Rush: Classic or Dud?

Better the pride that resides
In a citizen of the world
Than the pride that divides
When a colorful rag is unfurled

Have mostly listened to Permanent Waves thru Signals, but after browsing this thread earlier today, decided to listen to GUP, Power Windows, Presto, and Clockwork Angels. Recognized a few from the first two, but none from Presto or Clockwork. Overall I found the 80s stuff enjoyable. Need more time to listen and digest, though.

Couple of fresh thoughts:

1) I started reading "Ghost Rider." It's often really beautiful and brutally honest. You can really hear his voice, in both sense, which lends it another layer of heartbreak.

2) Listening to "Ghost of a Chance," I was really struck by the nuance of its sentiment, the view of an atheist who believes only in the randomness of the universe, and yet who holds out just a glimmer of faith in the idea that two random people can cross paths and fall in love, "and make it last." Just a lovely, romantic idea.

3) Speaking of Peart the humanist, "Witch Hunt" is a particularly apropos song.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill

They say there are strangers who threaten us
Our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness to danger us
In our theaters and bookstore shelves
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves

Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand

Yeah, and a little early for his humanist stuff as well. Good find.

I was watching that R40 video, and the full clips of Alex miming smoking a joint in the middle of "Tom Sawyer" is followed by him shaking his finger and mouthing the words "don't do drugs," and then he bobbles his head and mouths "well, maybe a little."

"Geddy Lee: Music was changing, and radio was changing. Our access to great music – the way we were getting it on FM radio, for example – was dying and becoming more commercialised. The Spirit Of Radio carries that feeling, and I think that people related to that song because of the way the music industry was going. It wasn’t about love and getting laid, the typical rock stuff. So it was fresh. And there’s a very positive sound to that song as well. There’s a life to it.

Alex Lifeson: The opening riff in that song was based on the movement of radio waves. At least that was the idea!

Geddy Lee: The way that song changes from one style of music to another is to replicate an FM dial turning. Maybe it was too subtle. It makes me wonder if we should have been more obvious about it. Alex’s riff set the tone for that song. And while that riff was steadily blasting through, Neil (Peart) and I wrote these counterpoint punctuations all around it, started playing with the time signatures. We thought it was quite innovative. We recorded it live, using a sequencer, which in those days you had to manually program with switches, to get it to work that one time. So you couldn’t screw up."

I've got to admit, Peart's death has really made me reassess how much this band has meant to me. I've never not been a fan, but thinking back, and getting older, I recognize what that means.

otm

They were truly a lifer band in the best way. And honestly, I don't think any other band would have been able to write "Time Stand Still."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHyihY7TJsM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOVh_C7XTHA

Ha

Neil Peart used to race in the nutty 24 Hours of Lemons ("An endurance car racing series on dedicated road courses for $500 cars") under the name Bamm-Bamm Rubble:

http://www.neilpeart.net/news/september_2014/thumbs/b_belted_in.jpg

https://www.rushisaband.com/blog/2020/02/10/5395/Rush-Permanent-Waves-40th-anniversary-box-set-details-and-bonus-content-tracklist

Thought this was interesting:

http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19840800guitarplayer.htm

Has anyone posted this yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAPSK_cV5n0&feature=youtu.be

LOL. Here's one that works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAPSK_cV5n0

Primus will pay homage to prog-rock legends Rush this summer with A Tribute to Kings, a cross-country tour that will feature the Bay Area trio playing Rush's classic 1977 album A Farewell to Kings in its entirety, in addition to their own music.

"A little over one year ago, Ler Lalonde and I started kicking the idea around of Primus performing a series of shows featuring an iconic Rush album from our youth," says bandleader Les Claypool. "Being that A Farewell to Kings was the first Rush record I ever heard, and that it contains my all-time favorite Rush tune, "Cygnus X1," the choice narrowed quickly. Years ago I had done something similar with Colonel Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, when we covered Pink Floyd's Animals in its entirety. It was an insane amount of work, but ended up being one of the most enjoyable live endeavors I've ever done. Dubbing the tour 'Primus: A Tribute to Kings,' it was originally scheduled to be performed in the Fall of 2019 but, when we were asked to support Slayer on their Final Campaign, the 'Tribute to Kings' tour was postponed.

Geddy, Alex and Neil had been superheroes to Larry, Herb and I in our teens, so when we all became pals while touring together in the early '90s, we were pretty delighted; partially because of the musical geek-out factor but mostly because the three guys whom we had admired so much from afar, turned out to be truly great, down-to-earth humans, and like us, a tad eccentric.

The 'Tribute to Kings' tour will be just as it is implied, a respectful and loving tribute to three spectacular musicians, songwriters, legends and friends."

I love the sentiment but tbh I cant think of anything I want less lol

play la villa strangiato you wimps

I saw Primus a couple years ago, and they played a bit of Cygnus X-1. I'm strongly tempted to go see this.

what about the voice of geddy lee? sean lennon?

Does tbe singing have to sound like Geddy Lee?

i wonder if les speaks like an ordinary guy

I know him, and he doesn't

Not sure Xanadu would be improved by the addition of slap bass.

Not sure i would expect that at all from Primus. Ive seen them do bits and pieces of various Rush tunes, and they are basically note for note copies. Granted, I have only ever heard them do instrumental segments.

play la villa strangiato you wimps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9aqLUOusyQ

I just read that there was a night in Vegas some years back when Rush and Primus were playing the same night, and both out of respect and as a courtesy to their fans, Primus pushed back the start time of their show so that their fans could go to see both bands. That's pretty cool.

Rush c. 1974:
https://external-preview.redd.it/o9LI0sKsPpHIcz6bfoOAhkheePopJ2L3w4QPAiYqT9w.jpg?auto=webp&s=cec68c7ce91784fbbe3e0a70af958ff16bbeb220

oh man what a great photo
how do we go there

Something almost uncanny valley about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl6vEOKsrik

Dag, check out these nerds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SWgkyhM1-4

Was thinking about Peart again, and considered something curious. He's a massively creative drummer, with unique fills, great snare work, cool hi-hat bits, trademark ride patterns. And yet, despite having a double bass set up for pretty much his entire career, he's not really known for any interesting double bass work, is he? Single bass drum stuff, sure, but double bass? Not so much.

He used it a bit, but pretty rarely.

assuming it was for the drum solos mostly?

One Little Victory starts with some double bass.

For sure. I know he did plenty of double bass stuff, but only in the most fleeting and perfunctory of ways. Whereas for a lot of other rock and hard rock (and of course metal) drummers, double bass gradually became the or at least a significant standard of drum virtuosity. Just surprised that Peart never incorporated more into his style.

Like, I just googled and found this Drum magazine piece on the evolution of double bass:

https://drummagazine.com/double-bass-legends-a-short-history/

Under a picture of Peart is says "Neil Peart was among a new generation of rock drummers to bring more sophisticated techniques to the double-bass vernacular." Was he? I play drums and I like Rush and I can't exactly point to where he does this, not much.

I don't necessarily think he was ever chasing what other people perceived to be standard hard rock/metal "virtuosity"

Well, yeah, duh. Back to my initial post, though, Peart was pretty exemplary on every aspect of his kit *except* the double kick, which was weirdly conspicuous. Obviously it was important enough for him to have a double kick in the first place, so it's surprising it doesn't have a prominent place in his playing.

Their music hardly ever called for it? IMO. I credit that to his good responsive taste in ‘playing to’ Alex and Geddy’s music. I can’t think of many tunes in their discography where I feel double bass was ‘missing’, so to speak.

I totally agree. I'm not complaining or criticizing, wouldn't change a beat, just a notable facet (or lack thereof) in his playing. It's in there, of course, but usually just as fleeting parts of fills.

I mean, tbf, I think many drummers had or have giant kits for show. Peart actually used more of his kit than most. It was all there fore a reason, vs., say ...
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5716/23151918739_bc4c99eae9_c.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/fmrg8d/day_5_getting_creative/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

XP If Cocaine Was A Drum Kit...

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

So I wondered why Permanent Waves is the #5 album in Canada this week: https://musiccanada.com/charts/#albums. Apparently, a 40th anniversary reissue was released a week or so ago with a bunch of live 70s material?

In other news, Alestorm apparently have the #7 album in the country. I remembered them as a goofy pirate-themed metal band about 10 years ago? I had no idea they were this big.

New animated video tie-in

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g_QtO0Rhp0w

Interview going around with Alex more or less claiming that the death of Neil has made him completely disinterested in playing guitar. He seemed on the cusp of retirement anyway though.

poor Alex :(

I ran a music trivia game at lunchtime at work today for fun, and made the fun discovery that one of our senior directors is huge Rush fan <3
He emailed me later in the day that he was going to go home and listen to Red Barchetta \m/
Rush brings people together!