Moon The Loon. Butler Trengrove & Lawrence

Moon The Loon. Butler Trengrove & Lawrence

1981 Star Book
ISBN 0-352-30805-2

Whereas Dear Boy gives depth to Keith Moon, this book is quite superficial. For someone with the personal connection to Moon he doesn’t seem to know him that well. An out and out cash in.

NME 1981
Moon the Loon is the memoirs of one Dougal Butler for 10 years Keith Moon’s minder and, by his own admission the man who carried the medicine bag. Unlike most posthumous sneaks, Butler clearly has a deep and lasting affection for Moon, and the book’s consequently a far cry from the usual earnest News of the Screws expose (despite its misleadingly hideous cover), being ghosted by co-authors Trengrove and Lawrence in an angicised Runyonese, a ploy which adds an appropriate tinge of comic hoodlum low life.

The content of course is exactly what you’d expect only in greater detail; the sex, the drugs, the heavy friends and especially the practical jokes and Bizarrerie which gave Moon his reputation (the Rolls Royce in the swimming pool, the infamous Moon/Stanshall nazi uniform incident, etc), all recounted with remarkable candour - aswell as less publicised incidents such as the Manson Family’s attempt to recruit the drummer (Charlie is the sun you will be the Moon).

The main fault of Moon The Loon is it’s concentration on the “good ol Keith, wot a larf” side of things and its almost total failure - especially given the length and closeness of Butler’s relationship with Moon - to present Moon as a human being rather than a vehicle of extravagant extroversion. We’re told Moon would often confide in Butler, but we’re not told what he confided.

But perhaps this is only right, both on a personal level and in terms of the type of memoir attempted. It’s certainly original in presentation and a welcome change from the usual bland rock book reportage.