Month: October 2010

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Greatest Drummers in Rock History

By Jim Spiegel

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a “best of” list, so I thought I’d tackle one on a subject that I’ve been pondering lately—drummers.  So here is my list of the greatest drummers in rock history.  For a long time I’ve been firmly resolved regarding the top three on my list.  Deciding on the other two was tricky, and my mind could change about them.

As for my criteria, I believe a good drummer, like any member of a band, should serve the songs.  For my money, the drummers listed below did/do this better than anyone else.  Of course, this is a vague criterion and perhaps it is best understood as a limiting condition for other criteria, such as technical excellence, versatility, and innovation.  A drummer’s success in terms of these other criteria will always be relative to the degree to which he avoids drawing too much attention to his part in the song.  Some drummers, such as Neil Peart and Keith Moon, are extremely creative or technically excellent, but they often distract this listener, upstaging the song itself.  That’s one reason why these guys don’t make my list.

Before I present the list, here are some honorable mentions:  Pete Thomas (The Attractions), Dave Grohl (Nirvana), Nathan Followill (Kings of Leon), Max Weinberg (The E Street Band), Stewart Copeland (The Police), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones).

Okay, here we go, counting down backwards:

5. Larry Mullen, Jr. (U2) — Everybody loves Larry Mullen, Jr., the loveable, soft-spoken foundation of Ireland’s greatest band.  He founded U2 and has always been their most talented musician.  While Bono’s voice is the band’s sonic signature, their sound is crucially defined by Mullen’s drumming style.  He’s able to match Bono and the Edge in terms of emotional intensity, and that’s saying a lot.  Notable performances:  “Bad,” “Exit,” “I Threw a Brick Through a Window.”

4. Roger Taylor (Queen) — Here is a terribly underrated drummer in a terribly underrated band.  Taylor was a stylistic chameleon, capable of playing any style and playing it well—from heavy metal to delicate piano-based chamber music, he always sounds like he’s in his musical element.  Notable performances:   “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Its Late,” “Somebody to Love.”

3. John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) — Many rock historians regard Bonham as the greatest rock drummer ever, and this is echoed by some superb drummers (including Charlie Watts, Dave Grohl, and Chad Smith).  So Bonham is far from underrated and was so good it would be hard to overrate him.  Surely he has no equal in terms of sheer power.  But he could be deceivingly and entrancingly unorthodox with his drum patterns.  And like everyone else in this list, his versatility was immense, though it is perhaps not as noticeable as it would have been if his band explored more musical genres.  Notable performances:  “Black Dog,” “When the Levee Breaks,” “Fool in the Rain.”

2. Levon Helm (The Band) — Journalist Jon Carroll once said Helm was the only drummer that can make you cry.  Helm had (and, at over 70, still has) an incredible knack for creating a skip and hop groove that adds tremendous energy to songs.  In many of the Band’s classics the real magic comes from Helm’s drumming, but he still somehow manages to be invisible.  If you own any of The Band’s CDs, listen to one of them focusing on Helm’s drum tracks throughout, and you’ll see what I mean.  The irony is that Helm was not the Band’s only drummer.  He shared drumming duties with Richard Manuel, but only when Helm’s musical services as a guitarist or mandolin player were called for.  Notable performances: “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek.”

1. Topper Headon (The Clash) — Every member of the Clash acknowledged that Headon was the band’s best musician.  And every producer who worked with them was amazed at the guy’s talent.  Listen to any song by the Clash on which he played (Headon didn’t join the band until after their first UK album, and the creative lift he provided was immense), and you’ll see how every choice he made was the right one.  He provided the firm spine their songs so badly needed and also adapted readily to the constant stylistic changes that the musical expeditions of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones required (punk, classic rock, progressive rock, reggae, ska, funk, and world music).  Headon not only adapted but made their explorations in every genre sound natural and authentic.  Notable performances:  “I Fought the Law,” “Julie’s in the Drug Squad,” and “Lost In the Supermarket.”

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Sweatin’ for Jesus

By Amy Spiegel

Oh my Gap yoga pants, I can’t believe the realization I just had! It feels sort of like when you plan two things for the same date and it is as if you are living in parallel worlds. You suddenly realize that, while you are quite the multi-tasker, it is doubtful that you can be at two places at one time. In a similar manner, I have been inhabiting parallel thought lives. In one, I am striving to balance the desire for a cute backside and the realities that baby-producing mayhem leaves “behind” (pardon the pun). This Amy longs to accept the aging process as a natural one; she strives to be healthy but not obsessive. My other self isn’t quite as mentally healthy; she gauges her state of “fitness” with the bathroom scale rather than how many laps she can run or how many glasses of water she has consumed today. She plays lip service to the ideals of healthy living but is tempted by web ads promising to help her “Lose Two Pounds in 45 minutes.” These worlds collided the other day in the non-fiction DVD section of my favorite library. (Fear not; no patrons were injured in the collision, only my wounded self-image.) I often try to check out fitness DVDs to avoid the purchase price of abs of steel and yet “keep it fresh” during my morning workout routine.  As my hand reached out for The Skinny Bitch Workout DVD, I strongly sensed that my body image needed some serious realignment. It wasn’t the use of the b-word I found so troubling, but rather the s-word, “skinny.” My better self screamed at a nearly audible level “Since when did you decide that being skinny was the equivalent of being attractive?!” She was even tempted to call me the b-word, but in a loving yet in-your-face kind of way. This is not to say that skinny people can’t be beautiful. I have several friends who prove the two not to be mutually exclusive. Nor is this to say that being overweight, with all the health problems associated with obesity, is okay. But there is a great expanse between skinny and obese (again, pardon the pun).

When, exactly, had I strayed from the middle ground into a more extreme view of what I desire to be? I certainly would never set that standard for my daughter, yet if that is the bar I set for myself then my words would seem to be little more than lip service. So how does one land in the ever-elusive middle ground with out falling to either extreme? Darned if I know. It is certainly easier to spot the detours others take than seeing clearly my own wanderings. I wince when I hear friends articulate attitudes contrary to my proclaimed ideals of embracing the various proportions of bodies. But do I wince because they are wrong or because whether I like it or not, I fall prey to the same misconceptions of what our goals should be regarding the state of our physical beings. And that is the point, right? “Skinny bitches” desire to be desired and admired for their candy-coated shell. I can strive and sweat and that’s okay as long as it is with a higher purpose in mind. Just as I would not want to dishonor Christ with unhealthy habits of gluttony and sloth, I should not be dishonoring Him by highjacking the temple created for His glory. It all comes down to your heart. So from now on I’m sweatin’ for Jesus and not for self.

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Hodgepodge

By Jim Spiegel

Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set of The View the other day because of their outrage over something Bill O’Reilly said on the show.  His incendiary remarks?  That the 9-11 terrorists were Muslims.  (O’Reilly initially failed to specify that they were of the radical sort.)  The over-reaction was so unprofessional that Barbara Walters issued an immediate apology for her colleagues’ behavior.  To their credit, Goldberg and Behar did return minutes later.

There are thoughtful advocates of voluntary euthanasia, and then there are non-chalant proponents of killing handicapped infants.  British journalist Virginia Ironside would fall into the latter category.  Check out the duly incredulous expression on the face of her fellow guest as Ironside glibly equates a human child with “a couple of cells.”  One’s philosophical anthropology has consequences, folks.

Ever heard of the Hindenburg Omen?  Neither had I until a friend mentioned it to me recently.  Two months ago several economic variables converged which are supposed to be a reliable indicator of a coming economic collapse.  What?  You thought the economy had already collapsed and things couldn’t get worse?  Au contraire!

And here are some good essays on Keynesian economics, on-line hostility, and virtue (or the lack thereof) in academe.

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Confessions of a Home Schooler

By Amy Spiegel

You know that sick, forehead slapping feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when a regrettable discovery makes its way to the forefront of your mind just a little too late, when there is nothing to be done but sigh and live with the consequences? Sometimes those consequences are fairly minor like the brownies being a little flat because you forgot to add the baking soda. Hey, a brownie is just a brownie, right? And sometimes the consequences are more severe like realizing that candy bar does have peanuts in it right after your highly allergic son swallows it. And then, of course, there is the middle ground somewhere between flat brownies and a long night of Benadryl and vomit. This week I have found myself occupying this middle ground of regret.

It all started a few weeks back when a fellow “home educator” recommended a website selling pre-packaged unit studies for homeschoolers. Want to do a study of dolphins? Autumn? Or a wide variety of other topics? This enterprising saint of a woman has taken loads of cut outs, web resources, and reading lists and put them all together. For a small fee, you download all of it and away you and your child go to learn about the selected topic. Normally, this tips go in one ear and out the other, but I actually liked the idea and followed up on it. So this week, I found myself cross-legged on the floor, helping our youngest two do leaf rubbings and mini-books about the pigments found in trees. This may not seem like a particularly revolutionary act, but when I decided to begin homeschooling years ago I erected a mental force field around myself, blocking out any voices that might destroy my peace of mind. It wasn’t that I am unwilling to learn from the experience of others; in fact it was quite the opposite. I seem incapable of refraining from making comparisons. Their six-year-old is reading at a college level? I should read to my children seven hours a day so they don’t fall behind. Their kid is learning Latin while still in the womb? My children will obviously end up as homeless vagrants. It isn’t that I want my kids to be better or brighter than other kids. Like most other moms, I just don’t want to let them down.

So, in order to avoid a complete mental breakdown, for the most part I avoided large gatherings of moms and their above-grade-level learners, fearing the shattering of my ever-fragile mommy ego. I steered clear of homeschooling literature and blogs and would rather have run naked through the streets of Fairmount than attend a homeschooling convention. Granted, this is an overreaction to the natural impulse to compare ourselves to those around us, and the absurdity of my behavior struck me like one of David’s five smooth stones as I watched my kids benefit from my friend’s suggestion. How many other enriching activities had we missed out on due to my insecurities and fear of failure? True, sometimes mommy gatherings can turn ugly, but for the most part it’s just bunch of women like myself, looking for affirmation and support. Who can say what cross-pollinating moments I have missed because I was afraid of being judged and found lacking.

But no more! I am now prepared to go boldly into the world, ready to glean much from the wisdom of others and to try and take myself, and my job, a little less seriously. Just like my brownies, it may not be perfect but it will still taste pretty sweet.

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How Could Jesus be Tempted?

By Jim Spiegel

Scripture tells us that Jesus was tempted to sin on various occasions.  For instance, Luke records his repeated temptations by the devil (Luke 4).  And the writer of Hebrews says regarding Jesus that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (Heb. 4:15).  However, given Jesus’ moral perfection—the fact that he had no sinful nature and was in fact divine—how can it be said that Jesus was genuinely tempted?  Isn’t temptation something that only sinners can experience?

While there are many ways to deal with this, my approach is as follows.  First, we need to ask what constitutes a “temptation” and then ask whether a morally impeccable (human) being could satisfy the requirements.  As I see it, these are the necessary (and jointly sufficient) conditions for genuine temptation:

1. A situation or context in which a person, S, could physically perform a particular action, X.

2. Doing X would be morally wrong (in this context).

3. S finds X attractive in some sense.

It seems to me that if these three conditions are satisfied, then you have a genuine temptation.  Now notice that none of them presuppose that the person tempted is morally imperfect or sinful.  In fact, a morally perfect person, even a God-man, could satisfy each of these criteria.  And, in the case of Jesus that’s just what we see in several instances when Jesus is tempted in the desert.  When, for example, the devil tempts him to “tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3):  (1) this is something that Jesus could physically do, (2) doing this would be wrong in this context, and (3) Jesus finds the proposed action attractive (since he is so hungry).

So as with most temptations, the action in question is not categorically wrong (wrong in all contexts) but simply wrong in a certain context.  (Compare: extra-marital sex is wrong, though sex within marriage is good and even a marital obligation).  So it is not moral imperfection that is a key ingredient for human temptation so much as a particular context, combined with a certain attractiveness and ability to carry out the action.

Note my stipulation of physical ability to do X.  The reason I am careful to make this qualification is because I don’t believe it was metaphysically possible for Jesus to sin. Given his divinity, he would never sin.  This is what prompts some people to question the genuineness of the temptations of Jesus.  But that is to impose an overly strict condition on a definition of temptation.  In ordinary human experience, all that is necessary for temptation is the three conditions noted above.  So the addition of a further condition (such as that the person tempted must be a sinner or that giving into the temptation must be metaphysically possible) would be superfluous.

This is just a rough sketch of how I would handle this difficult question regarding the temptation of Jesus.

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Talking to Myself

By Amy Spiegel

My children have saved me from major public humiliation on many occasions, though many times they have also been the source of my humiliation rather than my saving grace. In particular this has been prompted by my propensity to talk to myself. With my kids in tow, through the grocery aisles or driving the car, any casual observer would assume I am speaking to my offspring when in fact I am mumbling about how to divide three by five or which route is least likely to have heavy traffic at this time of day—things which my children neither know nor care to know. I must confess further that not only do I talk to myself, but I like talking to myself. I often try out foreign accents or rehearse upcoming conversations to see how they sound out loud. Recently, while practicing my emulation of Scottish brogue, I stumbled upon the thought that it must be awesome to be God.

There are, of course, many reasons why it is awesome to be God, but the one that struck me on this occasion was how God can talk to Himself and not only will no one think He’s nuts, but He talks back. God can carry on a full out conversation with Himself and it’s not creepy. I suppose one of my motivations for chatting with myself is that I am not in the mood for disagreement. Within the Trinity, however, there is distinctiveness with unity. Of course, being omniscient and all, I suppose God doesn’t have any reason to disagree with Himself. So how does that work?

If God knows everything, that would seem to make conversation unnecessary all together, right? Since person, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, would already know what the others were going to say, why bother? Of course, as I mutter about the price of Raisin Bran, I know what I am going to mutter back and yet I still do it. In my case, of course, the distinction is imaginary (and possibly a reason to seek professional help). In the case of the Trinity there is truly someone else listening.

I suppose this is where the irrepressible human impulse to communicate comes from. Just as the Godhead is in constant communication, so we desire to give form to our thoughts by way of speech. And as He so often does, God has stepped in to fill the void left by our fallenness. Rather than leaving us mumbling to ourselves, He has given His children the gift of Himself in the form of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Like an infinitely patient and proud parent listening to the prattling of a toddler, God listens to our thoughts, both internal and external. Though we aren’t able to hear Him articulate back, we know He hears. It is, as I said, awesome to be God, but being His kid isn’t too shabby either!

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Bill Mallonee in Concert

By Jim Spiegel

If you live anywhere near central Indiana and want to hear some great live music tonight (at a ridiculously low price–just $5), check out Bill Mallonee who’ll be playing at New Life Presbyterian Church in Yorktown, Indiana at 7:00 p.m.  Rolling Stone magazine has hailed Mallonee, and Paste Magazine lists him at #65 among the greatest living songwriters.  Mallonee is incredibly prolific, having recorded more than two dozen albums over the last two decades.  And he’s still churning them out…

After the concert, Mallonee will stick around for a Q&A session about faith, art, and cultural relevancy.  This will be a unique opportunity to interact with a superb singer-songwriter.

Here are directions and map to the church.  Come for some great music (and some excellent coffee, to be provided by Vecinos.