Rush: Classic or Dud?

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!

It's definitely between them and maybe the Cure as World's Biggest Cult Band.

now that the Grateful Dead have hung up their boots, I guess so.

Honest question, did/do the Dead have much of a following around the world? I have no idea.

I remember them playing Wembley Arena in London around 1990(?), and that's a 10,000 capacity venue. Might be because they didn't play outside of the US much around then though. PS I saw Rush play the same venue in 1981, my second ever gig.

there's something to the couplet theory ~

https://www.progressiveears.org/forum/showthread.php/25872-My-RUSH-album-couplet-theory

Huh. I can get with that!

Thanks, now I'm watching people do Rush covers online. This bass nerd remains my fave:

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

As he says, I don’t know what he was thinking - writing this bass-line with the knowledge that he’d have to sing over it, but that’s why he’s one in a million."

Only quibble with couplet theory is I'd pair Snakes with Vapor Trails, Clockwork Angels stands alone.

Huh, obviously Aimee Mann is on "Time Stands Still," but the laugh at the beginning of "Force Ten" is apparently a sample of her as well, as is (I never noticed this) a brief vocal part (maybe backwards) on "Open Secrets" (around the 4:00 mark).

Man, I miss Neil Peart.

("Time Stand Still;" thanks a lot, beer)

permanent waves was remastered recently, is the non-extra version of it on this 40th anniversary set any different?

Did anyone actually have a problem with the mastering on the original release?

you never know what little lifeson fiddlies they might uncover

Speaking of fiddles, I was watching a little Lifeson tutorial on the intro to "Spirit of Radio," and he self-effacingly describes it as a Celtic sort of thing. And now every time I hear it, yeah, it's totally this Celtic sort of thing.

Wasn't that intro meant to be mimicking radio waves?

Loosely, I think. But when describing it from a melodic/technical standpoint (since he was teaching) he used "Celtic,' which is probably more useful than "radio waves."

I found some other good stuff to explore, namely the tour books posted (I hope all) online, where Neil, at least, gives little making-of accounts. For example, I learned (and maybe knew already) that Alex programmed all the drum parts in the band's demos, which Neil would sometimes use for inspiration, and also that Neil sometimes went into each album with an overarching theme (as opposed to concept). For example, a lot of the lyrics of "Power Windows" hinge on (duh) notions of power. He writes:

Having enjoyed writing around the central theme of "Power" last time, I decided to try something like that again, this time working with the theme of "Time". I set to work first on "Time Stand Still". I'd been thinking about this for some time now; how so often the richness of a period of time or an experience seems to lie in looking back at it. Or conversely, sometimes you might know that you are enjoying a wonderful time, but just wish you could make it last longer. I'm sure you know how that goes. But as I set that one aside after a while, and went on to work on other ideas, it was strange to see that what I had thought was my theme suddenly turned itself into something else -- without even asking me! With the development of ideas for "Second Nature" and "High Water" the theme suddenly changed to "Instinct", or perhaps "Temperament" -- the idea of primeval or subconscious drives. Well okay, I thought, if that's what my brain wants to work on -- go ahead!

It's really awesome that Clockwork Angels was their final album, what an amazing way to go out.

I mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSWn9qbaFu8

I was watching the Rick Beato episode about "Limelight," and not only does he isolate Geddy's harmonies, he isolates a *lower* harmony with a British accent, which he figures must be producer Terry Brown!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P-yUOlOC5M

Around the 15 mark.

she sings tom sawyer pretty good!

Oh wow, I never noticed harmony vocals there.

A very moving read.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/neil-peart-rush-dead-cover-story-1110496/

oh man <3

bawled at the end ;_;

Good piece. I really recommend Ghost Rider. As the book shows, Peart was a bit of an *over*writer (and over-rider, for that matter), but there are some really profound, moving bits to it. He was clearly super smart, even if super smart people sometimes need a good editor.

I always thought the strangest thing about this intellectual monk of a drum god is that the music buddies he chose to hang out with were, like, the dude from Vertical Horizon or Godsmack or whatever.

My guess is that if you struck him as someone serious about your craft, whatever the style of music, that was a good sign.

they might be nice ppl to hang out with? idk i dont think it’s that weird.

xpost Maybe? It's also I suppose that he was so insular - as was Rush - that there were probably few points of entry into that world. He wasn't the sort to hobnob with celebrities or even other rock stars. Neither are Alex and Geddy, as far as I can tell. I'm sure over the years they've crossed paths with everyone, but I can also see them being best friends with the guy that works on their cars, or a bunch of nerds that meet to trade baseball cards or something.

Peart was a complex individual, possible the most complex musician in rock music history. But goddamn I envy is life even if he did it very differently than I would have, though I also pity him, the tragedy he endured.

Great piece.

New interview with Geddy:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/geddy-lee-neil-peart-interview-rush-1120190/

V cool piece

The whole interview is pretty fascinating -- and I don't really consider myself much of a Rush fan -- and I've never read anything that goes as in-depth into their songwriting process.

Geddy also addresses Neil's reluctance to meet fans:

I was thinking about this the other day. Early on, the first few tours we did, he was laughing a lot, having a lot of fun onstage. There was a time when we would even sit backstage after a gig and sign autographs for fans, especially in the U.K. The U.K. fans were used to lining up to get autographs after certain gigs; there would be literally hundreds of people lined up. So we would sit there in the drafty hallway as they were ushered in, and Neil would sign for everybody. As we got into the Eighties, something changed in him that made him much more sensitive to his private time and his exposure to the public and he started backing away from it.

Yeah, I liked that it went into the music itself, how it gets put together, how they feel about the process - usually what I want from interviews but so often not what's there.