Keith Moon appreciation thread
- Thread starter Greg_L
- Start date
no doubt he was one of the best, Neil Peart for me
I like Peart too, he's awesome, but he is also probably the most boring fantastic drummer ever.
liv_rong
Knows very little
Yes.
nullnaught
New member
Keith moon is great. Does anybody remember him singing a beach boys song in the movie the kids are alright? gene krupa would be a more favorite of a drummer for me.
Seafroggys
Well-known member
The Quick One clip at the Rolling Stones Circus is one of my favorite performances of all time. Its one of my favorite parts of The Kids Are Alright movie....and that's saying something.
Aside from Keith's awesome drum work, I just love John doing "You are forgiven" in falsetto. So freaking amazing.
Aside from Keith's awesome drum work, I just love John doing "You are forgiven" in falsetto. So freaking amazing.
This X 1000000000000
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
In "The making of Quadrophenia," Pete Townshend says that he never thought Keith Moon was a particularly good drummer. But it's a preface to his main point which was that he was a real listener. People often think he led the band in songs with his explosive drumming but Townshend says that Moon was listening really intently to what he and John Entwistle were doing and reacting to that.
I know there are many that feel Moon overplayed and to some extent, he did. But for me, that's part of what made the early Who {up until the early 70s} so distinctive on records and live. They took the Kinks sound and intent up a notch or three and what the Kinks for all their brilliance never had was an innovator on bass.......and a Keith Moon. If Phil Rudd epitomized that no frills, solid drumming that enabled the others to heap lots of great colours on board, then Mick Avory was that in the 60s {but without the thwack}. So much of the Kinks sound is dependent on him playing pretty much the same style on most of the songs. Keith Moon was never that ! He was sheer heart attack and he infused the Who's incendiary music with further high voltage pounding. Jimmy Page would have had him in the new band he was starting up if he hadn't been such a fixture in the Who {he says it was due to Moon joking that his band would go down like a lead balloon that Page came up with the name of Led Zeppelin although John Entwistle says it was his name for a band he and Moon were going to start as they were going to leave the Who after a fight with Roger Daltrey}.
Just last week, I happened to catch the last 8 minutes of a programme on the Small Faces and when Ian McLagan was summing up the band he spoke of Kenney Jones' brilliance and said rather snidely "better than Keith Moon, Keith Moon couldn't keep time...." {there was a bit of personal history between the two}.
But Keith Moon could keep time. On the Classic albums episode about "Who's next", I think Glyn Johns it is who solos the tracks and Moon's drumming on the particular track featured is rock solid.
In later years, excess mashed up Moon's ability to keep time and drum well and the stories of him not able to cut it during the "Who are you ?" sessions are tragic.
I had just turned 16 when I heard "My generation" {although I first heard them when I was 12 with "Squeeze box"} and that blast coming out of the speakers was a real eye opener and ear popper. It was a few months after he'd died and the way the bass and drums fry the airwaves is simply unlike anything in rock at the time, especially in Britain. The stuff that the Stones, the Kinks and the Who were coming out with in 1965 {as well as Dylan, the Beach boys and the Byrds on the other side of the pond} certainly made the Beatles up their game.
Moon brought to rock something pretty unique and that shouldn't be forgotten. Free jazz drummers had, for some years been liberating the role of drums from a purely timekeeping one but very few people could cope with the formlessness, anger and noise of free jazz so much of what they were doing escaped the masses. What Keith Moon did was to bring that anarchic, improvisational, unorthodox power pounding into songs that would have been pretty revolutionary anyhow, with a Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr or Mick Avory at the kit striking a straighter, more regular beat. I think his way of drumming helped break down a lot of people's barriers and defences after the initial shock/distaste {after all, the Who made songs that were accessible and fairly popular} and were a key element in paving the way for psychedelia, progressive rock and jazz fusion as rock veered off in more and more directions at a very fertile point in it's development.
I know there are many that feel Moon overplayed and to some extent, he did. But for me, that's part of what made the early Who {up until the early 70s} so distinctive on records and live. They took the Kinks sound and intent up a notch or three and what the Kinks for all their brilliance never had was an innovator on bass.......and a Keith Moon. If Phil Rudd epitomized that no frills, solid drumming that enabled the others to heap lots of great colours on board, then Mick Avory was that in the 60s {but without the thwack}. So much of the Kinks sound is dependent on him playing pretty much the same style on most of the songs. Keith Moon was never that ! He was sheer heart attack and he infused the Who's incendiary music with further high voltage pounding. Jimmy Page would have had him in the new band he was starting up if he hadn't been such a fixture in the Who {he says it was due to Moon joking that his band would go down like a lead balloon that Page came up with the name of Led Zeppelin although John Entwistle says it was his name for a band he and Moon were going to start as they were going to leave the Who after a fight with Roger Daltrey}.
Just last week, I happened to catch the last 8 minutes of a programme on the Small Faces and when Ian McLagan was summing up the band he spoke of Kenney Jones' brilliance and said rather snidely "better than Keith Moon, Keith Moon couldn't keep time...." {there was a bit of personal history between the two}.
But Keith Moon could keep time. On the Classic albums episode about "Who's next", I think Glyn Johns it is who solos the tracks and Moon's drumming on the particular track featured is rock solid.
In later years, excess mashed up Moon's ability to keep time and drum well and the stories of him not able to cut it during the "Who are you ?" sessions are tragic.
I had just turned 16 when I heard "My generation" {although I first heard them when I was 12 with "Squeeze box"} and that blast coming out of the speakers was a real eye opener and ear popper. It was a few months after he'd died and the way the bass and drums fry the airwaves is simply unlike anything in rock at the time, especially in Britain. The stuff that the Stones, the Kinks and the Who were coming out with in 1965 {as well as Dylan, the Beach boys and the Byrds on the other side of the pond} certainly made the Beatles up their game.
Moon brought to rock something pretty unique and that shouldn't be forgotten. Free jazz drummers had, for some years been liberating the role of drums from a purely timekeeping one but very few people could cope with the formlessness, anger and noise of free jazz so much of what they were doing escaped the masses. What Keith Moon did was to bring that anarchic, improvisational, unorthodox power pounding into songs that would have been pretty revolutionary anyhow, with a Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr or Mick Avory at the kit striking a straighter, more regular beat. I think his way of drumming helped break down a lot of people's barriers and defences after the initial shock/distaste {after all, the Who made songs that were accessible and fairly popular} and were a key element in paving the way for psychedelia, progressive rock and jazz fusion as rock veered off in more and more directions at a very fertile point in it's development.
When I was a very young drummer, I was first influenced by the solid groove of the R & B drummers from Motown, Stax, etc. - but once the British invasion hit, I became a huge Who/Moon fan - and Moonie probably influenced my rock drumming style more than anyone (naturally this was waaaay befor Peart, etc. - and I agree Peart is technically a very good drummer, but too boring for my taste).
Back in the late 70's I auditioned for a band that was doing a "British Invasion" cover band thing (some Beatles and Stones, but mostly Kinks, DC 5, Who, etc.) - I got the gig because I knew all the Who catalog (and most of the Kinks, DC 5 and all the other British bands) and I could mimic the reckless abandon of Moon (unfortunately not only the drum related recklessness). That cover band made a lot of money (which is good cause I did trash the occasional drum while kicking it off stage, etc.) - we burned out after about a year - but during that year we worked non stop and some very well paying gigs - and I can personally attest that my study of Moon's style got me the gig!
Back in the late 70's I auditioned for a band that was doing a "British Invasion" cover band thing (some Beatles and Stones, but mostly Kinks, DC 5, Who, etc.) - I got the gig because I knew all the Who catalog (and most of the Kinks, DC 5 and all the other British bands) and I could mimic the reckless abandon of Moon (unfortunately not only the drum related recklessness). That cover band made a lot of money (which is good cause I did trash the occasional drum while kicking it off stage, etc.) - we burned out after about a year - but during that year we worked non stop and some very well paying gigs - and I can personally attest that my study of Moon's style got me the gig!
Supercreep
Lizard People
Great drummer whose style I just don't dig.