Rush: Classic or Dud?

that sparse chorus combined with those lyrics is positively terrifying

The way Lifeson slices into those icy chords on songs like that is so good. I think Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows may be peak Alex albums.

nothing was cooler than them jumping into, I think Cygnus X-1 on the 40th anniversary tour, and the guy behind me let out an excited "REALLY??!!!!" a la Nelson Muntz at Andy Williams.

Grace and Power are peak Alex as Andy Summers, but his solos still shred.

I think "Between The Wheels" is the peak of that particular brand of GUP-era group of songs (in terms of what they were going for stylistically; DEW for sure makes more sense as a single and as an opener)

They all shine on BTW - those initial synth stabs, Peart's tom pattern into the chorus, Lifeson's solo (one of his best IMO)

I love A Show of Hands I definitely think that would be a good place to start

Was for me. Still glad of that.

So we rewatched Beyond the Lighted Stage tonight. I mean, we had to of course. We'd seen it before some years back but a rewatch was very good, there were all sorts of little bits we'd forgotten or not caught first time around. But I think the thing that just struck us was that, while Geddy and Alex have a lot to say they're a little more laid back, relaxed. Neil is such a live wire throughout, for all that he was incredibly private he clearly wasn't someone who didn't seem to be engaging on all fronts. His observations are quick, a rush of words but never a lost tangle of them, and it's almost like his drumming come to life. And it's just so weird seeing someone so animated and thinking "That guy's not here anymore." Very, very weird, and sad.

signals was always my fav. perfectly positioned between the sounds of moving pictures and grace under pressure/power windows, plus every song rules

lol ILMers are such ILMers

fuck off

Mr Veg observed that we have basically been sitting Shiva for Neil, holding our own little Rush listening session since yesterday and basically all day today. It’s been so great! And I don’t even smoke w33d lol

Def have enjoyed digging into some of the other 80’s albums I didnt know very well, like Power Windows & Grace Under Pressure. And maaaaan Different Stages is such a joy...

Are Rush the only band to serialize a song across 2 albums? ie Cygnus x-1
probably not, huh.
i just love that it finishes out one album & kicks off the next. It’s so nerdy & awesome

And I don’t even smoke w33d lol

Honestly, Rush seems like more of a black coffee band than a weed band to me.

that actually sounds right but i got stoned and listened to "xanadu" last night and it was extremely tight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abL2_LXrXjo

is this the most beautiful rush song

I bought a bunch of 70s Rush LPs in my early 20s when I smoked a lot of w33d. "Hemispheres" was kind of revelatory under the influence. They still sound good now that I mostly drink black coffee. Cleaned the carpet to "La Villa Strangiato" last night.2xp

passage to bangkok is a w33d anthem

Watched the Documentary last night and the first 45 minutes of A Show Of Hands which was my gateway into the middle years. Amazing versions of The Big Money and Subdivisions.

Also after spending 24+ hours absorbing this music into my bodily cells, I can declare that Alex Lifeson is officially My Favorite Guitar Player

He has always been up there for me but now I am convinced he’s the best. Such a beautiful feel (is that a thing?), and it always seems like he’s serving the song in the best way. Dude is so great at just ELEVATING their music... it always feels thoughtful & not overdone showoffy guitarwank.

I mean they are all great at what they do for the band & their music, obv.

There's really something to be said for the value of a band keeping the exact same 3-4 dudes for decades. Rush, ZZ Top (50 years, no membership changes), Motörhead (the final lineup was together from 1992-2015)...they really speak/spoke each other's language and created a world of their own.

Otm. And it's one band where i would have expected a fan revolt if they tried to soldier on with new blood had any of them departed

U2, Radiohead ... Coldplay could lose everyone.

Bono replaced with Michael Buble

Yeah, and it would have to have been the ex-Dream Theatre guy or some other beardy wonder on drums.

They would never replace Peart. One of the challenges is partly his fault. He inspired such a legion of insane drummers that honestly a lot of drummers are much better than him now (just as there are a lot of kid guitarists better than, for example, Eddie Van Halen). It would be an awkward fit. Better is not always better.

He has always been up there for me but now I am convinced he’s the best. Such a beautiful feel (is that a thing?), and it always seems like he’s serving the song in the best way. Dude is so great at just ELEVATING their music... it always feels thoughtful & not overdone showoffy guitarwank.

Yup -- I muttered similar over on FB:

In most other bands, HE would have been the hands down star, in terms of the framing that emerged that placed the guitarist at the center of such things. It's absolutely remarkable that in this band he was, strangely enough, the least regularly discussed or focused on, precisely because he hit that balance of being absolutely central to the sheer range and massive feeling of the band as the rest, yet never centered, providing part but not all of the hooks, less notably for extensive solos than pure support and occasional flash. I don't know if it makes him totally unique for his contemporaries and general wavelength, but it's pretty damn rare.

Separately, good technical rundown from Whiney here; this and Hank Shteamer's piece yesterday have been the two to most fully grapple with him on that level. (Would be intrigued to see someone do a piece solely focusing on his lyrics, style, how he integrated them into the song fully, etc.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/arts/music/neil-peart-rush-songs.html

Maresn3st at 10:58 12 Jan 20

Yeah, and it would have to have been the ex-Dream Theatre guy or some other beardy wonder on drums.


problem is they took the chops and learned nothing about what made Rush work. musically

Lifeson almost always composed a really strong, well-constructed melody for his solos, whether he was shredding in a post-Zep style, building space in a post-Summers way, or playing quasi-Metheny fusion.

Speaking of "A Passage to Bangkok", anyone see the 2112 Blu-ray release?

I downloaded it from a filesharing community thinking that it would have superior dynamic range to my CD, because it was billed as a 5.1 surround sound audiophile experience. In fact, the dynamic range is extremely compressed compared to the CD, it is a total waste of the abilities of the format. Glad I didn’t spend my money.

But what is funny is that comic-book drawings were commissioned to show as the music is playing. So, you get the whole 2112 visually dramatized. Then, when the music switches to "Bangkok", it is just a succession of drawings of Neil, Alex, and Geddy walking through the countries mentioned in the song, but absolutely no pot references. Not even sly wink-wink references. I guess Rush’s corporate side gave firm instructions to have no drug innuendo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWyeMA78EEk

xp

Check out the guitar solo from this 2007 performance. They didn't exactly shy away from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk8FcTSL-mE

Rush has had no problem talking about pot smoking.

Re: Lifeson, I think "Tom Sawyer" (obvious though it may be) is key. Most of the guitar in that song is pretty easy ... except the solo, which is this totally bonkers kamikaze thing. "Limelight" is a similar balance of simple song with a really graceful, lyrical solo (which I think Lifeson has cited as his personal favorite). I've taken some other '80s songs of his to my guitar teacher in the last couple of years, and came to the conclusion that, yeah, as much as I love his playing he's really not really doing that much, musically, compared to Peart and Lee. But what he's doing is absolutely essential to filling the space, not unlike what Andy Summers did. Summers is a shit-hot guitarist with jazz chops, but by and large he discovered (invented?) a way to fill space with interesting chords and sounds. But Summers rarely got to solo, whereas Lifeson always got a chance to show off.

I've posted bits of the 2015 feature before:

Close to midnight, with Rush’s tour kickoff less than 24 hours away, Alex Lifeson is kneeling on a relocated couch pillow by the open window of his hotel room, exhaling pungent weed smoke into the humid Tulsa air. (If you’re in Rush and you want to get high, you do so considerately.) He breaks into a violent coughing fit. “Well, that’s the thing with this pot these days,” he says, passing the joint. “It’s so expansive in your lungs.” The streets below us are post-apocalyptically empty. “It’s busy in town tonight,” Lifeson says.

Earlier that night, over a pleasantly boozy dinner, I ask Lifeson if weed has helped him write Rush’s music. “Maybe just 80 percent of the time,” he says, roaring. “I find that smoking pot can be a really great creative agent.” (Lee quit pot in the early Eighties; Peart says, “I like marijuana, but I’m not going to be the poster child for it.”) “But when you’re in the studio and you’re playing, it’s sloppy,” Lifeson continues. “And cocaine is the worst, for everything. If you want to feel your heart pounding on your mattress at 7:00 in the morning when the birds are chirping, it’s perfect. It’s awesome. What do kids do now for drugs?”

Lifeson was a fan of Ecstasy in the early Nineties, and hadn’t heard that it’s called Molly now. “I’m glad you told me, just in case,” he jokes. “My wife is a totally nondrug person, but for some reason I talked her into it. We cranked the music and we were dancing, and then we talked for hours about deep personal stuff for what seemed like the first time, even though we’d been married for years. We were going through a bit of a difficult time in our relationship, and that opened up a lot of doors.”

"Rush has had no problem talking about pot smoking."

Yeah, and Lifeson has been keen to talk about how ecstasy changed his life. That is why I figured that it was some person within Rush’s corporate structure, and not the band members themselves, who called the shots on the 2112 comic-book project. It’s always a bit sad when a rock band becomes such a large success that the media coming out of it may no longer have the band members’ imprimatur, but rather was entirely handed off to staff.

I worked for Roadrunner Records when Clockwork Angels came out, and I can assure you that Rush left nothing to outsiders. Everything had to be cleared through management. The album arrived as a complete package - the label got no input into cover art, track selection, number of pages in the CD booklet, nothing. All the video material (there were no "music videos" in the traditional sense, but there were video clips to accompany songs on YouTube) was created and sent in from Rushworld, with no input from the label at all. All Roadrunner did was put their logo on the packaging.

I said to Mr Veg, thinking out loud, how I would love if one day Geddy & Alex did some kind of spoken word/acoustic thing, talking about Neil and the life of the band as some kind of final sendoff. I dunno how that would look or sound or anything obv. But they are such engaging storytellers & have such lovely chemistry, it would be cool to somehow harness that.
Well. Cool for me.

Lifeson and Lee have both released solo albums, and tbh I haven't heard a note of either.

The Geddy Lee one is pretty good

From the doc extras:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRi0k1HPcbY

looks like Lifeson and I had similar experiences re ecstasy.

Oh, and for anyone that has not heard the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPxwSF4CGyo

Speaking of Clockwork Angels, Peart's collaborator, writer Kevin Anderson, on his final visit:

https://www.facebook.com/TheKJA/posts/10158284413957044

aw man <3

Gosh.

been going through the '70s records in order. imo each of these is better than the last, it's a wonderful progression to track

Pretty great accounting Peart wrote about growing up in his hometown, which the local paper presumably reupped or took from elsewhere (the date claims it was published yesterday):

https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/whatson-story/9804404-neil-peart-in-his-own-words-growing-up-in-st-catharines/

Looks like said piece was written in the early 90s, from what I can tell.

https://scottkfish.com/2015/12/01/neil-peart-on-keith-moons-dogs-part-two/

“Most modern sessions — they would have kicked him right out. You can’t play that fill! You can’t do that! Just shut up and play the beat! — is the unfortunate thing that might happen to a rising Keith Moon today if he got in the wrong band or didn’t have the character sense to stick to it and say, ‘This is the way I play. I’m going to play that way.’

If he wasn’t that stubborn and convicted of his own values, then he might get swallowed up. As many a good musician has.”

From the legend who broke them in the US

It's hard for me to write this, but here is my tribute to Neil Peart, in my newest blog post: https://t.co/xpu9dGDhmr

— Donna Halper (@DevorahLeah) January 12, 2020

Anyway we rewatched the Time Stand Still documentary tonight in turn, and that really is underrated; if Beyond gives you The Story, then this did serve as a coda -- but also I thought really brought in fans into the story even more thoroughly, like it almost split the difference between them and the band/crew in terms of the overall arc of the thing. And it really is all the more poignant now -- certainly all the sense of farewells felt final enough all around, but it really was the end, after all.