Posted on 09/26/2024 8:57:36 PM PDT by Chode
Rock and roll isn’t really the business of making friends. There are undoubtedly friendly people scattered throughout every other group, but there are just as many people who just want to play the corporate game and would gladly stomp out any other musician that they deem to be a threat. During the 1960s, though, it was all about good, clean fun, and when Joe Walsh started to get his first taste of success with the James Gang, he had more than a few good times when hanging out with Keith Moon.
But Walsh was never really the kind of person to make anything too serious. Just looking at album titles like The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get, or You Bought It You Name It, he was far from that intellectual with his lyrics, and he was more than happy to approach his craft just like a regular guy as opposed to making grand feats of poetry that made everyone look on in awe.
What he lacked in lyrical or vocal ability, he made up for with absolute charm. Looking through his backstage antics captured on film, Walsh always seemed like the guy everyone just loved having around, whether it be to have a drink with him or to race down the freeway in a luxury car.
If Walsh was already a hard partier, though, Keith Moon was at least 15 times worse. Despite being one of the most powerful drummers in the world, Moon turned The Who into every hotel’s worst nightmare wherever they went, whether it came down to launching cherry bombs in the middle of a hotel bathroom or mastering the art of throwing a TV out the window and not worrying about whether someone was walking by at the time.
So when Pete Townshend took a liking to Walsh and eventually started swapping guitars with him, it wasn’t that hard to find any common ground between him and Moon. Aside from their love of excess, the escapades Walsh and Moon indulged in could have easily made for one of the greatest reality TV shows of all time had that option been available in the 1970s, complete with hotel rooms getting destroyed or when Walsh spraypainted his jeans black when trying to get into an upscale restaurant with John Belushi.
Although many nights may have been extremely dangerous, Walsh still considered Moon’s company some of the greatest times of his career, telling Rolling Stone, “Hanging out with Keith Moon was one of the highlights of my life, really, but it was absolutely terrifying at the time, [but] now it’s funny.”
Despite being hilarious to look back on, Moon’s tragic passing meant losing one of the greatest drummers to ever live. Although he wasn’t quite able to put the bottle down, the remnants that we still have and the wild stories that are sure to be passed down through generations would make for one of the wildest biopics in history if someone does acquire the right to put his story onscreen.
He could write a new song - Life’s been better.
Two Wild and Crazy Guys...
Life’s Been Good
Pair of Aces... or Jokers
Amen...
that must be fun...
to me, so far...
Luckily he got the gig with Drew Carey’s band, The Horndogs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLt0oMNuVac
damn good stuff...
He’s married to Marjorie Bach (sister of Barbara Bach) and became the brother-in-law to Ringo Starr.
yup...
love his new stuff too
Analog Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il1Byvn_vMA
Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCv3SeKDll0
Daltry stated he didn't see it happen but he did see the bill for $50,000 Moon received for the removal of a Lincoln Continental from the hotel swimming pool.
Then Daltry added, "...And the great thing about it, it [he swimming pool] was on the second floor."
Moon also apparently had the habit of driving cars into the pond on his farm. It was a shallow pond, not deep enough for the car to sink in but deep enough to seem to him a challenge to drive across it. Several people claim to have seen a car stuck in the pond but some claim it was a Rolls Royce and some claim it was Moon's 1939 Chrysler Wimbledon, which originally was owned by the US Embassy in London.
The multiple eye witnesses and the mismatched cars lend the possibility that Moon might have done it twice, on different occasions and in different cars.
(Top Gear presenter James May and Moon's Chrysler Wimbledon)
Ordinarily you might be inclined to think it had only happened once, if at all, but being as this is Keith Moon we're talking about ....
Almost.
And yes, that does appear to be the Wimbledon in question at right of frame.
Sorry, that should have been season five, episode 7. My mistake. And you can watch it here:
https://archive.org/details/top-gear-complete-clarkson-hammond-may/Top+Gear+05x07.avi
sweeet...
EXCELLENT video — Joe shows how he sets up a brand new Les Paul
this is NOT a joke video
that by the way, he introduced to Jimmy Page...
Joe Walsh Les Paul Set Up Full video
WATCH AS JOE WALSH SHOWS YOU HOW TO SET UP A GIBSON LES PAUL GUITAR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7gMwE7phoM
this is fairly old, don’t know if you’ve seen it
Coincidentally, I stumbled upon that vid about a month ago while rambling through YT. JW is entertaining as hell, funny and direct, no bullshitting. And of course he did a good job on the setup steps.
I have a Les Paul Custom (the "Black Beauty" triple-pickup, like Peter Frampton had on his live album) that I bought used. It needed a fair amount of TLC to get it into shape, but fortunately the neck was good and the pickups were solid, so after some tweaking with the bridge and adding micro-tuners (no whammy), everything else pretty much fell into place. Cleaned up real nice, heavy as hell, but great sound.
So I found JW's demonstration/lesson mostly a recap, but even so he had a few new things to add to what I knew. I've been a fan since the James Gang, and wore out my Smoker You Drink LP back in the day. The man is a legend.
nice...
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