Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944, in Levittown, New York) is a musician best known for having been the drummer for the rock group The Velvet Underground.
Tucker first began playing the drums at age 19. When she was asked to join the Velvet Underground, Tucker was working for IBM as a keypunch operator. The band's original percussionist, Angus Maclise, had left in November 1965 because he refused to play before a paying audience, and...
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Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944, in Levittown, New York) is a musician best known for having been the drummer for the rock group The Velvet Underground.
Tucker first began playing the drums at age 19. When she was asked to join the Velvet Underground, Tucker was working for IBM as a keypunch operator. The band's original percussionist, Angus Maclise, had left in November 1965 because he refused to play before a paying audience, and Tucker was drafted because Velvets guitarist Sterling Morrison remembered her as the younger sister of one of his college friends who played the drums.
Tucker's style of playing was unconventional. She played standing up rather than seated (for easier access to the bass drum), using a simplified drum kit of tom toms, a snare drum and an upturned bass drum, playing with mallets rather than drumsticks. She rarely used cymbals; she claimed that since she felt the purpose of a drummer was simply to "keep time," cymbals were unnecessary for this...
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