Keith Moon
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| Keith Moon | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 23, 1946 Image:Flag of England (bordered).svg London, England |
Keith John Moon (August 23, 1946 – September 7, 1978) was the drummer of the rock group The Who.
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[edit] Biography
Keith John Moon was born on 23 August 1946 in London, England to Alfred and Kathleen Moon. He lived in Alperton as a boy and was extremely hyperactive and had a restless imagination as a child.[citation needed] He was known to have caused a lot of chaos in school and his schoolwork suffered accordingly. [citation needed] As a youth, the only thing that could hold his attention was music. [citation needed] A report from his Secondary Modern school is not encouraging – his art teacher, for example, commented: 'Retarded artistically. Idiotic in other respects.' [citation needed]
Even at an early age, his teachers praised his music skills and acknowledged 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 and left school in 1961. It is possible that Moon had undiagnosed ADHD. This affliction was known at the time, but in a much lesser degree and may have been ignored. Moon later got heavily into drugs, especially amphetamines. Amphetamines in small doses is a common medication for ADHD, as it helps the patient concentrate. Moon's dependency on this drug somewhat strengthens the theory that he had ADHD, his positive experiences may be caused by better focus and a clearer mind, in addition to the more recreational effects of the drug.
On 17 March 1966, Moon married his girlfriend Kim Kerrigan in secrecy, and their daughter Amanda was born four months later, on 12 July. In 1973, Kim left Keith, taking Amanda with her. They would later divorce in 1975.
[edit] Early musical career
At the age of twelve, Moon joined his local Sea Cadet Corps band as a bugle player, but quickly traded his position to be a drummer.<ref>WhoCollection.com</ref> Moon started to play the drums at the age of 14, his mother bought him a Ringo drum kit, and was taught to play by one of the loudest drummers at the time, Carlo Little.[citation needed] During this time he joined his first serious band "Mark Twain and the Strangers".[citation needed] He later spent some time as the drummer for the "The Beachcombers", a surf rock band heavily influenced by The Beach Boys.
Moon initially played in the style of American surf rock and R&B drummers, utilizing grooves and fills of those genres, but playing them much louder and with more authority. He was also heavily influenced by jazz drummer and fellow showman Gene Krupa.[citation needed]
[edit] The Who
Moon joined The Who in April 1964, at the age of 17, an early 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 gigs that they had already agreed to play. According to myth, it was at one of these gigs that Keith Moon was in attendance, and after the show he approached the band stating that he was better than their current drummer.<ref>The Kids Are Alright</ref> Moon then jumped on stage for an impromptu audition, during which he reportedly broke the current drummer's bass drum pedal and smashed a cymbal.[citation needed] The story of how Moon got the job is told in different ways in different biographies, with another story stating that Moon forced his way onstage during the gig and played.
After joining The Who, Moon found that the level of musicianship meant that he was not relied upon to keep the band in time, and so was free to improvise and develop his unique style. As a result of this improvising, Moon usually played with the rhythm of the vocal line, rather than lock down a counter-rhythm with the bass guitar (as is usually expected from the drums).[citation needed]
Moon started off on various 4 or 5 piece drumsets, but made the move to a British Premier double bass kit in late 1965. This was inspired by a conversation he had with Ginger Baker, who told Moon that he had ordered an American Ludwig double bass set and was waiting for it to arrive. Moon decided to simply take two Premier drumsets and put them together, thus making him the first rock drummer to use a double bass drumset.[citation needed] This new equipment widened Moon's playing to an enormous degree. Specifically, he abandoned his hi-hat cymbals almost entirely and started basing his grooves more on a double bass ostinato consisting of eight 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.[citation needed] This would become his trademark style.
Moon's Classic Premier Setup comprised two 14"x22" bass drums, three 8"x14" (Tuna Can) mounted toms, two 16"x16" floor toms, a 5"x14" metal snare(usually Ludwig supraphonic), and two extra floor toms of several different sizes (but mainly 16"x18" or 16"x16"). Moon's classic cymbal setup consisted of two 18" crashes and one 20" ride (Paiste).
Early in The Who's career, the band developed the concept of "Auto Destruction", which had members destroying their equipment at the end of their more high profile shows. Moon showed a particular zeal for this activity, wildly kicking and smashing his drums. During an appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour television show, he overloaded a drum with explosive charges which were detonated during the finale of "My Generation", which according to legend resulted in permanent hearing damage (not to mention singed hair) for bandmate Pete Townshend (which Townshend denies) and caused Bette Davis to faint.[citation needed] Moon himself was injured after a cymbal flew backwards and sliced into his arm.[citation needed] Another time, he filled his drums entirely with water and used them as tanks for goldfish, actually playing them for the concert - when an audience member asked "What do you do with the goldfish?", he replied with a grin, "Even the best drummers get hungry."<ref>"Keith Moon and goldfish". 00:50.</ref>All of his antics soon earned him the nickname "Moon the Loon", a name he apparently was not fond of.[citation needed]
Because he was not a good singer, Moon was banned from the studio when vocals were being recorded. This led to an ongoing game with Townshend, in which Moon would try to sneak into the room to join the singing. At the tail end of "Happy Jack" Townshend can be heard shouting "I saw ya!", and it's said that he was noticing Moon once again trying to join in surreptitiously. [citation needed] (The All Music Guide tells a different story -- that Moon was outside the recording booth trying to distract the others.) However, Moon can be heard singing lead vocals on several Who tracks, including "Bell Boy" (Quadrophenia, 1973) and the high pitched-voice on "Barbara Ann" (Ready Steady Who EP, 1966). He was credited as the composer of "I Need You" (A Quick One, 1966), which he also sang, and the single b-sides "Dogs Part Two" (1969) and "Wasp Man" (1972).
[edit] A reputation for destruction
Moon quickly gained a reputation for being highly destructive. He was known to lay 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 firecrackers.[citation needed] These acts were sometimes fueled by drugs and/or alcohol, but most of the time, Moon was simply living out his larger-than-life persona.
One of the most famous stories concerns him driving a Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool - it is currently disputed whether this event occurred, with his biographer, Tony Fletcher, denying it, and Roger Daltrey claiming to have witnessed the resulting $50,000 bill.<ref>npr.org</ref> From his known behaviour, however, it is not hard to see how such a story could originate. It appears to have been two stories merged together. While in Flint, Michigan, Moon threw a party after a Who show; subsequently, the manager was called with complaints from the other guests. When the manager came to Moon's door and saw all of the drinking and smoking, he demanded the party be stopped and that Moon should leave. As the manager spoke, Moon picked up a cake and shoved it in his face. Moon was then thrown out of the room by the manager. In a drunken stupor Moon used a fire extinguisher on some random cars and then jumped into the swimming pool which had no water in it. He snapped one of his teeth completely off and later had it re-glued.[citation needed] The other portion of the car driving into a swimming pool story comes from the story when Moon was at his home and had an argument with his wife, Kim, and he claimed he was going to commit suicide after the argument heated up. He drove his Rolls-Royce into their home pond, and Moon came swimming out from under the water, apparently laughing.[citation needed]
Much of his behaviour, though often outrageous, was in a more humorous vein in the company of his great friend Vivian Stanshall, of the Bonzo Dog Band. When Stanshall took over the John Peel radio show for a while, Moon appeared as Lemmy in Stanshall's ongoing saga of Colonel Knutt, idiot adventurer-detective.[citation needed] Moon also produced Stanshall's recorded version of Elvis Presley's "Suspicion".
In 1970, Moon was involved in an incident outside a pub in Hatfield, Hertfordshire in which his friend and bodyguard, Cornelius "Neil" Boland, was run over and killed. 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. However, Boland's daughter later tried to investigate and reported that Moon may not have been driving the car.<ref>An interview with Jean Battye about the death of Neil Boland</ref>
Moon's penchant for the wild life would eventually be detrimental to both his drumming ability and his reliability as a band member. He, at one point, actually tried frying banana peels and pushing them up his rectal passage in order to become inordinately high.[citation needed] His playing deteriorated as the 1970s progressed, and he would often need to take two or three weeks to learn how to "play like Keith Moon" again, due to heavy drug and alcohol use. [citation needed] During the band's three year sabbatical from recording between 1975 and 1978 Moon also put on a great deal of weight.
Moon owned the only purple Rolls Royce ever made. This was disputed by Rolls Royce who claimed Moon had it repainted. The car is now owned by Middlebrook Garages (based in Nottinghamshire, England)[1].
[edit] Work outside The Who
Although his work with the Who dominated Moon's career, he participated in a few minor side projects. In 1966, he teamed up with Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck and future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to record an instrumental, "Beck's Bolero", released as a single later that year. Moon is also said to have named Led Zeppelin when an early version of the band was being discussed that would have had himself, along with either John Entwistle or John Paul Jones on bass, pop star Donovan on vocals, and Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck as members; he stated the potential supergroup would "go over like a lead balloon".[citation needed]
In 1974 he released his only solo album, a collection of pop covers entitled Two Sides of the Moon. Perversely, although this record featured Moon's atrocious singing, much of the drumming was left to other artists including Ringo Starr and session musician Jim Keltner, with Moon only playing on two of the 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. 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 follow up film Stardust in 1974. The film also co-starred Moon's longtime friend Ringo Starr of the Beatles although he was replaced by Adam Faith for the more successful Stardust. He also appeared as "Uncle Ernie" in Ken Russell's 1975 film adaptation of Tommy, a 1969 Who album. 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 Life of Brian began filming. The published edition of the screenplay to Life of Brian is dedicated to Moon.
[edit] Death
Keith Moon's final night out was as a guest of Paul McCartney at the preview of the film The Buddy Holly Story on the 7 September 1978. After dining with Paul and Linda McCartney, Moon and his girlfriend, Annette Walter-Lax, left the party early and returned to a flat on loan from Harry Nilsson in Curzon Place, London. He died in his sleep at the age of 32, having overdosed on Chlormethiazole, medication taken as part of a program to wean him off alcohol. When the police investigated the cause of his death they determined that there were about 32 pills in his system. Some of the pills were undissolved.
Moon died a couple of weeks after the release of the last Who album he appeared on, Who Are You. All four band members are shown on the album cover, with Moon seated on a chair back-to-front in order to hide all the weight he had gained in the previous three years, as discussed in Tony Fletcher's book "Dear Boy".[citation needed] Ironically, the chair was labelled "Not to be taken away".
[edit] Events after his death
The Who, before Moon died, always performed with four members. But following his death, Moon was replaced not only by Small Faces/Faces drummer Kenny Jones, but The Who also added keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick to the live band. Similarly, when John Entwistle died, his place in the live band was filled by both Pino Palladino (bass) and Pete's younger brother, Simon Townshend (guitar). The Who's drummer's position is currently occupied by Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr.
As a tribute, one of the bars in the London Astoria music venue is named the "Keith Moon bar". Though not directly tributes, Pete Townshend mentions Keith Moon's death in his song "Jools and Jim" (from his 1980 solo album Empty Glass), and Moon is the inspiration for his 1982 solo album All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes' title.[citation needed] For his part, Roger Daltrey recorded a song, "Under a Raging Moon" as a tribute to Moon.
A biography has been 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.[citation needed]
In early 2006, Keith 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 in contrast with the vintage appearance. [2]
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, TX on August 2, 2006.
[edit] Keith Moon in popular culture
As of September 29, 2005, Comedian/Actor Mike Myers has been signed on to play the lead role in an upcoming biopic of Moon. The film has been titled See Me Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked For Your Pleasure. Scheduled for a 2007 release, See Me Feel Me will be produced by Roger Daltrey, Nigel Sinclair, and Paul Gerber. Though the film, if it is made at all, will likely not be released before 2009.
On June 8, 2006, "The Onion" featured a Radio News piece titled, "Researchers At Keith Moon Institute Destroy Institute". [3]
In a strip of the comic Achewood from April 2006, character Ray Smuckles finds Keith Moon's head preserved in booze, available to buy on the fictional online-auction service, eBay Platinum Reserve.[4] The head later comes to life and flips around in the jar before being phased out of the strip, its final fate left unknown.
Internet cartoonist Jonti Picking's 2006 series of webtoon shorts (Anything Can Happen) On the Moon depicts the deceased Keith Moon (referred to as "Moon Keith Moon") living on the moon in the form of a metal urn of his ashes, labelled with the words "R.I.P. Keith".
In the 1997 PlayStation game Gex: Enter the Gecko, the lead character Gex can be heard saying "This one's for Keith Moon!"
In the 1993 film Wayne's World 2, a veteran roadie tells of how he, David Crosby and Keith Moon broke into a sweet shop in Sri Lanka to steal one thousand brown M&M's to fill a brandy glass, otherwise "Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night".
Moon is referenced as one of the supernatural acts to appear in the television version of Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes in You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.
Late comedian Bill Hicks, as part of his act, once sarcastically imagined what it would be like to have 'real' rockstars appear in TV commercials instead of popstars. Among those he mentioned was Keith Moon advertising Snickers.
In the TV series Psych, lead character Shawn Spencer makes a reference to him as a person who trashed his hotel room.
The Muppets character Animal is modeled after Moon in both antics and choice of instrument.
During a montage in School of Rock, the video shows a short clip of Keith Moon's amazing drumming.
In the 2001 TV movie "Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story" drummer Rick Allen of Def Leppard is portrayed imitating famous drummers for his band mates. He hits the cymbals and then falls backwards off his stool as the rest of his band exclaims "Keith Moon!". Also, later in the movie, Rick Allen is shown struggling to get used to his new electronic drums since his accident that cost him his left arm and seemingly falls off his stool by accident. His band mates look alarmed until he looks up at them and says reasurringly, "Keith Moon".
In the comedy series Absolutely Fabulous, Edina remarks to Saffron, "You know, Patsy used to date Keith Moon," to which Patsy responds, "Well, sort of. I woke up underneath him in a hotel room once."
On the British automotive show Top Gear, presenter Jeremy Clarkson replicates the Rolls-Royce swimming pool stunt by driving a 1976 Silver Shadow into a newly refurbished swimming pool in his hometown of Chipping Norton. Clarkson claimed that he was inspired by Keith Moon's stunt. [5]
[edit] References
<references /> Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend by Tony Fletcher
[edit] External links
- thewho.net: Album Liner Notes and Song Information
- The Who Location Guide
- Punk in the Gutter: Discussion/News Repository Website about The Who, including a Keith Moon Appreciation Archive (registration required)
- The Who Forum: Includes Keith Moon news,views and discussion.
- The Who ("Towser") TV: Online Webcasts, including Moon footage
| The Who |
|---|
| Roger Daltrey | Pete Townshend | John Entwistle | Keith Moon |
| Kenney Jones - John "Rabbit" Bundrick - Pino Palladino - Zak Starkey Simon Townshend - Jon Carin - Simon Phillips - Doug Sandom - Colin Dawson |
| Listings |
| Personnel - Discography - Filmography - The Who in popular culture |
| Other related people |
| Peter Meaden - Kit Lambert - Chris Stamp |
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