and make them working class. The car is now owned by Middlebrook Garages (based in Nottinghamshire, England).

Work outside The Who

Although Moon's work with The Who dominated his career, he participated in a few minor side projects. In 1966, he teamed with Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck, session man Nicky Hopkins, and future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to record an instrumental, "Beck's Bolero", released as a single-double later that year. He also played timpani on "Ol' Man River" (credited on the back of the album as "You Know Who").

Moon is said to have named Led Zeppelin. When an early version of the band was being discussed that would have had himself, John Entwistle on bass, Jimmy Page on guitar, and an undecided vocalist; he stated the potential supergroup would "go down like a lead zeppelin". He joined Zeppelin on stage and drummed along with John Bonham for the encores in a show on 23 June 1977 at the L.A. Forum (recorded on various Led Zeppelin bootlegs).

In 1975 he released his only solo album, a collection of pop covers entitled Two Sides of the Moon. Although this featured Moon's singing, much drumming was left to other artists including Ringo Starr and session musicians Curly Smith and Jim Keltner. Moon only played drums on three tracks.

In 1971 he had a cameo role in Frank Zappa's farcical film 200 Motels. He acted in drag as a nun fearful of death from overdosing on pills, ironically. In 1973 he appeared in That'll Be the Day, playing J.D. Clover, the resident drummer at a holiday camp during the early days of British rock 'n' roll. Moon reprised the role for the sequel Stardust in 1974. The film co-starred Moon's longtime friend Ringo Starr of the Beatles He appeared as "Uncle Ernie" in Ken Russell's 1975 film adaptation of Tommy. In 1976, he covered the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four" for the soundtrack of the documentary All This and World War II. He was to have a part in Monty Python's Life of Brian and stayed in the Caribbean with the six Python members as they wrote the script—he died before filming. The published edition of the screenplay to Life of Brian is dedicated to Moon.

Moon owned two hotels, including The Crown and Cushion in Chipping Norton; situated behind the inn was a barn used by the band for rehearsals. The relatively inconspicuous Navarro Hotel, located on Central Park South in New York City, was favored by the likes of The Doors and the Grateful Dead.

Death

Moon was Paul McCartney's guest at a film preview of The Buddy Holly Story on 7 September 1978. After dining with Paul and Linda McCartney, Moon and his girlfriend, Annette Walter-Lax, returned to a flat on loan from Harry Nilsson in Curzon Place, London. He overdosed on Clomethiazole (Heminevrin), a medication taken as part of a programme to wean him off alcohol. The police investigation determined there were about 32 pills in his system, some undissolved. He was 32 years old.

On the audio DVD commentary to The Criterion Collection's release of the Monty Python film Life of Brian, Eric Idle talks about the dinner party. Idle relates that Moon was very excited about his upcoming role as a prophet in the movie. After launching into his speech for the film, Idle and Moon exchanged a "big, warm hug", with Idle commenting that "he was just such a wonderful enthusiast".

Moon died a couple of weeks after the release of Who Are You. On the album cover, Moon is seated on a chair back-to-front to hide the weight he gained over three years (as discussed in Tony Fletcher's book "Dear Boy"). The chair is labeled "NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY".

Moon was cremated. His ashes were scattered in the Gardens of Remembrance at Golders Green Crematorium in London.

Events after his death

While Moon was alive, The Who performed with four members. Afterward, he was replaced by Small Faces/Faces drummer Kenney Jones and later Simon Phillips. The Who also added keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick to the live band. The Who's drummer's position is currently occupied by Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr. Moon taught Starkey when he was young and was referred to as "Uncle Keith" by him.

As a tribute, one of the bars in the London Astoria music venue is named the "Keith Moon Bar". Daltrey recorded a song, "Under a Raging Moon" as a tribute to Moon.

A biography was written about Moon by Tony Fletcher, entitled Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon. "Dear Boy" became a catchphrase of Moon's when he started affecting a pompous English accent around 1969, particularly when ordering drinks.

In early 2006, Moon's signature Pictures of Lily drum kit was reissued by Premier Percussion under the name Spirit of Lily. This kit integrated modern features and hardware with a vintage appearance. [1]

Moon's ex-wife, Kim, was married to Ian McLagan of The Faces in 1978, the year that Moon died. She was killed in a traffic accident near Austin, Texas on August 2, 2006.

Moon's daughter, Mandy, is married to a graphic artist, has two daughters and lives in Southern California.

References

Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend by Tony Fletcher

Anyway Anyhow Anywhere (Revised Edition): The Complete Chronicle of The Who 1958-1978 by Andrew Neill and Mathew Kent

External links

• thewho.net: Album Liner Notes and Song Information
• The Who Location Guide
• The Who Forum: Includes Keith Moon news,views and discussion.
• Punk in the Gutter: Discussion/News Repository Website about The Who, including a Keith Moon Appreciation Archive (registration required)
• The Who ("Towser") TV: Online Webcasts, including Moon footage
• Profile for Keith Moon at Find A Grave
• [2] Photographic Homage to Keith Moon