TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WIAT) — D.C. Moon, who was a major part of the Tuscaloosa music scene for decades, has died. He was 62.

Moon, who worked as a parking monitor by day at the University of Alabama and by night blared punk rock music around town, had recently suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital when he died Thursday. Moon had been a staple of the city’s music scene since the 1970s, where he played with bands like Red Giant, the Atomic Supermen, and Mary Tylosaur.

“DC Moon was a beacon of the beautifully weird and delightfully strange,” said Soapy Jones, owner of Left Hand Soap Company and a singer who frequently plays around Tuscaloosa. “He was an original performer who opened doors, connected fellow musicians and performers, and never stopped advocating for the musical undercurrent of Tuscaloosa. He was ever-present and irreplaceable. We are all poorer without him.”

Moon, whose real name was David Craig Williams, had played many venues across Tuscaloosa over the years, but was best known for his shows at beloved places like the The Chukker or Egan’s Bar, both of which are no longer open.

News of Moon’s death spread quickly online with many of his fellow bandmates and friends paying tribute to the late musician.

“He was an American Studies major here at UA and many years ago he was a student in one of my classes on Pop Culture–a class he easily could have been *teaching* with his encyclopedic knowledge of everything from comic books to music to B movies + much much more,” wrote Stacy Morgan, an American Studies professor at the University of Alabama. “Fortunate to stay in touch all these years–he always had a kind word & warm greeting, even when circumstances weren’t the best. Lucky, too, to have caught so many of his performances on stages & in parking lots big & small.”

Kevin Halbrook, a drummer who frequently played with Moon over the last few years, said that although Moon’s music could sometimes be loud and aggressive, the man himself was far from that.

“What endeared him so much to the community in Tuscaloosa was how absolutely unfailingly kind he was,” Halbrook said. “He would do things like pawn a guitar before he would miss a payment to the local animal shelter.”

One thing that set Moon’s music apart from others in town was how he combined his love of punk rock, as well as old horror movies and science fiction, into his music, as heard on songs like “‘I Married a Woman From Outer Space.”

“We didn’t see many people doing the science fiction thing,” Moon said in an interview with The Tuscaloosa News in 2008. “And it was always just something that naturally occurred to me.”

Halbrook said he has never known anyone quite like Moon.

“He was just one of those people that if you feel drawn to people who are different or unique or new, you felt yourself being pulled toward DC,” Halbrook said. “I hope Tuscaloosa knows what they lost.”