Rutlefan

It's mine, because of the set list primarily, but also because side three plus La Villa is as amazing as it gets for me. As someone mentioned, despite the muddy production, this was Rush at its peak. I remember watching "videos" on MTV taken from the concert video. For a kid who grew up in the Midwest and who had only seen Rush play on Don Kirshner's (once, it was the AFTK video) I couldn't get enough of these songs. I didn't care that the production was too polished (actually cared a little but dealt with it). In fact, with side 3 and La Villa being my highlights, the polished production kind of worked; those are still my favorite versions of those songs. I agree though for much of the rest of the songs, the studio versions are arguably better, making ESL kind of superfluous apart from it being a snapshot of Rush at the top of the nerd rock world. I do though think that Geddy's vocal style is better on ESL than on the corresponding studio versions. Listen to Red Barchetta from MP back to back with ESL's; on ESL his style is less florid and dramatic, an improvement I think. I never noticed until my (then) 4 year-old would listen to ESL's Red Barchetta twenty times a day. After that, Geddy sound like he's trying too hard on the MP version, to me. So there's something to be said for ESL, apart from the Trees, Xanadu and La Villa. Good review. Despite it being my favorite live album (though I'd admit many are "better" as live albums, ATWAS certainly being one), I understand your low rating.

"Had Rush never found Neil, I think it is safe to say they have all the musical chops to at least have had a few great, straightforward rock n roll albums." Absolutely, I think most people miss this. The debut showed that even without Peart's "profundity" (for better or worse) Geddy and Alex would have produced some excellent music; several albums' worth, at least, I'd guess.

Growing up in the '70s/early '80s it seemed like there's always some band touted as "the next Beatles" or "next Zeppelin". Some made some sense, like when (for a little while) people were claiming that Squeeze's songwriting duo of Difford/Tilbrook were "the next Lennon/McCartney", but usually "the next Zeppelin" only superficially resembled Zeppelin and normally contained very little of their greatness; rather, they seemed to mostly parody Zeppelin, who early on at least was somewhat of a parody of rock excess, making the Zeppelin copies a parody of a parody, the Austin Powers of rock. I remember one particularly making me scratch my head. When Fastway's debut came out people around me were like "the next Zepplin, the next Zeppelin!" I remember thinking that it sounds like great rock and/or roll (a nod to Principal Skinner... "What a minute, this sounds like Rock and/or Roll!") but it's not Zeppelin. And then there was White Snake, etc., and the tedious comparisons went on as those desperate for another Zeppelin kept searching. Back to Fastway, I've never been a metal guy but I like good rock. I can't see how GVF remotely compares even to these guys (personally I can't get past the GVF voice so I've no idea of the songwriting or musicianship but I listened enough to sense there's nothing original there, yet). I get that the GTV guys are young though; I hope they grown into their potential. Good luck to them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5_oPyavUaw

So I'm not a huge horror fan outside of sci-fi horror (esp the Ridley Scott movies) but I like good movies, and I'll still go to the theater for really good movies. I'd been reading good things about this new Halloween and figured I'd check it out eventually, but this review makes me think I need to see it the theater, being not just good horror but a profound statement in its way. Is this review reaching too far or is this movie really this good? (Full of spoilers if you're concerned) Halloween: Finally a Really Good Movie About Evil While it can’t quite compete with the chilling 1978 release, the reboot is a powerful film in its own right. By SCOTT BEAUCHAMP • October 31, 2018 Jamie Lee Curtis reprises role as Laurie Strode in Halloween 2018 (Universal Pictures) Sequels, especially horror sequels, aren’t supposed to be this good. The exceptions prove the rule. And ever since 1978’s release of John Carpenter’s Halloween, the franchise has been struggling to recreate the box office sales, if not the majestic slasher grandeur, of the original. They’d failed until this year. 2018’s Halloween reboot isn’t just a return to form, achieving escape velocity from the gravitational pull of previous uninspired sequels. It in some way redeems the false steps that followed the original. And while it can’t quite compete with the exuberance and energy of Carpenter’s 1978 release, it is a powerful film in its own right. Unfortunately, what makes it such a haunting movie is the same quality that so many critics seem unable to appreciate: this is a film about the nature of evil, resisting logical analysis and human understanding. Paul Westerberg that only simple prayers work. It’s the same for the plots of successful horror movies, and Halloween is no different. In the original, Michael Myers escapes from an asylum where he’s been institutionalized since killing his sister when he was only six years old. Pursued by his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis, Michael drifts through the small all-American town of Haddonfield, Illinois, killing slowly, methodically, and at will. His spree almost resembles a nature documentary more than a contemporary slasher film, with Michael’s very humanity hidden behind a disturbing, white, eyeless mask (actually a William Shatner mask, not that you can easily tell). He’s a simulacrum of a human, death incarnate inhabiting a human face. Michael’s spree reaches its climax on Halloween night, when a final confrontation with teenage babysitter Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and Dr. Loomis leave us with a missing Myers body and an ambiguous ending.The reboot picks up where the original left off, even explaining away the lesser sequels and their flatfooted attempts at understanding Michael’s brutality in the context of family drama as “something that people made up.” Laurie Strode is a grandmother now, holed up inside of a compound, armed to the teeth, and expecting some sort of final confrontation with Michael. Because Michael has been re-institutionalized for decades, Laurie’s family sees her as half permanently traumatized victim and half drama queen nurturing her wounds. Certainly no one takes her seriously, especially not the British true crime podcasters who descend upon her fortified home and insult her with disrespectful questions. Those podcasters, who begin the film by attempting to interrogate a Michael who refuses to speak to them (or even face them, because we never fully see Michael’s face), are among the first of his victims after he escapes during a hospital transfer. To not take Laurie Strode seriously is to not take evil seriously, and to misunderstand one is to misunderstand the other. Reviews have tended to emphasize Laurie Strode’s mental health. One called her “permanently unhinged by paranoia.” But here’s the thing: she’s right. Michael does come back, because in the context of the Halloween mythos, Michael isn’t a person but evil itself. And Laurie is the only one who seems to understand the nature of evil. Jamie Lee Curtis is steely, resolved, and bitter as she delivers the lines: “I always knew he’d come back. In this town, Michael Myers is a myth. He’s the Boogeyman. A ghost story to scare kids. But this Boogeyman is real. An evil like his never stops, it just grows older. Darker. More determined. Forty years ago, he came to my home to kill. He killed my friends, and now he’s back to finish what he started, with me. The one person who’s ready to stop him.” In many ways, this film is a rebuke to the therapeutic society. Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic, “Psychological man may be going nowhere, but he aims to achieve a certain speed and certainty in going. Like his predecessor, the man of the market economy, he understands morality as that which is conducive to increased activity. The important thing is to keep going.” Laurie Stroud is fixated on the past, stuck in her home, which her daughter calls a “trap.” She doesn’t seem to exist in the same chronological flow as the rest of her family or town. But while everyone around her rebukes her for not letting go of the past, Laurie carries with her the painful burden of understanding that the sort of psychological well-being insisted on by her community comes at the cost of engaging in battle against evil. Rieff, again, wrote, “Religious man was born to be saved; psychological man is born to be pleased.” No one understands that Laurie’s purpose is more profound than placidly enjoying life. What she wants is a kind of cosmic redemption. How she feels about what happened to her is much less important than actually fighting the evil that caused it. Another aspect of the therapeutic society explored in the film is the idea that we can treat or cure the root cause of suffering through the act of expression. Language itself becomes a meta-perspective, able to transcend the metaphysical heft of both good and evil. Language has the ability to abstract them and transform them into concepts. What Halloween posits is that evil and good are both more profound than language. They defy articulation: good, perhaps, because it’s the source from which all articulation originates; evil, because, in defying the good, it takes the position of anti-logos. Evil is incoherence. It’s important again to emphasize that Michael isn’t a human character, but a stand-in for evil. And so everyone who tries to understand Michael dies, from the British podcasters who cynically want to sell his story as clickbait without respecting his true and heinous nature to Dr. Sartain, the “new Loomis.” The case of Sartain is an important one because, having spent years analyzing Michael and formulating theories about his motivations, he falls in love with his own abstractions. One of the best moments of the film, and the scene where the mute power of evil is most powerfully on display, is when Sartain longs for Michael to speak to him, demands it, in fact. “Say something!” he screams at evil. Without missing a beat, evil smashes his head in. There’s a lot to this film, much that I fear will go over the heads of critics so used to movies portraying the same banal messages and philosophies over and over. As James Pinkerton recently pointed out, the film bucks many of our current progressive cultural conventions. But it isn’t quite didactic. In fact, one of the major themes of the film is the nuanced relationship between victim and victimizer. Ruminating on Laurie Strode’s obsession with Michael, Sartain says that he “would suspect the notion of being a predator or the fear of becoming prey keeps both of them alive,” and wonders about the effect that being a victimizer has on Michael. Indeed, Laurie is forced to become more like Michael in many ways in order to kill him. But far from being a Jungian take on becoming the monsters that we fight, her violence and focus are seen as tools necessary for combating evil. What else is required to fight evil? Three generations of women, an intergenerational family unit, working together even as society (the police, the neighborhood) disintegrates around them. Laurie Strode’s house, where they have the final confrontation with Michael, has turned out to be a “trap, not a cage.” There’s a powerful psychological subtlety in this depiction of victimhood that might be lost on a viewer who brings too simple a political agenda to the film. The movie ends with the kindness of an unknown stranger, faceless like Michael, driving the women away, a brief but powerful corollary to the anonymous evil incarnate in Michael with the possibility of good as well. But the women are not relieved. The youngest still clutches a knife in her hand, her eyes wide with fear. This is not an unhappy ending. They’re finally aware, vigilant, and silent. And this gets to the heart of why people misunderstand the film. Like the Strode women themselves, evil leaves us with nothing left to interpret. The only thing to do is remain vigilant—and when the time comes, as it always does, to fight against it. Scott Beauchamp’s work has appeared in the Paris Review, Bookforum, and Public Discourse, among other places. His book Did You Kill Anyone? is forthcoming from Zero Books. He lives in Maine.[/color]

In a Midwest jr. high, in the (late) '70s, my friends thought they were a sci-fi nerd rock band. They weren't cool like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Pink Floyd, or even The Cars and Jackson Browne. Me and the long-haired kid who always wore baseball concert t's were about the only kids who liked Rush. We were also the only kids into Monty Python, for what that was worth. In an East Coast high school, early '80s, my friends thought Rush was laughably pretentious. They weren't cool like The Clash and The Police, or even The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. I didn't know anyone else in my grade that liked Rush, not even with MP being a huge hit. There was a lanky, long-haired neighbor kid who liked them though. His older brother would sneer at us for liking Rush. He (the older brother) ended up in prison for selling cocaine IIRC. Not saying he deserved it for dissing Rush, but... At any rate, the important thing was that if you wanted to get the girl, you didn't tell her you liked Rush. That was a generally good principal to follow (like girls who like classic Star Trek, there's always the geeky exception; lucky the geek that finds one of those). Still kind of true that advertising a fondness for Rush does not position you for a top spot on the Darwinian totem pole (no matter to me as I'm married, but my Rush interest further convinces my wife that she married beneath her).

I like Ritzy Bryan of The Joy Formidable. Spunky Welsh lass. Love watching her play guitar.

The Joy Formidable. Love them. If you like Pixies, The Wedding Present, Nirvana type bands -- (soft-loud-soft-louder) -- with a bit of occasional shoegaze mixed in, like these other bands mixed with MBV, you'll probably like TJF. Ejemples: From second album: From first album:

Way out in front (three pretty much perfect albums, with Hemi being the least perfect but still my favorite because when its good there's nothing else like it)... 1. Hemispheres 2. Moving Pictures 3. PeW Leading the rest of their '70s albums... 4. 2112 5. AFTK

Attempting to be objective: 1. Limelight 2. Tom Sawyer 3. Red Barchetta 4. YYZ 5. The Camera Eye 6. Vital Signs 7. Witchhunt No attempt at objectivity (IOW, like it all but from what I like most): 1. Red Barchetta 2. Limelight 3. Vital Signs 4. The Camera Eye 5. Tom Sawyer 6. Witchhunt 7. YYZ

'60s Star Trek. I went twenty years without watching it between the time it was my favorite show in the mid '70s to when I first picked up some episodes on VHS in the mid '90s. Then I watched them all with my wife (who had never seen even one) about ten years ago on DVD (in the goofy but fun colored plastic cases, different color for each season). Then a couple years ago, curious about the remastered episodes, watched my favorites on Netflix. Deciding I preferred the model work of the original, I returned to the original DVDs, first watching my favorites in production order, and then watching all of them in order they aired. Am just about to finish up season two. Not looking forward to Spock's Brain , but even the faltering season three has some of the better episodes. I have to mention that I appreciate the acting more than ever. Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley were d*mn good actors; you can tell that Shatner especially early on, when the production was so full of hope and promise, was a real master; his stage background shows. I'm also reading "These Are The Voyages: TOS Season 1/2/3". Goes through the making of each episode in great detail. Amazing how they were able to produce that show on a weekly basis. Especially amazing is how they maintained the quality through the second season before their morale was ground down by network indifference and shrinking budgets in the third season. From the early/mid-first season The Corbomite Maneuver (first episode filmed after the two pilots but didn't air until just before The Menagerie episodes) through the second season, they only had one misstep (The Alternative Factor)... an amazing, truly impressive, run. It really deserved the fanatical cult status it achieved in the '70s, before the films and eventually TNG (which I never really got in to) took over.

1. Patton 2-5: Das Boot Casablanca Downfall Inglourious Basterds

It’s old, and it was popular, I’ll grant that.

Peaches and Herb's Reunited. So significant to me that I had to look it up in order to recognize it. wish I hadn't. If I'd been born a month earlier it would have been Blondie's Heart of Glass. That's a song I could have got behind. Don't know what it would have said about my life though. I guess Reunited is better relationship-wise. So acc to this theory, my life is defined by love-y relationships but sappy music. I think I'd take the good music and take my chances with the relationships.

601) The Housemaid ( 1960 ) ( Lucas ) 602) The Lady From Shanghai (1947) ( Rushian King ) 603) The Saint (1997) ( Rutlefan ) 604) The Trial (1962) (Rushian King) 605) Pump Up The Volume (New_World_Man) 606) Badlands/Natural Born Killers (goose) 607) Jackie Brown ( Rushian King ) 608) Mystery Men ( RutleFan ) 609) Farewell My Concubine ( Lucas ) 610) The Abyss ( New World Man ) 611) Titanic ( Rushian King ) 612) Cabin Fever ( Rutlefan ) 613) Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)/ Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) ( Rushian King ) 614) Lady Snowblood ( Lucas ) 615) Death Proof (2007)/ Planet Terror (2007) ( Rushian King) 616) Interstellar ( New_World_Man ) 617) In Bruges ( Rutlefan ) 618) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ( Rushian King ) 619) Man On The Moon (1999)/ Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017) ( Rushian King ) 620) A King In New York (1957) ( Rushian King ) 621) Rolling Thunder ( Lucas ) 622) Home Alone ( New World Man ) 623) Lake Placid ( Rutlefan ) 624) Eyes Of Laura Mars ( Lucas ) 625) Bad Santa ( Rushian King ) 626) Serial ( Rutlefan ) 627) Lady Bird ( New World Man ) 628) Apollo 13 ( Rushian King ) 629) City Lights ( Rushian King ) 630) The Party ( Rutlefan ) 631) The Pink Panther ( Rutlefan ) 632) Elf ( Rushian King ) 633) Miracle On 34th Street ( Rutlefan ) 634) Metropolitan / Barcelona ( Rutlefan ) 635) Tales From The Crypt ( 1972 ) ( Lucas ) 636) National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ( Rushian King ) 637) Beavis and Butthead Do America ( HemiBeers ) 638) Trailer Park Boys The Movie ( HemiBeers ) 639) Séance On A Wet Afternoon / Séance ( Lucas ) 640) New Year's Day (1989)( Rushian King ) 641) Minority Report ( New World Man ) 642) The Shape Of Water ( RutleFan ) 643) Dracula ( 1992 )( Rushian King ) 644) Misery ( Rushian King ) 645) 2010: The Year We Make Contact (Rushian King) 646) Once We Were Warriors ( Rushian King ) 647) 30 Days Of Night ( Rushian King ) 648) The Blackcoat's Daughter ( Lucas ) 649) Papillon ( Rutlefan ) 650) Apt Pupil ( Rushian King ) 651) Bedevilled ( 2010 ) Lucas 652) Awakenings (1990) ( New World Man ) 653) Star wars episode 3 Revenge of The Sith ( Airship2112 ) 654) Gallipoli ( Rutlefan ) 655) Black Panther (New World Man) 656) A Quiet Place ( Rutlefan ) 657) The Silenced ( Lucas ) 658) Images ( Lucas ) 659) Big Trouble In Little China (New_World_Man) 660) Under the Skin (Rutlefan) 2013 movie directed by Jonathan Glazer starring Scarlett Johansson who plays an alien who preys on lone men. Fantastic, haunting movie which for some reason has flown totally under the radar. Won many awards and is 84% positive (critics) on RT yet was a commercial flop.

1-3: Wish You Were Here Us and Them When the Tigers Broke Free 4-6: The Hero's Return Fearless Comfortably Numb 7-10: Run Like Hell Shine on You Crazy Diamond Breathe Learning to Fly

1. A Night at the Opera (1975) 2. Sheer Heart Attack (1974) 3. Queen II (1974) 4. Jazz (1978) 5. A Day at the Races (1976) 6. News of the World (1977) Don't know the others well enough to say. Didn't really get into what I heard from them after Jazz apart from an occasional song.

With Rush, albums all the way through.

Easier than I expected: 1. Stick it Out 2. Show Don't Tell 3. Superconductor 4. Roll the Bones 5. Red Lenses

Gold: 2112, ATWAS, Hemi, PeW, MP, ESL Silver: Rush, FBN, AFTK, Signals, GUP, DS, VT Bronze: CoS, PW, HYF, ASoH, RiR, S&A, CA Failed to finish or caught doping: Presto through T4E

From Nick Lowe's All Men Are Liars: Do you remember Rick Astley? He had a big fat hit that was ghastly He said I'm never gonna give you up or let you down Well I'm here to tell ya that dick's a clown Though he was just a boy when he made that vow I'd bet it all that he knows by now... All men (all men), all men are liars...

I read most of it and liked most of what I read. Favorite was when he nailed Billy Joel's innate mediocrity. But, he totally swings and misses on Rush and Queen (the two entries I'd take real issue with; his take down of post-Gabriel Genesis is also mostly unfair, though post Genesis they did get pretty awful). Rush doesn't have one song that could convince someone of the "band's import"? Really? Half of MP would work, for starters. Queen of course doesn't sound "awful" (he doesn't attempt to justify the assertion for obvious reasons). I guess he is one of those "dicks," as described by one of the South Park guys in Beyond the Lighted Stage, who still won't give Rush their due. And I thought dismissing Rush out of hand was passé, but I guess not. Short of it, the guy makes it pretty clear he is not a prog fan, and as well seems dismissive of hard rock/metal, so none of this is surprising.

1. Eclipse - Pink Floyd 2. In the Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson 3. A Day in the Life - The Beatles 4. The End - The Beatles 5. Profession Of Violence - UFO 6. Rocket Queen - Guns N Roses 7. Hallowed Be Thy Name - Iron Maiden 8. Redemption Song - Bob Marley and the Wailers 9. Fight the Power - Public Enemy 10. When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin 11. Do You Feel Like We Do (live) - Peter Frampton 12. Mystery Achievement - The Pretenders 13. You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones 14. Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who 15. Fairies Wear Boots - Black Sabbath 16. Into The Void - Black Sabbath 17. Siberian Khatru - YES 18. Soft Parade - Doors 19. Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles 20. Would? - Alice In Chains 21. Rock n Roll Suicide - David Bowie 22. Love, Reign O'er Me - The Who 23. Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd 24. Reason To Believe - Rod Stewart 25. Eyes Of A Stranger - Queensryche 26. Rime Of The Ancient Mariner - Iron Maiden 27. Like Suicide - Soundgarden 28. Release - Pearl Jam 29. Jungleland- Bruce Springsteen 30. Train in Vain- The Clash 31. Steeler - Judas Priest 32. The MC5 - Starship 33. In A Simple Rhyme/Growth - VH 34. Foreplay/Longtime (8track) - Boston 35. The End - The Doors 36. When the Music's Over - The Doors 37. Diary Of A Madman - Ozzy Osbourne 38. I'm a Believer - The Monkees 39. Love is Blindness - U2 40. Black Diamond - Kiss 41. Princess of the Dawn - Accept 42. The Raven That Refused To Sing - Steven Wilson 43. A Light In The Black - Rainbow 44. Sunless Saturday - Fishbone 45. Caroline No- The Beach Boys 46. Hurt- Nine Inch Nails 47. Tush- ZZ Top 48. Feelin' Stronger Every Day - Chicago 49. Every Grain of Sand - Bob Dylan 50. Squealer - AC/DC 51. All Mixed Up - The Cars 52. Dangerous Type - The Cars 53. Purple Rain - Prince 54. Home Tonight - Aerosmith 55. Suppers Ready - Genesis 56. Emerald - Thin Lizzy 57. Into the Sea - God Street Wine 58. Magnum Opus - Kansas 59. Astronomy - Blue Oyster Cult 60. The Sad Cafe - The Eagles 61. Coma - Guns N Roses 62. Voodoo Child - Jimi Hendrix 63. The Show Must Go On - Queen 64. New York City Serenade (Bruce Springsteen) 65. Heart Of The Sunrise - YES 66. Terrapin Station - Grateful Dead 67. Porrohman - Big Country One heck of a guitar assault to close one of the great guitar albums of the '80s (or ever).

Just realized Get the Knack came out in '79. Oh well, like some do with PeW, I'll just call it an '80s album. Clearly The Knack was inspired by '80s music when they wrote it! ;) It's an 80's song. Like early Talking Heads or DEVO, just slightly ahead of its time. :) Talking Heads, DEVO, The Knack, Blondie, The Clash, etc etc just show how inadequate is categorizing music by decades. '76/'78 saw the explosion of punk/New Wave (along with Disco of course) which ran through '81, give or take, before giving way in '82-ish to what we think of as "'80s music" (the mainstreaming of what was once the disruptive "New Wave") which then ran the course of the decade, becoming pretty tired and moribund before Pixies, Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, etc etc came along to recharge the system. Anyway, along with the bound-to-be-eternal pop/rock/Motown of the late '60s and classic rock/AOR of the early/mid '70s, the late '70s/early '80s was an incredible period of music that doesn't really get old. I've also a weakness for the early '90s, before that too was mainstreamed and became kind of noxious (e.g., Nirvana giving way to Matchbox 20 and the like). Anyway, late '70s music was just so cool. I was lucky to have lived through it, like those people who would tell me (when I was a kid) about living through the '60s and the music then.