This is the second time I've read this book in the last few years. The violent death of his personal assistant Neil Boland - which affected Moon for the rest of life - is covered in depth, as is the harrowing experience of Kim, his first wife, whose leaving he never really came to terms with. There's the tantrums, wife beatings, and spite that form the flip side to Moon's up, up and away public persona. Obviously, this is a pretty bulletproof biography of the Who during their best years, too. He also examines why these fictitious events are still routinely quoted as factual - essentially, that everyone wanted to believe in Moon the Loon as much as Keith Moon himself did. Interestingly, Fletcher punctures many of the most celebrated Moon legends: the Rolls Royces driven into swimming pools and hotel foyers being the most well known. Indeed, the mid-70s years that he spent in America while the rest of the Who developed side projects to while away the time between stadium tours were his undoing: had he channeled his abundance of talents into acting or comedy instead of blotting everything out with drugs and brandy, he may well have found the happiness and confidence that, while reading, you can't help but notice all but eluded him throughout his life. Moon's legendary caperings are genuinely hilarious, and he was almost as gifted a comic as he was a drummer. Moon is so complex that trying to dissect his personality is a formidable task, and Fletcher wisely plays the part of the informed narrator rather than offer too many conclusions of his own. Tony Fletcher's biography captures this perfectly, and portrays a warm, funny, uniquely talented and well loved man essentially committing suicide for the merriment of others over a fourteen year spell following the initial success of the Who. There he runs, skis, maintains his web site serves on his local school board, and plays Hammond B-3 and Rickenbacker in the Catskill 45s, a group that only performs songs from 45 calendar years ago.īrilliant but also terribly sad, Keith Moon managed to waste his life but also not waste his life at the same time. Along the way he interviewed the likes of Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney, Paul Weller and U2, as well as dozens of up-and-coming, predominantly independent post-punk acts.Ī contributor over the years to a multitude of magazines, newspapers, radio and television shows, primarily in the UK and USA, Fletcher now lives with his family on a mountaintop near the village of Woodstock in New York State. A memoir of his South London schooldays, Boy About Town, was published in the UK by William Heinemann in July 2013, and is now available as a paperback in both the USA and UK through Windmill Books/Cornerstone Press.įletcher gained his entry into music journalism by founding a fanzine at his London school in 1977 by the time Jamming! ceased publication in 1986, it was selling 30,000 copies a month.
A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths was published in the UK by William Heinemann in September 2012, and by Crown Archetype in the USA in December 2012, with paperback editions following in the corresponding months of 2013. His biography of drummer Keith Moon has been named in many a Best Music Book list, and his biography of R.E.M., updated in 2013 as Perfect Circle, has been published in over half a dozen countries. Tony Fletcher is the author of seven non-fiction books and one novel. This is the story of one of the most outrageous rock stars ever born - and Moon is one of the greatest rock biographies ever written. The result is an instant classic that brilliantly illuminates both the tender and self-destructive sides of this singular personality. Here is the truth behind the legend, the result of more than three years of research in which music journalist Tony Fletcher interviewed dozens of Moon's friends, colleagues, and associates. He was also a musical genius who inspired whole generations of artists, a generous friend to nearly everyone who crossed his path, a guileless man of immense personal charm to whom the sweetest sound on earth was surf music.A generation after his death, Moon is still revered as the greatest drummer in rock history and the single wildest personality in an age of pop excess. Keith Moon was the bad boy of rock & roll, the most manic member of an aggressive and fabulously successful band, a full-throttle hedonist who lived at the center of an unending party.
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