Keith Moon 1946-1978

Rip It Up, Issue 16, 1 October 1978, Page 4

Keith Moon 1946-1978

Peter Thomson

Things they do look awful cold, Hope I die before I get old. The Who, 1975 The Who were one of the three best groups to emerge from the great British beat boom of the mid 60s and they were the only one to have survived through to the 70’s without casualty. Until now. On September 7th, drummer Keith Moon, aged 31, was found dead of a drug overdose in his London flat. The previous evening he had been celebrating his engagement to a Swedish model at a party hosted by Paul McCartney. Although Moon’s death was unexpected, to any follower of the Who it cannot really come as a shock. Ever since the group began Moon had lived a life of personal excess and often deliberate social outrage. The Who lineup was formed one evening in 1964 when, as the ‘High Numbers’, the other members were performing in a London pub. Keith Moon, 17 years old and in a drunken stupor, staggered on stage and challenged them to play with him. He promptly demolished the drumkit, delighted the band (except their drummer) and was hired. It was his twentyfourth job since quitting school. As a drummer Moon was unique. His style seemed to owe more to spontaneous frenzy than orthodox technique. Wild-eyed and mouth agape he flailed and thrashed at the kit as if demented. (On the Who’s N.Z. tour roadies nailed his drums and. stands to town hall stages so that they withstood his onslaught.) Drummers of jazz discipline were horrified by Moon but for the Who he was perfect. In the early days, when the group’s stage act would climax in an orgy of destruction, Moon would literally climb onto his kit hurling drums and cymbals about, (although sometimes he just attacked it with an axe.)

In a recent tribute to Moon, Who leader Pete Townshend said: "We have lost our great comedian, our supreme melodramatist, the man who, apart from being the most unpredictable and spontaneous drummer in rock, would have set himself alight if he thought it would make the audience laugh or jump out of their seats.” Probably true enough, for ‘Moon the Loon’ was nothing if not the consummate showman. Besides the onstage antics he was continually grabbing headlines. At public functions he loved to masquerade as a werewolf, or nun, Nazi officer, or cheap tart. His performance as Uncle Ernie in the film Tommy exemplified this bizarre theatricality.

The destructive element was not confined to the stage either. Although all Who members were graduates in the rock stars’ art of hoteltrashing, no other quite had Moon's originality and flair. Perhaps his most famous feat was to drive someone’s Lincoln Continental into a hotel swimming pool (which was full.) Originally the Who was the musical representative of the British ‘mod’ sub-culture and a band which operated at alarming levels of creativity, spontaneity and insanity. Logically it should have burnt itself out before the 70s. Instead it gradually stabilised, becoming almost respectable over the years. As success, particularly after the Tommy phenomenon, became more secure there seemed less necessity and opportunity to work together as regularly. Individual careers and albums were pursued. Although Keith’s Two Sides of the Moon (’75) was the least successful solo venture, he, like the others of his generation, appeared to be settling down comfortably into the rock establishment. The question now remains as to the future of the Who. Can the group survive without its distinctive drummer and with a changed personality? Pete Townshend: “We are more determined than ever to carry on and we want the spirit of the group to which Keith contributed so much to go on, although no human being can ever take his place.”