Just riffing on what Len said really. Don’t know what he means to others. I claim no special knowledge though I met him (which is not the same as knew him) at the launch party for Who’s Next at Universal Studios, CA. When I moved to the UK my then boyfriend who worked at Melody Maker used to claim that we was the last person to speak to him before he died (albeit to take a message!) and the Who are the only band or from my youth cool enough for my teenage son to admit that he also likes. So I guess the clip just picked up a little thread of my life on a slow day!
I think Keith was just so obsessively the clown – always on, always loud, always boorish, always pushing past the last boundary of ‘decency’, so one dimensional so ‘Moon the Loon’ in public. I suppose if he had been alive today he would have been given the catch-all celebrity diagnosis of bipolar. Honestly he makes Charlie Sheen look like such a pasty wimp. His band members were always pretty clear that he could be infuriating and destructive as well as inspired and creative. If my memory serves he was in rehab at the time of his death, fearful the band that brought him to prominence was finished (and let’s face it who else would have worked with him?), that losing the alcohol (literally losing the spirit?) would undermine his ability to perform and never thinking that it was his alcoholism that interfered with that! He ended up overdosing on the drugs he was taking to combat the alcoholism. Rock ‘n’ roll, eh?
Crikey I’ve spent more time on PW today than on work – that’s telling!
The story?
“I told people I was a drummer before I even had a set. I was a mental drummer”
Typical Virgo, I share a birthday with him.
What is the story on the split image of Keith?
I don’t know this one. Obviously there is more to all public people than we see.
e
Fab, complex, creative band! Also just lovely to be reminded of how music used to be made – everyone in the studio together – working together, getting pissed off with each other, enjoying each other, bouncing off one another – not just sending tracks to each other via email or whatever. Can’t beat actual, face to face human collaboration!
If I recall Keith killed himself shortly after this was made. I wonder if there isn’t something deeper here about just not being able to keep up that facade anymore. He put so much energy into that role play. Being something you are not – or only ever showing a fraction of your Self – it’s soul destroying, death by a thousand cuts stuff. But of course ‘getting real’ is so hard because the role play is what others expect of you, and it is the source (or at least is perceived to be) of love and adoration. I wonder how many of us are conscious of how exhausting and damaging it is when the gap between who we are and what the world sees just keeps getting bigger and bigger? Literally the centre cannot hold. From my days in the music biz I saw it happen again and again, but what happens in that arena is often just a very public and exaggerated version of what goes on in all our lives.
Who are you? Now that’s a question…
Anyway thanks for the little trip down memory lane…xx
Having had a similar encounter with a police officer in my youth (thank goodness my legs worked) is my portal into the pathos into this song. Knowing that Keith was neither the goofball he portrayed himself nor the sot portrayed by others is my connection to the pain. Listen carefully, what is the lead instrument? It is the drums. When one plays percussion at that level, things are revealed by the practice – things that cannot be expressed in words. He posessed in his mind pearls without price and i miss him. i miss him a great deal.
Just riffing on what Len said really. Don’t know what he means to others. I claim no special knowledge though I met him (which is not the same as knew him) at the launch party for Who’s Next at Universal Studios, CA. When I moved to the UK my then boyfriend who worked at Melody Maker used to claim that we was the last person to speak to him before he died (albeit to take a message!) and the Who are the only band or from my youth cool enough for my teenage son to admit that he also likes. So I guess the clip just picked up a little thread of my life on a slow day!
I think Keith was just so obsessively the clown – always on, always loud, always boorish, always pushing past the last boundary of ‘decency’, so one dimensional so ‘Moon the Loon’ in public. I suppose if he had been alive today he would have been given the catch-all celebrity diagnosis of bipolar. Honestly he makes Charlie Sheen look like such a pasty wimp. His band members were always pretty clear that he could be infuriating and destructive as well as inspired and creative. If my memory serves he was in rehab at the time of his death, fearful the band that brought him to prominence was finished (and let’s face it who else would have worked with him?), that losing the alcohol (literally losing the spirit?) would undermine his ability to perform and never thinking that it was his alcoholism that interfered with that! He ended up overdosing on the drugs he was taking to combat the alcoholism. Rock ‘n’ roll, eh?
Lots of interesting You Tube clips of his ‘greatest’ moments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9whwDRH51so&NR=1&feature=fvwp ; of the band talking about him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owNaGWqEFNo&feature=related ; and not sure if Pete Townshend is kidding in this one or not!?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CbYpK473s0
Crikey I’ve spent more time on PW today than on work – that’s telling!
The story?
“I told people I was a drummer before I even had a set. I was a mental drummer”
Typical Virgo, I share a birthday with him.
What is the story on the split image of Keith?
I don’t know this one. Obviously there is more to all public people than we see.
e
Fab, complex, creative band! Also just lovely to be reminded of how music used to be made – everyone in the studio together – working together, getting pissed off with each other, enjoying each other, bouncing off one another – not just sending tracks to each other via email or whatever. Can’t beat actual, face to face human collaboration!
If I recall Keith killed himself shortly after this was made. I wonder if there isn’t something deeper here about just not being able to keep up that facade anymore. He put so much energy into that role play. Being something you are not – or only ever showing a fraction of your Self – it’s soul destroying, death by a thousand cuts stuff. But of course ‘getting real’ is so hard because the role play is what others expect of you, and it is the source (or at least is perceived to be) of love and adoration. I wonder how many of us are conscious of how exhausting and damaging it is when the gap between who we are and what the world sees just keeps getting bigger and bigger? Literally the centre cannot hold. From my days in the music biz I saw it happen again and again, but what happens in that arena is often just a very public and exaggerated version of what goes on in all our lives.
Who are you? Now that’s a question…
Anyway thanks for the little trip down memory lane…xx
Having had a similar encounter with a police officer in my youth (thank goodness my legs worked) is my portal into the pathos into this song. Knowing that Keith was neither the goofball he portrayed himself nor the sot portrayed by others is my connection to the pain. Listen carefully, what is the lead instrument? It is the drums. When one plays percussion at that level, things are revealed by the practice – things that cannot be expressed in words. He posessed in his mind pearls without price and i miss him. i miss him a great deal.
Thank you for posting this.
More like Holy Living Fuck.