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Thoughts on Keith Moon

Keith moon-Hero or Zero

  • One of the best rock drummers of all time, no doubt about it

    Votes: 123 63.1%
  • He couldnt play at all

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • Eh... he had good moments, but not the best

    Votes: 69 35.4%

  • Total voters
    195
What did our man Ginge have to say about Moon?

Ginger's jaws are rad. I want Richard Kiel teeth too. They look great with grey hair.

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Richard_Kiel_jaws1.jpg
 
I know he technichally wasnt a bassist, but I heard My Generation on the radio the other day, and his fills are just amazing. Feeling inspired, I went back and listened to their whole catalogue and Keith (not to mention John) blew me away on almost every song. I dont know why he gets so much hate from drummers... anyway, anyone else have any thoughts on the late, great Moon the Loon?
Moon's playing rode the line between playing a functional instrumental "part" and a balls-out, out-of-control meltdown, which is what rock and roll should be all about.

It's better to hear sincere energy that is teetering on the brink of collapse than it is to hear someone smugly and cooly playing what they know they can pull off.

 
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I would say listening to all these clips posted, that his timing was awesome. Style is a different discussion. The Who= Great songwriting guitar player that focused on the songs as a whole, not lead licks. Bass player who for me was a ground breaking player, and innovator and a drummer that was perfect for their wild innovative style. I don't listen to them now. I did then. RIP Keith and John Bonham, and I hope Ginger Baker lives to be a crotch into his 90's Ha Ha
 
Keith moon is Keith moon. He's the real life animal. Simon Phillips is a master at his craft and a hell of a studio cat, but as big of a who fan as I am it's not the who without Keith. What he does for drums is almost what john does for bass. People can say they both played too many notes and their sound was too loud and theres no backbone but if you listen to some of the tracks on tommy/sell out/numbers there is a distinctive bassline and drumbeat happening. Obviously they weren't pocket players but They knew when to play and when to actually play. A good 75% of what the who did live was improvisation. And Keith always had something different to improvise around whether it was coming from Pete or John. He listened to everything.
 
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I always thought he was pretty amazing. Especially looking at the way he held his sticks and arm/wrist positioning.... a very hard hitter for not looking like one. They're the bad boys of that time and he lead the force. Imo, it's the Kurt Cobain scenerio - had Moon not been in the band, we probably wouldn't be talking about Entwhistle on this forum.

I love all the live clips of that band... when guitar gets smashed, and drums go flying.... Daultry is still trying to be a singer and Entwhistle steps back to guard his bass gear while still playing. Doesn't get any better than that. I would do the same.
 
I also ask drummers their opinion on John Bonham and only met one guy that didn't acknowledge his greatness!! I consider Zeppelin and the Who to be contemporaries so I think its a fair comparison even though the Who was 1st and had a more active approach to rhythm playing!!

I'm not a drummer but like his playing except he seems to have had a tendency to speed up slightly coming up to any big fill.
 
Keith was right up there with Bonham & Ginger Baker.

I was surprised to recently find out that Baker is still alive. Considering the life he's led, it was a shock to me.
I respectfully disagree.
Baker is, in my estimation a completely different league to the other two.
A grumpy basterd he may be but a fantastic drummer he is too.
A proper drummer; Not one that found himself behind a drum kit by accident after waking up from a drunken stupor.
 
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Moon and Entwistle were such a unique no-rules rhythm section that on paper should never have worked, but it did and it was brilliant.

The Who are my favorite British Invasion band. I recall reading an Entwistle interview in which John said (with a double edge) that The Who "didn't have a proper drummer or a proper bass player" because his bass style evolved partly to compensate for Keith's eccentricities. He also joked that after learning to play with Keith, he wasn't sure if he could even play with a "proper drummer" anymore; of course that wasn't true, but it says a lot about Keith as a unique player.
 
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Moon was unique, never to be duplicated. To all who say Moon and Entwistle overplayed, I say - So what? Why the holy heck must everybody sound the same? The Who would've been boring if they just laid back. Have you ever heard any of the demos where Townshend played drums and bass? Duuuullllllll. Give me Moon the Loon and The Ox any day. They were a collective force of nature and you couldn't contain them. I can't imagine why you would want to. Enjoy exceptional talent while it's here because it doesn't last long enough.
 
He was one of the most individualistic drummers I've ever heard. I was a huge Who fan back in my teens and 20's and I spent a lot of hours working out the bass parts to Quadrophenia. Loved Keith's playing. His style provided such a huge backbone to their unique sound.
 
I think Cozy Powell said that compared to those both losses in short a while (Moon in 1977 Bonhamn in 1980) Moons reputation had waned off, compared to Bonham. Moon didn't guest on other artists album. Because he couldn't. I find him just a very good "show-off" drummer, just being an onstage antics spectacular. But as for wild and crazy, that's the way a real rock'n'roll drummer has to be, in the end. He is reported to have a lot of trouble keeping up with songs from "Who's Next" due to the mechanical click tracks that had to be held when playing along to pre-recorded synthesiser sequencers, and even home organ arpeggiators with no output to provide sync to other gear. Listening to Townshends "lost tapes" LIFEHOUSE there's plenty of tunes that ended up on "Who's Next". When listening to these, there's a hi-hat present. And it struck me the first time "It can't be Keith playing..." but as the liner notes and story goes, he had all of the Who members join him on these demo sessions.
 
Apparently Bonham credited Clive Bunker of Jethro Tull as being better. I couldn't honestly say this is true or not, and Bunker didn't shine on record in the way that he did on the Isle of Wight show.

Oh dear. Might have been true back then, but Clive Bunker did have too many idiosyncrasises too (later on) that Ian Anderson had to record SOME things on the drums himself. Later down the years, Clive rehearsed and auditioned for Camel, but didn't get the gig due to "years of alternative playing". I e he found it hard to learn new stuff. Camel may have been prog, but not incredibly hard to play. Most of their drumming is backbone "regular" things.