Why I love Moon's playing.

[bobdylan]

Aside from the obvious, that he was the greatest of all time, he did things in an unorthodox fashion.

Beside the myriad of intricacies he did, he did two things that really draw your attention.


1. He played extra beats. He didn't just keep the beat, there were extra snare, toms, and bass drum kicks.

2. more importantly, he would play fills while Daltrey was singing. Drawing attention away from the vocals. Kenney Jones did not do this.

Contrast this to Mitch Mitchell in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. No fills during the vocals.

Eddie Van Halen did this also with Roth. He would play fills during the vocals. Steve Vai didn't do this when he played with Roth.



Makes the song much spicier.

I am sure there are other musicians who did this.

Maybe the singer doesn't like this, but the audience does.

[whoireland]

I think he played lead drums.
And John played lead bass.
It’s what makes the band’s sound such a unique experience

[theawesomesound]

I think of Keith Moon as a risk taking drummer, at his best almost like a dare devil drummer that could fit complex, sometimes long fills into small amounts of space. I used to have old issues of Trouser Press from the late 70's and early 80's and they had a mail in column called Ravin' Favs. One issue they asked for readers' favorite drum solos and someone wrote in and said the best drum solo is Keith Moon's ten second tom fills in Happy Jack which I thought was great.