Slim

"Nature has some new plague / to run in our streets", he'd have said. No - wait, I think he'd already said that.

Interesting one. Power Windows was a huge step forward IMO; the word that always comes to mind is "architectural". It's like a three-dimensional structure. But at the same time the minimalist, simple production of GUP is part of its charm.

Happy to see that, was wondering what might happen to the original site.

I completely agree. I've found this news difficult to process, and I'm not even sure I can explain what I mean by that - something to do with what the band meant to me when I was younger, a sense of finality, an oddness that something that meant so much to me has been so irrevocably damaged and broken without anything actually changing in a practical sense. I'm not sure. Perhaps the best way I can put it is that it feels like a significant moment. The nature of something that's been part of me since I was 16 has changed forever. Whatever Rush is to me, it's different now. But while I think it's really sad that Neil had to cope with this terminal illness so soon after his retirement, and that his loved ones have to do without him, I'm not one of them. I haven't been hurt or upset by this. I'm certainly not mourning. No offence whatever to those of you who have taken it hard. But I don't get preparing for the death of someone you don't know, and haven't been in touch with in any sense for years. By the way I do believe this is my landmark 400th post here. I believe I joined up in 2004, so it's taken a while.

On Saturday afternoon while I was out on my new winter bike I listened to 2112. I thought it was the album that best represented that time when I first became a Rush fan, 43 years ago. There was a time when that album was utterly immersive for me but while I did enjoy it, I did find myself zoning out. It did sort of wash over me in parts. Perhaps partly because I've heard it so many times now, perhaps because those aren't really ideal listening conditions, pedalling along country lanes in the cold. Perhaps because I'm just not the enthralled, wide-eyed teenager who bought that album on his seventeenth birthday.

This one. http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/coverpics/Sounds16jul1977.jpg It was printed with an interview with Neil in a music magazine I read a few weeks after I saw them for the first time, in 1977. You can read that article here: http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19770716sounds.htm Just read through it again and remembered the anticipation of waiting for A Farewell To Kings. And I've just noticed that he mentions the Newcastle show that I went to a few weeks earlier, my first rock concert. Not sure I've read that piece again since 1977. And now, for the first time, I've just felt the sting of tears come to my eyes. But don't worry, readers - I've blinked 'em back.

I never use 'RIP' myself, because as you suggest, it's nonsense. I suspect that Geddy and Alex, if they were actually responsible for that rather than someone in the band's management, used it only as a polite convention.

It's the Beatles

Got to admit I like those old Steven Seagal films. Not the straight to video nonsense he's been doing for the last 20 years, of course. So Geddy has a '55 Strat and a '59 Les Paul. Fantastic.

Bizarre, but quite appealing.

Mine was June 11th, 1977. Newcastle City Hall; the first UK tour. http://truth.justdied.com/images/rushtic001.jpg At that time I only had a cassette copy of All The World's A Stage, but I was in love with it. Four weeks later on my 17th birthday I bought Fly By Night, Caress of Steel and 2112.

This is the band I liked when I was a student

I liked their first album a lot, but that's it. EDIT: correction, just checked - it was actually their second album that I liked. Not sure I ever heard the first one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Seconds

YYZ is sort of fusion-ish. So's the funky instrumental break in Cinderella Man. Reminds me of Weather Report.

My all-time favourite is John McLaughlin's Electric Guitarist

Yep - different gravy.

I like their early material (as above) but apart from the youthful angst and energy it's disposable really. Weller really blossomed as a songwriter a couple of years later: See also: Down In The Tube Station At Midnight, Going Underground and (especially) Town Called Malice. I actually prefer his work with his next band, the Style Council, to his Jam stuff. It's not as tough but it's much more interesting.

I think you do know :tsk:

Republican Perhaps you're joking? "For a person of my sensibility, you're only left with the Democratic party," says Peart, who also calls George W. Bush "an instrument of evil." "If you're a compassionate person at all. The whole health-care thing — denying mercy to suffering people? What? This is Christian?" http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/from-rush-with-love-cover-story-20150616

They aren't going to make another album - they've only recorded three albums of original material in the last twenty years so I can't imagine it's something they'd be motivated to do now. I think touring was their business in the latter years. Records don't make that much money. A far cry from the first time I saw them, when the concert ticket was less expensive than an album.

I do want to maintain a measure of humility here, but - Zeppelin, Sabbath, Floyd, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Bowie, the Faces. And The Beatles, if you consider the last three albums. That said, all of those artists owe a big debt to Rock and Roll and the Blues, and of course the invention of the electric guitar. I can think of quite a few American bands and artists I like, but not that many in the Classic Rock genre. The Doobie Brothers, the Allmans, I like the Eagles a bit. Kiss. I love Zappa actually but he was a bit too far out there for me to think of him as a Classic Rock artist. Steely Dan, there's a brilliant American band.

I'd heard of them in '76 or '77. You'd see reviews of their albums and the occasional interview in the British music press. Geoff Barton, who was the most prominent champion of Rush in the UK music press back then, was a fan. I bought their live album in '79. They were mostly thought of as Rolling Stones imitators, and there's some truth in that. But certainly they weren't well known or popular over here. Partly (I suspect) because they weren't very well promoted by their record company, partly (probably) because they didn't tour over here. It's often hard for bands to break through in different territories. And quite honestly, partly because their early stuff isn't really that original or interesting. By 1977 rock music in the classic form had become passé and it would be hard for a traditional rock band to gain traction. There was a resurgence in '79 but the bands who came to prominence - like Leppard and Maiden - were home grown, new and had more of a visceral appeal than the old guard of rockers.

I bloody loved the '80s.

Without a doubt The Weapon, based on this old tune:

That was my second thought, after "why oh WHY did I buy it in the first place?" Because I'm a completist, of course. But it really is one of the worst records I've heard by any band or artist.