Keith Moss — Much-loved studio engineer/producer & guitarist

Published by greggkirk on April 13, 2021April 13, 2021

Keith Moss & Laura Ludwig (photo by Joe del Tufo)

On Monday, April 12, 2021 much-loved studio engineer/producer and guitarist Keith Moss passed from a short bout of cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer. His passing was quick and too early, and it is currently rocking the state of Delaware’s musical world.

Keith came from a family that had deep roots in the art and music community. His father Joe Moss, who passed in 2018, was a well-respected professor of art at the University of Delaware for almost three decades and whose ingenious interactive sculptures have been installed in several locations across the state.

His brother Marc Moss was a founding member of the Delaware band Bad Sneakers that was popular in the area from 1979-1986. As that band came to an end, Marc founded Target Studios, and it is here that I had the most personal interactions with his brother Keith.

I actually met Keith around 1988 when I had a short stint as a radio host at WSEA in Georgetown, DE. I had been given a weekly half-hour radio show that spotlighted local bands and somehow Keith’s band D-Xception found out about it and asked to be interviewed. We did the interview in studio and I was blown away by how friendly Keith was.

Years later my band Shovelhead was looking for an inexpensive local studio to record a batch of new songs. We had made the rounds of the studios in the area and had found it hard to match technical quality with low rates. I contacted Marc Moss to set up some studio time at Target, and he immediately put us in the hands of his younger brother Keith. At first I was a little taken back because I felt like we were being relegated to the B-team, but Marc’s full confidence in Keith was undeniable. That was also the last time I ever doubted Keith’s expertise or studio experience.

From the first moment we started working with Keith, he was friendly, funny, and full of creative ideas. Whenever we had any ideas about a particular sound or effect, he would dig up an unusual microphone, guitar pedal or mention some new technique that was the perfect solution for what we were looking for.

I personally spent a few hundred hours with Keith in the studio because from day-one our band decided to only record there for the duration of that band’s existence. The main reason was because of Keith. For the first time ever, we had found a studio engineer who understood exactly what we were trying to do, and he knew exactly how to execute it.

The funny thing is, he did this with almost every up-and-coming band in the Delaware area for more than a decade. If the Barn Door was the place that every Delaware band played or got their start, Target Studios was the place where they recorded their demo or official release. And Keith was the guy behind the mixing board.

Because Keith was so well-respected as a studio engineer, he began to be asked to produce local releases and at times he’d get invited to play guitar in these bands or projects. I won’t pretend to know every band Keith officially played in, but the ones that stand out are Marc Moss & the Art Farm, Laura Ludwig & the Levelheads, and This Year’s Girl. In the latter two bands Keith played with his wife, former Miss Delaware, Laura Ludwig. It has been a pleasure to see this relationship unfold and blossom into a family that produced three beautiful children who seem to be pursuing artistic paths.

I can honestly say I don’t know anyone who has ever had a bad thing to say about Keith, especially after spending any time with him. He was one of the only people I’ve ever met who was ALWAYS in a good mood whenever I met him. It is because of that and his musical prowess that the Delaware area will sorely miss him.