Scot Halpin

Scot Halpin (b. Muscatine, Iowa, February 3, 1954 – d. Bloomington, February 9, 2008) – Visual Artist and drummer. Following a move from Iowa to San Francisco, nineteen year-old Scott Halpin cashed in on a golden opportunity that amateur drummers rarely get. While attending a concert of the Who at the Cow Palace on November 20, 1973, Halpin sat in for a passed-out Pete Moon during the concert’s final three songs. Even though Halpin hadn’t played in about a year, his friend Mike Danese enthusiastically volunteered his talents from the left edge of the stage after Pete Townsend’s asked, “Can anyone play drums . . . I mean someone good?” In spite of his understandable difficulties with keeping up with the tempo changes in “Naked Eye,” Halpin was named Rolling Stones Magazine’s Pick-up Player of the Year in 1973. After earning a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Art from San Francisco State University, Scott Halpin later played drums in a number of local bands on the West Coast. Also while living in California, he and his wife Robin Young owned a new wave punk rock club called The Roosevelt. In pursuit of opportunities in the visual arts, he and his wife relocated in 1995 to Bloomington, Indiana, Halpin’s home until his death from a brain tumor in 2008.