DISGRACELAND - The Who Pt 1: Keith Moon, Rockstar Excess, and a Dead Chauffeur

Episode Date: October 9, 2018

Keith Moon of the Who was the prototype for rock drummers, both onstage and off. His drumming was wholly unique. Like his bandmates' behavior, it was violent, and like his personality, it was electric. Everyone loved Keith Moon aka “Moon The Loon” and it seemed that people never tired of his always hilarious and sometimes violent, drunken hijinks until one fateful night when a crew of British skinheads took issue with the drummer’s rockstar excess. The results were disastrous. To see the complete list of contributors, visit ⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠ This episode was originally published on October 9, 2018. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, are insane. He regularly destroyed his drum kits on stage. He trashed hotel rooms all over the world, reportedly getting banned from the Holiday Inn chain for life. He supposedly drove a Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool,

or was it a Lincoln Continental? His band, The Who, purveyors of maximum R&B, at first led the rough-and-tumble high-fashioned mod movement through the pubs of London, before exploding onto the American scene as part of the British invasion. Keith Moon was the prototype for rock drummers, both on and offstage.

His approach to drumming was wholly unique. His stage presence was magnetic, his personality, electric, and he was hilarious. People loved Keith Moon. Most people, anyway. Keith Moon never tired of his madcap, sometimes violent, always hilarious, drunken, and drugged hijigs.

But a crew of British skinheads took issue with the drummer's rock star excess, and the results were disastrous. But despite his reckless and violent behavior, Keith Moon made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Yes, Arp Violins Low, M4. I pled you that loop because I can't afford. the rights for raindrops keep falling on my head by BJ Thomas.

And why would I play you that specific slice of sun dancing Butch on a bicycle cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on January 4, 1970. And that was the day that Keith Moon, drummer for the who, got behind the wheel of his Bentley and went for what would prove to be a very short but very gruesome drive. On this episode, Butch cheese, Madcap hijinks, maximum R&B, ultraviolence, and Keith Moon. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. It wasn't just going to keep time.

He couldn't just keep time. That was what drummers did. Keith Moon wasn't a drummer. He was a deconstructionist. The drums were his chosen instrument of destruction and his band The Who, were using that destructive behavior to capitalize. on England's newest mod craze. And right now, while bashing away wildly at his oyster-pearl Ludwig kit, Keith Moon was making the mods happy.

You couldn't tell by the perpetual powet on their faces, or by the fact that they were dancing with their heads down, of course, moving their arms like stone frankenstein's to the beat on the dance floor. The mods were smartly dressed teenagers in tight tailored trousers and winkle-picker shoes whose anti-social behavior was matched only by their love of black American R&B music. And there were mods because they saw themselves as modernists, the first British teenagers since the end of World War II. They'd had it with the scruffy, uptight, classist social norms

that had handcuffed their parents emotionally and culturally. The old world could piss off. It was 1964, and this was the modern world. The old rules didn't apply. which is why Keith Moon in his fuck-all post-modern approach to drumming appeal to the mods. He was a musical deconstructionist.

Keith Moon didn't just play the beat as rock drummers before him had. On the drums, he played the guitar riff his lanky bandmate Pete Townsend was savagely beating out of his Rickenbocker. On the drums, he played the bass line for his dapper ox of a bass player, John N-wistle, that he was warping out of his bass.

and when Keith Moon became bored with those two, he focused on the singer, the street tough from Shepard's Bush, with the chip on his shoulder, Roger Daltry. Keith would match the anger of Roger's vocals note for note, hit for hit on his kit. It was as if his bandmates pulled him aside before each show and we're like, hey, Keith, we've been talking, and, you know, we don't think you're very good, man.

You don't really play with enough heart. And so, as a result, Keith would then go apeship behind his kit in an effort to prove them all wrong. He wasn't a drummer. He was a fucking jet engine with octopus arms. And like I said, the mods loved him. And they loved his band too, the who?

Exciting. Violent even. Just like the mods. The band were also pent up teenagers ready for a tussle, dressed right for a beach fight, looking for any excuse to bust the old world in the face. That's what the first beach fights in 19.

were all about. The British press thought teenage hooligans were about to take over the country. But really, it was just a bunch of mods out of school on holiday, bored and getting into it with the rockers. The rockers were the antithesis of the mods. Leather jacket-clad pompad-dored greasers who were stuck on James Dean and Marlon Brando. Old World. Yesterday. They rode motorcycles. Fuck that working class nonsense.

Mods rode scooters, wore parkas. they were the youthful smart set, and despite their peacocking Carnaby street suit wearing ways, they weren't averse to cracking a rocker in the mouth with a fistful rolled-up coins. Violence was the ultimate rebellion, the ultimate fuck you to the previous generation. So, when they heard about a band whose drummer played like a wild boar in heat and who destroyed their instruments on stage, they were sold. The Railway Hotel, London, 1964, a dank hole in the wall, more basement than proper club. The Who, dressed to kill, were on stage barreling through Smokey Robinson and the miracles I get a dance to keep from crying, but was none of the Motown sheen.

At the railway, under the guidance of the Who, the song was raw, dirty, and mean. The singer, dressed head to toe in white jeans and crew sweater, wrap around black, blackfly sunglasses leaned into the mic with menace. The bassist, tall, brooding, eyes surveying the crowd with contempt, casually anchored the song. The drummer, his big eyes two moons, sitting impatiently behind his kit like a jack-in-a-box about to explode, and the guitar player wearing his guitar up high like an ascot, jerking about in a way that made the mods and the audience question whether or not he was actually all right in the head.

The four of them were impossibly cool, and they sounded at the time better than any band on the planet. In the middle of a song, Pete, the guitar player, in an over-excited moment, accidentally bashed the head of his guitar through the low ceiling above the stage. The neck on the guitar snapped, and the mods laughed.

Pete picked up his backup guitar without missing a beat and played it off like it was meant to happen, beyond cool. Word quickly spread around. out in London about a mod band that was fresh out of fucks to give. In the following week, a larger crowd gathered at the railway for the Who's next show. Pete knew what the crowd was there for and refused to give them what they wanted. Keith, on the other hand, displeased with the disappointed crowd's tepid response to their performance,

booted his kick drum across the stage at the end of the set. Here, is this what you came for? A fucking side show? Well, take this. The audience loved it. The Who were hooligans just like them. So the next week, when they showed up in even larger numbers, in anticipation of more on-stage shenanigans, Townsend,

lost it. At the climax of the band's set, he grabbed his Rickenbocker by the neck and smashed it against the stage. And when the body of the guitar failed to break off clean, Pete grabbed the neck tighter and spun himself around bringing what was left to the guitar flailing into his amplifier behind him. That did it. The guitar.

Once an instrument, now a thing of violence was toast. The audience was stunned, and so was the band. Keith, not to be outdone, rose up out of his seat behind his kit and kicked his bass drum across the stage. Then, the Tom's. Standing, legs spread. He played a fast war cry crescendo on his symbols before tossing them aside too.

The Who then left the stage and left the audience begging. It wasn't long after the Railway shows before The Who exploded. The smashing of instruments was now a patented part of their performances, but it wasn't a gimmick. It was a true violent expression of angst, and it took nothing away from the Who's prowess in the studio. The band banged out a quick set of electric teenage anthems. I can't explain. Anyway, anyhow, anywhere, and my generation, all took teenagers throughout the UK by the throat, turned them upside down, and shook the change out of their trousers like the young street tuffs they were. Things they do look awful cold. Hope I die before I get old. Success came quick and was the

perfect grease for the band members rough and manic behavior. Drinking became sport. It was the mid-60s and it was the music business, so drugs, of course, were everywhere. And the entire band partook, but Keith Moon went on it with a special vigor. Doing drugs, drinking booze, it was a test of will for Keith. Embibing meant partying and partying meant having fun and having fun, well, wasn't that what this is all about? Wasn't that why he was in the business? To have a good time?

To not have responsibilities? I mean, other than entertaining people, which he seemed genetically inclined more than anyone else to do, his energy was manic. He never stopped entertaining. On stage, off stage. It didn't matter.

Off of the stage, he'd arrange any number of pranks, practical jokes. improvised bits to get friends to laugh. Wiring the opening band's drum kit with explosives? Check. Driving your Rolls Royce through downtown and blasting fake public service announcements, detailing non-existent threats through a bullhorn. Impending tidal waves.

Everyone leave town now. Dangerous snakes slithering through the streets. You must evacuate. The government is relocating the country's entire immigrant population to the south side of your town. Lock your doors. wicked. And appearing in court, dressed in full Nazi regalia to settle a beef with neighbor Steve McQueen, no joke.

It happened. Look it up. Keith pulled this shit constantly, and he was hilarious. He was the type of funny that made you buckle over, made snot run out of your nose, made your jaw hurt from laughing so much, and he literally never stopped. His ongoing quest to make his friends actually die laughing was so constant that, But they'd beg him to quit it. And when he didn't, when he couldn't, they'd inevitably end up asking themselves if he was all right in the head.

And when they'd come up short of an answer, their next questions would be, how long can this guy keep this up? How long can this guy keep living this way? The drug use was only part of it. Sure, the drugs fueled the manic behavior. But it was more about his hype level. It was hardwired to 11, plus 10 charisma. How does living that loud not take its toll?

Getting Keith to slow down was like asking a shooting star to downshift to save energy. It just wasn't going to happen. Everyone knew this star was going to burn out, and that it was likely going to take some casualties with it along the way. One of those casualties was almost his guitar player, Pete Townsend, when in September of 1967, while appearing on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour television show, Keith, as a joke, wired his own drum kit to explode with, three times the requisite explosive material.

The kit was set to blow up on screen following the band's live performance, and the explosion not only freaked out the show's hosts and the audience, but it also set Pete's hair on fire and partially deafened him for life in one ear. No worries, though. Despite the damage, it was hysterical, and Keith got the laugh he was looking for. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. As the 60s progressed, the Who would said about to pummel their fans with hits.

Substitute, the kids are all right. Happy Jack, pictures of Lily. I can see for miles. Magic bus and Pimball Wizard cruised up the UK and US charts and cemented The Who as one of the premier rock and roll bands of the 60s. But while the rest of the counterculture

obsessed over peace and love, the Who couldn't shake their violent nature. 5 a.m. Bethel, New York, August 17, 1916, Woodstock. Half a million people scattered about old man Yasker's farm, drugged out, sleeping in mud, reveling in their own filth, literally like pigs. Pete Townsend was tuning his own guitar because the Who wasn't getting paid fuck-all for the gig and couldn't afford a proper crew. He was annoyed, Americans, he thought, crazy. The rest of the band didn't seem to mind. John was happy. There were plenty of loose American women running about,

and Roger was off somewhere doing who knows what. At least he wasn't complaining into the one good ear Pete had left. And Keith, Keith was happy because his boys from Shawna Anah were performing. But Pete wanted to get the gig over with and get the hell out of there. Pete stewed while he tuned his Gibson S.G. Peace, love, and happiness. More like mud, drugs, and VD. The hippies grossed Pete out.

Plus, the majority of them were full of shit. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Let's get this bullshit over with, he thought. Keith sat down at his kit. John was ready. Roger was somewhere close. The crowd was near asleep. Boy, were they about to get a wake-up call?

In the wings, at the side of the stage, an assortment of hippie-dippy Illuminati. The show's organizer Michael Lang, singer and activist, country Joe McDonald, who Pete had heard reportedly named his kid after Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin? The fuck was wrong with these people? people, he thought. Sly Stone, wired out of his mind from either the set he'd just performed

or from the white lightning acid being passed around the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Or both, the sly was there with Gray Slick from Jefferson Airplane, who was set to take the stage even later than the who. And of course, there was that dude who wouldn't shut the fuck up. The big guy with the big hair and the bigger mouth. Talking white panther jive nonstop, Sinclair this, Yippie that, steal this concert, smoke this revolution, brothers, sisters, pigs, police, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Abby Hoffman. He reminded Pete of a less talented, less attractive, less interesting Lenny Bruce. He thought about how this guy's schstick would play back in London.

Not even Princess Margaret would fuck this guy. Why did the Americans pay him any mind? Whatever, it didn't matter. The Who was ready. The set was about to start. Finally, Roger looked at Pete. He nodded, shot a look at John, then peered over to Keith behind the kit,

and then Abby Hoffman rushed the stage. He grabbed Pete's mic. Four thousand of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted for no more than we're doing on this hill. It's only fair that we help out. We are the Woodstock Nation. We are one. What the fuck was this?

Someone cut the mic, thankfully. Hoffman, pissed, kicked the mic standover. That did it. Fuck this guy. Pete grabbed the neck of his guitar, swung it back like a tennis racket, and swatted it flat into Hoffman's hairy grill. Hoffman, dazed, stumbled for a step or two toward the front of the stage before falling over into the crowd.

He was absorbed by the audience, who a day and a half into the festival were too sleep deprived and blitzed on acid to comprehend the violence that had just taken place at this fugazi. festival of peace. Pete wasted no time. He looked again to Keith behind the kit, who quickly counted the band off and into the raucous set. Keith Moon had no off switch, so you can imagine what life was like for those around him when he wasn't on the road or in the studio. Without an outlet, and constantly blitzed on pills and booze, Keith went to great lengths to amuse himself,

to keep himself occupied. And depending on their relationship to him, either entertained or annoyed everyone who came in contact with him. The fact that he was genuinely hysterical and rich beyond most people's wildest dreams excused most of his behavior. Who's the ugly chick in the back of the pub singing Beach Boys songs loudly and out of tune over the jukebox? Oh, that's just our rock star neighbor moon the loon and drag, having a pint with the locals. Leave him alone. He always runs up a massive tab and he's good for it.

Why do Keith drive his brand new corvette and he's good for it? into the pond behind his mansion again, and why do we have to tow it out for him? Who cares? Moon is crazy. Besides, he has the best brandy and never runs out of Pims. Back the tow truck up, boys. But the madcap escap escapades Keith occupied himself with around the homestead tested his attention span.

He needed to get out every now and then, too, and given his behavior in his constantly drug state, trouble, violent trouble, was never far away. The pub, the Cranbourne, rooms was about 10 miles from Keith's home. A friend had just opened it and Keith thought, what better way to show support than to appear in full rock star glory and to run up a massive bar tap? The bar was new, its clientele not yet firmly established, and tonight's patrons were not what was expected. The bar was wall to wall with skinheads, working class use from tough neighborhoods

who suffered most everyone but their own kind poorly. Not unlike the mods before them, the skinheads were reaction to tradition. But their beef wasn't with outdated cultural tropes. No, their beef was with austere British economic policies that were at the time crippling the working man, pissed off at their dwindling career opportunities, and backsliding down the socioeconomic ladder, the skins took the violence to express their anger. They'd gotten into it a year earlier with long-haired Stones fans outside of Hyde Park. Shave for battle and dressed tight in Doc Martin's boots, Fred Perry polo shirts.

cuffed jeans and red suspenders, skinheads were like nothing anyone had seen before. But just like the mods, the skins dug on black dance music, specifically the type of West Indian-influenced Jamaican-styled ska that Desmond Decker was bringing to the top of the charts with his recent hit, Israelites. A loosening of UK immigration laws forced working-class British youth to reckon with the changing face of their neighborhoods when immigrants, particularly West Indian Pakistanis came streaming in by the thousands. Their young hosts loved the music they brought, but that was about it. Pachy-bashing, as it was called, became a favorite skinhead pastime,

right up there with street fighting and general hooliganism. Violence, it was the backbone of the skinhead ethos. The violence was always there, just like it was with the Who. But the skinheads had no time for the bloated rock star excess that the Who had become, and that Keith Moon came to embody. They had no patience for fickle, elite, rich rock stars. So, when Keith Moon pulled up to the Cranbourne rooms on January 4, 1970, and his shiny new Bentley, chauffered by his bodyguard and friend Neil Boland,

ripped on Mandrax and Tom Collins, he literally couldn't have found himself in a more hostile environment. The sight of him dressed to the nines, yucking it up with that shit-eating grin and two-finger thick unibrow, ordering drinks willy-nilly, loud, obnoxious. It was highly offensive to the skinheads, and they let him know, leering over at his booth, shouting insults. Keith shouted right back. To him, it was all in good fun. But his entourage knew better. Something was different, and there was a darkness to the mood of the room. The threat of violence was palpable. And when the closing time came, Keith and his friend spilled out of the bar

at the same time as the skinheads who were now way drunk and spoiling for a fight. And the sight of the rock star chauffeur Bentley, outside the modest pub, gave the skins all the ammo they needed. They rained down obscenities on Keith and company as they hardly ducked into their car. The skins, now a small mob of 30 or so drunk, angry rockstar-hating youth, converged around the luxury automobile and began rocking it back and forth. Inside the Bentley, the fear was thick and they were stuck. Their hearts racing. They couldn't move the car forward or backward

for fear of running over the pissed off skins blocking their exit. The sound of fist pounding on the roof added to the confusion and drowned up the voice in Keith Schofer's head, the one that said, chill the fuck out, Neil. This will all be over in a moment. Sit tight. No. Instead, Neil decided to reason with the angry skinheads.

He jumped out of the car, and before he could say a word, was consumed by the mob. From inside the car, it looked as though Neil just disappeared, like a lost ship, drifting out at sea, beyond the horizon, once there, then, in an instant, gone. Fear soon turned to terror. Keith hopped in the front seat and behind the driver's side wheel, drinking and drugging all night and unaccustomed to driving anything. It had been years since he driven a vehicle on an actual street.

He was used to pools and ponds. He let his lead foot pound the accelerator. The large Bentley heaved forward in a giant lurched before it was calm to a crawl by the brake. What was that? It didn't matter. The skins were now worked into a fevered pitch. They were screaming, kicking the car, banging on the windows. Keith moved the car down the road a little faster.

Five miles per hour. Ten miles per hour. The skinheads began running alongside it, still screaming, still kicking. Finally, Keith moved the Bentley faster and out of their reach and up around the bend before pulling over at the incisement. of a frantic truck driver who'd driven up alongside them, manically imploring them to stop the car. Hanging outside of his own window, the truck driver was pointing to the bottom of the Bentley.

No doubt about it, something was wrong, real wrong. Keith curbed the car, got out, and walked to the rear of the automobile to find his chauffeur, Neil Boland's legs sticking out from underneath the backside of the Bentley. Then, moved by adrenaline in sheer panic, he reached underneath the car to free Boland. Keith grabbed at whatever he could to try and free his friend. He felt something wet, smushy.

His hand, it pulled out only Bolin's brains. Neil Bolin's head had been crushed like an eggshell. Somehow, in the melee, after Keith's chauffeur had jumped out of the car to cool out the crowd, Keith had run him over in the Bentley and dragged him down the road to his death. Neil Bolin was taken by ambulance to a local hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Keith Moon was despondent. The judge at his trial took this

into consideration and exonerated Moon of all charges. Neil Boland was not only Keith's chauffeur, but his bodyguard and friend. And Keith and Neil were just 24 years old. Neil died trying to protect Keith. Protecting Keith was a job that Neil had done well, but the gig up until then had been mainly protecting

Keith from himself, from his excesses and from his dangerous, often violent pranks. Violence is like a powder cake. Under certain conditions, it's harmless, but mix it with the right ingredient and it'll blow up on you. Keith Moon and the Who had flirted

with violent disasters since their earliest shows, smashing guitars into ceilings and then blowing up kick drums with explosives on live television and eventually whacking acid blitz pseudo-revolutionaries across the face with guitars.

And through all of that, The band and Keith in particular skated across life's thin ice-packed to the gills with narcotics and booze. So it was only a matter of time before Keith's reckless behavior sparked a violent casualty. Neil Boland was that casualty. And eight years later, after a night, not unlike almost every other night of his adult life, Keith Moon filled himself to the lid with booze and pills, closed his eyes and never opened them again, and became a casualty himself, died before he got old.

What a drag. Some would even call it a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member,

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