Maureen “Mo” Tucker is a drummer best known for her work with The Velvet Underground.

Tucker, an Ithaca College dropout, fervent Olatunji fan and IBM keypunch operator, had been teaching herself to play the drums since she was 19. After The Velvets' original drummer, Angus MacLise, quit the band in protest of their playing a paid gig, Sterling Morrison, a college buddy of her brother Jim, drafted Mo into the band.

She had a unique way of playing drums – standing upright, using mallets, turning the bass drum flat on its side, no cymbals. As a result, her playing has a primal characteristic to it. She gives the band an almost savage velocity. Despite a leave of absence in 1970 when she became pregnant with her first child Kerry, she kept going with the Velvets until 1971, when she quit music altogether to raise a family in Phoenix.

In the early ‘80s, she divorced her husband, moved to Georgia and worked at a Wal-Mart distribution center until Half Japanese extended an offer to tour Europe in 1989. She began a solo career and fronted her own group. Then, in 1992, the Velvets reunited for a brief period. She’s made only sporadic appearances behind the drums since then and seems to be keeping to herself (apart from some vocal support for the Tea Party in 2010).