Rush: Classic or Dud?

Presto tour was when I first saw them live, I have a lot of affection for that album

kind of a transitional album maybe why it gets ignored

really wish I'd been into Rush earlier and subsequently seen them sooner. I didn't make my first mad dig into Rush beyond, say, 2112 until 2010. I like a lot of the later 80s stuff too even Hold Your Fire

PW could only have been released in 1985/86 IMO to my ears...that bright, crystalline sheen to the production and how the synths integrate w/ the guitars

plus power windows were realy popular

Does anyone else feel like "Snakes and Arrows" and "Clockwork Angels" have too much of an assembled-in-the studio quality to them? All their career long, the three guys went to the studio together for a few weeks to record, and though they laid down their parts separately at least for the later albums, the results still sounded like a band in perfect sync, "live" in a way. But the last two albums, to my ears, have a spliced-together quality about them typical of rock acts whose members are no longer friends or even not on speaking terms with one another.

Presto tour was when I first saw them live, I have a lot of affection for that album

same, but yeah i wish it didn't sound so thin

Presto tour was when I first saw them live, I have a lot of affection for that album

Same here and first concert ever for me! 4/24/90 at the Spectrum in Philly. First time I ever got drunk (vodka and Pepsi). I was sheltered.

two xposts but that may be my issue with those albums. clockwork angels is mostly fine while I listen to it but it's not very memorable to me. I guess I like Rush when they have really strong hooks.

dud

Power Windows is when the synth presets match the ambitions of those kids with Middletown dreams imo

Ok, I realized Power Windows has no filler.

A (former?) denizen of these parts weighs in

http://dominiqueleone.com/2020/01/14/rip-neil-peart/

Great read. The graphic showing Peart's drums landing perfectly on the 16th note repeatedly was fantastic

Same here and first concert ever for me! 4/24/90 at the Spectrum in Philly.

I was at the same show (probably)! Mr. Big opened. They played a song called "Addicted to that Rush."

Power Windows is when the synth presets

I'll try to dig up this list of tech they used on tour for this album. Downright ... progressive.

Here a 1997 one, I'll keep digging. Still interesting!

http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19970700eq.htm

OK, it popped up in the text here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=9tCGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT62&lpg=PT62&dq=rush+samplers+used+power+windows&source=bl&ots=MN39resbme&sig=ACfU3U34dsuchLCa4rSYV8LAfcMvxLSSew&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijzN_yzYrnAhWYKM0KHZznB2kQ6AEwAnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=rush%20samplers%20used%20power%20windows&f=false

Didn't realize Anne Dudley did the string arrangements on "Power Windows"!

I've been going back to "Mystic Rhythms" a lot lately. Neil plays such a cool pattern, and it remains one of Rush's most unique pieces.

His China accents have always been the best.

When you say "china"… Sirius has surrendered the Deep Tracks channel (typically the redoubt of mummies like Earl Bailey and Jim Ladd) to the music of Neil. Yesterday, they played "Tai Shan," which I had never heard before and very much liked. Yet I see that Alex and Geddy think that it is completely misconceived…I dunno, I guess it sounds like "Oh chinese classical music is so exotic, let's use it indiscriminately!"

I've thought about staring a rolling Sirius -XM thread, but I dunno if enuff people have it, think anything of it…

Mr. Big opened.

did billy sheehan do a bass solo with a power drill y/n

Lol, I believe so.

When you say "china"…

I think he was referring to Peart's use of China cymbals, not any particular composition.

i understand that, but surely you can understand how that could remind me…

I don't know what you're talking about, tbh, Oh, wait, maybe I get it. No, China cymbals, not a stereotypical "Asian" accent, hah. (Assuming that's what you mean?)

Anyway, check this out:

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

Weird coincidence, both Neil Peart and Elizabeth Wurtzel are both on the panel. They died the exact same day ...

Mr. Big def did the power drill thing

Rush also jammed with them on "Wipeout" at the show I went to

https://youtu.be/0h2eaEpekLk

Lifeson and Peart jam with Sheehan before a show on the ‘90 tour (Geddy was running late in traffic)

For a Danny Carey, Stewart Copeland and Neil Peart jam, this kinda sucks, and not in a "Primus sucks!" sort of way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elKAILyE1b8

Sully Erna from Godsmack divulging some truly tragic details:

"I knew when they were ending the Rush tour [R40, in 2015], that he was sick.

“And then I knew it, even up to a year ago or so, he was in a wheelchair and he couldn’t speak. And it was just becoming more and more sad to me.”

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/godsmacks-sully-erna-says-neil-peart-was-in-a-wheelchair-and-he-couldnt-speak-in-months-leading-up-to-his-death/

Maybe he just didn't want to talk to the Godsmack guy...

seems kind of shitty to divulge that stuff since Peart was supposed private

SO private

Neil was protective of his private life because intruders on it made him uncomfortable, but he doubted the existence of a hereafter so now that he is gone, by his own standards no discussion of him can hurt him.

If Peart was already diagnosed before the last tour, then his retirement may well have been due to other reasons than just old age making it hard to be a lithe drummer. Already with his death from cancer we have had to re-examime the statements from Alex and Geddy in the meantime, they weren’t giving an entirely accurate picture.

So what the Godsmack frontman said is simply something that will be relevant to potential biographers of the band. Historical figures don’t get a pass on scrutiny into their career and its aftermath just because they protected their privacy while alive.

I'm questioning that timeline/description of 'even up to a year ago or so' from Erna saying Peart in a wheelchair and unable to speak, due to what Kevin Anderson said in one of his posts about Peart: https://www.facebook.com/TheKJA/posts/10158284413957044 -- no specifics about when that last meeting took place beyond "As it became clear that the time was getting close," and that it was specifically last year, referring to his own father's passing in July, so it kinda seems like it was in the latter half of last year. He describes a long conversation over lunch out at a restaurant with Peart, them 'standing' in the doorway of his house saying goodbye, etc. Granted, it could just be Erna in a rush of words not entirely being clear but does seem strange.

I have to say, a funny, weird story has been cropping up in my brain these last few days. At some point in the late 80s -- don't know exactly how, don't know who from -- I remember hearing a classic 'did you hear about' story/rumor about a musician from a friend who also liked Rush and generally spoke from a place of knowledge. What's weird about the story was that my friend was, if not insistent, then sounded certain that Peart was in fact suffering from some form of cancer and that there was a photograph of him in a wheelchair being wheeled about by, of all people, Geddy himself (apparently smoking a cigarette at the time). Real bizarre fucking rumor in context then, now it seems even stranger.

Neil came down with bilharzia during the recording of Counterparts. It was the result of an bad decision to swim in a body of still water during one of his African trips, and it led to some pretty extreme symptoms until he got it identified and treated. I can’t remember where Neil told this story, perhaps it was on his website. Might there be a photograph of him ailing from that time, which an uninformed person might take for a much more serious disease?

I wonder if that was it. Like I said, I thought this was late 80s when I heard it, but it's distant enough now that I could just be shifting it around by a few years.

In the late '80s or so, when he started wearing that little hat, rumors spread that he had cancer and had lost his hair. Not that, you know, he was just losing his hair. I'm pretty sure he addressed it once or twice. Sometimes a hat is just a hat.

The piece from his book publisher friend upthread suggests that the whole “He was sick as far back as 2015” thing isn’t true. It does seem a little distasteful to be saying that stuff.

Great posts here since he passed – very much in keeping with the warmth these guys always conveyed. I’m spending time listening to all these pieces I never had much time for (the Cygnus X-1 epics) or songs I haven’t heard in 30 years. Man, the title track to Roll the Bones – pretty sure no other song in history married the kind wistfulness of the “Why are we here/Because we’re here/Roll the bones” section with the sheer dorkiness of the rap section (which has two verses!). It kind of makes me love them more.

Also, yeah – the “Neil is sick” rumors have been around for over thirty years. And I agree, they probably did have something to do with that hat.

That roll
The bones rap is shitty but the rest of the song is really good

I mean, he literally wrote a song called "I Think I'm Going Bald"

I honestly don't see a major gap in quality between the spoken/'rap' break and the rest of "Roll the Bones". It's as goofy as the reggae break in "The Spirit of Radio". Even the 'funky' riff seems pretty goofy to me.

the thing i loved/hated about the rap is that the band comes in after the first bit is over and I thought, phew, bit of a breather, then the rap returns....

I really like "Ghost of a Chance" from that album. Sort of a materialist, atheist love song (although idk why he doesn't believe in the stars and planets)? Lifeson's solo reminds me a bit of Clapton at his most lyrical.

I'm a sucker for "Bravado", "The Big Wheel" and "You Bet Your Life", I do think there's a melodic undercurrent to that album that is maybe slightly underrated

"although idk why he doesn't believe in the stars and planets"

It means he doesn't believe in astrology. He doesn’t believe lovers are fated to be together because of astrological signs.

Yeah, no, I get what he meant. I was just being a smartass about the way he phrased it.

Related, do you think "Christ, what have you done?" in "The Pass" just means "OMG what have you done?" or is it a comment on Christianity and the glorification of martyrdom (or both)? I heard it the first way as a kid but, later, I thought the second meaning might make more sense for Peart.

Oh yeah, "Bravado", I do like this one.

I always thought the "Christ, what have you done!?" was just an angry, shocked exclamation. Kind of a misplaced blasphemous profanity from an atheist. (See also: fellow atheist Ged, in that interview I posted a while back, admitting that being the child of holocaust survivors is his "cross to bear.")