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Neil Peart remembers Blue Cheer's Dickie Peterson

Wed, Oct 21, 2009@4:52PM | comments removed/disabled

["Louder Than God": Rush's Neil Peart Remembers Blue Cheer's Dickie Peterson]

Blue Cheer bass player and frontman Dickie Peterson died this past October 12th at the age of 61 after a battle with cancer. Blue Cheer fan and our favorite drummer Neil Peart wrote a short piece for RollingStone.com in remembrance of Peterson. Here's an excerpt:

... In 2004, my bandmates and I celebrated our thirtieth anniversary by recording an album of covers, Feedback, to pay tribute to our early influences. We combined the Who's and Blue Cheer's versions of "Summertime Blues," and ended with me playing the innovative drum pattern from Blue Cheer's "Just a Little Bit," from Outsideinside, which I had never forgotten.

So Blue Cheer made an enduring impression on this once-young drummer, and definitely played their part in shaping Rush’s beginnings - a loud power trio with a fortress of amps, cannonades of drums, and a bass player's high voice trying to pierce the darkness. That would be my bandmate Geddy, who remarked that Blue Cheer might well have been the first heavy metal band.

Dickie Peterson was present at the creation - stood at the roaring heart of the creation, a primal scream through wild hair, bass hung low, in an aural apocalypse of defiant energy. His music left deafening echoes in a thousand other bands in the following decades, thrilling some, angering others, and disturbing everything - like art is supposed to do. ...

You can read the entire article at this link. Geddy's remark about Blue Cheer that Neil refers to is from the documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. You can watch the clip where Geddy makes the remark here:

Thanks to Eric at Power Windows for the heads up.

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