Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Rush Blog Roundup

Thu, Dec 22, 2005@10:41PM | comments removed/disabled

Matt discusses grunge rock and argues as to why he thinks Counterparts is Rush's best album:

... many people, particularly a few of my rush-crazed (which is a good thing) relatives ... will think that i'm nuts for calling this rush's best album. ... why "counterparts" you say? how can that be rush's best album? well, for one, it is their return to a more organic, trio-based rock sound. of course, rush was never not a trio, but in the 80's the synth and various recorded sounds dang near became a fourth member. while that doesn't negate rush's greatness in the 80's, i personally prefer their rockier, heavier stuff. ...

He then compares Counterparts to every other Rush album and by process of elimination comes to his ultimate conclusion and uses the following fact as the clincher.

... lastly, and perhaps this is the clincher, "counterparts" has "everyday glory," which is one of my favorite rush songs and, without doubt in my book, neil peart's best lyric EVER....

He makes a decent argument, although I still say 2112 is their best album. Counterparts is damn good though.

Neil Peart inspires Dan to wax nostalgic about nostalgia and discuss his own personal Lakeside Parks.

There's an old song written back in the 70's about an old amusement park called Lakeside Park. It was written by one of my favorite lyricists, Neil Peart. The song is basically reminiscing about old childhood experiences. Lately I've noticed myself and many others having those same kinds of memories. ... Like Neil, he had his Lakeside Park...I had Disneyland, Santa Cruz, Frontier Village (a rediscovered memory), and a host of childhood memories that seemed mundane then, but magical now. Though they're all just memories, some memories last forever.

I love that song.

Dante responds to a blogging meme where he states ten random factoids about himself. One of these has to do with Neil Peart and drumming.

... for now, my absolute favorite band is rush. i am obsessed with studying neil peart’s drumming methods and technique. ever since i started listening to rush a few years ago, various aspects of peart’s playing style have begun to influence my own drumming. u2 was the band that i was listening to when i started learning the drums almost ten years ago, and a lot of my education came from mimicking larry mullen jr’s sound. once i got a fairly good handle on how he plays and what motivates him with drum parts, my attention started drifting in search of other drummers to study and emulate. carter beauford of dave matthew’s band has so foreign (and creative, of course) an approach to rhythm that i doubt i will ever begin to grasp how he comes up with the shit that he does, but with rush, i have found that despite the complexity of their material and the odd-ass time signatures they employ throughout their catalogue, peart’s percussive muse and my own speak a common language. mind you, it will be a long, long time before i ever come even remotely close to playing a fraction as awesome as he does, but i at least am able to understand and progressively figure out the concepts that he has mastered. the album vapor trails is currently the cd that sees the most action in my rotation; this is significant in that before recording this record, neil peart spent six years in hiatus from music altogether after a couple personal tragedies left him searching for a reason to live – similar to the sort of malaise i am now experiencing in the wake of monica. ...

Tim thinks Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) is a better guitarist than Alex Lifeson? It all depends on what your definition of "good" is I guess.

... I've been playing guitar for ... 35 years or so and I have a certain amount of technique and, as a rabid student of this music's history from both a musicological as well as a socialogical perspective and I've come to the conclusion that technique, while admirable, is less than even half the equation when it comes to making music that moves people. ...I'm not immune to the realities of Rush's musicianship, hell I know a good technician when I hear one, it's just that Rush, and 'prog rock' in general - with the possible exception of King Crimson - leaves me cold. Plain and as simple as that. However, the 3 to 4 chord manic bashing of, say, the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones, resonates in glory from the garage of my heart and soul. While I completely understand Jim's (and others') perplexity at my preference of a Jones to a Lifeson, mainly because the converse is true in my little world; how can anyone not like the Sex Pistols etc., I just don't share, among many, many other things with Jim, the conviction that more technique makes for a better guitarist. ... Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, much like Johnny Thunders before him in the New York Dolls, brought the Chuck Berry vocabulary into a new world, kicking and screaming and serving new purpose. ... And while watching a vastly 'better' (more technically proficient) guitarist might be more impressive in a generally athletic way, rock and roll is art and as such needs to tell the listener something other than 'I'm a better guitar player than you." ... So yes, I think Steve Jones is a 'better' guitar player than Alex Lifeson because I feel that what he brings to the world is better, as in more good, more righteous, if you will. There's more emotion, to me, in the roar of a player who's barely holding on to the song, but means it from every fiber of his being than the thousands of hours of dweedly dweedle commited to time by players like Lifeson and Malmsteen. ...

His point that technique isn't everything I agree with. And I actually like Steve Jones and Alex Lifeson (and just about every other guitarist he mentioned). But to say that Alex doesn't put any emotion into his music and calling it "dweedling dweedle" is ridiculous. It's too bad that Alex doesn't "move" Tim but I guess that's Tim's problem, not mine. You know what they say about opinions. :)

And I'll end with this amusing post from boadiccea. She talks about her crush on Geddy Lee.

I thought I was over my crush on Geddy Lee, like, YEARS ago.

Apparently, it's on again.

*sigh*

It's always the bassists, man. Always the bassists.

BTW, he's actually hotter now that he's older, as opposed to when he wasn't really all that hot at all. (I still drool over Nikki Sixx, too. He's hotter now that he's older, too.) Except for Geddy Lee's mad bass-playin' skillz, which always get me going. I had always hoped to emulate him someday, bass-riff-wise.

Well, hell, maybe I still will, someday. I can still play *some* Rush songs on my bass, I'm sure. ...

Hee hee. Even I - a red-blooded heterosexual male - must admit that Geddy has gotten hotter with age. :)

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