Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend [Hardcover]

Tony Fletcher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

Keith Moon was an exception to every known rule.He revolutionized the concept of the drummer in rock & roll, leading from the back rather than offering mere support. With the Who, he achieved far greater international fame than his instrument was meant to inspire, only to treat his celebrity as an ongoing opportunity to send up the whole notion. He sneered at the dominant British stiff upper lip while appropriating it effectively enough to delete his working-class background at will. He tempted fate with an almost unparalleled intake of alcohol and drugs, beckoning the world to laugh with him at his apparent charmed existence. More than twenty years 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. His life and work have become the stuff of legend. Here, in the pages of this masterful book, is the unvarnished truth.

Music Journalist Tony Fletcher has spent more than three years researching Keith Moon's life and interviewing dozens of Moon's friends, colleagues, and associates. The result is an instant classic, the definitive biography of one of rock's seminal figures, a work that brilliantly illuminates both the tender and self-destructive sides of this singular personality.

Wielding the force and propulsive power of a novelist, Fletcher leads the reader through Moon's whirlwind career, making his incredible creative trailblazing easily understandable even to nonmusicians. His clear-eyed reporting of Moon's hyperactive, peripatetic offstage life is compelling and comprehensive, remarkable in its ability to remain fixed on the very human being at the center of the maelstrom.

This is the story of one of the most outrageous rock stars ever born -- and one of the greatest rock biographies ever written.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Unlike other memorable figures of 1960s rock and roll, Keith Moon's one-dimensionally hedonistic persona presents quite a challenge to his biographer. Fletcher does a noble job, having gone to scholarly extremes to offer a thoroughly detailed portrait of the talented but self-destructive drummer for the Who. But no amount of detail can surmount the problems Moon poses as a subject. After all, Moon was a drummer; despite Fletcher's enthusiastic attempts, descriptions of drum fills quickly grow tedious. Fletcher focuses instead on Moon's legendarily hell-bent lifestyle, but perhaps due to the biographer's commitment to accuracy, the rock star's childish escapades soon become repetitive and monotonous. Still, students of the era and of the Who will delight in Fletcher's painstaking researches, even when they lead him to debunk legends that Moon himself created. One famous tale of destruction in a hotel whose manager dared to call the Who's music "noise," for instance, turns out to be no more than Moon's self-aggrandizement. Readers who feel that they missed a grand party by being born too late to enjoy the 1960s, on the other hand, will be disillusioned to discover that drunks were just as boorish and sad 30 years ago. Fletcher reveals Moon not as a spokesman for his generation but rather as a casualty of the empty-headed glorification of youth. This revelation ultimately inspires a greater appreciation for those aging rock stars who have indeed managed to grow up and grow old.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Keith Moon. The mere mention of the name conjures up images of smashed hotel rooms and rock'n'roll excess. The Who's drummer is best known as rock music's most outrageous hedonist, an image that often obscures his status as arguably the greatest rock drummer ever. Fletcher, the author of books on R.E.M. and Echo & the Bunnymen, has written a major biography. He finds the truth behind oft-repeated myths while uncovering the complexities of this larger-than-life figure. His tireless research separates fact from fiction while explaining why Moon's playing was so revolutionary and how his inability to break away from the image he had created for himself led to his death in 1978 at the age of 32. Although Fletcher conducted over 100 interviews for the book, two of the most important people in Keith Moon's life, his mother and Who leader Pete Townshend, refused to participate. Still, Fletcher has written what will surely stand as the definitive word on one of the century's most colorful entertainers. Highly recommended.
-?Lloyd Jansen, Stockton, San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380973375
• ISBN-13: 978-0380973378
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tony Fletcher has been writing about music since 1977 when, at the age of 13, he started a 6-page fanzine, Jamming, at school in London. Jamming grew to become a major music monthly, landing exclusive interviews with Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend and U2 and helping to introduce the likes of Scritti Politti, Aztec Camera and the Homosexuals to a wider audience (or not). The success of Jamming also propelled Fletcher into the world of freelance journalism and television work before the magazine folded in 1986 (having optimistically attempted to expand in the middle of a deep recession) and Fletcher discovered the joy of writing books.

Falling in love at first sight with New York, Fletcher moved across the Atlantic in 1988, living in various roach-infested apartments on the East Side of Manhattan while contributing regularly to New York Newsday, New York Press, Spin, and Details - back when print media was still considered cutting edge - and bringing his love of music into a stint as resident DJ for Communion, an acclaimed weekly alternative music night at the Limelight club. He continued freelancing as a television journalist and producer, mainly for the cult classic Rapido and its various offspring, and found himself with an expense account for the first (and last) time in his life when hired as a major record company A&R consultant during the music industry's lucrative swan song period of the mid-nineties.

But his main love has always been the written word. He has contributed to countless magazines and newspapers on several continents, some of which even paid him on time, and is the author of several books. These include the best-selling biography on Keith Moon ("Dear Boy" in the UK, just "Moon" in the States), the first ever biography of R.E.M. (updated and expanded into something of a director's cut, as "Remarks Remade"), a song-by-song chronology of The Clash, a biography of the highly influential Liverpool band Echo and The Bunnymen, plus a novel of New York nightlife, "Hedonism," which would come with a Parental Advisory sticker except that, thankfully, publishers don't believe in such things.

In 2005, Fletcher left the funk and soul of brownstone Brooklyn, where he'd been living since 1996, for the relative peace and quiet of New York State's beautiful Catskills. There, tucked into a mountainside between Woodstock and Phoenicia, he resides with his wife, two sons, Rickenbacker, Hammond B-3, cat, and various wildlife. Ironically for such a bucolic existence, his most recently published book is entitled "All Hopped Up and Ready To Go: Music from the Streets of New York 1927-77," which was published by W. W. Norton in October 2009 to a significantly positive reception.

Since the year 2000, Fletcher has been posting regularly at his web site, www.ijamming.net, where he muses upon his love of running, skiing, writing, wine, women - and, of course, song. More recently, he has shown up on http://twitter.com/TonyFletcher. In the year 2010, he completed a memoir of his schooldays, entitled Boy About Town, and began work on a major biography of The Smiths, for publication by William Heinemann (UK) and Crown (USA) in 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The tragic life of a rock legend, January 7, 2005

By 

Nicole N. Pellegrini "sockii" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend (Paperback)

My enjoyment of the Who's music, curiosity about the legend of Keith Moon, and my interest in drummers and drumming in general led me to check out this rather massive book. By the time I reached the final chapter I was both sad that the story was over and completely emotionally drained, and not exactly sure I was glad to have learned all I had about Moon. Having grown up with an alcoholic/drug-dependant family member, far too much of what Fletcher described of Moon's problems was painfully familiar to me. The way he treated those who cared for him, particularly the women in his life, was quite terrible and sometimes difficult to read about.

Fletcher pulls no punches and presents both Moon's greatnesses and his weaknesses. He illustrates where and how Moon was a genius on the drums yet also where, when and how is performance was sub-par. He does not sugar-coat anything. Still, the end result is not as tawdry and cheap as some celebrity biographies I've read, for the reader gets the impression that Fletcher respects the subject matter instead of simply looking to provide cheap thrills and sensationalism. He also works hard to disprove some of the wilder stories and legends of Moon's behavior and stick with the facts, which may disappoint some who hate to see the legends shattered, but there is still much madness and mayhem that is apparently quite true.

If you are a Who fan and/or interested in the story of one of the most legendary drummers of rock music, you owe it to yourself to check out this book. Just be forewarned that you may find it difficult to look at Keith Moon in the same light ever again.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First-rate., July 25, 1999

By 

Anthony Souza - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend (Hardcover)

This is one of the best biographies I have read concerning well-known rock stars. Fletcher succeeds where a lot of other biographers fail in that he's a fan but he is also able to be objective. You get the facts here and he destroys a lot of the myths surrounding Moon's escapades. Moon did so much during his life that there is no need to make up stories about him (as a lot of his friends and aquaintences have done). The things he has done are funny, outrageous, infuriating and sad. Fletcher recounts his life in detail. He also writes about Moon's drumming style and attempts to shed some light on what made him one of the most unique and also one of the great drummers in rock and how the Who simply wouldn't be the Who without him. One of my favorite parts of the book is where he gets quotes from other drummers about Moon's style and where he fits among the other great drummers of that era. During the first half of the book it's pretty evenly split on stories about Moon's personal life and the stories about his musical one. As the book progresses, the personal side starts to be discussed a lot more (his addctions, moving to California, etc.). This is in part due to the fact that in the '70s the Who took longer breaks between albums, something Moon had a very hard time coping with. A lot of the stories are funny, but a lot of them are very disturbing and sad (Moon's insecurity about himself, the drug and alcahol addictions, the spousal abuse and the fact he paid a guy to break Ian MacLagan's fingers). Fletcher recounts these details very well and although the book is quite long, it's never boring. Fletcher was able to get many interviews from friends and family and his research into Moon is very professional. This book coud have come across tawdry; instead it comes out great.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every WHO & Moon fan must have this book, January 5, 1999

By 

Smart Shopper (Minneapolis, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend (Hardcover)

After reading "Full Moon" By Peter "Dougal" Butler, I thought any other book written about Keith Moon would be a rerun of previous published material. I was wrong thinking that!! Tony Fletcher has written a incredible account of Keith Moon's private and public life. Alot more detail into the life of Keith is presented here. I found the book describing in detail the stories that were only mentioned in other books. I felt like I know Keith better after reading this book. I laughed, sighed and even cried for Keith. The pain & loneliness Keith had in his life is described in great detail. The stories come from Keith's family, friends, and business associates. Reading how Keith's family the other WHO members dealt with Keith's death, and seeing how the years after his death effected them was most interesting.Their comments answered alot of my questions I've often thought about. This book answered alot of questions I had about Keith, and his life. I highly recommend it. It will open your eyes as to what it's like to live a rock stars life. And when you finish this book, you'll have a better understanding as to what is really important in one's life.