“Another incident … We visited Ollie and were invited to stay the night. Of course we accepted. Especially since we had been down to Ollie’s favourite pub after dinner, during which time Keith and he had been competing as to who could down the most alcohol. There was no doubt Ollie won, and as a reward to all the watching customers [he] proceeded to get naked. Keith was about to follow suit but Ollie’s entourage intervened and we all went back to Broome Hall. So here we were at Broome Hall waiting to be shown to our room, and we were quite surprised when Ollie told us to come with him out of the house and across some fields (which had been ploughed into high ridges … I was wearing high heeled shoes and was having much trouble walking). We finally came to a barn and Ollie pointed to some hay in the corner and said we could sleep there! We looked at each other and Keith told Ollie that we would go home after all; Ollie refused to let us leave and got hold of a shotgun from somewhere, pointing it at us and saying we had to stay … Eventually he agreed we couldn’t possibly sleep in the hay in a barn and we ended up sleeping on a sofa in his living room. (Apparently all the furnished bedrooms were full of his entourage, and the rest of them were devoid of furniture!)
“I was hostess on The Golden Shot during the first part of our relationship and Keith came up to the Birmingham studios with me one weekend after a late night at Tramp, arriving in Birmingham about five in the morning. He’d phoned ahead and got us a room at a hotel. The room had a chandelier and of course he had to swing on it to make me laugh … but at least he didn’t break it that time. I was slightly the worse for wear when I appeared on the show later that day. Living with Keith did kind of play havoc with my career.
“The most hilarious time though, apart from the ‘flying’ visit to Ollie’s, was when we were out searching for his costume as Uncle Ernie. We had been to Bermans121 and checked out the costume department, but there was nothing that came close to his desires, so we ended up at Lawrence Corner to find the seediest looking raincoat they had, but that wasn’t seedy enough for Keith … So after purchasing the baggiest one he could find we then drove around London in the Rolls looking for puddles. When we found a nice big dirty looking one he stepped out of the car, and just lay down and rolled around in it. People stared and couldn’t believe their eyes … After that we could be seen walking in and out of Soho sex shops carrying brown paper bags full of dildos, enemas, and any other perverted looking sex toys. Under normal circumstances I think I would have been extremely embarrassed, but since we had been having a ‘few for the road’…. in De Hems, my embarrassment had totally gone, and we were having so much fun with our ‘shopping’. When we got back to Curzon Place, Keith couldn’t resist hanging a dildo on the rear-view mirror (of the Rolls). He said it was a comment for the traffic warden who was sure to give him a ticket.
“There were a few other funny incidents like the time we went to visit his accountant, and he was told that he owed about half a million in taxes. On the way out of this beautiful elegant townhouse in Mayfair, Keith turned around on the steps and proceeded to pee all over the geraniums in the window boxes, in full view of the passing public. That was his answer to the tax question.
“Another time, we had been to a Fashion Show and the obligatory party afterwards, but there had been nothing to eat, and being an early Sunday morning absolutely nothing was open in London, and there was nothing to eat in the fridge at Curzon Place. So Keith decided we would stay at the Inn On The Park simply so that we could have a meal via room service … We were both dressed quite outrageously to go sign in at a posh hotel, Keith dressed as if he was about to go in the ring and fight a bull, in a bright red velvet Toreador’s suit, and me in a long red evening gown (I can only guess at what the receptionist thought I was!). But at least we had a good dinner, and afterwards left to walk around the corner to Curzon Place … one of the most expensive meals I think I’ve ever had.
“I think my memories of Keith were much happier ones than those of Annette. The mood swings were not so much in evidence, although he did have his moments of depression when he needed reassurance that he was loved. But I can honestly say he never got so drunk that he was violent towards me in any way. He basically wanted to make people laugh.”
It’s a pleasure to print such purely positive memories.
Keith Moon’s Legacy And The Who In The 21st Century
Unstated at the start of this addendum, but readily acknowledged as contributing to public interest in Keith Moon, was the Who’s decision to re-form in 1996. While the initial intent was primarily for Pete Townshend to present Quadrophenia in its entirety, as had been a failure back in 1973, the re-formation gradually gained its own momentum, receiving praise from fans and critics alike. Once the Quadrophenia shows had run their course, the group shrunk back down to a five-piece, and set off on an ongoing series of international Greatest Hits shows122 that carried them well into the 21st century, by which time they had reclaimed their status as one of the greatest rock bands ever.
Part explanation for the success of this re-formation lay in the new respect between the band’s two former leaders and competitors, Townshend and Daltrey. The animosity that had marked much of their professional relationship virtually disappeared once they entered their fifties, and the pair seemed keen to make up for lost time. Daltrey, certainly, had never wanted to do much else but sing with the Who, and though he would occasionally struggle to reach the high notes as he neared his sixtieth birthday, he could never be faulted for fitness, determination or enthusiasm. Townshend, meanwhile, he who had abandoned the electric guitar on the 1989 reunion tour, appeared to have beaten back his tinnitus; night after night through the late Nineties and early 2000s, he attacked his electric guitar with enough fire and skill to earn the respect of the most begrudging new punk on the block. The songs themselves may have remained the same, but Townshend in particular always seemed to find a new way to play them.
Of the founding members, that left John Entwistle. As with Daltrey, John had never wanted much more than to play with the Who – and he had long considered that job as his ongoing right. Interviewed for this book in 1996, as rehearsals got under way for the Quadrophenia show in Hyde Park, London -at a point when it was still not certain it would be billed as the Who, and with no further touring plans confirmed – he was openly hostile towards Townshend.
“If it hadn’t been for Pete Townshend making too much money, I’d be rich,” he insisted. “And that to me is the most selfish thing that anyone can ever do to a human being, deprive them of work because of their own selfish ideas. I can’t feel anything but bitter about what happened. And I know that Keith got the same way. The periods that we had off for ‘creating’ stuff … We’d be sitting on our arses for 18 months while someone actually writes something for their own fucking benefit.”
Townshend, of course, had never stopped the other Who members from doing their own thing while he worked on new songs (which then made them all rich through recording and touring royalties) and, in the Nineties, gave Entwistle and Daltrey his blessing to tour the Who’s music without him. To varying degrees, the pair tried this, but they knew there was no credible Who without Pete. And that’s what appeared to anger John – the thought that he could have played more consistently, and made more money, had he taken his talents to a band that desired to keep working well into middle age.
“Quite honestly, I consider I wasted my whole fucking career on the Who,” he said a few minutes later in this interview. “Complete fucking waste of time. I should be a multimillionaire, I should be retired by now.”
Asked about his legacy, he replied, “I’ll be known as an innovative bass player. But that doesn’t help get my swimming pool rebuilt and let me sit on my arse watching TV all day. I wouldn’t want to, but I’d like the chance to be able to.”
It should be noted that John was working his way through a bottle of Remy Martin during the course of this interview, which is one reason these comments have previously been kept private. Besides, once the
Quadrophenia shows gathered steam and mutated into an ongoing Who re-formation, John Entwistle was again a happy man – a working rock star and so much more than merely an “innovative” bass player, surely the finest of his generation. Clearly back in his element, he lived up to his dual nicknames of Thunderfingers (for his amazing dexterity on the bass) and The Ox (for his hardy constitution) until the bitter end.
That came in Las Vegas, on the eve of a new Who tour in June 2002. John had hit the city a couple of days early, partly to attend the opening party for a show of his art. He died in his room at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on June 27 when a “significant amount of cocaine” (the Coroner’s words) brought on a heart attack. It transpired that Entwistle had been taking medication for a weak heart, which suggests he had a misplaced sense of immortality. It also transpired that a female ‘dancer’ was in the room with him at the time of his death – which suggests he had an undying loyalty to rock’n’roll hedonism.
Such revelations were surely in Roger Daltrey’s mind when he issued a statement after Entwistle’s death that included the following lines: “John made no compromises in the way he lived his life. He did it totally his way. Sad though it is, if he could have written an ending for himself it would have been very similar to the one he had. For those who knew him and his sense of humour they will raise a smile at that. He was a true rock’n’roll icon through and through and he was so proud that he was famous.”
Professionally, Roger and Pete reacted to John’s death in much the way they had to Keith’s: confounding fans with an instant decision to keep going. There was, certainly, the need for a quick response this time: unlike when Keith died in 1978, the Who were on the brink of a large arena tour that needed either to be honoured or cancelled. They opted for the former route, bringing in the highly revered bassist Pino Palladino. Still, the manner in which Townshend publicly made his decision – “I simply believe we have a duty to go on, to ourselves, ticket buyers, staff, promoters, big and little people,” he wrote on his website – and the fact that Pino was on board and playing John’s entire unique repertoire just four days after the bassist’s death surprised many observers.
So, too, did the news that Townshend and Daltrey would now record together again. Entwistle had made no secret of his desire to return to the studio with the Who, which means that even his own famously black humour would have been stretched to the limit had he known that his partners would only do so following his death.123
Who fans themselves were in open conflict about Townshend and Daltrey’s decision to carry on touring: those who felt that this group was no longer the Who were often the same people who admitted they would keep paying to see Roger and Pete for as long as the pair wished to share a stage together.
If there was one reason for believing that the Who remained a group at this point, and not just the continuation/ruination of a great name by only half its founding members, it was Zak Starkey. Since assuming Keith Moon’s role on the drums with the Hyde Park show in June 1996, Zak had become an integral part of the line-up. It was not just that Zak had been given his first kit by Keith, that he had viewed Moon as family, or that he was the son of a Beatle and thereby not easily cowed by the Who’s reputation. It was that Zak proved capable of playing the drums with the same sense of passion and power as had Keith. Or to be more precise, he was the only person who proved capable of playing the drums like that. He also provided a lifeline to a younger generation: while those in their twenties and thirties could only look up to the surviving Who members as first generation rockers now in the twilight of their performing careers, those same gig-goers could look across to Zak as one of their own.
In the 21st century then, Keith Moon’s presence looms as large as ever and in so many ways. His performing skills loom every night that the Who take the stage and Zak Starkey pays such sincere homage to his mentor’s talent. His playing technique looms every time the Who archivists re-master another back catalogue classic and unearth old demos or otherwise unreleased recordings, all of which are now listened to with an emphasis on Keith’s drumming.
His behaviour – as Moon The Loon – looms large in the media, however much books like this attempt to present the serious side of the story. When, for example, in 2004, Q Magazine ran a list of the 100 Most Insane Moments in Rock, it placed Keith Moon – in totality – at number one. And yet his worth can be measured in a more material manner, too. In September of 2004, Christie’s of London auctioned an incomplete124 drum kit of Keith’s from the late Sixties – evidently the one Keith used during The Rolling Stones Rock’n’Roll Circus performance. The only physical evidence that the Premier kit had belonged to Keith was a bass drum transfer-printed with the Who logo. Christie’s duly placed an estimate of £10,000-£15,000 on the kit. The drums actually sold, to an anonymous bidder, for a staggering £120,000 – the highest price, to anyone’s knowledge, ever paid for a rock musician’s drum kit at auction.
One likes to think that Keith would have been proud of such a legacy. Every single aspect of it.
111 I never understood how the two issues were connected. And it jarred with the BBC’s very public insistence that it was ‘independent’ of outside pressures, as during the run-up to the Iraq war.
112 My thanks to Andy Neill for putting me directly in touch with Peter Tree and Michael Evans.
113 The Beachcombers had been certain about the timing of their ad in the Harrow and Wembley Observer, so I scoured back copies of the paper, at The British Newspaper Library in Colindale, without success. Andy Neill, researching what would become Anyway Anyhow Anywhere, proved more patient, and eventually found the pertinent advert in the April 25, 1963 edition. It’s reprinted in his and Kent’s book.
114 The 30 Years Of Maximum R&B error over ‘Leaving Here’ was first noted in Anyway Anyhow Anywhere; co-author Matt Kent works with Pete Townshend and has access to much of the archive information. It now appears unlikely that ‘Leaving Here’ was ever recorded by the High Numbers. The version of ‘Here ‘Tis’, on which Keith’s drumming is impressive though not formidable, is indeed part of that June 1964 High Numbers session.
115 NPR archived the story online, along with the full, unedited interviews with Roger Daltrey and myself. Daltrey’s quote here is from the unedited version. At the time of this book’s publication, all three items could be accessed through this web page: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1420254
116 It seems necessary to respond to Daltrey’s comments about biographers, specifically this one, “interviewing ex-alcoholics and drug addicts”. In his unedited interview, as preserved on the NPR website, Roger refers to all three other members of the Who – and the manager, though he doesn’t specify whether that means Kit Lambert, Chris Stamp or both – in similar terms. Is he suggesting that a biographer should not attempt to interview those who, despite their vices, knew the subject as well as anyone? (I very much regret that Daltrey himself declined to be interviewed for the book; I would have welcomed his own memories and observations.) Had I discounted ex-alcoholics and drug users from my research, I would have cut my list of prospective interviewees in half! I would also have lost the perspective that many of these people were able to offer about their addictions, and how Keith may have shared these traits. Finally, while Roger Daltrey may feel entitled to address his business partners in such terms, I don’t know that members of Herman’s Hermits, or Nancy Lewis, or Tom Wright, all of whom have also gone on record with their memories of Keith’s 21st, would want themselves referred to as such.
117 It can be accessed at www.petercavanaugh.com
118 Such claims were indeed made at the Inquest, but there is no report of the Bentley’s condition to confirm or deny them.
119 http://del_pasado.tripod.com/keithmoonwasnotdriving
120 The flat, which belonged to Harry Nilsson, was a temporary refuge for Keith at this time; in 1978, he would move there permanently and, sadly, die there too.
121 A well-kn
own theatrical costumiers in London’s Leicester Square.
122 Including the Who’s first ever visit to Japan and a return to Australia, some 36 years after the ill-fated tour detailed on pages 213–215.
123 The first results of these new recordings were issued as additions to the umpteenth Who compilation, this one entitled Then And Now, released in the spring of 2004. The songs in question, ‘Real Good Looking Boy’ and ‘Old Red Wine’, were adequate, but not worth waiting 22 years for.
124 A bass drum, two floor toms and two side toms; no snare, cymbals or additional toms such as Keith would have used.
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Dear Boy: The life of Keith Moon Page 90
