Keith Moon
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Iristone
Silver Member
As a John mini-fan, I like his twist on The Who's writing method, being more riff-heavy and groove-steady than Pete's orchestration. It's sort of like hearing a Roger Taylor song in a Queen album. Ironically, on most John songs, he wrote clean, steady basslines that was "unlike him", but work for the song!
On "The Quiet One", I feel I can get what they're "trying" to do, but they couldn't get the swing and dynamics (climaxing too early on), ending up sounding not as clean. Almost feels as if Pete and Kenney were tired after a long session. The snare-centric drum fills on "You" give me a similar impression, but he still manages to punctuate on the crash cymbals at all the right places, just like what Keith did!
FWIW, my favourite John songs are Dangerous, Trick of the Light, and the Had Enough-905 mini-opera. As a Genesis fan, maybe I just like longer, evolving songs that tells a story. Maybe that's why I resonate so much with The Who's "progressive punk" approach.
DrumEatDrum
Platinum Member
I 100% agree.
Except that I love the Quite One.
The song isn't quiet. It's loud and abrasive. The lack of dynamics and abrasiveness of the music cleverly aligns with the lyrics: "I'm not quiet, everyone else is too loud!"
John was making a statement about misinterpreting his personality. Which I identify with.
joedrum
Junior Member
Just wondering...how much WHO have you listened to? Do you like their music?
Unlike Ringo or Charlie or others Moon played on every single Who song ever recorded up until his early demise. When Who's Next hit the scene in 71(like many great songs/LPs ie Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone or Satisfaction in 65...) it was a totally new sound. Keith's drumming on that LP is excellent I think. Yes, totally frantic but that's The Who. That LP along with Who By Number are my favorites. The latter has grown old the most gracefully I think. You have to go beyond songs like Squeeze Box and Baba O'Reilly and dig in. Some of Moon's tom tom rolls on songs like Hand Or a Face and on obviously loose heads are incredible.
BTW I recently read a piece where Townshend said he has never liked a single thing Led Zeppelin has recorded. He said he knows the guys and likes them but never liked their stuff. Pretty funny. For me Zeppelin some of their stuff I think is great but some of it is just a little to drippy for me. But I digress... Moon is a legend.
I-P
Silver Member
Enough and no, not really my thing.
Iristone
Silver Member
It came to me that, it wasn't Pete who was saving his best compositions for his solo albums. I've heard that Roger didn't want to sing songs like Rough Boys, and And I Moved (my favourite song on Empty Glass) was written for a female singer who turned it down, so Pete HAD to record them solo.
It wasn't like Pete had already been arrogant, and was doing everything based on profit. They were playing concerts raising money for Cambodia, whose people were suffering from (to put it mildly) severe de-urbanisation during Keith's final years. Kenney was rocking hard with his own approach, more straight power compared with the swiftness of Keith.
It seems that recording drums back then meant a dumbed-down playing in addition to heavy muffling. Similar to recording guitars through tiny amplifiers.
Keith could dumb down and still had the swiftness. Kenney is more heavy-handed so it became a bit wimpy if he dumbed down (he didn't dumb down on his powerful Small Faces albums, evidenced by the heavily distorted drum sounds). His extra-short drumsticks might not have helped, either.
It wasn't like Pete had already been arrogant, and was doing everything based on profit. They were playing concerts raising money for Cambodia, whose people were suffering from (to put it mildly) severe de-urbanisation during Keith's final years. Kenney was rocking hard with his own approach, more straight power compared with the swiftness of Keith.
It seems that recording drums back then meant a dumbed-down playing in addition to heavy muffling. Similar to recording guitars through tiny amplifiers.
Keith could dumb down and still had the swiftness. Kenney is more heavy-handed so it became a bit wimpy if he dumbed down (he didn't dumb down on his powerful Small Faces albums, evidenced by the heavily distorted drum sounds). His extra-short drumsticks might not have helped, either.
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Alex Sanguinetti
Silver Member
What is the analogy of all this with Tony Williams?
rungeflash
Well-known Member
This led zep “reunion“ was ill conceived from the get-go…….and then someone had the bright idea to make it even more discombobulated by having not 1 but 2 drummers. Page decided it was all Collins fault for how bad this went down. Head scratcher
blinky
Senior Member
I think the poster meant Tony Thompson, not Tony Williams.
rungeflash
Well-known Member
Oops…I wasn’t even paying attention to the last name part.…good catch. I just remember how bad that performance was and Phil getting tossed under the led zep 747
GretschedHive
Gold Member
The timing on that section really is deceptively tricky. And both Thompson and Collins are obviously outstanding drummers and both seem to have blamed the other over the years. I've never really sussed out who's at fault because it's so excruciating to listen to.
JimmyM
Diamond Member
To me it’s simple…Phil didn’t learn the songs or rehearse, Tony rushed everything. Tony also rushed with Power Station that day and rushed when he was on tour with David Bowie. Surprised such a legend in the studio known for laying the fatback had such a big problem with rushing back then.
TJK
Well-known Member
Man Kenny was/is a phenomenal drummerI’ve actually recently been revisiting the Kenney Jones line up & he gets an unfair press in my book. No, he wasn’t Keith (nobody was) but watching the live shows, particularly 1982, he did a much better job than popular history would have it.
On the albums he just played to the songs Pete was writing at the time. I think Keith would have struggled with Another Tricky Day, for example.
But as I said before, the internet has enough access to isolated drum parts to explode some of the myths about Keith: he could keep time, he didn’t always overplay, he could be restrained…
GretschedHive
Gold Member
I've never heard anyone else say that. I love Tony's playing but he did rush the hell out of his fills.
JimmyM
Diamond Member
Ya, for sure. But as far as Live Aid, I just listened to it again, and nobody except JPJ was blameless. And Paul Martinez, who I once met and hung out with in Stuttgart when I did a couple shows with Dave Edmunds. Never even mentioned that he was up there and I just found out.
Iristone
Silver Member
Yeah, my bad.
Now that I think of it, his name reminds me of Phil's drumming pal Chester Thompson.The Led Zep crash seems to reflect the tension between Page and Plant: both brought in a drummer (Phil was the session player for Plant), and although both were performing poorly, they didn't blame each other, but blamed each other's drummer! Please let me get it straight for a minute...
Pete and Roger similarly had the conflict. Roger didn't want to sing Pete's songs, blamed Kenney (former session player for Pete), and fired Glyn Johns so Pete was stuck with the Shimchick (Polish pronunciation, meaning "Simmons") guy who again didn't play well with Kenney... The "eagles" drum sound wasn't out of place within the album, though.
It made me wonder what if Hugh Padgham was producing for The Who? Songs like Eminence Front would benefit from an Abacab-style blasting drum tone. Had Keith Moon lived to that era, his drumming intricacies would also have been brought to the forefront, revealing more details of his technique.
Keith was also a pioneer of double bass drumming. Unlike later metal drummers who blast them to lay down a "wall of sound", Keith added them cleverly as extra fluorishes for grooves and textures for fills. I've never heard Kenney doing them on Keith-era songs - even though Kenney said he could play double bass patterns with a single foot.
And no, Keith wasn't playing a continuous fill. You could hear his groove, however tom- and cymbal-heavy, keeping the beat of the song. He said that he would intentionally rush up on fills for a feel of tension, and later resorted to adding more drums for the feel because he couldn't speed up a synthesiser track. Pete said he was following the synthesiser beat, which was probably true, but I doubt if he was merely following Pete's timekeeping before.
Playing with another drummer is difficult & requires both drummers to be committed to playing together.
One of the drummers on stage was very experienced at playing with a second drummer (on some pretty complicated music) and the other wasn’t. Collins tried to accommodate Thompson in his playing, Thompson tried to play as if Collins wasn’t there. For me it’s always been clear that Live Aid was not Collins’ fault.
Of course, neither drummer was responsible for Plant being hoarse, or Page’s guitar being out of tune, or the lack of rehearsal…