Keith Moon, Buster Keaton, and Me

Among many admired radio disc jockeys, musicologists, and generous curators of popular culture, the longtime radio host Gary Calamar ranks among our favorites.  Calamar offers great stories in between playing remarkable music spanning decades, with new and classic work (“timely and timeless”) featured during his weekly shift at the LA-meets-OC community radio station The So Cal Sound 88.5 FM, a shared project of Cal State University Northridge and Saddleback College. Calamar showcases adventurous pop music on The Open Road ,  88.5FM  from 4 – 6 pm on Sundays through the month of October. In November the show moves to an earlier time slot, 2 - 4 PM. Of course, you can always listen to "The Open Road" whenver you like, and on your device of choice. The most recent shows are archived at:

88.5 The SoCal Sound: Listen to Gary’s latest radio show “THE OPEN ROAD” online here

Citric Acid is pleased to share a favorite Calamar anecdote.

I met Mr. Moon back in 1974. I was a big fan of The Who. My older brother had told me about them. I was all in, and they were my band!!!

The film Stardust (1974) arrived starring David Essex, and featuring Dave Emunds, Larry Hagman ...and The Who drummer Keith Moon. 

I was living and going to school in Boston, and there was a premier of the movie. I don’t quite recall how it happened, but I had started to learn how to pull some strings and somehow got in.

Keith Moon was there as well, all dressed up in a tuxedo. He’d clearly had a few drinks in him and who knows what else.

I’d read about production of the film version of Tommy directed by Ken Russell, and that there wasn’t going to be any dialogue in the movie, just the songs telling the story. I thought that was strange. No dialogue?

So, I’m at this premiere of Stardust and Keith was there and of course I had to make contact and say something to him. He was one of my rock heroes. I went up to him and said, “Hey, Keith, great to meet you. I’m a big fan. It’s an honor. I’ve been reading about the Tommy  movie that’s in the works and I read that there’s no dialogue in the movie.”

“What’s up with that?” I asked.

And he looked at me and answered, perhaps as only Keith Moon could, “Well, Buster Keaton’s movies didn’t have any dialogue, and they were fucking brilliant.”

Gary is a veteran DJ currently at 88.5 The SoCal Sound and the co-author of Record Store Days (From Vinyl to Digital and Back Again). President of Go Music, he is a five-time Grammy-nominated producer and music supervisor who has overseen the music on some of the most acclaimed and popular shows on television including True Blood, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Entourage, Weeds, House, and Man In The High Castle. He has also music supervised the films Carrie Pilby, Slums Of Beverly Hills, I Love You Philip Morris, and Varsity Blues, for which he received a gold record for the soundtrack. Calamar was twice awarded the Guild Of Music Supervisor Award for Best Music Supervision for Television. His current television projects include 3 Body Problem (Netflix). He is also a songwriter and co-wrote the song “Let’s Boot and Rally” performed by Iggy Pop and Bethany Cosentino (Best Coast) which was named by Rolling Stone as one of Iggy’s all-time best collaborations.