It would seem Ed Feser wasn't pleased as he boldly proclaims- "Hart tells us that “Christians have always betrayed Christianity, and they have always misunderstood it.” So how, pray tell, is anyone supposed to know what Christianity is? Hart has elsewhere rejected the idea that tradition can tell us. He also rejects, of course, the Catholic idea of an authoritative magisterium. He evidently thinks that scripture is not decisive either, since he has condemned the conception of God conveyed in some biblical texts. And now the sensus fidelium is out too. Apparently, for Hart Christianity is just whatever David Bentley Hart says it is. But of course, Hart is hardly more authoritative than scripture, tradition, magisterium, or the sense of the faithful. Do the math."
He then paraphrased the Humpty dumpty scene in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, but incorporated you into it.
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean." David Bentley Hart said in a rather scornful tone "Neither more or less." Alice responds "The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things?" David Bentley Hart retorts: "The question is, how am I to be master-That's all."
Personally I thought this was a rather pleasant conversation. But that's just my opinion.
Ed Feser is incapable of understanding much of anything. For him, the obvious truth that Christians of every age have betrayed the gospel—something Newman said more than once—is somehow a claim on my part to a special exemption from error.
He’s also one of those accursed Thomists who believes God really did command genocides, which is just fine because “God is not a moral agent.”
I, too, was corrupted by Eliot in my twenties, only to discover later that Yeats, not Eliot, was the greatest poet of the 20th Century precisely because he was able to integrate the romantic with the modernist, something Eliot's antiseptic modernism failed to do. My personal favorite, slightly ahead of "Among School Children" is "The Fisherman."
I’m surprised Michael would want to contest that one. That’s just an objective fact. (I mean, Entwistle? Does anybody really doubt that he was the greatest ever? It takes three normal bass players to discharge his part in concerts.)
Entwistle was amazing as a bass player, but I have to say I believe there are several better bassists. For instance, I'd say Stanley Clarke, Chris Squire, and Tony Levin are better players. Are you a fan of King Crimson? As far as drummers go, Bruford has always been my guy. But in fairness, I've just never been particularly fond of the Who as much as I respect them.
I would personally say King Crimson is the greatest rock group of all time.
The man could absolutely rip it on the bass, I can't deny that. If technical virtuosity is the discussion though, I think the winner may be Victor Wooten, even though I'm not a huge fan of his music: https://youtu.be/tsyMH3ACvxE
And I can understand what you mean about King Crimson, they're certainly not everyone's cup of tea. Fripp is an eccentric composer.
Victor Wooten would disagree with you. Of course, he's no longer able, sadly, to play as he once did. But he too has said that Entwistle could do things on the bass that no one else could do.
Other bands? Not many. Mostly the ones you could guess from the 50's, 60's, and early 70's. But I actually don't care for most popular music.
It’s worth it in order to bear witness to the truth.
You do realize that Entwistle played bass cadenzas that literally no one else—in the worlds of classical music, jazz, and rock—has ever been able to play. When he had his 12-string Alembic bass on stage, he would sometimes play both an inimitable bass line and lead “guitar” simultaneously (eg., “Trick of the Light”).
OK, but you have moved the goalposts. You didn't say John Entwistle was better than Bill Wyman (true). And Keith Moon was better than any other drummer in rock besides John Bonham. But Mick Taylor is a better guitarist than Pete Townsend ever was, & Ron Wood gives him a run for his money.
But I was more trying say that that was never the point of the Stones. Or, rather, musicianship is beside the point. The Clash are by far the best rock & roll band after the Stones, but they could barely play.
Ummmm….. No. Townshend is an immeasurably greater guitarist than any Stones guitarist ever and Keith Moon was as dominant on drums as Entwistle was on bass. (As to the latter, no less than Ginger Baker and J. Bonham Esq. said as much.) The greatest guitarist of the twentieth century was John Williams—the classical guitarist, not the movie composer—and he proclaimed Townshend a genius.
But I admit that the Stones were second only to the Beatles as songwriters.
For me, I’m afraid, the quality of the music is central.
I was editing that to be clearer when you posted. But I don't think you can say Williams was "greater" than Robert Johnson, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix, even if he was more technically accomplished. You can't really compare them.
Thank you so much for this conversation! It touches on much of deep concern to me, and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Regarding Christ's uniqueness, I would like, in the here and now, to hold on to the infinite qualitative difference of Christ (in Kierkegaardian terms), based on the distinction between perfection and imperfection. This distinction seems to me to exist always and everywhere in the present age (and can thus be said to be infinite, if not eternal). In the age to come, perhaps not; the process of deification will, we trust, be brought to completion in the course of eternity (though, from our present vantage point, we can't fully know what this means).
I noticed you and Robbins discussed Harold Bloom considerably in the interview! I wonder if my bringing up Bloom in our interview from last year might have inspired you—at least a tiny bit—to think about his concept of the American Religion more? Lol
Dr Hart, I very much admire you and your writing. Having said that, I cannot concur that “The Who” as a whole is more musically talented than the stones. How a man of your intellect and overall exquisite taste came to that conclusion stymies the mind. I devoutly hope you repent.
Mark, That’s not even a serious debate. For sheer virtuosity, no group ever matched the Who. Even the Stones concurred in that judgment. Entwistle alone set a standard that no other musician in popular music ever came close to matching. Charlie Watts once remarked that it would have taken three of him to keep up with Keith Moon.
I’m afraid that some things are matters of objective fact.
Now, whether you liked the sound they made as much as you do that of the Stones is another matter.
If we're talking virtuosity of the groups as a whole, I definitely have to disagree here as well. King Crimson, Magma, Mahavishnu Orchestra, any of Zappa's bands, and several technical death metal bands (such as Obscura) could play circles around the Who at their prime. They're a great band, but that no band in the popular music sphere has matched them technically is a hard sell. Not to mention compositional virtuosity--as much as the Who could write a good song, they weren't writing anything that approached, say, the heights of Frank Zappa's composing.
A damn fine rock group, but part of what made them so technically impressive was also what made them a little rough around the edges. Entwistle could shred like a mother, but it's sloppy at times. Same goes for Keith Moon. That's also part of the appeal, for myself at least, but it's a different sort of technical virtuosity. Bill Bruford, while perhaps not as explosive as Keith Moon, could play 17/16 over 4/4 without missing a beat or breaking a sweat.
Also, I want you to know how exciting it is to talk rock music with my favorite living philosopher.
Mahavishnu Orchestra was a Jazz-Raga fusion group with a large core of musicians. Not comparable. Zappa was a failed classical composer and nothing he produced is as musically interesting as Quadrophenia. As an instrumentalist, he was a hack. King Crimson was very good technically though they wrote lousy songs and their bass player was roughly 20% of Entwistle. And Keith, when he was sober, could play mixed beats as complicated as the best gamelan. If Entwistle was sloppy at times, it’s hard to find a recording that proves it. But he too was sometimes not entirely sober on stage.
So, no, not buying it. Entwistle’s strange percussive fingering alone allowed him to play arpeggiated riffs and contrapuntal lines that only God could match.
Mahavishnu Orchestra only had five members at their creative peak, I'm not sure that disqualifies them. Regarding Zappa, I strongly disagree. He shared the stage with Stockhausen in Frankfurt in 1992. But that's besides the point, because his real genius was in his bringing serious 20th century classical music and also jazz music to a rock setting. I'm not sure it's correct to say he's a failed classical composer when he was intentionally a rock musician from the start of his career. I say it remains true that Zappa's bands could outplay the Who. Uncle Meat alone is a dazzling display of genius. As for Zappa the instrumentalist, he grew a lot through the 70s and was could shred with the best of them by the 80s.
King Crimson had many different bass players of varying virtuosity. Greg Lake was great, Gordon Haskell was okay, Boz Burrel was pretty good, John Wetton was phenomenal (he was known for frequently breaking the low E string of his bass), Tony Levin also phenomenal, and Trey Gunn exceptional. Wetton and Levin at least I believe could give Entwistle a run for his money. Compositionally, King Crimson is simply out of this world. Robert Fripp is a master of channeling his influences (whether they be Gamelan music, European folk, 20th century classical, psychedelic rock, or jazz) into a cohesive whole that is completely his own. However, that may just be a difference of taste! I am something of an insufferable fanboy if it isn't obvious.
Now, if we're talking rhythmic bass playing, check out some of Tony Levin's work on the chapman stick where he would essentially play bass and guitar at the same time. Entwistle certainly had a way of doing some extreme arpeggiating though, I must thank you for bringing him to my attention once more.
Regarding Magma, I'm curious what you see wrong with them. Not a fan of alien space opera jazz rock sung in a made up language?
Stockhausen was a talentless media phenomenon. Certainly no Ligeti.
Zappa liked to compare himself to Webern and to criticize Beethoven and generally comport himself as a serious composer. And yet his actual music is aimless pop complicated by, say, a sudden splash of tritones, some boring attempts at serialism, some Jazz progressions. I don’t know what there is to admire.
Mahavishnu was not a rock band. The conversation was about that, to be honest. Five Jazz musicians steeped in Indian pentatonic ragas are impossible to compare to a three-instrument rock group. Most people who want to challenge the Who’s reputation in that arena tend to point at Cream. But bringing up MO is like bringing up the Dave Brubeck quartet. It’s just a completely different kind of music.
Again, King Crimson could boast a lot of virtuosity. I just don’t think they could boast any good songs. And every album sounds the same to me. But de gustibus…
Frank Zappa was certainly full of himself, this we can agree on. However, I'm not sure that's an accurate description of Zappa's music. He was capable of full length orchestral music as much as he was pop music. Or advanced fusion like Peaches En Regalia. His discography is immensely varied and I don't like all of it, but his stuff with the first lineup of the Mothers of Invention, his early solo stuff, and his Yellow Shark Ensemble Modern album are all cracking tunes in my humble opinion. The themes he would develop throughout a piece, or even throughout his entire career, were very complex. If the Uncle Meat Variations isn't great, complicated music, I'm not sure what is. Not to mention his ability to find some seriously extreme talent for his bands.
And point taken on Mahavishnu Orchestra. I tend to internally categorize them in that blurry area where rock and jazz meet, but they are ultimately a jazz group so the comparison isn't quite apt.
At the end of the day, I view these sorts of discussions in good fun. Which musicians are better than others can be debated endlessly, but ultimately these different bands are all getting at something different and comparing and contrasting them should only be done to kill time. Music being God's greatest gift to mankind, it should never be turned into a battlefield.
As an aside, I would love to know what you've been listening to lately. I love all sorts of music and always appreciate more of it.
To be honest, I don’t put much stock in what these fellas say about each other. They tend to be all over the map. For instance, Watts did admire (and very much liked) Keith Moon. He also said that Moon wouldn’t be a great drummer without Pete Townsend.
Now I love The Who, and Keith Moon was one of a kind. But I don’t think he had the kind of self control that Charlie had. I couldn’t imagine him pulling off something like “Moonlight Mile”, for instance.
Legend has it that after Manchester band The Stone Roses played an early date on the same bill as The Who, Townshend tried to poach their drummer, Reni. Me and many others are glad he refused the offer. The Roses have the same attitude as The Who, if not nearly as virtuoso.
Wow. I never thought I’d see the words Bonham, Townsend, Moon, et al. come from Hart’s fingertips. And they’re connected with claims of greatness. I can’t even begin to say how happy this makes me. If this conversation is buried among your older First Things columns, I missed it.
I hope you continue to break down the walls between classical and “pop.” I really think the music appreciation class I had in high school changed lives because of the way the teacher (who also happened to be my drum teacher) emitted the same joy from walking us through one of Bach’s Fugues as he did when he discussed Sergeant Pepper’s. It’s a rare thing to hear teenage boys at lunch talking about how they like Bach more than Chopin and recently have gotten really into Coltrane, but this was a common occurrence because of that class. More people should know there would be no Penny Lane or Blackbird or Cliff Burton if it weren’t for Bach.
Rick Beato has had a lot of great guests and you’ve been a guest on many great podcasts but the two of you together would make for the ultimate music appreciation podcast.
And you could very well be right about John Williams. His lute suites from Bach are mind boggling. Though one could rightly argue Tommy Emmanuel and Guthrie Govan are worthy rivals. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-VzKyPruPgA. At least in terms of sheer versatility, Govan and Emmanuel are unparalleled, even if Govan’s compositions are very lacking.
I’m elated that Williams appreciates rock music. I was unaware of this. What a wonderful beginning to my day.
Interesting! I HAVE seen a clip of Joe Pass and Williams singing each other’s praises. Pass ends up improvising over Williams’s playing of Bach’s Chaconne. A wonderful little bit. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-30-sCGX3L4.
You're telling me you didn't sprint to the nearest record store to pick up your vinyl copy of Cattle Decapitation's critically-acclaimed album "Monolith of Inhumanity" immediately after your conversation with Michael?
What's your taste in black metal, by the way? The remark about Satanism makes me think early Norwegian stuff (or maybe the modern Polish scene), but there a lot of great bands in the US and UK with anarchist sympathies (Dawn Ray'd, Panopticon).
Early stuff: Darkthrone, Ulver, Satyricon, Weakling. More recent: Deathspell Omega (though I was extremely disappointed to hear of their fashy connections), Uada, Blut aus Nord. I listen to much more death metal these days.
A new article coming, a transcript and a new DBH YouTube channel. Could this day get any better?
Yes, it could.
A spiritual cornucopia. Considering that I am also currently reading Tradition and Apocalypse, I might just die out of overindulgence.
It would seem Ed Feser wasn't pleased as he boldly proclaims- "Hart tells us that “Christians have always betrayed Christianity, and they have always misunderstood it.” So how, pray tell, is anyone supposed to know what Christianity is? Hart has elsewhere rejected the idea that tradition can tell us. He also rejects, of course, the Catholic idea of an authoritative magisterium. He evidently thinks that scripture is not decisive either, since he has condemned the conception of God conveyed in some biblical texts. And now the sensus fidelium is out too. Apparently, for Hart Christianity is just whatever David Bentley Hart says it is. But of course, Hart is hardly more authoritative than scripture, tradition, magisterium, or the sense of the faithful. Do the math."
He then paraphrased the Humpty dumpty scene in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, but incorporated you into it.
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean." David Bentley Hart said in a rather scornful tone "Neither more or less." Alice responds "The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things?" David Bentley Hart retorts: "The question is, how am I to be master-That's all."
Personally I thought this was a rather pleasant conversation. But that's just my opinion.
Ed Feser is incapable of understanding much of anything. For him, the obvious truth that Christians of every age have betrayed the gospel—something Newman said more than once—is somehow a claim on my part to a special exemption from error.
He’s also one of those accursed Thomists who believes God really did command genocides, which is just fine because “God is not a moral agent.”
If Mr. Ed (Ha Ha) asked you to debate him would you?
I, too, was corrupted by Eliot in my twenties, only to discover later that Yeats, not Eliot, was the greatest poet of the 20th Century precisely because he was able to integrate the romantic with the modernist, something Eliot's antiseptic modernism failed to do. My personal favorite, slightly ahead of "Among School Children" is "The Fisherman."
Your remark about Entwistle,, Townshend, and Moon is demonstrably true. You have justified my sub renewal, which happened to occur earlier today.
I’m surprised Michael would want to contest that one. That’s just an objective fact. (I mean, Entwistle? Does anybody really doubt that he was the greatest ever? It takes three normal bass players to discharge his part in concerts.)
Entwistle was amazing as a bass player, but I have to say I believe there are several better bassists. For instance, I'd say Stanley Clarke, Chris Squire, and Tony Levin are better players. Are you a fan of King Crimson? As far as drummers go, Bruford has always been my guy. But in fairness, I've just never been particularly fond of the Who as much as I respect them.
I would personally say King Crimson is the greatest rock group of all time.
Not one of those guys was a technical peer of Entwistle’s. No one was. He was uncanny.
https://youtu.be/yd6S0BrI9zw
I could never really enjoy King Crimson. Excellent musicians, but the songs did nothing for me.
Better view: https://youtu.be/L2jVSQrEAiw
The man could absolutely rip it on the bass, I can't deny that. If technical virtuosity is the discussion though, I think the winner may be Victor Wooten, even though I'm not a huge fan of his music: https://youtu.be/tsyMH3ACvxE
And I can understand what you mean about King Crimson, they're certainly not everyone's cup of tea. Fripp is an eccentric composer.
What other rock bands do you like, if I may ask?
Victor Wooten would disagree with you. Of course, he's no longer able, sadly, to play as he once did. But he too has said that Entwistle could do things on the bass that no one else could do.
Other bands? Not many. Mostly the ones you could guess from the 50's, 60's, and early 70's. But I actually don't care for most popular music.
His death is so frustrating because it was just unnecessary and because he could play at the highest level right till the end
It’s worth it in order to bear witness to the truth.
You do realize that Entwistle played bass cadenzas that literally no one else—in the worlds of classical music, jazz, and rock—has ever been able to play. When he had his 12-string Alembic bass on stage, he would sometimes play both an inimitable bass line and lead “guitar” simultaneously (eg., “Trick of the Light”).
OK, but you have moved the goalposts. You didn't say John Entwistle was better than Bill Wyman (true). And Keith Moon was better than any other drummer in rock besides John Bonham. But Mick Taylor is a better guitarist than Pete Townsend ever was, & Ron Wood gives him a run for his money.
But I was more trying say that that was never the point of the Stones. Or, rather, musicianship is beside the point. The Clash are by far the best rock & roll band after the Stones, but they could barely play.
Ummmm….. No. Townshend is an immeasurably greater guitarist than any Stones guitarist ever and Keith Moon was as dominant on drums as Entwistle was on bass. (As to the latter, no less than Ginger Baker and J. Bonham Esq. said as much.) The greatest guitarist of the twentieth century was John Williams—the classical guitarist, not the movie composer—and he proclaimed Townshend a genius.
But I admit that the Stones were second only to the Beatles as songwriters.
For me, I’m afraid, the quality of the music is central.
I was editing that to be clearer when you posted. But I don't think you can say Williams was "greater" than Robert Johnson, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix, even if he was more technically accomplished. You can't really compare them.
Thank you so much for this conversation! It touches on much of deep concern to me, and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Regarding Christ's uniqueness, I would like, in the here and now, to hold on to the infinite qualitative difference of Christ (in Kierkegaardian terms), based on the distinction between perfection and imperfection. This distinction seems to me to exist always and everywhere in the present age (and can thus be said to be infinite, if not eternal). In the age to come, perhaps not; the process of deification will, we trust, be brought to completion in the course of eternity (though, from our present vantage point, we can't fully know what this means).
I noticed you and Robbins discussed Harold Bloom considerably in the interview! I wonder if my bringing up Bloom in our interview from last year might have inspired you—at least a tiny bit—to think about his concept of the American Religion more? Lol
If you like.
Dr Hart, I very much admire you and your writing. Having said that, I cannot concur that “The Who” as a whole is more musically talented than the stones. How a man of your intellect and overall exquisite taste came to that conclusion stymies the mind. I devoutly hope you repent.
Mark, That’s not even a serious debate. For sheer virtuosity, no group ever matched the Who. Even the Stones concurred in that judgment. Entwistle alone set a standard that no other musician in popular music ever came close to matching. Charlie Watts once remarked that it would have taken three of him to keep up with Keith Moon.
I’m afraid that some things are matters of objective fact.
Now, whether you liked the sound they made as much as you do that of the Stones is another matter.
If we're talking virtuosity of the groups as a whole, I definitely have to disagree here as well. King Crimson, Magma, Mahavishnu Orchestra, any of Zappa's bands, and several technical death metal bands (such as Obscura) could play circles around the Who at their prime. They're a great band, but that no band in the popular music sphere has matched them technically is a hard sell. Not to mention compositional virtuosity--as much as the Who could write a good song, they weren't writing anything that approached, say, the heights of Frank Zappa's composing.
A damn fine rock group, but part of what made them so technically impressive was also what made them a little rough around the edges. Entwistle could shred like a mother, but it's sloppy at times. Same goes for Keith Moon. That's also part of the appeal, for myself at least, but it's a different sort of technical virtuosity. Bill Bruford, while perhaps not as explosive as Keith Moon, could play 17/16 over 4/4 without missing a beat or breaking a sweat.
Also, I want you to know how exciting it is to talk rock music with my favorite living philosopher.
Mahavishnu Orchestra was a Jazz-Raga fusion group with a large core of musicians. Not comparable. Zappa was a failed classical composer and nothing he produced is as musically interesting as Quadrophenia. As an instrumentalist, he was a hack. King Crimson was very good technically though they wrote lousy songs and their bass player was roughly 20% of Entwistle. And Keith, when he was sober, could play mixed beats as complicated as the best gamelan. If Entwistle was sloppy at times, it’s hard to find a recording that proves it. But he too was sometimes not entirely sober on stage.
So, no, not buying it. Entwistle’s strange percussive fingering alone allowed him to play arpeggiated riffs and contrapuntal lines that only God could match.
Magma? Come on.
Mahavishnu Orchestra only had five members at their creative peak, I'm not sure that disqualifies them. Regarding Zappa, I strongly disagree. He shared the stage with Stockhausen in Frankfurt in 1992. But that's besides the point, because his real genius was in his bringing serious 20th century classical music and also jazz music to a rock setting. I'm not sure it's correct to say he's a failed classical composer when he was intentionally a rock musician from the start of his career. I say it remains true that Zappa's bands could outplay the Who. Uncle Meat alone is a dazzling display of genius. As for Zappa the instrumentalist, he grew a lot through the 70s and was could shred with the best of them by the 80s.
King Crimson had many different bass players of varying virtuosity. Greg Lake was great, Gordon Haskell was okay, Boz Burrel was pretty good, John Wetton was phenomenal (he was known for frequently breaking the low E string of his bass), Tony Levin also phenomenal, and Trey Gunn exceptional. Wetton and Levin at least I believe could give Entwistle a run for his money. Compositionally, King Crimson is simply out of this world. Robert Fripp is a master of channeling his influences (whether they be Gamelan music, European folk, 20th century classical, psychedelic rock, or jazz) into a cohesive whole that is completely his own. However, that may just be a difference of taste! I am something of an insufferable fanboy if it isn't obvious.
Now, if we're talking rhythmic bass playing, check out some of Tony Levin's work on the chapman stick where he would essentially play bass and guitar at the same time. Entwistle certainly had a way of doing some extreme arpeggiating though, I must thank you for bringing him to my attention once more.
Regarding Magma, I'm curious what you see wrong with them. Not a fan of alien space opera jazz rock sung in a made up language?
We are destined to disagree, I fear.
Stockhausen was a talentless media phenomenon. Certainly no Ligeti.
Zappa liked to compare himself to Webern and to criticize Beethoven and generally comport himself as a serious composer. And yet his actual music is aimless pop complicated by, say, a sudden splash of tritones, some boring attempts at serialism, some Jazz progressions. I don’t know what there is to admire.
Mahavishnu was not a rock band. The conversation was about that, to be honest. Five Jazz musicians steeped in Indian pentatonic ragas are impossible to compare to a three-instrument rock group. Most people who want to challenge the Who’s reputation in that arena tend to point at Cream. But bringing up MO is like bringing up the Dave Brubeck quartet. It’s just a completely different kind of music.
Again, King Crimson could boast a lot of virtuosity. I just don’t think they could boast any good songs. And every album sounds the same to me. But de gustibus…
Frank Zappa was certainly full of himself, this we can agree on. However, I'm not sure that's an accurate description of Zappa's music. He was capable of full length orchestral music as much as he was pop music. Or advanced fusion like Peaches En Regalia. His discography is immensely varied and I don't like all of it, but his stuff with the first lineup of the Mothers of Invention, his early solo stuff, and his Yellow Shark Ensemble Modern album are all cracking tunes in my humble opinion. The themes he would develop throughout a piece, or even throughout his entire career, were very complex. If the Uncle Meat Variations isn't great, complicated music, I'm not sure what is. Not to mention his ability to find some seriously extreme talent for his bands.
And point taken on Mahavishnu Orchestra. I tend to internally categorize them in that blurry area where rock and jazz meet, but they are ultimately a jazz group so the comparison isn't quite apt.
At the end of the day, I view these sorts of discussions in good fun. Which musicians are better than others can be debated endlessly, but ultimately these different bands are all getting at something different and comparing and contrasting them should only be done to kill time. Music being God's greatest gift to mankind, it should never be turned into a battlefield.
As an aside, I would love to know what you've been listening to lately. I love all sorts of music and always appreciate more of it.
To be honest, I don’t put much stock in what these fellas say about each other. They tend to be all over the map. For instance, Watts did admire (and very much liked) Keith Moon. He also said that Moon wouldn’t be a great drummer without Pete Townsend.
Now I love The Who, and Keith Moon was one of a kind. But I don’t think he had the kind of self control that Charlie had. I couldn’t imagine him pulling off something like “Moonlight Mile”, for instance.
Well Keith was often uncontrollable. He was technically capable of things most drummers aren’t, but artistically not always capable of discipline.
Watts was a fine Jazz drummer.
Legend has it that after Manchester band The Stone Roses played an early date on the same bill as The Who, Townshend tried to poach their drummer, Reni. Me and many others are glad he refused the offer. The Roses have the same attitude as The Who, if not nearly as virtuoso.
Great conversation.
Pete did sometimes resent Entwistle and Moon for overwhelming his melodies with all their fireworks. But it was usually a passing annoyance.
Wow. I never thought I’d see the words Bonham, Townsend, Moon, et al. come from Hart’s fingertips. And they’re connected with claims of greatness. I can’t even begin to say how happy this makes me. If this conversation is buried among your older First Things columns, I missed it.
I hope you continue to break down the walls between classical and “pop.” I really think the music appreciation class I had in high school changed lives because of the way the teacher (who also happened to be my drum teacher) emitted the same joy from walking us through one of Bach’s Fugues as he did when he discussed Sergeant Pepper’s. It’s a rare thing to hear teenage boys at lunch talking about how they like Bach more than Chopin and recently have gotten really into Coltrane, but this was a common occurrence because of that class. More people should know there would be no Penny Lane or Blackbird or Cliff Burton if it weren’t for Bach.
Rick Beato has had a lot of great guests and you’ve been a guest on many great podcasts but the two of you together would make for the ultimate music appreciation podcast.
And you could very well be right about John Williams. His lute suites from Bach are mind boggling. Though one could rightly argue Tommy Emmanuel and Guthrie Govan are worthy rivals. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-VzKyPruPgA. At least in terms of sheer versatility, Govan and Emmanuel are unparalleled, even if Govan’s compositions are very lacking.
I’m elated that Williams appreciates rock music. I was unaware of this. What a wonderful beginning to my day.
John Williams actually did some concerts in the 80's with Pete Townshend--classical duos and Spanish flamenco.
Interesting! I HAVE seen a clip of Joe Pass and Williams singing each other’s praises. Pass ends up improvising over Williams’s playing of Bach’s Chaconne. A wonderful little bit. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-30-sCGX3L4.
I’ve been listening to his recordings of Barrios all month, speaking of synchronicity
You might like this:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://u2conference.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Stealing-David-Bentley-Harts-Wisdom-For-U2s-Traveling-Show.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjhjtm5p_H5AhVyTEEAHZzVAikQFnoECA4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1-cQDjH3P3ucuWuz3JiJde
Was that the first time anyone brought up death and black metal in a conversation with DBH?
Let’s hope it’s the last.
You're telling me you didn't sprint to the nearest record store to pick up your vinyl copy of Cattle Decapitation's critically-acclaimed album "Monolith of Inhumanity" immediately after your conversation with Michael?
Great record.
What's your taste in black metal, by the way? The remark about Satanism makes me think early Norwegian stuff (or maybe the modern Polish scene), but there a lot of great bands in the US and UK with anarchist sympathies (Dawn Ray'd, Panopticon).
Oh please take this discussion elsewhere. You’re depressing me.
Early stuff: Darkthrone, Ulver, Satyricon, Weakling. More recent: Deathspell Omega (though I was extremely disappointed to hear of their fashy connections), Uada, Blut aus Nord. I listen to much more death metal these days.
Awesome! Thank you 🙏🏽
I think I found a typo:
"DBH: The word homousious isn’t in the New Testament, but it is a brilliant theoretical formula..."
Shouldn't that be homoousious? or homoousios?
The latter. We’ve informed the editors.