Drummer/producer Tim Mooney dead

San Francisco-based drummer Tim Mooney, a former member of American Music Club and Sun Kil Moon as well as a producer and studio musician, died earlier this week, reportedly of a heart attack.

American Music Club leader Mark Eitzel wrote a brief tribute to his former bandmate on his blog: "I haven't seen Tim for a few years now but that still didn't lessen the impact of his passing. He was the drummer of AMC for many years. He was absolutely instrumental in whatever sound we had. His style was absolutely unique and as an artist no one could match what he did. He was a good friend to so many people and will be missed. What an absolute loss. I wish all the best to his wife Jude and his daughter Dixie. I have spent all day in a fog thinking about him."

Mooney was a first-wave member of the San Francisco punk scene as drummer in Negative Trend, whose members split to form the more experimentally-minded acts Flipper and Toiling Midgets; Mooney was the drummer in the latter band during its sporadic existence from 1979 to 1992. He went on to play drums on American Music Club's two major-label albums, 1993's Mercury and 1994's San Francisco, as well as the 2004 reunion album Love Songs For Patriots. Mooney was also a founding member of Mark Kozelek's post-Red House Painters band Sun Kil Moon, playing on 2003's debut Ghosts of the Great Highway and 2005's Tiny Cities.

As a musician and producer, Mooney worked with fellow Bay Area punk vets Penelope Houston and Chuck Prophet, as well as Missy Roback, Portastatic (the solo project of Superchunk's Mac McCaughan) and Her Space Holiday, among many others.