JRNYMAN wrote:I always knew Keith Moon was a brilliant drummer and somewhat "hyper" for lack of a better term but I guess I never knew how freakin' goofy he was. Check out this video and you'll see what I mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLIerfXuZ4
That video doesn't do that man justice, personality-wise. That's just Moon being goofy for a camera. There was so much more. JRNYMAN, if you want the full scope of 'Moon the Loon', read
Full Moon by Dougal Butler. Dougal was his long time best friend and extremely close personal assistant, practically a brother. The book does not dissappoint and every damn bit of it is true and will give you the real accounts of some of the "legends" about Moon and the band in general (such as the famous Holiday Inn story). (I first got my hands on this book at age 6!)
And yes he was an absolutely brilliant drummer.
Never a lesson (one quote about him was that he had an "inner-metronome" - and he really did... he just KNEW when to fill, where to fill and how to fill without thinking about it) and a completely untraditional playing style (among other things, he played with a left-foot lead for god only knows what reason).
The Tony Fletcher book on Moon is great too, but Dougal's stories are hilarious. The one about going to the bank is priceless. I'm not sure that this book is in print at the moment, though... but there's always ways to find stuff like that. Half Priced Books (if there's one near you) is a great source for out of print.