What a Guy

Volumes upon volumes have been written about the waste laid upon hotels by The Who, a band known for its ability to trash rooms as much as for its exuberant music. The group exploded rhythmic energy and its most reckless member was Keith Moon. Moon’s boyish violence of hitting and destroying things was exhibited not only in rock, but in his propensity for using cherry bombs and dynamite to blow up toilets… lots of them. “We got thrown out of every hotel we ever stayed in,” The Who’s guitarist Pete Townshend once said. One time, Moon said he forgot something on the way to the airport, insisted on returning to the hotel, ran to his room, threw the television set out into the pool, and legendarily sighed, “I nearly forgot.” On August 23, 1967, his 21st birthday, he set in motion a now-mythical spree at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan. Though we can’t ascertain fact from legend, Moon claimed to have driven a Lincoln Continental into the hotel pool.