Rush: Classic or Dud?

PRS! Never a good sign.

Sting iirc

He still uses PRS a lot.

Never listened to the '90s albums; pulled up Counterparts on Spotify now. Liking it.

Counterparts is kind of their take on Pearl Jam style grunge, but much more enjoyable. Lots of really ballsy stripped down drum grooves.

I love Lifeson's playing on "Power Windows" and "Hold Your Fire!" He's playing the hell all over those things, making the most of that thin (but not really) sound.

I love his playing on Hold Your Fire too! Just think the timbre could be better. A remaster could do the job, actually...

I'm really only complaining about him on Roll The Bones, I love those others too.

They did remaster them, though. Mostly beefed up the drums. His guitar sound is really sort of like Andy Summers if Summers were allowed a whole bunch of shit-hot soloing. I guess this era of the band had a lot of the synth parts so worked out that Lifeson sort of came in at the end to find spaces for his solos. But frankly I find his soling really awesome in the late '80s. I mean, "Turn the Page" and "Mission" have some incredible guitar parts. They're part shading, part flash.

I don't think I have the remasters of any of those. Will check em out.

"Ghost of a Chance" is my favorite Rush song directed at a woman.

also: the keyboards (Prophets?) and Aimee Mann's vocal on "Time Stands Still" quite consciously evokes mid eighties Kate Bush imo.

well, one thing is for sure... there new single sucks.

new single is great! You're crazy.

Snakes & Arr

ows is one of my absolute favorite Rush albums.

Ps - fuck you iPhone.

Snakes & Arr was the pirated version that appeared on the net.

I love R

ush

Saw a kid today wearing a "Got Geddy?" shirt, and I'm guessing he was around 15 or 16. So that's still around the time Rush is its most potent, I see.

I just got Presto today; I've been digging back into Rush a lot these past few months. "The Pass" sounds like Strange Times-era Chameleons!

also: the keyboards (Prophets?) and Aimee Mann's vocal on "Time Stands Still" quite consciously evokes mid eighties Kate Bush imo.

According to http://rush.wikia.com/wiki/Geddy_Lee_equipment, he had for the album:
Prophet VS
Roland D-50
Yamaha DX-7
Yamaha DX-7 II

And for the tour:
Roland D-50
Korg MIDI Pedals (1)
Roland Super Jupiter

Pretty psyched for June 12th!

I reviewed Clockwork Angels at MSN today...

So excited to hear this! Great write-up.

Great review!

I'm really loving the title track and Headlong Flight right now, can't wait to hear the rest

"Spirit of Radio" came on yesterday, and for a split second it struck me how much more irrationally sad I'll be when one of these guys vs. when any number of living legends I love dies.

That review and all the word I'm hearing from others wh have heard it have me amped. Next week, right?

That is certainly one of the band's least ambitious album covers.

they haven't had a good album cover in sooooo long :(

wait except that covers EP was a kinda decent winterland poster knockoff type thing

When Rush met Pete.

Around that time I had a high-school science teacher who was exasperated by my constant finger-tapping on my desk. When I said I couldn’t help it, he said, “What are you—some kind of retard?”

Seriously.

He sentenced me to a detention in which I would have to sit and tap on a desk for one hour. I played Tommy from memory; the teacher had to leave the room.

I didn't realize until just now that 2112 is based on the retarded philosophy of Ayn Rand.

peart's been working in randian stuff for years, iirc

never liked rush, but now i hate rush

Rush hasn't been Rand_y in 35 years, dudes.

But don't let that stop you from enjoying the haterade.

in roadshow with drums, he doesn't mention rand at all, but peart talks about how some of his roadies and bus drivers watch fox news, and he goes off on a big rant about fox news and george w bush (who was prez when the book was written)

so it's not like dude is a super hard righty or something

I like peart just fine, I always thought the Rand stuff was a thing that everyone knew

I don't think you need to be a right winger to like Randian philosophy, but I do think you need to cultivate a certain level of abject ignorance about the world to think it's a good philosophy, and that instituting it will solve more problems than it will create.

well who knows? dudes tastes might have changed in, you know NEARLY 40 YEARS

Peart has always called his politics something like liberal libertarianism. Which is basically, you know, the Canadian/English system of gov. There is a safety net, health care, socially liberal laws, that sort of thing. Hardly conservative. But again, you doofuses, "2112" was 35 years ago. Dude was 25. The album is about a future where art is illegal, and a guy discovers a guitar, which sparks a rebellion. The people win. There's your Rand for you. As I'm sure I've noted repeatedly on this thread, he soon moves on to John Dos Passos. Guy reads a lot of books.

I heard this as anti-Bush song: http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858660806/ . The band has recorded at least one environmentalist song that I can think of.

In this DVD, Peart discusses the motivation behind 2112. After the commercial failure of Caress of Steel, there was a great deal of pressure from the record company to make a more accessible album, which he saw as an "injustice" since he was a "child of the 60s". Peart had just been reading Rand and felt that this pressure on him (the creative individual) from the corporation (the 'faceless mass') was equivalent to what Rand was depicting, which suggests that his reading of Rand was not very informed by political context. He states himself: "I was not thinking about politics. I was not thinking about global oppression. I was thinking 'these people are messing with me!'" Lee stresses that what interested the band was the emphasis on creative and artistic freedom in Rand. (As the son of Holocaust survivors, he was offended when the NME started associating Rush with extreme right views.)

For some context, btw, this was the leader of the more right-wing party in Canada in 1976: not exactly a conservative by US standards, particularly when you consider his work later on foreign affairs.

"by present-day US standards"

(Still, I would never describe our system of government as liberal libertarianism [or "left-wing libertarianism", which is the term Wikipedia attributes to Peart]!)

Well, it is liberal when you consider all the things people take for granted, from education to civil liberties (short freedom of speech, the one front where the US rules) to health care, high taxes, drug laws, etc. (Relatively speaking, by US standards). There are liberals and conservatives, and right wingers and left wingers, but the above is sort of the system within which people operate. Right?

Rand is a huge political boogeywoman in 2012, but back in 1974 I'd wager she was nearly as widely read but hardly as affiliated with the right-wing. And perhaps taken more seriously, too.

Well yeah, it's the "libertarianism" part of it that threw me.

Well, I think that's why he appends the "left-wing" part to it. To differentiate it from the strident, tea party sort of asshole libertarianism.

OK, right. I guess "left-wing libertarianism" always makes me think of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Socialism . What you said probably makes more sense as far as Peart's views are concerned.

Great review that only further whets my anticipation Adrien!

But psst--it's Kevin J Anderson, not Robert ;)

I know. Rush nerd alert!

Ps - to Rand haters--I sincerely hope you don't listen to U2 as they reference the bible or Nick Cave when he sings about Milton. Let's keep literature & philosophy out of rock! Sheesh.

i remember sometime in the early 80s before going into a rush concert at msg and there were some rand devotees (don't really remember the specific group) handing out leaflets on the street hoping to recruit some new members.