Dougal Butler - Full Moon

23 August 1946
Keith John Moon born to Alf and Kitty Moon at Central Middlesex County Hospital. Taken home to 224 Tokyngton Avenue, Wembley.

The Moon family move house to 134 Chaplin Road, Wembley.

Keith becomes a pupil at Barham Primary School.

Fails his eleven-plus exam, starts at Alperton Secondary Modern School for Boys.

Joins local Sea Cadet Corps, plays drum and bugle in the marching band.

Begins to play real drums, encouraged by friend Gerry Evans.

Leaves Alperton. Takes evening classes at Harrow Technical College, London.

A job at Ultra Electronics enables him to buy his first Premier drum kit.

Takes drum lessons from Carlo Little of The Savages, plays with a succession of local covers bands: The Escorts, Mark Twain and The Strangers, The Beachcombers.

April: joins The Who after an impromptu audition at a West London hotel. They are restyled as a mod band, The High Numbers, but their debut single Im The Face/Zoot Suit (Fontana Records) fails to chart. Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp assume management of the band, signing with producer Shel Talmys company Orbit Music. The band finally settle on the name The Who.

In January, I Cant Explain is released, The Whos first top 10 hit, followed in May by Anyway Anyhow Anywhere and in October by My Generation. In December The Whos first LP, My Generation, is released. Keith is credited as co-writer of the instrumental The Ox.

After the single Substitute The Who break acrimoniously with Shel Talmy.

In March Keith marries model Kim Kerrigan. Their daughter, Amanda, is born in July.

Im A Boy from The Whos second album A Quick One is a hit. On the LP Keith is credited as composer of I Need You (which he sings) and the instrumental Cobwebs and Strange.

April: Pictures Of Lily is released on Lamberts and Stamps Track Records.

18 June: The Who perform at the Monterey Festival in California.

JulySeptember: The Who play their first lengthy US tour. On 23 August, celebrations of Keiths twenty-first birthday end in chaos at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan, leading to his being banned from the entire hotel chain.

September: I Can See For Miles trails The Whos third LP, The Who Sell Out. (Moons song Little Billy will appear only on a re-mastered reissue in 1995.)

The Who spend most of the year touring abroad: Australia, New Zealand, the US.

September: they start recording Tommy at IBC Studios in London, finishing in early 1969.

Pinball Wizard is the first hit from Tommy; the LP is then released to huge success in the UK and US, transforming The Whos fortunes.

17 August: The Who perform at Woodstock.

4 January: following a clash with youths outside the Red Lion pub in Hatfield, Keiths driver and friend Neil Boland is accidentally run over and killed by Keiths Bentley.

February: The Who play at Leeds University; the LP Live At Leeds is released in a plain buff sleeve three months later.

JanuaryMarch: The Who record in New York for Pete Townshends ambitious Lifehouse project, but the sessions and the concept are abandoned. After re-recording at Olympic Studios in Barnes with Glyn Johns, the LP Whos Next emerges, to acclaim and bestselling status; the single Wont Get Fooled Again, taken from the album, is a major hit.

Keith buys a mansion in Chertsey, Surrey and renames it Tara, moving in with wife Kim and daughter Mandy.

He plays a cameo role in Frank Zappas film 200 Motels.

The Who record and release the singles Join Together and Relay.

Keith acts in the British feature film Thatll Be the Day, playing J. D. Clover, the drummer for a holiday camp band in the late 1950s.

May/June: The Who record Quadrophenia at their own Ramport Studios in London. Keith sings lead on Bell Boy.

Kim leaves Keith for Faces keyboard player Ian McLagan, with whom she has been having an affair. (She and Keith divorce finally in 1975.)

Keiths father Alf dies.

November: on tour in the US for Quadrophenia, Keith collapses during the opening concert in San Francisco. (An audience member fills in for the rest of the show.)

Keith and new girlfriend, Swedish model Annette Walter-Lax, visit Los Angeles and stay in the Kennedys beach mansion; house guests include John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Harry Nilsson.

April: a feature film of Tommy starts shooting, directed by Ken Russell. Keith plays Uncle Ernie and befriends actor Oliver Reed.

A compilation of Who rarities, Odds And Sods, is released.

Bill Curbishley takes over management of The Who.

Keith plays on Harry Nilssons album Pussy Cats, produced by John Lennon.

He reprises the role of J. D. Clover in Stardust, a sequel to Thatll Be The Day.

AprilJune: The Who record the album The Who By Numbers.

Keith buys his first house in the US, in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles.

October: The Who tour the UK, Europe and the US for three weeks.

Keith releases a solo album of pop covers, Two Sides of the Moon.

March: Keith collapses during the opening show of The Whos US tour in Boston. The concert is abandoned and rescheduled.

October: The Who play a short US/Canadian tour, the last time Keith will play with the band before a paying audience.

Keith acts as a fashion designer in the movie Sextette, starring Mae West.

Keith attends meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and is treated for his addictions at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles.

September: Keith and Annette return to England for filming of The Whos biopic The Kids Are Alright and the recording of their Who Are You? album.

25 May: The Who perform their last show with Keith before an invited audience at Shepperton Studios, for inclusion in The Kids Are Alright.

July: The Who Are You? single trailers the August release of the LP.

6 September: Keith and Annette return to their rented flat at 9 Curzon Place, Mayfair. Keith overdoses on a sedative he has been taking for alcohol withdrawal symptoms. The following day Annette finds him dead. An open verdict is recorded. The Who vow to continue.

Peter Dougal Butler grew up at the same time and in the same London milieu as the founding members (Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon) of the band that became The Who. Leaving school aged fifteen, Butler was first employed by HM Customs and Excise, but after finding his way into The Whos inner circle he became personal assistant, chauffeur, bodyguard, minder and all-round majordomo to the bands mercurial drummer, Keith Moon.

Butler carried out these functions for a tumultuous ten years, leaving in the year prior to Moons untimely death by overdose in September 1978. In the years immediately thereafter Butler worked with film and TV writers (and long-time collaborators) Peter Lawrence and Chris Trengove to produce a memoir of his experiences with Moon.

Full Moon was first published as a Star paperback in 1981, and was received rapturously by fans of Moon and The Who, also becoming an instant classic account of rock n roll excess, avidly consumed on tour buses everywhere. This Faber Finds reissue of