September 2, 2021 • 33 mins
Keith Moon, wild man drummer for the Who, has plenty of his own stories to tell, from chopping up hotel rooms with a hatchet to dunking a Lincoln Continental in a Holiday Inn’s pool. He was one of John’s frequent fellow partiers during John’s “lost weekend” in Los Angeles, which was longer than a weekend and even more lost than you’d initially assume. And as Keith Moon explains, the trouble that he and John got up to during that lost weekend was more than fun and games: it nearly got John Lennon killed.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Blood on the Tracks is a production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. John Lennon was a musical genius
and one of the most beloved cultural figures of the
twentieth century. His songs inspired dreamers to imagine, his search
for the truth gave power to the people. But some
thought he dreamed too much. Others thought he was too powerful,
(00:23):
so he was followed, he was threatened, he was declared
a danger to the United States, and in nine eighty
he was assassinated. This is his story told by his
so called friends. Business special agent Jim Steele with the
(00:46):
Federal Bureau of Investignation work in case number double oh
nine DASH zero eight DASH zero four nine one. Case
subject is Lennon, John Winston oh No. This information pertains
to a period in ex September. Interview subject as Moon
Keith John Interview number zero DA zero two zero six
(01:06):
one Nation nine one Spirit Confessional Recall number two December.
The actor Oliver Reed once said that I showed him
the way to insanity. I had the roadmap. In fact,
(01:30):
I didn't need a map. It was all in my head.
Some days it took us longer to get better than others,
but that was all part of the trip. When I
found myself in Los Angeles at the same time as
John Lennon, I found another crazy old soul in search
of insanity, self destruction, rebirth by root of oblivion. People
(01:54):
think they know I'm John Lennon, who he is, who
he was, who we can to used to be for
millions of people, But they don't know at all. No
one really knows, and not to to my own horn.
But I think I got to know him better than
most because I was there at the time when he
just tore all down and tried to rebuild from scratch.
(02:18):
He was no longer a people. He was John Lennon.
And what the blood yell did that even mean? It
meant that you had to be fearless and reckless, and
you had to come to terms with the fact that
the strange things you did would leave a lot of
blood on the tracks. H Chapter four, John Lennon and
(03:04):
Keith Moore. Life has always been a bit of a
blur for me. I do remember that certain things happen.
The crazier the better, naturally, but the order that things happen,
(03:30):
the chronology, good luck, mate. I can't remember did I
drive that brand new Lincoln Continental into the pool at
the holiday in in Flint, Michigan, before I chopped up
the hotel room in Saskatoon with a hatchet. I do
remember this one hotel room in Copenhagen. I believe it
was the one that came with a water bed. Mr Moon.
(03:53):
They said, all we have available is this sweet with
a water bed? Will that be all right? Bloody ill?
I had a few blokes try to carry the water
bed with me to the elevator so that we could
send up a few floors and then explode it. But
the damn thing exploded before we even got it out
of the room. We must have accidentally punctured it. That
(04:14):
was a two ton water bed, right, So two tons
of water were soaken into the floor in this hotel room,
and within minutes the floor blew out, which is the
ceiling of the room directly below us. And then the
floor of that room blew out from all the water.
Three rooms destroyed with one water bed and not a
(04:37):
two mile long? Now did that happen before or after
I took the monkey trunquilizer and without a commission for
twenty four hours, I don't know ship was it a
monkey tranquilizer. Maybe it was a run no tranquilizer. All
I know is that I had to be pushed around
in a wheelchair for days. I couldn't film the bloody legs.
(05:01):
I did all these things out of boredom. By the way,
the destruction on stage with the Who was because we
were piste off, piste off that the audiences didn't have
a more visceral reaction to what we were doing. The
destruction off the stage was just because I needed something
to fill the time, and like I said, I've never
(05:23):
been good with time. However, I do remember that I
was living in Los Angeles at the same time that
John Lennon was out there. How could I forget that
John rented this beach house in Santa Monica used to
belong to Peter Lawford. Lawford was the extra guy in
Sinatra's rat pack. None of us knew what the earie
(05:46):
did beside drink Dean Martin's scotch. But Lawford was also
married to Patricia Kennedy, and so he had Jack Kennedy
and Bobby Kennedy over to this beach house for parties.
Rumor as it, JFK slept with Marilyn Monroe in that
very house right there on the Pacific Coast Highway. So
(06:10):
this was the drill. We'd rehearse songs at the Beach
House each afternoon, songs for Pussycats, the album John was
making with Harry Nielsen, Well, Rise Up, Get Yourself, Harry
Nielsen's new album Pussy Against, produced by John Lennon, Nielsen's latest.
John had the record plant in l A booked every afternoon,
(06:31):
five day, so we'd have limos take us into town
for the five dirty sessions each day, record till midnight
or so. Then the limos would drive us around to
the Strip or wherever you know, the whiskey, the Rainbow
on the rocksity. We haunted l A nightlife so prolifically
(06:51):
we even got a nickname, the Hollywood Vampires, not that
we do that sort of thing every night. Those places
are closed on Sundays. Then the limos would take us
back to the Beach House in Santa Monica, but not
before we stopped at Turner's Liquor Store on Sunset and Narrabee,
a twenty four hours store where my credit was very good.
(07:16):
Unlike the clubs, that place was open every day, Thank
the Lord. It took us longer to get them. We'd
wake up at some point the next day and start
all over again. I would wake up with a different
girl in bed with me every morning. I wasn't Peter Lawford,
and the girls weren't Marilyn Monroe, but they do. This
(07:39):
is when I was going by Baron von Moon. Our
uniform of choice, a German general's leather jacket, an aviator
scarf and field glasses. Never did wear much below, so
when I turned around, the bare grass would poke out
from the tails of the leather jacket. I could go
(08:00):
naked at the beach House whenever I wanted to, Unlike
the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which is where I stayed when
I first got into town in early the management of
that place shut the electricity off in my room because
they were getting too many noise complaints. Well do you
know what I did. I moved all my furniture out
(08:21):
into the hallway, my armchair and stereo, plugged the stereo
into an outlet in the hallway, played my music at
full blast, and sat in my armchair naked, fearless. And
that got their attention pretty bloody quick. Okay, so I
drew attention just about everywhere I went. I blew up
(08:43):
drum kits on stage with the who. I blew up
toilets and hotel rooms. I knew more than a person
should know about demolitions. And just imagine, there we are
in Los Angeles, Me, John Harry Ring, Go Van Dyke, Parks,
Alice Cooper, Mickey Dollins, whoever happened to jump in and
(09:06):
join our wandering caravan of merry men. We demolished our minds,
We demolished our bodies by route of oblivion. And I said, John,
fuck all that beatles rubbish. Let's focus on demolishing you right.
Let's tear down whoever it was that you used to
(09:29):
be and become someone completely different. I was Baron von Moon,
for example. So we started calling John dr Winston, oh boogie.
What I didn't tell him was that becoming someone else
wasn't going to be easy. But bloody ill it must
have known that he was John Levin and all he
(09:53):
had to do was take a good look at me
and know that if we were heading in the same
direction together, there were going to be some things that
happened along the way that either you wouldn't be able
to remember, or you wouldn't want to. At one point,
(10:37):
I imagine what it would be like if I was
in the Beatles. I think all of us have at
one time or another. It was and the who we're
just getting started our debut long Player. My generation wouldn't
be out until the end of the year. I spotted
the Beatles sitting together in this pub called the Scotch
(11:00):
of St James in London, Glady Hill, the Beatles. Everyone
loved the Beatles. I decided to be a bit cheeky,
take the piss and all that. I walked over to
their table and said, I like, lads, do you mind
if I join you? The lads were all smiles by
all means. Keith pull up a chair and I said, no,
(11:22):
do you mind if I joined you? You had to
be fearless, ruffled ringos feathers a bit, but he knew
I was joking, well partly joking. At least. All of
us groups saw quite a bit of each other throughout
the sixties, but it wasn't until in Los Angeles that
(11:44):
I really got to know John. John didn't necessarily need
someone to guide them down this path to get lost.
He was quite adept at making a fool of himself
on his own, but I, being the resident gom Well,
I took upon myself to show him how to truly
go berserk. Show them the way. Now, should I have
(12:09):
sacrificed the custom built halts A recording console A and
M Studios to illustrate my point? Perhaps not. We were
at A and M Studios to record some songs for
the oldies, but Moldy's record John was making with Phil
spect I've been invited to play drums. At the end
of the session, Specter and the audio engineers all went
(12:31):
home and it was just me, Arie and John hanging around.
I said, John, best to live in the moment, carpe
diem and all that rubbish. He's not busy being born,
He's busy dying, et cetera. And then I unzipped my
pants and piste on the console sanity ship. I don't
(12:54):
know if the damn thing ever worked again. Aary was
laughing so hard he probably pissed his own pants. But
John got angry at me. Moon, What the funk have
you done? You know that sort of thing? I knew
what I had done. I piste all over a holtz
are worth tens of thousands easy. He just wasn't quite
ready yet. He wasn't ready to go the distance to
(13:18):
truly let go of your last care in the world
and be so spontaneous that perhaps it scares you a
little bit. John told the record company and the studio
that someone's build larger on it. But let me tell
you it wasn't lager. I mean, it may have once
(13:38):
been larger, but it was definitely piss John left a
handwritten note for Specter that blamed me and Ry for
what happened. He was all worried because the studio was
threatening to a victim over the damage. John panicked and
told Specter to tell the studio owner to build Capitol
Records for the damage, and then he wrote, I can't
(14:00):
be expected to mind adult rock stars, nor can May. Besides,
she works for me, not a and m That was Rich, Hello,
part this is the cattle calling. And who was minding John? Well,
that would be May May Pang, whom he referenced in
(14:21):
that letter. He could barely recognize that May was on
rock star babysitting duty with him. The doult May had
accompanied John to Los Angeles. Of course, from what I understand,
on the orders of Yoko May was their assistant, and
Yoko was at a bit of an emotional impulse with
(14:41):
John and thought that time and distance would heal all wounds.
This was right after he embarrassed the Hell Hour when
he took Jerry Reuben's girlfriend into the bedroom at Jerry's
flat and had his way with her, with Yoko there
in the other room. As I understand it, m and
so John went west to get all the impulses and
(15:04):
urges and whatever else out of his system, just really
live it up and party yard and May was there
not just as his assistant and babysitter, but also as
a fling approved by his own wife. Not that John
would even stay faithful to his wife appointed lover. We
(15:25):
had to break him in a bit, get him to
our level of insanity. So the console pissing stand out
of the way. John started to cut loose a little more.
That's when Dr Winston no Boogie started to peek out
from behind John's eyes. Dr Oh Boogie drank Brandy Alexander's
(15:48):
with Harry Nielsen and the like, and well, I'd drink
anything once twice to make sure I liked it or not,
and then a third time to see if I needed
a fourth or fifth to really settle upon an opinion.
He must have been loaded on Brandy Alexander's when Oh
Boogie bugged right out of John's head one night on
(16:10):
the Rocks, which was a small lounge on top of
the Rocks sanity, people knew he was in there, John Lennon,
the ex Beatle. For Christ's sakes, people think they know
me John Lennon first, because word had gotten around town
that John was spending a lot of time in Los
Angeles recording and cavorting with the usual suspects. And as
(16:34):
words spread that he was in town, fans would glean
his whereabouts, and they tell other fans it wasn't a
hard day's night. He was running for his life to
escape a frenzied mob. But he was the most famous
musician out of our entire group, so it made us
all a bit high profile. So this crowd gathers in
(16:59):
the parking lot outside the club, and all these drunk
fans are screaming up towards on the Rocks. Give us
John lenn and we want John, you know, just slurred
demands from these frothing mouths, yapping beneath bloodshot eyes, and
John heard him all, well, Dr Winston, no boogie, and
(17:21):
that's when he took over, and John kicked out the
window of the club that looked out over the park
and knot the things sailed straight towards the ground. Was
very dramatic and to the point crash. There it was.
I showed him the weight. And then there's John or
doctor old Boogie, I presume, and he's screaming back at
(17:44):
the fans here I am you fucker's. John was so
gone on Brandy Alexander's and who knows what else that
he thought of jumping, jumping straight out of the second
story window and into the arms of these rabid fans.
They weren't there to see a beatle. They were there
(18:05):
to see John Lennon completely lose his ship and jump
rebirth by root of oblivion. A few people grabbed John
by the arms just as he started to make a
run for it, crazy old soul. They got him downstairs
outside into the parking lot where the fans were still
crackling and grabbing for him. John got overwhelmed and started
(18:28):
cushion people around and throwing punches, and then the fans
got pierced it in and started punching back. He was
finally wrangled into the back of a big black car
that was headed back to the beach house in Santa Monica.
I'd like to think that it was my piercing stunt
on the A and M console that gave them the
(18:49):
inspiration to kick out the back window of the car
as it sped away down Sunset Boulevard. We'll be right
back after this, world, World, World, Now I've gone and
done that again. I like to think everything I just
(19:11):
told you happened in that very order, because well, because
the stories just work well together that way. But funk,
if I know, mate, I could have just told it
all in reverse. All I know is that the more
John hung around the rest of us crazy bastards, the
crazier he became. And listen, if he was sent out
(19:35):
west to, as it were, get it out of his system, well,
I'm not sure at what point it was supposed to
be out of his system. It just seemed to become
more and more part of his system. That was all
part of the trip. People who saw him do these
things in public, whether he was drunk on the floor
(19:56):
of a fancy restaurant with Phil Specter or disturbing the
p peace at Smother's brother show. It wasn't a beatle
they were seeing. It was a spoiled rock star making
a complete ars out of himself, and in a way
they had never seen before. Is that really, John Lennon?
(20:17):
These are the sorts of things, they'd say. It was
one thing to see someone like me running around and
drag or in full Nazi regalia, which is true. You know,
I wore that when I tried very unsuccessfully to make
friends with my neighbor Steve McQueen. But to see John
acting outrageously was something completely different. What can I say
(20:42):
it was? There were no more innocent pool side Illis
d trips with people like Peter Fonder. It was no
longer good Day Sunshine. It was Lady l here comes
the bleeding Son again. Just look at the music that
came out of this time. There was the Oldies, but
(21:04):
Maldi's album, which became rock and roll. There was aries
pussy Cats. There was my own solo album, Two Sides
of the Moon, which John gave me an unreleased song
to put on. But none of those were classic records. Honestly,
we were all lucky to make it out alive. On
the other side, because John's lost weekend nearly killed him.
(21:30):
It was the night of the co Tex episode. You've
heard that story a million times, I suppose, so I
don't really need to go into detail on it. Suffice
to say John went to the Troumador with a co
Tex sanitary napkin on his head and proceeded to make
an incredible ass of himself while Ann Peebles tried to
get through I can't stand the rain on stage. John
(21:52):
got himself kicked out the club that night. Jesse Ed
Davis was with him. Jesse Ed was one of the
unsung guitar greats. Used to be Taj Mahal's right hand man,
and then he became a highly sought after player for
all these people in l A Baby King, Jackson Brown,
Brian Ferry, George Harrison, the list goes on. Now. Jesse
(22:16):
Ed worked real bloody yard to keep up with me. John,
Harry Ringo and the Lot, John may Pang, jesse Ed
and jesse Ed's girlfriend Patty all went back to Harold
Sider's place. That's one of John's lawyers. I don't even
know why they ended up there, but just stick with
(22:37):
me as soon as they got there, jesse Ed said,
they decided to Keith Moon the apartment. Can you believe it?
Not a tile on? I was rubbing off on John,
I was John smashed a hanging knight with the skillet
Ian jesse Ed slashed a mattress and pulled the stuff
(22:58):
and out reckless h And every time they break something,
they pause for a drink or a snort of coke
or something, and then just get right back at it.
Once there was nothing left to break, John went after
jesse Ed. John jumped him, put him into a wrestling hold,
(23:18):
and dragged him down on the floor, which was littered
with broken glass and mattress stuffing and cigarette ash. They
rolled around on the floor, wrestling, laughing, just losing their
bleeding minds, and in the chaos of the moment, a
moment fueled by booze and drugs and the thrill of
(23:38):
bad behavior, John clocked jesse Ed on the head with
a marble ash tray. Just bam. Jesse Ed was out mate.
That was all part of the trek. Patty screamed, bloody murder,
just shrieking. You know what have you done? He's dead?
(23:59):
Just a blood curdling sound. It was such a racket
that the neighbors panicked and called the police. So just
around the time that John revived Jesse d with a
big splash of orange juice to the face of all things,
the l A p. D burst inside the place, shotguns drawn.
(24:20):
Based on the state of the apartment and the frantic
call from the disturbed neighbor, the cops thought they had
another Charles Manson on the rands, so they let the
shotguns lead them into the place, fingers on the triggers
clear in each room. As they made their way inside,
John panicked and ran upstairs, which is a bad look
(24:41):
when the demolished apartment you're in is being raided by
armed police officers. People think they know. John Lennon May
took Chase to coax and back downstairs, but a cop
followed directly behind her, and as May is trying to
reason with the man who was out of his mind
know a moon level of insanity as I should know,
(25:07):
the cops slowly walked into the room John was hiding
it his shotgun aimed directly at John's chest. John stopped
rambling onto me, locked eyes with the cop, and slowly
raised his hands in the air, dead silence. The cop
(25:27):
slowly lowered his shotgun as he realized that this wasn't
the second coming of Charles Manson, this was John Lennon. Mate,
Holy shit, the cops said, John Lennon, Tell me, John,
do you think the Beatles will ever get back together?
(26:16):
September six, Keith Moon paced around his London flat at
nine Curzon Square in London, the one owned by his
friend Harry Nelson. He debated, calling his dealer. Did Keith
want the cocaine because he was about to head out
to a party and therefore needed some social lubricant? Did
he want the cocaine because he was born? Did he
(26:37):
even want the cocaine at all? It was the eve
of Buddy Holly's forty two birthday, God Rest his soul,
and Keith's friend Paul McCartney he was throwing a party
at Peppermint Park, a cocktail bar over in the West End.
Paul had recently purchased Buddy Holly song publishing catalog, which
probably burned John Lennon's ass a bit. Since John was
(26:58):
the Beatle who was heavily influenced by Buddy singing style,
Little Richard was more Paul's back. The guest lists of
Music Royalty at Paul's Buddy Holly party would pregame at
Peppermint Park and then head over to catch the screening
of the brand new biopic The Buddy Holly Story at
a theater in Muster Square later in the evening. There
was a lot of social butterflying on the docket. So yes, yes,
(27:20):
Keith did want the cocaine, especially since he wouldn't be
drinking that night. He had been trying to go easy
on the stuff and so far, so good. Keith had
been taking him in over and a sedative prescribed by
his doctor to help reduce Keith's constant cravings for booze.
When the pills really took hold, they slowed Keith down
to a snail's pace and made his memory even worse
(27:42):
than it already was. But the hemenovern was also helping
Keith get healthy. It notably reduced his desire for alcohol
and thus reduced his legendary alcohol consumption to a fraction
of what it once was. But the Hemenovern didn't quell
Keith Moon's addictive personality. Quite the opposite. He regularly popped
(28:02):
more Himitagran pills than he should have, and he figured, well,
if he was drinking less that it stood to reason
that he should be allowed to continue drugging at a
reasonable pace to balance things out. So on this night,
he called up his dealer, scored an envelope of coke,
took his beautiful girlfriend and Thatt Walter Lax on his arm,
and hit the town. Keith mingled with Paul McCartney at
(28:23):
Peppermint Park. Perhaps Paul gave Keith props for the whose
eighth and latest studio album, Who Are You, which was
currently going strong on the UK charts, and perhaps Keith
reminisced about the time he spent in the drunken orbit
of Paul's ex songwriting partner John Lennon when John lived
in Los Angeles. John had since returned to New York
City and to his wife Yoko Ono, and had dropped
(28:45):
out of the public limelight altogether to raise his new son, Sean.
Keith found that he wasn't particularly enjoying the public limelight
himself on that evening, and so halfway through the Buddy
Holly story, he in Annett bailed and went home. Annette
didn't know that Keith was taking more himenevern than he
should have been. She saw him routinely take what she
(29:05):
called his usual glass of water and a bucket of
pills when he finally went to sleep that night at
four am, But he was awake a few hours later
when he took more of the prescription medicine and fell
asleep again. When Annette passed out and slept into mid afternoon,
she had no idea that when she would wake up,
Keith Moon would be dead. In September of nineteen seventy eight,
(29:29):
John Lennon was reverting back to his Lost Weekend ways
while on holiday in Hawaii. It was there that he
would have heard the news of Keith Moon's death, who
overdosed on himenever and in his flat on September seventh,
the day after the Buddy Holly party at Peppermint Park.
He was thirty two. John may have been a bit
too out of his own head at the time to
truly process what had happened. In Hawaii. John ran into
(29:51):
Jesse ed Davis, taj Mahal's former guitarist, who had sat
in on so many of the Lost Weekend sessions back
in l a not to mention in the extra curricular
proto WrestleMania sessions. It took place at places like Harold
Cider's apartment. John and jesse Ed fell back into their
old ways, old ways that John had tried to purge
(30:12):
from his system for eighteen months in nineteen seventy three.
In nineteen seventy four, but old habits die hard, John
and jesse Ed put their heads together to see what
kind of junk they could scare up and what kind
of trouble they could get into on the island before
John had to return to New York into parenthood. To
the public, John Lennon had become another famous recluse, another
(30:34):
Howard Hughes, another Greta Garbow, with a real Greta Garbow,
by the way, just happened to live in an apartment
across Manhattan from John in Yoka. But John was no recluse.
John was no Hughes or Garbow. Because the wild stories
about John Lennon in the nineteen seventies didn't just end
when he left his fellow Hollywood vampires in Los Angeles
and returned to New York to resume life as a
(30:55):
family man. The stories followed him back, and so did
some of the bad influences. He grew close to, like
Nelson Schmilsen, a fellow pussycat who just couldn't let John
walk away from a path of self destruction, only to
leave a fellow pussy cat hanging. The one and the
same pussycat who coincidentally just happened to own the London
(31:16):
flat that Keith Moon had died in. That particularly bad
influence would be a staple in John's life on both coasts.
It would even wreck his voice so bad that his
vocal cords bled very literally, leaving nothing but Blood on
the Tracks. All right, everybody, thanks for listening to Blood
(31:48):
on the Tracks. If you like what you hear, be
sure to find and follow Blood on the Tracks on
Apple podcast, I Heart Radio, app, Amazon Music, or wherever
you get your podcasts. On this season two of Blood
on the Track Acts, we'll releasing ten episodes on the
incredible life of John Lennon, with a new episode every Thursday.
You can also binge all ten episodes of season one
(32:09):
on the insane story of the notorious record producer Phil
Spector right now. It's available wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode of Blood on the Tracks was written by
Zeth Lundie and hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan,
also executive produced by Brady sad Story and copy editing
by Pat Heally. This episode was mixed by Colin Fleming.
(32:29):
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker. This episode
featured Jack Laugherty's Keith Moon. Blood on the Tracks is
produced by Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot
com on the Blood on the Tracks series page. If
you want to chat about this show or hear more
about the other shows we're making a Double Elvis tap
(32:51):
in on Instagram at double Elvis, on Twitter at Double
Elvis FM, and now on Twitch, where we're streaming three
days a week at Twitch dot tv slash Double Elvis Podcasts,
and finally, be sure to check out disgrace Land, the
award winning music and true crime podcast that I also host.
Disgraceland is available only on the free Amazon Music. To
(33:12):
hear tons of insane stories about your favorite musicians getting
away with murder and behaving very badly, go to Amazon
dot com slash disgrace Land, or if you have an
Echo device, just say Alexa play the disgrace Land podcast,
Rock Alone or Dad
Blood on the Tracks is a production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. John Lennon was a musical genius
and one of the most beloved cultural figures of the
twentieth century. His songs inspired dreamers to imagine, his search
for the truth gave power to the people. But some
thought he dreamed too much. Others thought he was too powerful,
(00:23):
so he was followed, he was threatened, he was declared
a danger to the United States, and in nine eighty
he was assassinated. This is his story told by his
so called friends. Business special agent Jim Steele with the
(00:46):
Federal Bureau of Investignation work in case number double oh
nine DASH zero eight DASH zero four nine one. Case
subject is Lennon, John Winston oh No. This information pertains
to a period in ex September. Interview subject as Moon
Keith John Interview number zero DA zero two zero six
(01:06):
one Nation nine one Spirit Confessional Recall number two December.
The actor Oliver Reed once said that I showed him
the way to insanity. I had the roadmap. In fact,
(01:30):
I didn't need a map. It was all in my head.
Some days it took us longer to get better than others,
but that was all part of the trip. When I
found myself in Los Angeles at the same time as
John Lennon, I found another crazy old soul in search
of insanity, self destruction, rebirth by root of oblivion. People
(01:54):
think they know I'm John Lennon, who he is, who
he was, who we can to used to be for
millions of people, But they don't know at all. No
one really knows, and not to to my own horn.
But I think I got to know him better than
most because I was there at the time when he
just tore all down and tried to rebuild from scratch.
(02:18):
He was no longer a people. He was John Lennon.
And what the blood yell did that even mean? It
meant that you had to be fearless and reckless, and
you had to come to terms with the fact that
the strange things you did would leave a lot of
blood on the tracks. H Chapter four, John Lennon and
(03:04):
Keith Moore. Life has always been a bit of a
blur for me. I do remember that certain things happen.
The crazier the better, naturally, but the order that things happen,
(03:30):
the chronology, good luck, mate. I can't remember did I
drive that brand new Lincoln Continental into the pool at
the holiday in in Flint, Michigan, before I chopped up
the hotel room in Saskatoon with a hatchet. I do
remember this one hotel room in Copenhagen. I believe it
was the one that came with a water bed. Mr Moon.
(03:53):
They said, all we have available is this sweet with
a water bed? Will that be all right? Bloody ill?
I had a few blokes try to carry the water
bed with me to the elevator so that we could
send up a few floors and then explode it. But
the damn thing exploded before we even got it out
of the room. We must have accidentally punctured it. That
(04:14):
was a two ton water bed, right, So two tons
of water were soaken into the floor in this hotel room,
and within minutes the floor blew out, which is the
ceiling of the room directly below us. And then the
floor of that room blew out from all the water.
Three rooms destroyed with one water bed and not a
(04:37):
two mile long? Now did that happen before or after
I took the monkey trunquilizer and without a commission for
twenty four hours, I don't know ship was it a
monkey tranquilizer. Maybe it was a run no tranquilizer. All
I know is that I had to be pushed around
in a wheelchair for days. I couldn't film the bloody legs.
(05:01):
I did all these things out of boredom. By the way,
the destruction on stage with the Who was because we
were piste off, piste off that the audiences didn't have
a more visceral reaction to what we were doing. The
destruction off the stage was just because I needed something
to fill the time, and like I said, I've never
(05:23):
been good with time. However, I do remember that I
was living in Los Angeles at the same time that
John Lennon was out there. How could I forget that
John rented this beach house in Santa Monica used to
belong to Peter Lawford. Lawford was the extra guy in
Sinatra's rat pack. None of us knew what the earie
(05:46):
did beside drink Dean Martin's scotch. But Lawford was also
married to Patricia Kennedy, and so he had Jack Kennedy
and Bobby Kennedy over to this beach house for parties.
Rumor as it, JFK slept with Marilyn Monroe in that
very house right there on the Pacific Coast Highway. So
(06:10):
this was the drill. We'd rehearse songs at the Beach
House each afternoon, songs for Pussycats, the album John was
making with Harry Nielsen, Well, Rise Up, Get Yourself, Harry
Nielsen's new album Pussy Against, produced by John Lennon, Nielsen's latest.
John had the record plant in l A booked every afternoon,
(06:31):
five day, so we'd have limos take us into town
for the five dirty sessions each day, record till midnight
or so. Then the limos would drive us around to
the Strip or wherever you know, the whiskey, the Rainbow
on the rocksity. We haunted l A nightlife so prolifically
(06:51):
we even got a nickname, the Hollywood Vampires, not that
we do that sort of thing every night. Those places
are closed on Sundays. Then the limos would take us
back to the Beach House in Santa Monica, but not
before we stopped at Turner's Liquor Store on Sunset and Narrabee,
a twenty four hours store where my credit was very good.
(07:16):
Unlike the clubs, that place was open every day, Thank
the Lord. It took us longer to get them. We'd
wake up at some point the next day and start
all over again. I would wake up with a different
girl in bed with me every morning. I wasn't Peter Lawford,
and the girls weren't Marilyn Monroe, but they do. This
(07:39):
is when I was going by Baron von Moon. Our
uniform of choice, a German general's leather jacket, an aviator
scarf and field glasses. Never did wear much below, so
when I turned around, the bare grass would poke out
from the tails of the leather jacket. I could go
(08:00):
naked at the beach House whenever I wanted to, Unlike
the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which is where I stayed when
I first got into town in early the management of
that place shut the electricity off in my room because
they were getting too many noise complaints. Well do you
know what I did. I moved all my furniture out
(08:21):
into the hallway, my armchair and stereo, plugged the stereo
into an outlet in the hallway, played my music at
full blast, and sat in my armchair naked, fearless. And
that got their attention pretty bloody quick. Okay, so I
drew attention just about everywhere I went. I blew up
(08:43):
drum kits on stage with the who. I blew up
toilets and hotel rooms. I knew more than a person
should know about demolitions. And just imagine, there we are
in Los Angeles, Me, John Harry Ring, Go Van Dyke, Parks,
Alice Cooper, Mickey Dollins, whoever happened to jump in and
(09:06):
join our wandering caravan of merry men. We demolished our minds,
We demolished our bodies by route of oblivion. And I said, John,
fuck all that beatles rubbish. Let's focus on demolishing you right.
Let's tear down whoever it was that you used to
(09:29):
be and become someone completely different. I was Baron von Moon,
for example. So we started calling John dr Winston, oh boogie.
What I didn't tell him was that becoming someone else
wasn't going to be easy. But bloody ill it must
have known that he was John Levin and all he
(09:53):
had to do was take a good look at me
and know that if we were heading in the same
direction together, there were going to be some things that
happened along the way that either you wouldn't be able
to remember, or you wouldn't want to. At one point,
(10:37):
I imagine what it would be like if I was
in the Beatles. I think all of us have at
one time or another. It was and the who we're
just getting started our debut long Player. My generation wouldn't
be out until the end of the year. I spotted
the Beatles sitting together in this pub called the Scotch
(11:00):
of St James in London, Glady Hill, the Beatles. Everyone
loved the Beatles. I decided to be a bit cheeky,
take the piss and all that. I walked over to
their table and said, I like, lads, do you mind
if I join you? The lads were all smiles by
all means. Keith pull up a chair and I said, no,
(11:22):
do you mind if I joined you? You had to
be fearless, ruffled ringos feathers a bit, but he knew
I was joking, well partly joking. At least. All of
us groups saw quite a bit of each other throughout
the sixties, but it wasn't until in Los Angeles that
(11:44):
I really got to know John. John didn't necessarily need
someone to guide them down this path to get lost.
He was quite adept at making a fool of himself
on his own, but I, being the resident gom Well,
I took upon myself to show him how to truly
go berserk. Show them the way. Now, should I have
(12:09):
sacrificed the custom built halts A recording console A and
M Studios to illustrate my point? Perhaps not. We were
at A and M Studios to record some songs for
the oldies, but Moldy's record John was making with Phil
spect I've been invited to play drums. At the end
of the session, Specter and the audio engineers all went
(12:31):
home and it was just me, Arie and John hanging around.
I said, John, best to live in the moment, carpe
diem and all that rubbish. He's not busy being born,
He's busy dying, et cetera. And then I unzipped my
pants and piste on the console sanity ship. I don't
(12:54):
know if the damn thing ever worked again. Aary was
laughing so hard he probably pissed his own pants. But
John got angry at me. Moon, What the funk have
you done? You know that sort of thing? I knew
what I had done. I piste all over a holtz
are worth tens of thousands easy. He just wasn't quite
ready yet. He wasn't ready to go the distance to
(13:18):
truly let go of your last care in the world
and be so spontaneous that perhaps it scares you a
little bit. John told the record company and the studio
that someone's build larger on it. But let me tell
you it wasn't lager. I mean, it may have once
(13:38):
been larger, but it was definitely piss John left a
handwritten note for Specter that blamed me and Ry for
what happened. He was all worried because the studio was
threatening to a victim over the damage. John panicked and
told Specter to tell the studio owner to build Capitol
Records for the damage, and then he wrote, I can't
(14:00):
be expected to mind adult rock stars, nor can May. Besides,
she works for me, not a and m That was Rich, Hello,
part this is the cattle calling. And who was minding John? Well,
that would be May May Pang, whom he referenced in
(14:21):
that letter. He could barely recognize that May was on
rock star babysitting duty with him. The doult May had
accompanied John to Los Angeles. Of course, from what I understand,
on the orders of Yoko May was their assistant, and
Yoko was at a bit of an emotional impulse with
(14:41):
John and thought that time and distance would heal all wounds.
This was right after he embarrassed the Hell Hour when
he took Jerry Reuben's girlfriend into the bedroom at Jerry's
flat and had his way with her, with Yoko there
in the other room. As I understand it, m and
so John went west to get all the impulses and
(15:04):
urges and whatever else out of his system, just really
live it up and party yard and May was there
not just as his assistant and babysitter, but also as
a fling approved by his own wife. Not that John
would even stay faithful to his wife appointed lover. We
(15:25):
had to break him in a bit, get him to
our level of insanity. So the console pissing stand out
of the way. John started to cut loose a little more.
That's when Dr Winston no Boogie started to peek out
from behind John's eyes. Dr Oh Boogie drank Brandy Alexander's
(15:48):
with Harry Nielsen and the like, and well, I'd drink
anything once twice to make sure I liked it or not,
and then a third time to see if I needed
a fourth or fifth to really settle upon an opinion.
He must have been loaded on Brandy Alexander's when Oh
Boogie bugged right out of John's head one night on
(16:10):
the Rocks, which was a small lounge on top of
the Rocks sanity, people knew he was in there, John Lennon,
the ex Beatle. For Christ's sakes, people think they know
me John Lennon first, because word had gotten around town
that John was spending a lot of time in Los
Angeles recording and cavorting with the usual suspects. And as
(16:34):
words spread that he was in town, fans would glean
his whereabouts, and they tell other fans it wasn't a
hard day's night. He was running for his life to
escape a frenzied mob. But he was the most famous
musician out of our entire group, so it made us
all a bit high profile. So this crowd gathers in
(16:59):
the parking lot outside the club, and all these drunk
fans are screaming up towards on the Rocks. Give us
John lenn and we want John, you know, just slurred
demands from these frothing mouths, yapping beneath bloodshot eyes, and
John heard him all, well, Dr Winston, no boogie, and
(17:21):
that's when he took over, and John kicked out the
window of the club that looked out over the park
and knot the things sailed straight towards the ground. Was
very dramatic and to the point crash. There it was.
I showed him the weight. And then there's John or
doctor old Boogie, I presume, and he's screaming back at
(17:44):
the fans here I am you fucker's. John was so
gone on Brandy Alexander's and who knows what else that
he thought of jumping, jumping straight out of the second
story window and into the arms of these rabid fans.
They weren't there to see a beatle. They were there
(18:05):
to see John Lennon completely lose his ship and jump
rebirth by root of oblivion. A few people grabbed John
by the arms just as he started to make a
run for it, crazy old soul. They got him downstairs
outside into the parking lot where the fans were still
crackling and grabbing for him. John got overwhelmed and started
(18:28):
cushion people around and throwing punches, and then the fans
got pierced it in and started punching back. He was
finally wrangled into the back of a big black car
that was headed back to the beach house in Santa Monica.
I'd like to think that it was my piercing stunt
on the A and M console that gave them the
(18:49):
inspiration to kick out the back window of the car
as it sped away down Sunset Boulevard. We'll be right
back after this, world, World, World, Now I've gone and
done that again. I like to think everything I just
(19:11):
told you happened in that very order, because well, because
the stories just work well together that way. But funk,
if I know, mate, I could have just told it
all in reverse. All I know is that the more
John hung around the rest of us crazy bastards, the
crazier he became. And listen, if he was sent out
(19:35):
west to, as it were, get it out of his system, well,
I'm not sure at what point it was supposed to
be out of his system. It just seemed to become
more and more part of his system. That was all
part of the trip. People who saw him do these
things in public, whether he was drunk on the floor
(19:56):
of a fancy restaurant with Phil Specter or disturbing the
p peace at Smother's brother show. It wasn't a beatle
they were seeing. It was a spoiled rock star making
a complete ars out of himself, and in a way
they had never seen before. Is that really, John Lennon?
(20:17):
These are the sorts of things, they'd say. It was
one thing to see someone like me running around and
drag or in full Nazi regalia, which is true. You know,
I wore that when I tried very unsuccessfully to make
friends with my neighbor Steve McQueen. But to see John
acting outrageously was something completely different. What can I say
(20:42):
it was? There were no more innocent pool side Illis
d trips with people like Peter Fonder. It was no
longer good Day Sunshine. It was Lady l here comes
the bleeding Son again. Just look at the music that
came out of this time. There was the Oldies, but
(21:04):
Maldi's album, which became rock and roll. There was aries
pussy Cats. There was my own solo album, Two Sides
of the Moon, which John gave me an unreleased song
to put on. But none of those were classic records. Honestly,
we were all lucky to make it out alive. On
the other side, because John's lost weekend nearly killed him.
(21:30):
It was the night of the co Tex episode. You've
heard that story a million times, I suppose, so I
don't really need to go into detail on it. Suffice
to say John went to the Troumador with a co
Tex sanitary napkin on his head and proceeded to make
an incredible ass of himself while Ann Peebles tried to
get through I can't stand the rain on stage. John
(21:52):
got himself kicked out the club that night. Jesse Ed
Davis was with him. Jesse Ed was one of the
unsung guitar greats. Used to be Taj Mahal's right hand man,
and then he became a highly sought after player for
all these people in l A Baby King, Jackson Brown,
Brian Ferry, George Harrison, the list goes on. Now. Jesse
(22:16):
Ed worked real bloody yard to keep up with me. John,
Harry Ringo and the Lot, John may Pang, jesse Ed
and jesse Ed's girlfriend Patty all went back to Harold
Sider's place. That's one of John's lawyers. I don't even
know why they ended up there, but just stick with
(22:37):
me as soon as they got there, jesse Ed said,
they decided to Keith Moon the apartment. Can you believe it?
Not a tile on? I was rubbing off on John,
I was John smashed a hanging knight with the skillet
Ian jesse Ed slashed a mattress and pulled the stuff
(22:58):
and out reckless h And every time they break something,
they pause for a drink or a snort of coke
or something, and then just get right back at it.
Once there was nothing left to break, John went after
jesse Ed. John jumped him, put him into a wrestling hold,
(23:18):
and dragged him down on the floor, which was littered
with broken glass and mattress stuffing and cigarette ash. They
rolled around on the floor, wrestling, laughing, just losing their
bleeding minds, and in the chaos of the moment, a
moment fueled by booze and drugs and the thrill of
(23:38):
bad behavior, John clocked jesse Ed on the head with
a marble ash tray. Just bam. Jesse Ed was out mate.
That was all part of the trek. Patty screamed, bloody murder,
just shrieking. You know what have you done? He's dead?
(23:59):
Just a blood curdling sound. It was such a racket
that the neighbors panicked and called the police. So just
around the time that John revived Jesse d with a
big splash of orange juice to the face of all things,
the l A p. D burst inside the place, shotguns drawn.
(24:20):
Based on the state of the apartment and the frantic
call from the disturbed neighbor, the cops thought they had
another Charles Manson on the rands, so they let the
shotguns lead them into the place, fingers on the triggers
clear in each room. As they made their way inside,
John panicked and ran upstairs, which is a bad look
(24:41):
when the demolished apartment you're in is being raided by
armed police officers. People think they know. John Lennon May
took Chase to coax and back downstairs, but a cop
followed directly behind her, and as May is trying to
reason with the man who was out of his mind
know a moon level of insanity as I should know,
(25:07):
the cops slowly walked into the room John was hiding
it his shotgun aimed directly at John's chest. John stopped
rambling onto me, locked eyes with the cop, and slowly
raised his hands in the air, dead silence. The cop
(25:27):
slowly lowered his shotgun as he realized that this wasn't
the second coming of Charles Manson, this was John Lennon. Mate,
Holy shit, the cops said, John Lennon, Tell me, John,
do you think the Beatles will ever get back together?
(26:16):
September six, Keith Moon paced around his London flat at
nine Curzon Square in London, the one owned by his
friend Harry Nelson. He debated, calling his dealer. Did Keith
want the cocaine because he was about to head out
to a party and therefore needed some social lubricant? Did
he want the cocaine because he was born? Did he
(26:37):
even want the cocaine at all? It was the eve
of Buddy Holly's forty two birthday, God Rest his soul,
and Keith's friend Paul McCartney he was throwing a party
at Peppermint Park, a cocktail bar over in the West End.
Paul had recently purchased Buddy Holly song publishing catalog, which
probably burned John Lennon's ass a bit. Since John was
(26:58):
the Beatle who was heavily influenced by Buddy singing style,
Little Richard was more Paul's back. The guest lists of
Music Royalty at Paul's Buddy Holly party would pregame at
Peppermint Park and then head over to catch the screening
of the brand new biopic The Buddy Holly Story at
a theater in Muster Square later in the evening. There
was a lot of social butterflying on the docket. So yes, yes,
(27:20):
Keith did want the cocaine, especially since he wouldn't be
drinking that night. He had been trying to go easy
on the stuff and so far, so good. Keith had
been taking him in over and a sedative prescribed by
his doctor to help reduce Keith's constant cravings for booze.
When the pills really took hold, they slowed Keith down
to a snail's pace and made his memory even worse
(27:42):
than it already was. But the hemenovern was also helping
Keith get healthy. It notably reduced his desire for alcohol
and thus reduced his legendary alcohol consumption to a fraction
of what it once was. But the Hemenovern didn't quell
Keith Moon's addictive personality. Quite the opposite. He regularly popped
(28:02):
more Himitagran pills than he should have, and he figured, well,
if he was drinking less that it stood to reason
that he should be allowed to continue drugging at a
reasonable pace to balance things out. So on this night,
he called up his dealer, scored an envelope of coke,
took his beautiful girlfriend and Thatt Walter Lax on his arm,
and hit the town. Keith mingled with Paul McCartney at
(28:23):
Peppermint Park. Perhaps Paul gave Keith props for the whose
eighth and latest studio album, Who Are You, which was
currently going strong on the UK charts, and perhaps Keith
reminisced about the time he spent in the drunken orbit
of Paul's ex songwriting partner John Lennon when John lived
in Los Angeles. John had since returned to New York
City and to his wife Yoko Ono, and had dropped
(28:45):
out of the public limelight altogether to raise his new son, Sean.
Keith found that he wasn't particularly enjoying the public limelight
himself on that evening, and so halfway through the Buddy
Holly story, he in Annett bailed and went home. Annette
didn't know that Keith was taking more himenevern than he
should have been. She saw him routinely take what she
(29:05):
called his usual glass of water and a bucket of
pills when he finally went to sleep that night at
four am, But he was awake a few hours later
when he took more of the prescription medicine and fell
asleep again. When Annette passed out and slept into mid afternoon,
she had no idea that when she would wake up,
Keith Moon would be dead. In September of nineteen seventy eight,
(29:29):
John Lennon was reverting back to his Lost Weekend ways
while on holiday in Hawaii. It was there that he
would have heard the news of Keith Moon's death, who
overdosed on himenever and in his flat on September seventh,
the day after the Buddy Holly party at Peppermint Park.
He was thirty two. John may have been a bit
too out of his own head at the time to
truly process what had happened. In Hawaii. John ran into
(29:51):
Jesse ed Davis, taj Mahal's former guitarist, who had sat
in on so many of the Lost Weekend sessions back
in l a not to mention in the extra curricular
proto WrestleMania sessions. It took place at places like Harold
Cider's apartment. John and jesse Ed fell back into their
old ways, old ways that John had tried to purge
(30:12):
from his system for eighteen months in nineteen seventy three.
In nineteen seventy four, but old habits die hard, John
and jesse Ed put their heads together to see what
kind of junk they could scare up and what kind
of trouble they could get into on the island before
John had to return to New York into parenthood. To
the public, John Lennon had become another famous recluse, another
(30:34):
Howard Hughes, another Greta Garbow, with a real Greta Garbow,
by the way, just happened to live in an apartment
across Manhattan from John in Yoka. But John was no recluse.
John was no Hughes or Garbow. Because the wild stories
about John Lennon in the nineteen seventies didn't just end
when he left his fellow Hollywood vampires in Los Angeles
and returned to New York to resume life as a
(30:55):
family man. The stories followed him back, and so did
some of the bad influences. He grew close to, like
Nelson Schmilsen, a fellow pussycat who just couldn't let John
walk away from a path of self destruction, only to
leave a fellow pussy cat hanging. The one and the
same pussycat who coincidentally just happened to own the London
(31:16):
flat that Keith Moon had died in. That particularly bad
influence would be a staple in John's life on both coasts.
It would even wreck his voice so bad that his
vocal cords bled very literally, leaving nothing but Blood on
the Tracks. All right, everybody, thanks for listening to Blood
(31:48):
on the Tracks. If you like what you hear, be
sure to find and follow Blood on the Tracks on
Apple podcast, I Heart Radio, app, Amazon Music, or wherever
you get your podcasts. On this season two of Blood
on the Track Acts, we'll releasing ten episodes on the
incredible life of John Lennon, with a new episode every Thursday.
You can also binge all ten episodes of season one
(32:09):
on the insane story of the notorious record producer Phil
Spector right now. It's available wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode of Blood on the Tracks was written by
Zeth Lundie and hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan,
also executive produced by Brady sad Story and copy editing
by Pat Heally. This episode was mixed by Colin Fleming.
(32:29):
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker. This episode
featured Jack Laugherty's Keith Moon. Blood on the Tracks is
produced by Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot
com on the Blood on the Tracks series page. If
you want to chat about this show or hear more
about the other shows we're making a Double Elvis tap
(32:51):
in on Instagram at double Elvis, on Twitter at Double
Elvis FM, and now on Twitch, where we're streaming three
days a week at Twitch dot tv slash Double Elvis Podcasts,
and finally, be sure to check out disgrace Land, the
award winning music and true crime podcast that I also host.
Disgraceland is available only on the free Amazon Music. To
(33:12):
hear tons of insane stories about your favorite musicians getting
away with murder and behaving very badly, go to Amazon
dot com slash disgrace Land, or if you have an
Echo device, just say Alexa play the disgrace Land podcast,
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