Relayer2112

I voted for the same player Alex would vote for...Jimmy.

I think from a funny perspective, the Scorpions original "Lovedrive" artwork (which was banned in the US) is one of my favorites.  The Scorpions had a knack for offensive album covers there for a while, I'm sure they inspired Spinal Tap's fictitious "Smell the Glove" cover.

Have any of you seen the Hipgnosis documentary on Netflix?  Although I don't miss vinyl, I miss the days of real album cover art.

17 hours ago, Weatherman said:

Interesting. I went the opposite here. 

I discovered them as songwriters: my classically-trained professional pianist cousin gave me MP and said "study these guys, they're amazing". 

So I learned to play guitar by learning Alex's parts. I never idolized them

UNTIL

My first concert, Roll the Bones tour. Alex was flipping incredible. I remember watching his fingers on Spirit of Radio and going "ohhhh he's better live than in the studio, shiittttt". Then they became larger than life and pretty much stayed that way, in my mind. 

 

If you want to hear how human Alex is, listen to the following...I don't mean this to put Alex or anyone else down.  What I idolize about Alex (Ged, John and Neil also) is that he took his desire to play and would not be denied.  Years of struggling, knowing that there were players out there who were better than him, yet still becoming a rock god to many.  His greatest talent was/is playing the right notes at the right time to make a song meaningful and memorable.  He always did just what each song needed...no more, no less.

 

I'll go back to what Charlie Watts famously said which paraphrased was "25 years in a rock n' roll band equates to 5 years of playing and 20 years of hanging around".  Needless to say, the members of Rush had a lot of free time on their hands over the years.  I think it's hard to witness what your peers are doing and not try different things just out of plain boredom.  Given that, it's not surprising that Geddy's book delves a bit into the hard drugs that were being used by both band and crew.  Was I overly surprised about the amount of drugs being used...only to the extent that they had to know that it affected their performances negatively.  

 

I'm just glad that Geddy's book spared us all the tales of womanizing that went hand-in-hand with the drug use.

21 hours ago, chemistry1973 said:

Interesting. I found the Popoff books extremely detailed regarding the band’s processes in the studio. I’d call those books pretty definitive if you wanted to learn more about Rush’s creative approaches.

 

I used to think Popoff was a dopey hanger-on. But those three Rush books are excellent. 
 

Now ALEX needs to write a book.

They do have more detail than Geddy's book, which is why I was disappointed.  The detail those books provide is more about technical details such as the production and engineering.  I know that those tasks are extremely important to the end product.  I'm just more interested in the inspiration behind the bass line or riff or drum pattern that was the seed.

 

I think the only thing I get out of Geddy's book regarding this is that he and Alex evidently wrote a lot of their earlier songs on acoustic guitars and that "Making Memories" was written in the back of a station wagon.  How Geddy remembers that, but can't remember that they had played "Jacob's Ladder" in concert prior to R40, I'll never know.  

17 hours ago, Rush Didact said:

 

As far as I know, contemporary interviews and tour books are the only places Neil ever discussed the recording of studio albums.  He rarely mentions them in his books and wasn't given to reminiscing later on...

I guess that makes sense...there probably isn't any of us who want to rehash our work lives for 30+ years.  That's probably why there isn't a whole lot of detail about it.  Clearly they struggled at times in the studio and the songs we hear are not the result of divine intervention, but of painstaking trial and error, not to mention the long hours.  I wouldn't want to revisit that either.

2 hours ago, Rush Didact said:

 

How are those books?  Particularly the second two?  After listening to the guys on the Something for Nothing podcast interview him, it really put me off buying them.  The guy hates everything from Signals through Test for Echo.  It really made me question how he could write an objective history of the band, given that he has no interest in half their albums.  (And especially because the albums he hates are the ones I love the most.)

I enjoyed them quite a bit and flew through each of them.  Again, a little disappointed in the details about the music creation process in the Popoff books and was hoping that Geddy's book would fill in the gaps, but it does not.

 

I would guess that many memories of the writing/recording of their earlier albums are simply lost to time.  Not sure if Terry Brown has any books about his time with Rush or not. 

 

I've always enjoyed reading Neil's tour program notes in which he described the atmosphere of their recording sessions, especially those at Le Studio.  I don't know if any of Neil's books provide any more detail.

14 hours ago, goose said:

I get what you're saying, and it wore thin after a while.  That said, the early chapters are great.

Agreed...I enjoyed the early chapters much more as they tended to focus on the importance of the music and what drove him to become the musician he ended up being.  His writing about his parents was very poignant also.

 

I think I enjoyed Martin Popoff's books better.

I'm just about finished with the book.  It's a good enough read but, as I expected, the music itself is pretty much glossed over throughout, some albums not really even getting more than a few sentences.  I was hoping for a little more insight on the music creation process and maybe some mentioning of moments of when they were inspired musically when coming up with a song.  There isn't a whole lot of that.

 

There's a certain "woe is us" tone at times in the book that bothers me a bit coming from a rich rock star.  I understand that Geddy and his bandmates made many sacrifices for their careers.  Should I feel bad about that?  It's something that is necessary for just about everyone over the course of their lives.  When I got to the part about the tragedy of Neil's wife and daughter, I couldn't help but think about people who go through similar situations but don't have the means to take years off travelling the world to try to find the inspiration to work again.  That is literally all I could think about while reading those passages.

 

Maybe I find the book a little too "lifestyles of the rich and famous" for my taste.

 

 

 

 

18 hours ago, Rush Didact said:

 

Roger Waters seems generally bothered by nearly everything, why wouldn't I believe that?

I was being sarcastic :)

I've only seen two performers that were bothered by crowd noise...Steve Howe and, believe it or not, Roger Waters.  You would think that performers who have been doing it for years would just let it slide as drawing attention to it just causes more problems.

 

I was at Geddy's book tour show in Philly.  There were people yelling and applauding all the time but, since Geddy responded positively to it, it wasn't a huge deal and didn't really throw things off.

To me, this album has the perfect blend of synth and acoustic instruments.  It's one of my favorite Tull albums.  I just wish the band had stayed in this phase for another album or two before going to the extremes of "Under Wraps".

Quatrain - Jethro Tull

As much as I loved the Beatles' documentary...boy would I love something like that from Rush. I can't get enough of the "behind the scenes" stuff with them.

Should Putin be regarded as Nostradamus' "unknown" antichrist? He certainly appears to be headed in that direction.

I figured "The Rush Forum" would be high on his list, I just didn't expect him to wreak havoc with it before the invasion started.

 

No problem access this post, by the way, from the notifications link. And, obviously, I was able to post to the site.

I'm located in Northeast USA and haven't been able to access posts in about two weeks. Site takes a little longer to load once I login and I can view new content listing with no problem. When I click any post in the new content listing; however, I get a "404 not found" message after a minute or so.

 

This happens on all my devices and has been going on for several weeks.

Top-notch interview Rod, great work.

 

In particular, I loved your question relating to the term "album" and how that has much less meaning now than it used to in terms of the listening experience.

 

Thank you!

 

I had 5 or 6 more questions, but he elaborated A LOT in his replies. One of the things I didn't ask is what was his recollection of the late 70's when apparently the rise of punk meant the death of prog. I was only 4 at the time, but recently I've been reading that prog was a victim of its own excesses. I wanted to hear his thoughts on that, but it would have been another 15-minute reply! :D

 

Yes...he seems very cerebral when he answers questions, bordering on philosophical.

Top-notch interview Rod, great work.

 

In particular, I loved your question relating to the term "album" and how that has much less meaning now than it used to in terms of the listening experience.

I think he is still under contract with the Saints though right? And his contract freezes while he takes time off. I bet some how he ends up in Dallas, but it may take some sort of a trade.

 

Yes...the Cowboys would need to trade for him since I believe he has 3 years left on his deal. I don't think he'd be enough of a "yes man" to appease Jerry Jones though.

 

As an Eagles fan, I always considered Payton an a-hole. He held a particular grudge against the Eagles for some reason and we all know about the bounty issues.

Folks posting that either team didn't play defense down the stretch must have watched a different game. Mahomes and Allen made some great plays under duress, that two-point conversion by Josh being a prime example.

 

It does seem that an elite QB will trump an elite defense at least 90% of the time. In the case of the Bills, they needed to do something to put more pressure on Mahomes to get rid of the ball. He had way too much time all day and an elite QB will always succeed given that much time.

 

You can't normally blitz an elite QB, but the Bills should have done that with 13 seconds left if only to force Mahomes to throw before his receivers were 20 yards down the field.

I don't care anymore, lmao. It's someone else's problem now. I'm gonna turn the TV volume down, turn the music up, sit back and laugh. My team is the San Diego Orphans, er Los Angeles Chargers fwiw. The NFL thrives on controversy! They can't even stop themselves.

 

I was just glad that the refs seemed to stay out of the way this week in regards to helping determine the outcome of the games. Wild card weekend was a different story.

 

As far as being a Chargers fan, I think you'll have a lot to look forward to in the coming years.

The current rules are fine. It's not the Chiefs fault that the Bills forgot how to play defense the last five minutes of regulation and in overtime.

I just watched the latest episode of Hard Knocks on HBO and Rush is mentioned. See if you can spot it.