GrandDesigner

I'm a drummer and I've never found any of Neil's parts to be "too hard" to play. He's obviously skilled, but there's nothing he's done on a drumset that cannot easily be replicated with a bit of rehearsing. Natural Science is simple, there's absolutely nothing of difficulty in that song drum-wise. I'd say his most challenging would be La Villa Strangiato as there are a lot of shifting feels that need to be smoothly executed, or something off of PoW or HYF where he is utilizing percussion within beats. The chorus of Mystic Rhythms can be hard to replicate without proper foot-triggers, but even that's easily done with a bit of practice.

 

La Villa is the hardest, no doubt.

 

Really? You don't think the whole of Hemispheres, Snakes and Arrows, Test for Echo, and Permenant Waves are "too hard"? You have to dig deeper into his playing. Take a look at his "Taking Center Stage" DVD. You will notice things he does you would not even believe are possible. Leave that Thing Alone and Main Monkey Business come to mind. His techniques are pretty hard to master, especially keeping a rhythm. I know a lot of drummers who think they're hotshots but can't even keep a simple Beatles song the same tempo by the end.

 

Now, don't take this the wrong way as saying you don't have enough experience to replicate his playing but it's pretty much a job to keep up with his current playing level. I haven't seen one person keep their left foot going on the highhat and using it as a metronome like he does. The man is a machine. All four of his limbs are constantly doing stuff now it just makes you want to throw up that he's actually a human being. I'm surprised he doesn't even use his head as a limb to play.

 

Even my dad is a drummer (38 years of experience and Neil has been his idol since he first started drumming) and he is still floored by Neil's playing.

 

I would say all-together...Cygnus X-II, La Villa, Test for Echo, Gangster of Boats Series, Headlong Flight and Natural Science are the craziest and complicated RUSH songs.

 

But it's not a job to keep up with his playing. Natural Science has NOTHING difficult in it. Hemispheres the song is basic patterns and disco beats on the hi-hat. La Villa is legitimitely challenging, but that's mainly due to the abrupt switches in feels/parts that need to be smoothly transitioned. Keeping a hi-hat going through a beat is really easy for anyone who's gained any sort of limb independence from playing drums for a few years,

 

I'm not knocking Neil at all. His parts are GREAT. But they are nowhere near difficult or as difficult as people make them out to be.

I'm a drummer and I've never found any of Neil's parts to be "too hard" to play. He's obviously skilled, but there's nothing he's done on a drumset that cannot easily be replicated with a bit of rehearsing. Natural Science is simple, there's absolutely nothing of difficulty in that song drum-wise. I'd say his most challenging would be La Villa Strangiato as there are a lot of shifting feels that need to be smoothly executed, or something off of PoW or HYF where he is utilizing percussion within beats. The chorus of Mystic Rhythms can be hard to replicate without proper foot-triggers, but even that's easily done with a bit of practice.

 

La Villa is the hardest, no doubt.

I absolutely love AToTT and W&W, probably more than anything from the PG era. Those two albums have a dark, romanticism about them that I just adore. One For The Vine and Ripples are also two of my favorite Genesis songs, along with Fading Lights.

 

I never hated the progression from prog to pop, in fact, it was always interesting to go through the albums chronologically and hear them gradually strip away just a tiny bit more with each successive album. I've even grown to love IT. The only real PC era thing I'm not a fan of is the overall adult-contemporary vibe they had on WCD, it'd be better if it was more ambient/progressive as opposed to sappy.

They also covered It's Electric on garage Inc. and covered Sucking My Love way back in the early 80's. I prefer the Metallica versions by FAR, though that may be because I heard them first. I'd love to see them cover the title track (Lightning...), as that is my favorite DH song.

Number City is the tits!

 

Yeah, Descension is shaping up to be even better than Ascension. Number City is a pretty unique song, and catchy as hell! Dark Side of Me is probably the one that's blown me away the most so far, both the remix and studio versions.

The Rush/Geddy Lee connection was much more obvious on Coheed's first 2 albums (SSTB and IKS), where his voice was very reminiscent of a cross between early 80's Geddy Lee and Michael Jackson, but by their 3rd album he developed his voice into its current sound. I agree completely that he no longer sounds a thing like Geddy Lee, and the whole connection to Rush is pretty farfetched. The main reason they are so heavily compared is that C&C have a song called 21:13, but even that sounds NOTHING like Rush.

 

This band is incredible. The Afterman albums might just be my favorite thing this band has done, even topping IKS which I never thought would happen.

10. Hessian Peel

9. The Night And The Silent Water

8. Ghost Of Perdition

7. By The Pain I See In Others

6. The Baying Of The Hounds

5. The Twilight Is My Robe

4. Godhead's Lament

3. White Cluster

2. Advent

1. The Moor

Just finished

%5Bimg%5Dhttp%3A//i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t372/AMFIFHE/Ghost-in-the-Wires_zpsd12aaa31.jpg[/img]

 

And am now reading

%5Bimg%5Dhttp%3A//i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t372/AMFIFHE/GorkyPark_zps540812dc.jpg[/img]

Steven Wilson! Claudio is my favorite vocalist ever and can write better hooks than anyone on this planet, but his body of work is still very very small compared to SW.

There's so much music out there that I'll be happy with whatever he does. If he wants to hold off on PT until he feels "inspired" again, then it's win-win as he'll keep doing awesome solo stuff in the meantime.

A drum should be tuned to it's inherant pitch, which may not correspond to the tune of 3 Blind Mice across the toms. This is why you start with the bottom head to find the right pitch for the drum. Trying to force a drum to a pitch will cause more problems and that's when drums start to sound bad and ring. A well tuned drum will resonate best at it inherant pitch which is why DW drums are marked with their pitch on the inner shell. Every drum has an inherant pitch but only DW seem to put that information on the shells themselves. They shell match for enharmonic pitches on their kits, which is one reason they are so expensive. Finding the inherant pitch is not difficult if you take your time and start with the bottom head only. If you have trouble talk with someone at your local store or a drum teacher. But yeah, it is a learned skill.

 

I meant using Three Blind Mice in terms of relative pitch between each tom. The distance between each tone in TBM is generally how three standard toms should sound when played in succession. And since it's a used Imperialstar, I'm sure we're not talking any wild tom sizes, it's probably your typical 12/13/16.

With tuning, not too tight or too loose is generally a good starting point. And try to exert even pressure on all the lugs or else one side will be wrinkly and the other side will be super-tight. Just remember, recorded drum sounds on albums sound MUCH different and more controlled and "prettier" than in real life so the drums will be loud, brash, sound ugly, and probably ring quite a bit, but it's just the nature of the instrument. Earplugs are a solid investment and make everything sound more "controlled." You can't go wrong with sticking a pillow or small blanket into the bass drum, but I am firmly against muffling any other drums as they should ring out naturally. Try to tune the drums to the tune of Three Blind Mice, where Three is the smallest tom, Blind is the middle tom, and Mice is the floor tom.

 

With cymbals, they can get very expensive so a lower-quality cymbal pack is probably the way to go. The ones below would be good picks for a beginner since they have a pair of hi-hats, 2 crashes, and a ride cymbal, which are the absolute essentials for a kit. The cost is pretty reasonable too for 4 cymbals. And don't forget you'll have to buy cymbal stands as well which will jack up the price considerably.

 

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/drums-percussion/sabian-xs20-brilliant-cymbal-set-w-free-18-medium-thin-crash

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/drums-percussion/sabian-b8pro-xs20-mix-cymbal-pack

 

Carpeting is a must or else the drums will slide all over the place.

 

Drums are very tough to make sound good, but you'll eventually get the hang of it.

I'll try to do only one per band (barring Yes)

 

Yes - The Gates Of Delirium

Pink Floyd - Echoes

Rush - 2112

Billy Joel - Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

King Crimson - Starless

Camel - Lady Fantasy

Genesis - The Cinema Show

Elton John - Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding

Can - Halleluhwah

Yes - Ritual

Easily The Afterman by Coheed & Cambria. Surprisingly it's their shortest as well, I literally listen to it over and over again still 2 months after its release.

 

Runners up:

 

Passion Pit - Gossamer

Rush - Clockwork Angels

Beardfish - The Void

Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made

Neon Trees - Picture Show

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

Between The Buried & Me - Parallax 2

Anathema - Weather Systems

Silversun Pickups - Neck Of The Woods

In no order:

 

Coheed & Cambria - The Afterman

Silversun Pickups - Neck Of The Woods

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

Rush - Clockwork Angels

Between The Buried & Me - The Parallax 2

Passion Pit - Gossamer

Neon Trees - Picture Show

Marillion - Sounds That can't Be Made

The Flower Kings - Banks Of Eden

Anathema - Weather Systems

Anyone heard Koi No Yokan yet? I just realized that this band has been consistently awesome for 7 albums now, and they somehow slip under the radar even though they're a pretty huge band.

 

This album is their best, by far. Chino's voice has held up miraculously well, and he sounds better than ever. The writing is solid, with tons of great ideas and lots of experimentation too. It's just an awesome collection of dark, moody, music that feels like an evolution from Diamond Eyes and their previous work.

 

YotBR was great by the way. This band has yet to disappoint me, NWFT is the only album that is a majority of just decents to duds imo.

 

Same. I thought YOTBR was awesome, especially Guns of Summer, Far, Made Out Of Nothing, and In The Flame of Error. NWFT is definitely their weakest, the ending suite falls flat and it doesn't have the finality that the final album in the saga should have and the shorter songs are weak (though I LOVE G&G and Justice...)

Chicken tikka with naan bread

 

Spoonbread

Man, I remember watching his drum videos back in the early 2000's and thinking "wow, what a cool and humble drummer". He was a huge inspiration to me and seemed to have a ton of integrity and now he's turned into this loud-mouthed, wannabe lead vocalist 'fawkin' metal' asshole diva he's been for the past few years. I can't even pinpoint when his persona switched, but I'm pretty sure it was during the 6DOIT time period. I want 90's Mike Portnoy back, where he stayed behind the kit and wrote innovative drum parts and kept his mouth shut.

 

It's sad to see one of my previous idols fall so hard, but he's making it really hard to give a shit anymore

Pretty lame that they switched. I really don't get their thought process sometimes with setlists...they take out an obscure song that fans really might want to hear after a 28 year live absence and put in a song that has been played at EVERY SINGLE SHOW EVER SINCE 1981. Why not remove a heavily played song like Force 10, Red Sector A, or The Big Money and replace one of them with Limelight?

 

 

You MUST get In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth:3. It's their masterpiece (basically the C&C version of Moving Pictures) and really shows the band at their most pure before they veered a little more into classic rock territory with the GA's and beyond.

 

In order of what I would get:

 

In Keeping Secrets...

Good Apollo Volume 1

Second Stage Turbine Blade

Year Of The Black Rainbow

Good Apollo Volume 2

Absolutely outstanding show. The PW material was my favorite part, as well as the CA set. I can't believe how long they played and how comprehensive their set was.

 

Literally, NO other band who's been around as long as them have put out the best album of their career 38 years in, and NO other band as old as them in history has played their entire new album in concert. Most bands their age do one or two songs and then rely on their hits to sell the show. I really admire Rush for doing what they did this tour.

 

My only gripe is that we got the B setlist, as I would've preferred Manhattan Project, Seven Cities, and The Body Electric, but I still loved the songs they did instead.

f**k my life this looks fantastic. Everything from the MCIS sessions is gold. Between the album itself and all the outtakes on The Aeroplane Flies High, there's so much amazing music.

 

I always thought the album sounded pretty bad...very muddy and overly bassy. I'd like to hear this thing remixed and remastered.

Most exciting Dexter episode since I can remember!

 

I like how they spit it right out in the first episode of the season. No 11 episodes spent beating around the bush waiting for Deb to find out the truth.

QUOTE (J2112YYZ @ Sep 30 2012, 10:25 AM)

What the hell is "Don't Look Past Me"