Timbale

Thus Owls - a duo/band from Montreal. A little bit Kate Bush, a little bit David Bowie, a lot great.

Who Would Hold You If The Sky Betrayed Us - Thus Owls

Always.

I suppose so...but if they had jammed Making Memories that day instead....I'm not sure they would have named the label that. I mean, Peart named the song after the Ayn Rand book...so by extension they named the label after that too. Always wondered if Ray had a say as well...

I'm not being snarky - I would love it (if he is going to make new music) if he also felt released from having to sing in his upper register with his "Rush" voice. Hearing him sing in a comfortable range on new music would be aweseome.

Listening to this on steaming at the moment...decisions to be made about purchase options, as the deluxe set only comes on CD, not vinyl (which would be my preference. My lord, The Who were just completely on fire in this era. A cliche, but the song selection is an embarrassment of riches. Hard to think of someone more prolific at this level of quality than Townshend...and the band were just matching his creations with their skill perfectly. Wowzer.

Two things continue to fascinate me about this story, one fairly trivial, and one more fundamental. The part that is funny to me is that after having run the most important music magazine ever for at least 40 years, dealing with very famous musicians who are releasing albums, film stars releasing films etc.… Jann Wenner seemingly has completely no idea how to get a media story straight before doing an interview. The fact that he was unprepared to have that conversation, and to not think in 2023 that an interviewer might ask about the fact he was featuring 7 straight, white dudes, was hilariously shocking to me. All he had to say was these are seven of my favourite musicians talking about Rock 'n' roll, and their perspective speaks to me, and I'm excited to share it with you. To see someone that involved with media fumble an interview that badly is amazing. But the more important and more troubling aspect of that interview is that it shows how his biases may very well have compromised the coverage that certain artists received from a (at the time) very important and influential publication. As Rush fans, we know a tiny little bit about that. It is no secret that Wenner disliked Rush, and clearly his taste affected the coverage, or more accurately, the lack of coverage that the band received from the magazine. And that was a band made up of three straight, white males. Wenner's absurd opinion that black musicians and female musicians do not have insight into music itself clearly must have impacted who got coverage and who didn't. Again, the influence of Rolling Stone in the 70s and 80s cannot be understated… And to think of his role as a cultural gatekeeper when he held views like that is super problematic.

I was gobsmacked by that NYT interview. Not by his opinions, necessarily (it does not surprise me that he is a bigoted guy) but that he seemed totally unprepared for the question...and just kept shooting himself in the foot. Epic-level stupidity.

I always knew they should have put Bytor & The Snow Dog in the lead-off track position...

Has anyone ever read a description of the band naming the record label Anthem? I can only assume this was Peart paying tribute to the Ayn Rand novella...but I've never heard any of them talk about what I guess is a re-naming from Moon records. It seems a little bit funny that the new guy, in the band for such a short period of time, got to give the label its name...

That's cool to know - I don't really know Jethro Tull's music that well, so I wouldn't know what to look for in terms of influence. With him being such a Who fan, I always assumed that he was a fan of Townshend's lyric writing....I've just never heard him mention it. And besides that one Dylan quote (not a lyric, just some comment about inspiration) I've never heard him talk about Dylan's writing, either.

I can see strong connections between Peart and Sting and Peter Gabriel (I don't know Pete Hammill's stuff) - I just have never, ever heard him discuss it, which strikes me as odd. He loved both of their bands (Police and Genesis) so much, such formative influences...and yet never a mention of the lyrics (that I've read)...

I've never seen Top Gun or Dirty Dancing.

Neil talked a lot in interviews over the years about drumming influences - and bands he loved - but when it came to discussing lyrics, he always seemed to talk about authors, not songwriters. Did he ever discuss lyricists he liked? He talked a lot about loving The Who, for instance...but I've never read anything where he discussed Townshend as a lyricist. Do you think he had songwriting influences?

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit! His songwriting is really great, loved him ever since Drive By Truckers...but man, his band is seriously talented.