SHARPS & FLATS : FAN PENS BIO OF KEITH MOON.

Byline: Fred Shuster

When Tony Fletcher was 14, he attended an exhibit of Who memorabilia curated by the group's fans.

While studying a life-size hologram of the band's Keith Moon at the drums, the boy turned to find the real thing standing next to him. Pulling from his bag a copy of the fanzine he produced for his schoolmates, Fletcher asked Moon to autograph it.

After a short conversation with the teen, Moon gave Fletcher his address and said to drop by sometime. A week or so later, Fletcher went to the posh London apartment, but there was no answer.

Just a couple of weeks later, Moon was dead.

Fletcher tells that story as an epilogue in ``Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend'' (Spike Books; $30), his wonderful biography of the manic, full-throttle hedonist and drummer whose life was a nonstop out-of-control party.

Music journalist Fletcher spent more than three years researching Moon's life and interviewed dozens of the flamboyant musician's friends, colleagues and associates. As for the surviving members of the Who, only bassist John Entwistle participated; Pete Townshend explained he no longer had anything good to say about his former drummer, and Roger Daltrey felt the biography would conflict with a proposed film project.

In any case, it's hard to imagine that this highly readable unvarnished 600-page life story could be much more complete.

Moon lived in Los Angeles for several years and even bought a ramshackle house on Knobhill Drive in Sherman Oaks for less than $50,000 in the mid-'70s. Of course, the TV ended up in the pool right off the bat, and the slowly simmering neighbors eventually exacted their revenge with a foghorn at dawn.

``Moon'' is full of hilarious stories but never ignores the fact that Moon's energetic drumming is what made the Who so distinctive. Fletcher does a good job making this musical trailblazing easily understandable even to nonmusicians.

The author, who previously penned books on R.E.M. and '80s band Echo and the Bunnymen, also remains fixed on the troubled man at the center of the maelstrom.

It's a shame ``Moon'' has to end so sadly. But at the very least you'll want to blast your Who albums. At most, you'll wreck a hotel room in Moon's honor.

``For me, Keith Moon had been more than just a world-famous rock star, more than simply a brilliant drummer, more even than the most irrepressible and carefree character of rock 'n' roll's last 15 years,'' Fletcher sums up. ``He had been a human being, an approachable, affable man who had never forgotten what it was like to be a fan or a dreamer. More than that, for those few minutes that August (at the exhibit), he had been as a friend.''