Rush: Classic or Dud?

I liked one tune pretty well -- Lock & Key -- but probably because it sounded most like old Rush

i love hold your fire, perhaps irrationally

Hmm, I've got to say
I don't like Hold Your Fire much
Find it a bit "soft"

"Analog Kid" is my favourite from Signals.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, April 7, 2017 7:01 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it's also my favourite song on the album... such a great riff, and I love those synth chords in the chorus. Excellent guitar solo from Lifeson, and of course the usual phenomenal Peart drumming.

i love both Power Windows and Hold Your Fire - they're kinda the head & heart halves of the same sound. the closing tracks on both of them are particularly incredible imo

The closing track of Signals is the one thing I really don't like about it. Just boring.

I've heard some criticise Terry Brown's production on Signals, but I really don't get what they're complaining about. They should have continued working with him!

part of it is i learned the intro to "Force Ten" from a guitar mag tab and i was really proud of myself

(the bass part)

Man here's a detail I'd missed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Ten_(song)

"Force Ten" was written in three hours on December 14, 1986, the last day of pre-production for Hold Your Fire.[2][3] With nine songs already written, producer Peter Collins felt it was important to have one more song for the album.[3] Pye Dubois, who previously worked with Rush on their song "Tom Sawyer", had sent Neil Peart some lyrics for the song, and Peart would add more verses to it.

Grace under pressure, as it were.

wow!

They have a history of doing that... 'Natural Science' apparently was one of those "written in the studio at the last minute" things, surprisingly.

'New World Man' on Signals was recorded the same day it was written, and only exists because they needed something roughly four minutes long or thereabouts to add to the album to keep the playing time of both sides equal.

How much more effective these vinyl-era fillers than their CD-era counterparts.

Well, probably 'cos in the CD era bands had to write more of them... and more B-sides too!

But yeah, Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' was initially conceived as album filler, and we all know how that turned out!

They have a history of doing that... 'Natural Science' apparently was one of those "written in the studio at the last minute" things, surprisingly.

That's up there with their best songs imo! I think Kris once compared to Yes meets Afrika Bambaata.

thought this revive was going to be about Geddy playing with Yes at their RRHOF induction ceremony tonight.

http://imgur.com/a/1f3Fw

what do Roy Wood and Joan Baez chat about?

http://imgur.com/a/1f3Fw

give up: http://imgur.com/a/1f3Fw

ha wow! did he actually play? I just read they'd issued a retraction on that, saying he'd only agreed to present w/Alex

feel like a Geddy Lee isolated bass track for Roundabout should be some kind of collector's item for someone/maybe me.

He's the only guy that probably could replace Chris Squire.

it's tonight, and apparently he's playing:

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/04/rock_hall_2017_geddy_lee_of_ru.html

Ha, ELO are getting inducted. Fucking hell, rock on.

@anniezaleski
Backstage press Q to Geddy Lee: Difficult or easy to learn Yes basslines? A: ”At first, difficult. After a while… difficult.” #RockHall2017

My friend went to see this last night – pretty sure he died and went to heaven.

Re. Signals, where's the love for "The Weapon"? Hihat work on that alone is insane.

The drum pattern on 'The Weapon' is mind-boggling, it's always quite something to watch other people try to play it.

i've been not really listening to rush for almost exactly 40 years -- not hating, but not really getting -- so i watched lighted stage to give me an in, maybe unlock them a little

still can't see myself becoming a fan -- none of the songs jumped out as something i'd want to listen to again, and geddy's voice will never be one i love -- but i *really* warmed to him (and his mum also)

here's the actual show : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKYX4WRSTW8

Honestly Geddy killed this, looks like he could do this gig in his sleep

mark s - who's your go-to ambitious teen angst band?

Geddy aside, it's great to see Jon Anderson on lead vocals in Yes again.

yeah that was seriously great.

I also like how serious Steve Howe looks when playing. not in a mechanical way, more a "this is my craaaaaaft, behold" kinda way

Amazing!

So Wakeman was there, but not Buford?

Props to Wakeman for busting out the cape. Then again, he might just wear that all the time.

Bruford's retired from drumming now, no? I would seriously go and see a whole evening of this, were they to tour it (which they won't).

I get the impression that Bruford is far more proud of his work with King Crimson than he is of his work with Yes. It's almost as if he sees his stint with Yes as a warm-up for the main event.

Signals was the first Rush album I ever heard and owned courtesy of my older cousin, and it's still my favorite. I'm also very fond of Grace Under Pressure.

bruford was there. he was on stage with the band when they accepted the award, but didn't say anything himself. he didn't perform, though -- that's still the new kid (alan white)'s gig

Analog Kid perhaps my favorite Lifeson solo, at least of the concision era. Grace and PW still my fave albums. Commercial AOR of Hold Your Fire and Presto still most underrated era.

Have we ever polled best Rush opening cut?

yeha bruford didn't speak. btw if you want to see some bullshit old rock star drama peep into billy sherwood's twitter or fb and see him go off on rick wakeman re: his speech; and despite a widely shared (by themelves!) pic of Jon Anderson and Jon Davidson smiling saying they would be doing an album together, Wakeman has said 100% NO

whoa @ the Jon x Jon album, that sounds pretty tight and potentially very strange

it actually sounds completely awful to me in concept. I'm not sure if they were talking about a personal project or what, wakeman's dismissal seems to be more about 'no Union type thing' so perhaps. Anyway I personally think my time with Yes 'proper' is done; it would be nice to have steve howe involved in something with anderson again, but alan white is not up to par these days.

(I was looking for the FB links to all of these, and it looks like yes (official) may have taken the repost of sherwood's rant down)

Here are the Jons:

https://www.facebook.com/250766964978678/photos/a.250776908311017.64684.250766964978678/1358828777505819/?type=3&theater

"YEStory in the making. Jon and Jon meeting for the first time ever!
PEACE ON EARTH and HIGH VIBRATION GO ON.
JA and JD will do an album together and show all of you who focus on rivalry and hate that MUSiC conquers all!!!
If you call yourself a true YES fan, stop the petty fighting and embrace the REAL message of YES music."

jesus stop with the random capitalizations

oh, sherwood is now claming his FB page was hacked and his post is gone. Hacked by his own drunk self, I imagine.

I get the impression that Bruford is far more proud of his work with King Crimson than he is of his work with Yes. It's almost as if he sees his stint with Yes as a warm-up for the main event.

― ...so music and chicken have become intertwined (Turrican), Monday, April 10, 2017 8:33 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's implied as much. In the BBC "Prog Britannia" documentary he said that Yes made a few records that led up to The Great Album, which was Close To The Edge. Once they'd reached that, he felt his work was done, so he split. I think, though, that he very much preferred the atmosphere in King Crimson in which, as he put it, "almost nothing was said. You were just supposed to know what to do." This was in stark contrast to Yes' endless discussions along the lines of "Wait, but if you're playing F# in that section, shouldn't I be playing A? Or not?"

honestly, everyone who was in KC (from the point Bruford joined) seem like sensible, honest, talented musicians as opposed to almost everyone in Yes who seem like egomaniac assholes.

Yeah, I get the feeling that in Yes, with everything being intricately arranged, that certain members would have a tendency to get precious about their parts or their material etc. King Crimson seems more "free", I guess, the type of band where people have room to express themselves, even if Fripp is ultimately the gaffer.

I got an email today offering tickets to a Yes show in October that will include Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, and Trevor Rabin.

xp
much as I like his playing on both Yes and KC records, IMO Bruford seems a bit of priss about some things. He's got a snobbiness that, say, Neal Peart absolutely doesn't.

but I've been trying to have beef with him for some time now so

I think Fripp and his approach are so disciplined that you have to sort of align with his vision to fit in at all, and once you do that (and assuming you have the chops) the rest is relatively "easy," albeit still rigorous. Whereas with Yes, yeah, the challenge is everyone fitting their little bits of the puzzle in, which is how you end up with frantic songs and complicated side-long epics. To Yes's credit (and I'm at best a casual fan) their tracks and epics all sort of cohere despite that, as opposed to a band like, say, Metallica, who is very much A -part, B-part, C-part etc.

Since this is a Rush thread I should say that I've always been amazed at Rush's ability to go compact and concise. All their parts just make sense, and that they can fit so many ideas in 5-minute, hook-filled songs is pretty incredible. But then, I only think of them as a nominal prog band with only a couple of albums that fit the part, imo.