badabadabadacraaassshhh!!

July 19, 2010 9:20 PM

Isolated Keith Moon drum tracks for Won't Get Fooled Again and Who Are You? (via)
posted by Crane Shot (85 comments total)

I think I've finally gotten the inspiration to install FL Studio and start pumping out some drum 'n' bass tracks.
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:22 PM on July 19, 2010

INB4 DLR RWTD.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 9:29 PM on July 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's almost as interesting to faintly hear Pete & John banging out those master takes, sounding like they're just in the other room. They sound so casual about it.
posted by anazgnos at 9:30 PM on July 19, 2010

Hard not to love this.
posted by ericost at 9:32 PM on July 19, 2010

I am quoting another mefite here, but Moon basically played drums like he'd abused by them as a child and was seeking revenge.

I mean that as high praise.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:33 PM on July 19, 2010 [5 favorites]

What does is sound like mixed with David Lee Roth?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:44 PM on July 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ox isolated FTW.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:44 PM on July 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

*looks at dead body on the ground*

Looks like... [insert bad pun]

*puts on sunglasses*

*background music is silent for a few seconds until the drums start*
posted by kmz at 9:47 PM on July 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is amazing, thanks so much for posting. I love Keith Moon's drumming so much...I'm a musician but not really a drummer so I am kind of talking out of my ass but yeah. One of the things that strikes me about Moon's drumming is that even when he is going berzerk with fills, he always somehow communicates a sense of where the actual beat of the song is. The crazed stuff makes sense in context of the song. Hearing the isolated drum tracks just reinforced that for me. The Who, yeah wow what a rad band.
posted by capnsue at 9:47 PM on July 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wow. He's basically swinging tree branches there. He also tends to push the beat along instead of just sitting on top of it. Nice find.
posted by Gilbert at 9:48 PM on July 19, 2010

Where oh where is Roger?
posted by KokuRyu at 9:52 PM on July 19, 2010

The top YouTube comment is kinda LOLworthy:

and he did it all without even moving his arms... just staring at the camera...
posted by Burhanistan at 9:56 PM on July 19, 2010 [7 favorites]

I kinda feel like a dork for enjoying that as much as I did. Thanks, crane shot.
posted by shoepal at 9:56 PM on July 19, 2010

The WGFA track is bonkers. I can't even imagine learning to play like that.
posted by unSane at 9:58 PM on July 19, 2010

What does is sound like mixed with David Lee Roth?

Sadly, that was the first thing I thought of. And, uh....

I'm sorry. So very sorry.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:01 PM on July 19, 2010 [10 favorites]

The way Moon and Entwistle communicate on "The Real Me" - blows me away every time I hear it.
posted by davebush at 10:04 PM on July 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Man, Keith loved his trees. Nice.

.
posted by Splunge at 10:05 PM on July 19, 2010

People should write entirely new, unrelated songs against the isolated WGFA drums. A whole record of it, written and performed by different people. That would be wicked.
posted by Mikey-San at 10:08 PM on July 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

What would you call such a record?

Fooled Again and Again
posted by Mikey-San at 10:09 PM on July 19, 2010 [8 favorites]

I'm sorry. So very sorry.

You should be sorry, that was worse than The Doors! j/k
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:10 PM on July 19, 2010

Here's Jaki Liebezeit doing a long solo.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:11 PM on July 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

During one incident between Moon and hotel management, Moon was asked to turn down his cassette player because The Who were making "too much noise." In response, Moon asked the manager up to his room, lit a stick of dynamite in the toilet, and shut the bathroom door. Following the explosion, Moon informed the startled manager, "That, dear boy, was noise." Moon then turned the cassette player back on and proclaimed, "This is The Who."

And he played drums exactly like that.
posted by _dario at 10:14 PM on July 19, 2010 [5 favorites]

God, what an overrated, unmusical drummer.
posted by Zerowensboring at 10:46 PM on July 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

Awesome!

I'm glad to see how far the perception of Moon's drumming has come. I remember when he would come up like 10 years ago all you would hear was slander about how "sloppy" he was. Maybe it was Tony Fletcher's biography (best rock book ever written - read it now!!) that started turned the tide, but anyway it was about time. Without Moon rock drummers would still be meekly tapping in the background like glorified metronomes.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:48 PM on July 19, 2010

God, what an overrated, unmusical drummer.

Thank goodness we now have your encyclopedically, almost obsessively well-thought-out important internet opinion posted here on Metafilter, because it will almost certainly be seen by future music historians as marking the beginning of a reversal of the tide of four decades of popular opinion!

I was worried there for a second.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:33 PM on July 19, 2010 [21 favorites]

God, what an overrated, unmusical drummer.

Yes, we see you. Hello!
posted by Kinbote at 11:38 PM on July 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

Everyone knows the Cheap Trick drummer looks waaay cooler than Keith Moon ever did.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:44 PM on July 19, 2010

Somehow it sounds great with David Lee Roth's vocal on Running with the Devil.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:46 PM on July 19, 2010

Being the sum of its parts, isolated is not how you want to hear any of The Who.
posted by bonefish at 12:03 AM on July 20, 2010

I disagree.
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 1:52 AM on July 20, 2010

Zerowensboring: "God, what an overrated, unmusical drummer."

Hardly.

"He played the skins with the kind of wild abandon that most trained musicians before him, not knowing any better, would have described as lunatic ..."

~Drummerworld.com
posted by bwg at 1:54 AM on July 20, 2010

Here's Jaki Liebezeit doing a long solo.

I see your Liebezeit and raise you a Vander. Or a Bellson.





...Christian Vander and Louis Bellson, that is...
posted by foonly at 2:15 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Playing along to Won't Get Fooled Again on Harmonix's Rockband, on expert level... it's like channeling Keith. The way you play drums in Rockband is almost 1:1 with the real deal, much more so than the guitars anyway.
posted by jiroczech at 2:15 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thank goodness we now have your encyclopedically, almost obsessively well-thought-out important internet opinion posted here on Metafilter, because it will almost certainly be seen by future music historians as marking the beginning of a reversal of the tide of four decades of popular opinion!

Well you can either take as gospel four decades of popular opinion, whatever that's worth, or you can use the ears God stuck to the sides of your head. In fact these drum tracks give you a wonderful chance to use those ears away from all the bullshit and hear as clear as a bell, isolated away from the other instruments even, how well this guy drums. Just for a moment forget what drugs he took, or what goofy faces he pulled, or the fact that he died young or whatever mythology you've built up about him, and just listen to the way he's lolling around on Who Are You there. It's out of time, it's amateurish, and it's about as rhythmic as a heard of stamping buffalo.
posted by dydecker at 2:53 AM on July 20, 2010

stinkycheese I raise you.
posted by adamvasco at 3:01 AM on July 20, 2010

You just rekindled my crush on The Who with these isolated drums, thanks.
posted by dabitch at 3:13 AM on July 20, 2010

"just listen to the way he's lolling around on Who Are You there."

You don't want a musician. You want a metronome.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 3:29 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hah, that's awesome. I think you can just about hear him shouting during the more energetic parts of Who Are You?
posted by lucidium at 3:34 AM on July 20, 2010

You just rekindled my crush on The Who with these isolated drums, thanks.

It kind of astonishes me that I've never had a falling out with them.*

* I pretend The Who retired about the time Mr. Moon passed on.
posted by maxwelton at 3:39 AM on July 20, 2010

Thank you for this.
posted by joe lisboa at 3:40 AM on July 20, 2010

I like this quote from The Big Picture Blog:

"Keith Moon may have been the most unique rock drummer of all time. His style is so different that I don't think anyone has ever come close to duplicating it. But there is a method to the madness. As odd as the beat is, he is fairly disciplined at keeping it. Nonetheless, I don't believe there's a producer on the planet (or an A&R guy) that would stand for the style if he were just starting out today, which is a shame. How did he ever come up with that beat during the solo? And the one before the breakdown at about 5:30?"
posted by Ike_Arumba at 4:28 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

I wish that I could still hear these songs fresh without having heard them constantly for the last thirty+ years. I've always loved how Moon turned Fooled into an epic battle between him and the machine, bashing as hard as he can against the mechanical rhythm track. Sadly the machines won in the end.
posted by octothorpe at 4:57 AM on July 20, 2010

it's about as rhythmic as a heard of stamping buffalo.

And a certain type of rhythm that is, indeed. There's all kinds of rhythm. And though I'm not the world's biggest Keith Moon fan, I can appreciate that rhythm is something with a-hundred-fifty-million-and-one variations, and Moon's contributions are, I believe, noteworthy for their sheer, unabashed joy and exuberance.

Anyway, when it comes to drummers, I'm just happy as hell that not everyone sounds like Steve Gadd and Neil Peart. Or even Clyde Stubblefield and Bernard Purdie. Isn't it fabulous that we have so many amazing drummers who've let their personality shine through on the 20th century's most amazing musical instrument innovation, the modern drum kit? You've got Elvin Jones and Mitch Mitchell, Al Jackson and John Bonham, Ziggy Modeliste and Joey Baron, Tony Williams and Fred Below, Rob Ellis and Max Roach...

just listen to the way he's lolling around on Who Are You there.

You know, I've heard a lot of drum tracks isolated, and if you haven't you might be surprised at how, well, un-solid many drum tracks can sound. And I mean drum tracks that sound great with the band, with the song. That's because lots of great drummers are great at working with other humans, at sounding human, and human rhythm is surprisingly varied and variable. It's not like the ticking of a clock, or a programmed drum pattern from a drum machine. It's elastic, and a great drummer is always a part of a human give-and-take with his/her musical partners. What matters ultimately is not what the drummer's tracks sound like when they're soloed, but how the band sounds as a whole. And The Who sounded pretty kickass, at their best. Keith Moon had what the Who needed. He lent his body and soul to the project, and it worked. There wasn't a damn bit of lolling around going on.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:08 AM on July 20, 2010 [23 favorites]

There wasn't a damn bit of lolling around going on.

Not without explosives, anyway.
posted by eriko at 5:20 AM on July 20, 2010

Rare footage of Moon and Entwistle
posted by lee at 5:59 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Dude was just relentless. Must have hated those drums.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:04 AM on July 20, 2010

Flapjax, I respect your point of view, but I also must disagree, well, in terms of what it’s worth given music is so subjective. After all, we're free to like whatever rubbish we want - indeed there are whole swathes of people in this world who like certain kinds of music even though it is technically unadventurous and incompetent, and there are other swathes who even proudly love stuff because it is untechnical and mistakes are ignored or left in or not bothered about. (FWIW I even know someone who has played guitar on the bill with you yourself recently who I know for a fact doesn't even know where C is on a guitar, and yet he gets billed as "guitarist" in Tokyo and people clap and celebrate the guy's artistry). So yeah, bad music can be good. Bad beats can be good beats. It’s all subjective.

So given that, in sense Keith Moon might not even have been able to keep time with bah bah black sheep at 75BPM, but if he represents X, Y, and Z to the world then it is possible to enjoy him in other ways. This I can understand. . I myself have my moments as well – I can appreciate the drumming from Colm Ó Cíosóig on Isn’t Anything for instance, even though it’s rhythmically rotten stuff. But let’s be honest here, mistakes are mistakes – especially when it comes to drumming – and what I cannot understand is that a post like this which isolates these drum parts out of their context so you can hear the mistakes in them clear as day, and yet still people fawn over this guy’s prowess as a drummer like no one else ever tried the strategy of hit-everything-you-can-in-sequence-and-see-if-that’ll-impress—‘em. Let’s call a spade a spade and admit this kind of drumming is bad beats. Anything otherwise is an insult to the likes of Max Roach or Elvin Jones that you mention. Those guys knew when to quit it, and when to hit it! Moon is just bombast.
posted by dydecker at 6:06 AM on July 20, 2010

Thank goodness we now have your encyclopedically, almost obsessively well-thought-out important internet opinion posted here on Metafilter, because it will almost certainly be seen by future music historians as marking the beginning of a reversal of the tide of four decades of popular opinion!

That was a bit silly, i admit, to say Keith Moon was overrated and boring and then go to bed. End of a long day, etc. But i stand by it. I've played with drummers who play in a similar style and I find they are no fun to play with or listen to after the thrill of watching their athleticism wears off. To my ears, there's no music in his playing. But obviously Keith Moon was talented--he would have been a great drummer for Lightning Bolt.
posted by Zerowensboring at 6:17 AM on July 20, 2010

You know, I've heard a lot of drum tracks isolated, and if you haven't you might be surprised at how, well, un-solid many drum tracks can sound. And I mean drum tracks that sound great with the band, with the song. That's because lots of great drummers are great at working with other humans, at sounding human, and human rhythm is surprisingly varied and variable.

Yep. Couldn't favorite this enough.

I nearly went insane the last time I played in a studio with so-called "producers" (If you call having a pair of shitty monitors, a torrent copy of pro-tools and a mbox, ok, you're a studio).
I would lay my tracks down dry (no effects, just a pre-amp as effects would be shittily added later) and invariably they would find something wrong with it ("don't press so hard on the F bar chord because your making it go sharp" and my favorite: "Can you make it pop more?"). Now listening to a dry signal in to context of a song is a painful thing. Playing an electric guitar with a dry signal is a painful thing. Having to constantly re-do the same track over and over, I became acutely aware of two things. One, no matter how many times I played it, they would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, like it and two, what they were looking for was impossible to produce because of the human nature involved in manipulating a bunch of strings an a not-so-perfect fretboard. Clearly they needed a machine. They ended up keeping two of the tracks. Listening back to them makes me hot with rage at how much life they sucked out of it and how absolutely fucking horribly soulless they managed to make it. I left that band precisely because of that recording session. Their nit-picking, uber-anal perfection infected everything and took a decent sounding band and made them suck harder than previously imagined.

I will be downloading these later. Thanks for the post.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 6:22 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

i dunno. i never liked the who much and moon always stuck me as a sort of random basher who relied too much on his bassist to keep the time. i never understood his appeal compared to say, bonham or even ginger baker. i think zeronwensboring and dydecker are spot on. there's not really much music in it.

unlike this, f'r instance.
posted by peterkins at 6:27 AM on July 20, 2010

Playing along to Won't Get Fooled Again on Harmonix's Rockband, on expert level... it's like channeling Keith. The way you play drums in Rockband is almost 1:1 with the real deal, much more so than the guitars anyway.

Agreed. I love playing along with The Who. It also really helped me "get" at least some parts of what Keith Moon was getting at with his playing.

I don't know how to speak Technical Drumming, but he has his own weird groove. He flails around all over the place and always sounds like he's riding a unicycle on the rhythm, but he grooves anyway. The way he leaves and then gets back to the beat is brilliant, sometimes staying just this side of a train wreck, which is part of the genius. I find myself wanting to hear those few bars here and there again and again. He could put a bunch of different grooves into the same song. It took me a long time to really appreciate what people like about his playing, since he just sounded sloppy to me at first, but once your ears learn how to listen to him, he's truly sublime.
posted by biscotti at 6:31 AM on July 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

I must disagree in the strongest terms with those who think that a drummer's main job is to keep the time. A drummer provides texture and emotional undertones. A drummer tracks and supports song structure. A drummer communicates shifts and breakpoints to the rest of the band. If your guitarist can't manage to count to four on his own, there's no saving him anyway.
posted by echo target at 6:39 AM on July 20, 2010 [4 favorites]

Keith's drumming served the songs and propelled the Who's already big sound to an even greater level. Plus he's fun as hell to listen to. I'm not a drummer so I can't speak for the technical side, but for a music fan, he's one of the things that makes listening to the Who so damn enjoyable.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:01 AM on July 20, 2010

I love that the Melvins do this for Crover on their regular recordings.
posted by drowsy at 7:12 AM on July 20, 2010

I must disagree in the strongest terms with those who think that a drummer's main job is to keep the time.

i certainly don't think that. but it'd be nice if they didn't fuck things up for everyone else.
posted by peterkins at 7:36 AM on July 20, 2010

Anything otherwise is an insult to the likes of Max Roach or Elvin Jones that you mention.

no

the full quote from elvin - “The man is a drummer. Everything he plays, he contains it.”

i wish i could find the original article - he didn't think much of ginger baker's solo on toad

yeah, he was pretty sloppy - but sloppy in a way that made the who sound good - and i'd rather listen to him than a lot of the pro-tooled to death stuff we have nowadays - yeah, he hit a stick instead of a snare early on - it surprised me, but i think that's part of the charm and energy of the older stuff - it wasn't perfect, it was just good

here's charlie watts playing gimme shelter
posted by pyramid termite at 7:42 AM on July 20, 2010 [4 favorites]

I love Keith with the burning heat of a thousand suns going supernova and I think one of the reasons that he divides listeners is because he appeared at the exact moment when rock drumming underwent something of a change in nature and purpose.

Before (very roughly) Keith, what echo target said was pretty uncontroversial... many beat and skiffle groups treated the drummer as an accompanist rather than a bedrock. Hard core rock'n'roll always had that massive backbeat but it wasn't as common in pop as you think. Ringo, for example, often sounded like he was doodling along with the band rather than driving it forward.

Keith sort of managed to do both things. He both powered the band along, and played *around* the song as opposed to underpinning it. That was really his magic... he treated the song as one extended, insane fill.

I happen to love that. To me, it's thrilling. To others, annoying. I get that.

These days the drummer is not supposed to do that. Conventional wisdom has coalesced around the idea that the drums and bass should be locked together, forming a foundation for the rest of the band. The first thing you do after tracking is listen to the drums and bass soloed and make sure they're tight, not playing ahead of or behind the beat. Many times the kick and snare are replaced and/or retimed.

It's really fucking boring and has been for twenty or more years.

I too have played with a lot of drummers, and there was only one who played anything remotely close to Keith, and he was the most fun I've ever had playing music. The other drummers, it was like ambling down the highway sticking to the speed limit. With the other guy, I felt like Wile. E. Coyote strapping rocket powered skates on. Just incredible.

So anyway, you're free to get your hate on for Keith, but to describe him as 'unmusical' really just demonstrates the narrowness of your definition of musicality, in my opinion.
posted by unSane at 7:51 AM on July 20, 2010 [8 favorites]

"When Pete Townshend of The Who witnessed an early gig by a young Stone Roses, he commented that Reni was the most naturally gifted drummer he had seen since Keith Moon"


Stone Roses - Waterfall

Would you agree?
posted by elmono at 7:57 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Firstly, thankyou thankyou thankyou!

Secondly, The Who were an ensemble band, much greater than the sum of their parts. That's why post-Moon Who is like post-Gabriel Genesis, different.

Lastly, YMMV. I love Mister Moon as much as I love his friend Ringo (c'mon, let's debate him for a while, suckers ;-) ), or his student and invited replacement Zak Starkey.
posted by djrock3k at 8:00 AM on July 20, 2010

Honestly, I think that Moon was starting to fade by the time they cut Who Are You. He was still a good drummer, and it's a great album, but you could compare it to the way that Jim Morrison's voice had started to go by LA Woman.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:24 AM on July 20, 2010

He both powered the band along, and played *around* the song as opposed to underpinning it. That was really his magic...

Agreed. He's basically the part of the Who that I like.

I now know what my evening sampling session will be. Good post CraneS.
posted by archivist at 8:25 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

I played drums for 20 years or so in my youth. I took years of lessons, can (maybe still) read drum music and know my flams and paradiddles. And I love Keith Moon.

In a great band, the thing is this: all the playing has to be in service to the music. It doesn't matter at all that everybody is great (or even that good) if the material is great and everyone in the band is coming from the same place. Plenty of "decent" musicians make great music and plenty of virtuosos make boring music.

Keith Moon is spastic but he's perfect for the Who. Charlie Watts (IMO) tends to be boring, but he's perfect for the Stones. Ringo sucks, but he's a Beatle to the core. Etc.

As for "keeping time": there's more than one way to play the drums. Timekeeping is certainly part of it, but I tend to prefer drummers that have a dragging, syncopatic, playing "against" the music style: drummers like Manu Katche, Carter Beauford and Chad Gracey.

Like everything musical, personal taste is what rules. Technical proficiency is important to some listeners, not so much to others.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 8:40 AM on July 20, 2010

Now you're going to make me listen to the Stone Roses all day.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:04 AM on July 20, 2010

Ringo sucks, but he's a Beatle to the core.

I agree with Benny. Except for that part. I'm not sure how anyone could listen to Revolver and come to that conclusion.
posted by purephase at 9:21 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

So what is from a technical standpoint that made Moon different? He definitely has his own feel, but are there particular fills, riffs, beats, structures, etc that no one else had done like that before?
posted by gottabefunky at 9:32 AM on July 20, 2010

In a band, everybody better be keeping time and not simply depending on a drummer to provide it. The Nat Cole Trio and Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys did OK without one, just to name two.

The other thing a drummer provides is texture. How much is appropriate and how subtly it should be rendered and how it should be balanced against timekeeping are matters of taste and a hundred other things. The Who opted for texture over timekeeping.

Moon provided more texture than the next three rock drummers combined. That was his function in the band. Entwistle provided the lead instrument. Townshend, the conductor/timekeeper. That wouldn't have worked for another group, but it was perfect for The Who.

When Townshend wanted to try something different in the 1970s, did he fire the "sloppy" drummer? No, he got himself a vcs3 w/ a sequencer, allowing Moon's playing to be all but decoupled from timekeeping. Who's Next is the result.

I think it all worked out spendidly, up to about halfway through Who Are You? (album).
posted by Herodios at 9:44 AM on July 20, 2010

Ah, I see I have merely restated points made in a number of separate previous comments.
Let us stipulate, then, that that I simply said: "This".
posted by Herodios at 9:57 AM on July 20, 2010

Hey flapjax, ever heard of Charly Antolini (1:50)? I came across him on a radio show last weekend and have been youtubing him ever since.
posted by puny human at 9:59 AM on July 20, 2010

Hey, so, I used Echo Nest Remix to mashup the Who Are You audio with Animal and Rita Mareno on the Muppet Show, if you're into that kind of thing.
posted by cortex at 10:09 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

The main takeaway from the recording & mixing work I've done in my band has been that the sound of a song is the sum of all the tiny little imperceptible individual fuckups that disappear when heard as part of the whole.
posted by anazgnos at 10:29 AM on July 20, 2010 [4 favorites]

These days the drummer is not supposed to do that. Conventional wisdom has coalesced around the idea that the drums and bass should be locked together, forming a foundation for the rest of the band. The first thing you do after tracking is listen to the drums and bass soloed and make sure they're tight, not playing ahead of or behind the beat. Many times the kick and snare are replaced and/or retimed.

It's really fucking boring and has been for twenty or more years.

i disagree with that somewhat - it's only fucking boring because, as you've hinted, a lot of today's bands can't do it without having it edited to death - and then they have to memorize their parts like robots so they won't screw it up live

it's important to be locked in - but it's just as important to give the music a loose feel as you're doing it - and not too many rhythm sections can do that these days
posted by pyramid termite at 10:40 AM on July 20, 2010

The first time I saw Deerhoof I thought Greg Saunier's drumming, flailing around on a tiny, broken drum kit, was all schtick, and that it got old fast. Now, 10 years and 15 or so shows later, it only ever seems to get more exciting every time.
posted by anazgnos at 10:40 AM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Moon provided more texture than the next three rock drummers combined. That was his function in the band. Entwistle provided the lead instrument. Townshend, the conductor/timekeeper. That wouldn't have worked for another group, but it was perfect for The Who.

In an interview Pete once said: "In our band John plays lead guitar and Keith plays keyboards."
posted by ovvl at 10:43 AM on July 20, 2010

ovvl: In an interview Pete once said: "In our band John plays lead guitar and Keith plays keyboards."

That was the quote I was thinking of, ovvl, but I didn't have time to go look for the source. Do you remember where it's from, specifically?
posted by Herodios at 11:04 AM on July 20, 2010

Sorry, I don't recall the source, but the quote was memorable.
posted by ovvl at 2:09 PM on July 20, 2010

So anyway, you're free to get your hate on for Keith, but to describe him as 'unmusical' really just demonstrates the narrowness of your definition of musicality, in my opinion.

i'm fine with that. it's just that my narrow definitions of musicality as far as drummers go favours groove, feel, elasticity and listening to the others in the band over drug fuelled attention seeking bashing. i'm sure it's my loss.
posted by peterkins at 2:53 PM on July 20, 2010

This guy is pretty good too.
posted by Splunge at 3:14 PM on July 20, 2010

Hey flapjax, ever heard of Charly Antolini

No, he's a new one on me. You know who he looks like? Morrie from Goodfellas. Amirite?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:35 PM on July 20, 2010

For anyone in this thread who didn't click on pyramid termite's "no" link in his comment upthread, I think this fuller excerpt deserves a copy/paste...

Elvin Jones: " In a famous blind taste test of then-hot rockers that Albert Goldman wrote up for Life, Jones expressed satisfaction with the work of Keith Moon with the simple words, “The man is a drummer.” That must have been like having God part the clouds, look down at you and nod, “This one I like.” (On the other hand, exposed to some jackass — i.e., Cream’s Ginger Baker — dishonoring his beloved instrument of choice, Jones shifted about painfully before offering the lost soul some much-needed career advice: “They should make him an astronaut and lose his ass.”)

haha! So, there you have it, eh? Elvin thought Keith was musical. And I have to say, I'm in complete agreement with his assessment of Ginger Baker. I always thought Baker was incredibly ham-handed: clunky and bombastic and very much un-grooving. Don't know why he's held in such high regard by so many, but, hey, there you go: different double-stroke rolls for different folks...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:54 PM on July 20, 2010 [3 favorites]

Oh god, if you ever want to torture me, tie me to a chair and put a Cream record on repeat. Stupid Ginger Baker.. dude needs a kick in the nads if anyone ever did.


"You know who he looks like? Morrie from Goodfellas." Ha ha, totally! All he needs to complete the look is an ice-pick sticking out the back of his head.

I want this shirt he's wearing though.

One reason you may have missed Antolini is that he is Swiss. Another Swiss jazz musician I have been digging lately is Per Texas Johansson (who knew pedal steel would mix so well with standard jazz?)



Thing about Moon for me is, that even though I'm not really a Who fan, I will say that any time they played without him after he died, it was obvious that something big was missing. The chemistry had changed.
posted by puny human at 7:30 PM on July 20, 2010

All he needs to complete the look is an ice-pick sticking out the back of his head.

heh heh. And don't forget, a garrote around the neck.

The chemistry had changed.

Absolutely. I always thought it was pretty noble of Led Zeppelin to call it a day when Bonham died, as opposed to replacing him.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:39 PM on July 20, 2010

Thing about Moon for me is, that even though I'm not really a Who fan, I will say that any time they played without him after he died, it was obvious that something big was missing. The chemistry had changed.

Seriously...this video of them doing "Listening to You" with Jones in 1979 is just so completely, obviously, laughably bad. Kenney Jones was never anything but a perfectly good drummer in the Small/Faces, but he was nauseatingly ill-suited to the Who.
posted by anazgnos at 10:55 PM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

I always thought Baker was incredibly ham-handed: clunky and bombastic and very much un-grooving.

agreed. he even made hawkwind sound worse. i like hawkwind, btw.
posted by peterkins at 2:36 AM on July 21, 2010

Ginger Baker is ham-fisted and John Bonham isn't?

OK, fine. Whatever snares your paradiddle. Or vice-versa.

Kudos at least to Baker for T.U.S.A:

One fing in this country that really bothers me
Is the inability of Yanks to make a good cup of tea
Instructions are printed on the teabag
But they either can't read or they think it's a gag
I mean: "Pour boiling water over the tea"
How simple and clear can the instructions be?

Actually, that whole album is pretty great, and fortunately, this is the only track on which Baker "sings".
posted by Herodios at 7:24 AM on July 21, 2010

Ginger Baker is ham-fisted and John Bonham isn't?

Bonham hit hard as hell, he was a pounder for sure, but there was a finesse there, nonetheless. I find such finesse lacking in Ginger Baker. Likewise, Bonham knew how to hit the drums where they sounded best, and, again, I don't think Ginger Baker had as much skill in this area. Finally, Bonham's rhythmic personality, his groove, well, it resonates with me, and Baker's doesn't. I feel Bonham, but not Baker.

Oh well, like you say, whatever flams your ratamacue.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:43 AM on July 22, 2010