The (very old) Roger vs Dave debate

I was in a record store the other day... an actual brick and mortar place that somehow has remained in business since the 70s...

I think they must have faithful customers.

I've enjoyed talking to the owner in the past. He wasn't in the store the other day... I asked a question to the person behind the counter and he actually called the owner to ask my question... but the question got lost in translation - or the guy behind the counter misunderstood what I was asking... ("Hey, have you heard the oldest stuff on the new Springsteen release ? Specifically the Castilles and Steel Mill material... does it sound like a bootleg ??? ... historical significance only ???")

Anyway - I appreciated that he called the other guy, and just went about my business looking thru the racks in the store... I think the guy behind the counter was the owner's son... I heard him say he's "old" but I'm a lot older because I was in high school when I heard him say he was born (1977).

At one point, he was talking to another customer and he mentioned that he flew up to NYC to see David Gilmour recently... I immediately yelled across the room "Did he play Echoes?" I was somewhat saddened by the answer... "No, Dave won't play it now that Richard Wright has died..."

This eventually turned into me telling a story about seeing Dave, Nick, and Ric (minus Roger) play Echoes on the 1987 "Momentary Lapse of Reason" tour...

From there, the discussion evolved into a "Roger vs Dave" debate...

The guy behind the counter kept giving Roger some back-handed compliments - but you could tell he was clearly siding with Dave in this battle....

I tried sticking up for Roger, by confusing the debate by mentioning Syd... but this guy wouldn't take the bait - and he kept basically saying I have to trust his opinion simply because (the guy behind the counter) plays guitar and he can analyze music like a musician. Basically his argument kept coming back to "you need to admit that I know more than most, because I play an instrument and I've had some formal musical training in college..."

My thoughts were simpler...

1.) Can't this debate just end??? It was fascinating in the late 80s... but I basically have moved on since Live8, the private little charity performance Dave did with Roger where they played "To Know Him Is To Love Him", and Dave showed up and played guitar at a recent Wall show... the two seem to have mended fences, the law suits are over, and neither person is putting out much music.
2.) Given when this guy behind the counter said he was born, and some things he said, the first experience he would have had with Floyd would have been the Final Cut album from 1983... It's not clear that album was a big memory for this guy since he would have been 6 years old at the time. Shouldn't that largely disqualify him from talking about the iconic Pink Floyd years ??? Case in point, he was really angry about how the pig was used at a Roger solo show - claiming that Roger changed the message from what it was in 1977. Really??? I think it was a pig then, and it's a pig now ! LOL

The only thing I think has happened over time is younger audiences have experienced the iconic Floyd concert imagery/props and reacted to it differently. Yeah, Roger has updated some of the films swapping out old footage for more recent footage - but it's not terribly different. The Wall is still a story about isolation - and the show still includes a wall (that is both constructed and destructed) between the band and audience... I don't see much difference in the message. If you miss the musicians from before and can't stand to see someone stand-in for Dave at a Roger concert, I consider that a valid emotion... but it's not like you have much of a choice these days - and very few people were actually able to see the original Wall show - so I'm quite satisfied to have seen the most recent Roger concert.

Yes, I know Roger comes across as an opinionated eh whole, but he always was one... and if it means anything, it seems like he's mellowed a lot. I for one, enjoy hearing Roger laugh during the "commentary" audio track for the old Wall film... and I really enjoyed seeing him and Nick Mason go through a fish bowel of comment/question cards during the little Q&A piece tacked on at the end of the new Wall film.

As for Dave.... I think he had a valid point that the other three weren't supposed to crawl inside a hole when Roger left... and I think the courts agreed with him. But that happened long ago. LOL

 

So you go to the trouble of starting a thread saying you wish to see an end to debate on the subject???

Damn, I got suckered in to replying.

 

I wanted it to end when I was in the store....

My side of the argument today isn't Dave vs Roger

It's "are they at peace" vs "are they at war" ?

My argument is they are now at peace... so can't we be too ?

 

Roger caused all of his own troubles in this debate, so it's harder to empathize with him. I agree that he seems to have grown softer with age and experience, but David seems to have grown more stubborn and resolute as well, which complicates things. Ultimately, David was responsible for a greater portion of their sound, while Roger started writing much more difficult and less universal material. There are a lot of people who criticize the substance of David's Floyd material, but at the same time there aren't many people saying that Amused to Death woulda been the great lost Floyd album. Ultimately, seems to me, we were lucky to have them at all.

 

I'm a little confused what the actual debate is. Roger vs. Dave with regards to what exactly?

 

I've always felt that Roger Daltrey could take Dave Mustaine in a fist fight. And I should know because I took a little karate in college.

 

I kind of tone downed the guy behind the counter's comments about Roger because I didn't want to confuse things with a 3rd party view - but it really was the way he kept complimenting Roger and then slamming him in the next breath that surprised me.

Compliment: Roger is a great lyricist and a "great conceptualist" (whatever that means)
Slam: Roger's demo for "Money" sucks (not sure what he was referring to - maybe a recent bonus track?)
Slam: Roger doesn't know his place (later explained as "he's a sucky bass player")
Slam: Roger uses the brand to push a personal agenda (huh?)

I'm standing there listening to what I consider the views of a kid, and thinking to myself "Really ? Can't you just be grateful for the best and forget about the worst..."

For what it's worth, neither he nor I brought up Roger's opera - LOL

 

David is a superior vocalist and instrumentalist. Roger is a superior lyricist and songwriter. They did their best work together. Why is this still a thing?

 

My apologies -
Two thoughts are stuck in my head, and I have to ask:

1. What is the relevance of mentioning Bruce Springsteen's new release in paragraph 4?

2. Since the person you were trying to have a rational, constructive conversation with cited some obvious deductive flaws (such as, being a guitarist himself he's more qualified to blah blah blah), why even attempt further discussion? To me that's a potentially strong conversation killer...

Just curious...

 

Stated best by Roy Harper in 1975 "Oh by the way, which one's Pink?"

 

So basically who was the real 'sound of Pink Floyd?' Easy. Both of them.

 

The Springsteen thing is how I got talking to the guy... and I thought it was funny how he couldn't understand my basic question.
[Did you listen to the new Bruce album ? (His reply "no" ) followed by a phone call to another person who hadn't listened to it - even though he said both were BIG Bruce fans - which I disagreed with given that that both of them couldn't comment on the release they were selling]

It was an odd conversation... I kind of let him ramble... I wanted to point out that Snowy White played at the 1980 Wall concert - but I wasn't certain - and it wasn't really a valid point because he surely didn't steal the show from Gilmour in 1980 (if he did play the gigs)

The guy mentioned he didn't go see the recent Wall concert because "he didn't want to pay a thousand bucks"... um, I paid a lot less for mine... face value tickets were available in Houston when Roger came back the second time (but I didn't volunteer that).

The place where the conversation was the friendliest was when I brought up the last Floyd concert in Houston (the Division Bell show at Rice Stadium) that ended with a power failure - followed by 50,000+ people stumbling around in the dark to leave.

He never did mention much about the most recent concert he saw by Dave - other than he flew up to NYC to see the show.

 

oh man, this is a great reply. SUPERLIKE

tooo funny

 

Indeed... Just about everyone seems to agree that things were for the best when Roger and Dave worked side by side towards a common goal. That this very old debate still goes on among the (so-called) fans, only seems to suggest that some people are using the unfortunate break-up of the band to push their personal agenda.

 

i thought this was a Byrds thread

 

I probably set him off by saying I was quite happy with Snowy White during the recent Wall tour

Based on this reference, White was involved on two tours with the old original Floyd

Snowy White - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

I didn't go there, but I'd much rather hear White playing Gilmours guitar parts on the recent Wall tour than be reminded of what Guy Pratt did with Waters bass parts in 1987...

Oddly, Pratt apparently is legimate family now - having married Rick Wright's daughter !

Guy Pratt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

 

After I got home, I did a youtube search and I watched a fairly long (very bad quality copy of an un-aired) interview Roger did with MTV in 1984 to try to drum up ticket sales for his "Pros and Cons" show.

He's clearly a cocky guy... perhaps even smug in some places... he looked like a guy who was very happy to have left his ex-wife when he was asked a question about not playing with the other three members of Floyd on the (then current) tour...

Very interesting interview... he admits that ticket sales are down (except for the NY area shows) and says that's why he's doing the interview.

It apparently was never aired because he's asked a question at the end that he didn't like... something about the Wall... he handled it ok - it's not like he stormed off the set - but he refused to answer the question and suggested that there was an exhaustive 5 hour interview he did with Jim Ladd that had the answers....

He said he pretty much financed the elaborate stage show for the then current tour - and he wasn't worried if it was losing money - because he's made money from previous endeavors...

It did seems clear that his passion is the art - not the economics - of the music biz.

 

Roger vs Dave? That's nothing. How about:

Mark E Smith vs 40 ex-members of The Fall??

 

"Oh by the way, which one's Pink?"

I actually named my black Great Dane 'Pink' after this line. We also had a fawn colored Dane named Hannah. Anyway there were times when someone new came over, or we were all down the park, when someone would ask, 'which one's pink?'

 

And I was hoping for a revelation about a forgotten The Who-Kinks side project.

 

Is this about Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling?

 

The very old Roger?? Yeah he is getting on now....

 

Not quite... It's about ranking Roger and Dave, though.

 

No debate required. Both musical geniuses in their own right, and in different ways. I love Pros and Cons as much as I love A Momentary Lapse....

Similarly David Gilmore, Rattle That Lock and KAOS, enjoy them all. I steer away from Amused to Death if anything.

At their very best obviously when collaborating on such landmark materiel as Animals, The Wall, Wish You Were Here etc.

 

who daved Roger Rabbit?