9 Curzon Place — Where Keith Moon Died

Keith Moon died on 7 September 1978 in the flat at 9 Curzon Place in Mayfair, London — a property owned by Harry Nilsson that had also, four years earlier, been the scene of Mama Cass Elliot's death. Moon had taken thirty-two tablets of Heminevrin, a drug prescribed to manage alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and died in the early hours from an overdose. He was 32 years old. The previous evening he had attended a party hosted by Paul McCartney and the premiere of 'The Buddy Holly Story,' accompanied by his girlfriend Annette Walter-Lax, and had seemed in relatively good health. His death came as the Who were preparing a new album and tour.

Keith Moon was one of the most singular figures in the history of rock music — a drummer of extraordinary power and unpredictability whose playing was simultaneously melodic, violent, and structurally radical. He did not keep time in the conventional sense; he played the kit as if all parts were equally melodic, with fills that seemed to explode from nowhere and land in places that conventional drumming would never go. His off-stage behaviour was equally legendary: hotel rooms destroyed, cars driven into swimming pools, explosions, chaos, and a generosity that made him beloved by almost everyone who knew him despite everything. He was the most dangerous kind of personality — someone for whom the performance never stopped.

The building at 9 Curzon Place is a Georgian townhouse in a quiet Mayfair street. There is no public marker identifying it as the location of Moon's death, though it is well-documented in rock literature and attracts occasional visits from fans. Moon is buried at Golders Green Crematorium in north London. The Who continued after his death, eventually recruiting Kenney Jones as his replacement, but have acknowledged that the band was fundamentally changed by the loss of the person Pete Townshend once described as 'the best drummer in the world.'