Late Genesis records shared two traits with Phil Collins' solo efforts, though Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks could bring out more of Collins' artsy, prog-rock side. Those traits:
1. Goofiness. All those "videos about making a video." Light-hearted pop fare like Invisible Touch.
2. Sanctimony. Collins seemed desperate to make social statements with a bludgeon. "Hey, homelessness is bad!" Thanks for the update, Mr. Brokaw.
On rare occasion, those two traits combined -- and worked.
And here it is ... Jesus He Knows Me.
First of all, the song works. The fast tempo suggests a con-artist preacher waving his hands and speaking quickly in the hopes that you don't notice his message is drivel. The lyrics dish out plenty of zingers without dwelling on them as if they're carved on stone tablets.
It's not a great showcase for Rutherford and Banks, but it's a funny thing about Genesis -- for all their prog-rock history, have you ever thought of these guys in the same company as Rick Wakeman, Geddy Lee, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, etc., in terms of instrumental mastery? The "prog" in their prog-rock comes from the concepts, not the skills.
The video builds nicely on the concept, in part because all three guys rise to the acting challenge and are willing to have fun with themselves. Collins accurately captures televangelical affectations, and the sequence of Rutherford being caught with a woman who's not his wife and "the man I met last night" is priceless.
Land of Confusion makes good use of the briefly popular Spitting Image puppets and is almost as effective, but I'd give the slight edge to this one.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Sunday, July 08, 2007
The opposable-thumbs guide to Rush, Part III
I don't usually apologize for lack of posting -- people here generally realize I come home from a long day of work and chase two kids around, so I can't always dash something out, particularly if it involves some ... um ... what do you call it? ... oh ... thought.
(I know -- what thought?)
But I should apologize to Ed here for taking so long to get to what he calls "the meat of it." That's one way of describing the next four Rush albums. The other -- this is Rush's Golden Age.
A Farewell to Kings (1977)
If you viewed Rush as a metal band, this one might have been a little bit of a shock. Grab the album -- hey, the cover's mix of medieval and modern industrial themes looks like something Ozzy and the boys might do -- and plop it on the turntable. Then you hear a classical guitar intro with a synthesizer counterpoint. Not just a bunch of synthesizer effects like you heard on 2112. Geddy Lee has put down the bass to play keyboards.
Not permanently, of course. For the next 15 years or so, Lee would hop back and forth between instruments like Elaine hopping back and forth between Puddy and the rest of New York. He would be recognized as rock's best bassist and best keyboardist, the latter by default unless you really dug the dorky intro to Bon Jovi's Runaway.
Lee wasn't alone in adding new sounds. Check Wikipedia's list of the instrumentation, taken straight from the liner notes. Alex Lifeson isn't just "guitar" anymore; he's "electric, acoustic and classical guitars, bass pedal synthesizer." Lee gets credit for an occasional 12-string strum, plus Mini-Moog AND bass pedal synthesizers. Oh yeah, plus vocals. Neil Peart: "drums, cowbells, orchestra bells, wind chimes, triangle, bell tree, vibra-slap, tubular bells, temple blocks."
(Cowbell AND temple blocks? Can you tell the difference?)
Peart plays most of that in the intro to Xanadu, one of two 10/11-minute songs here and a certifiable Rush classic. It's an ethereal intro, with a low synthesizer drone and a few quiet guitar notes as Peart drifts between instruments with unusual subtlety. Then Lifeson slowly cranks up a circular riff playing in and against the rhythm -- a riff that Ed Robertson has been known to toss into a Barenaked Ladies medley -- and boom! We're in classic rock nirvana.
While Rush was extending its sound palette in this album, the literary references also were broader. The Wikipedia entry notes a few of them -- Xanadu from Coleridge, the titletrack loosely derived from Hemingway, Cinderella Man (one of Lee's last lyrical contributions) from Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Omitted from Wikipedia -- the nod to Don Quixote in Cygnus X-1, with the La Mancha man's horse sharing a name with the protagonist's ship as he steers into a black hole.
The other songs aspired to poetry. Madrigal -- the only song on this album not to feature on any live release -- was the sort of sonnet any Renaissance Faire fan would love to sing to a loved one. Closer to the Heart, like Xanadu, emerged as a Rush standard, a singalong favorite at live shows for the next 25 years or so.
Though 2112 is the megaseller, Wikipedia claims A Farewell to Kings was Rush's first gold album. That seems slightly fishy, though who knows how the RIAA arrived at its numbers pre-Soundscan.
The AllMusic review sums it up well: "A Farewell to Kings successfully built on the promise of their breakthrough 2112, and helped broaden their audience." Overall, this album was their strongest to this point -- two classics of diverse styles and amiable songs throughout. Perhaps the titletrack and the Cinderella Man/Madrigal duo were a little subdued for some tastes, and Cygnus X-1 could strike you as awfully silly if you're not in the mood, particularly when Geddy Lee hits the highest note/screech you've ever heard.
But that was just part one ...
Hemispheres (1978)
Strange cover, isn't it? Frankly, that may have held back this album. 2112's cover may have made some parents squeamish if they'd been exposed to some of Bible Belt propaganda about satanic influences, but most parents were too smart to buy into it. This one would make your parents and your schoolmates wonder what the heck you were buying.
The other thing holding back this album is the lack of a killer hook. You can blast into the power chords of The Temples of Syrinx, and a lot of rock fans know it's 2112. There are several memorable guitar licks on Xanadu and a singalong melody on Closer to the Heart. The next two albums were textbook classic rock hooks -- The Spirit of Radio, Freewill, Tom Sawyer, YYZ, Limelight. On this album, you might get a glimmer of recognition from a fellow Rush fan if you pick out the main theme from La Villa Strangiato on your guitar. That's about it.
And that's a shame, because on a sheer artistic level, Rush never topped this one. It's a masterpiece.
Start with the end -- La Villa Strangiato, one of the strangest songs you'll ever love. It's the first full-fledged Rush instrumental, and it's almost 10 minutes long. (That helped me when I ran cross-country in high school -- to take my mind off various aches and nausea, I would try to play the whole song in my head as I ran. Get through it twice, and I should be finished with a 5K run.)
This is Rush at its most playful, with all three guys showing off their dexterity with a bunch of crazy riffs and fills that somehow worked in combination. The subtitle is "An exercise in Self-Indulgence," but most prog-rock bands were far worse when it came to showing off. This is a fun listen, not some excruciating exercise conceived to impress a guitar geek.
Working backwards -- the middle song on Side 2 is The Trees, a neat allegory on overpursuing equality. (See the lyrics.) Perhaps that's the Ayn Rand influence, but it's more restrained than Anthem. After a classical guitar intro (extended live, as we'll see later), Geddy Lee chimes in about "unrest in the forest." It seems the maples are upset because the oaks are too tall, blocking all the sunlight. After an abrupt shift to 12/8 time, our third time signature in a relatively short song, we learn that the creatures have fled. We get a brief musical interlude and then the punch line: "the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe and saw."
You can find a bit of debate in various corners of the Web about the interpretation, but to me it's pretty simple: Equality shouldn't mean that the most exceptional among us are cut down.
Still working backwards to finish off the three-song Side 2: Circumstances is the least substantial song here but still an interesting power-rock listen. Wikipedia says it has made a stirring comeback in Rush's live show after a 28-year absence.
That leaves Rush's second and final 20-minute, full-side epic: the titletrack, or Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres. It's largely forgotten, not appearing in any form on any Rush live album or compilation until a few bars popped into the R30 Overture on the 30th anniversary DVD.
And yet, I'd argue that it's a better piece of music than 2112. There's much more to it, lyrically and musically.
The "hemispheres" are the left brain and right brain. They're represented here, as in Greek mythology, by Apollo and Dionysus. They struggle for supremacy until the guy who fell into the black hole shows up in some of Peart's best imagery -- "I have memory and awareness, but I have no shape or form. As a disembodied spirit, I am dead and yet unborn. I have passed into Olympus as was told in tales of old. To the city of immortals, marble white and purest gold."
From his outsiders' point of view, he's able to convince the gods that they need both reason and emotion. They call him Cygnus, the god of balance, and Geddy sings an acoustic-guitar final movement to reminds us what we've learned.
More Rand? Well, maybe and maybe not, as Wikipedia notes. Though Rand also argued for the union of heart and mind, she may have been paying lip service to the "heart" part. From the Wikis: "Peart is quoted in his view of the events of Woodstock and Apollo II as being mutually beneficial (notably, against the opinion of Rand, who was not a fan of Woodstock.)"
Take that, frat-boy libertarians.
AllMusic's Greg Prado argues that Hemispheres deserves mention along with Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures as one of Rush's best albums. Perhaps, although this one didn't have the impact of the next two. After working through four albums of prog-rock experimentation, the last three quite successful artistically, Rush was ready to pare it down a little and put its grand ideas in more digestible chunks. And that would make them megastars, at least for a few years.
We'll talk about that in Part IV.
(I know -- what thought?)
But I should apologize to Ed here for taking so long to get to what he calls "the meat of it." That's one way of describing the next four Rush albums. The other -- this is Rush's Golden Age.
A Farewell to Kings (1977)
If you viewed Rush as a metal band, this one might have been a little bit of a shock. Grab the album -- hey, the cover's mix of medieval and modern industrial themes looks like something Ozzy and the boys might do -- and plop it on the turntable. Then you hear a classical guitar intro with a synthesizer counterpoint. Not just a bunch of synthesizer effects like you heard on 2112. Geddy Lee has put down the bass to play keyboards.
Not permanently, of course. For the next 15 years or so, Lee would hop back and forth between instruments like Elaine hopping back and forth between Puddy and the rest of New York. He would be recognized as rock's best bassist and best keyboardist, the latter by default unless you really dug the dorky intro to Bon Jovi's Runaway.
Lee wasn't alone in adding new sounds. Check Wikipedia's list of the instrumentation, taken straight from the liner notes. Alex Lifeson isn't just "guitar" anymore; he's "electric, acoustic and classical guitars, bass pedal synthesizer." Lee gets credit for an occasional 12-string strum, plus Mini-Moog AND bass pedal synthesizers. Oh yeah, plus vocals. Neil Peart: "drums, cowbells, orchestra bells, wind chimes, triangle, bell tree, vibra-slap, tubular bells, temple blocks."
(Cowbell AND temple blocks? Can you tell the difference?)
Peart plays most of that in the intro to Xanadu, one of two 10/11-minute songs here and a certifiable Rush classic. It's an ethereal intro, with a low synthesizer drone and a few quiet guitar notes as Peart drifts between instruments with unusual subtlety. Then Lifeson slowly cranks up a circular riff playing in and against the rhythm -- a riff that Ed Robertson has been known to toss into a Barenaked Ladies medley -- and boom! We're in classic rock nirvana.
While Rush was extending its sound palette in this album, the literary references also were broader. The Wikipedia entry notes a few of them -- Xanadu from Coleridge, the titletrack loosely derived from Hemingway, Cinderella Man (one of Lee's last lyrical contributions) from Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Omitted from Wikipedia -- the nod to Don Quixote in Cygnus X-1, with the La Mancha man's horse sharing a name with the protagonist's ship as he steers into a black hole.
The other songs aspired to poetry. Madrigal -- the only song on this album not to feature on any live release -- was the sort of sonnet any Renaissance Faire fan would love to sing to a loved one. Closer to the Heart, like Xanadu, emerged as a Rush standard, a singalong favorite at live shows for the next 25 years or so.
Though 2112 is the megaseller, Wikipedia claims A Farewell to Kings was Rush's first gold album. That seems slightly fishy, though who knows how the RIAA arrived at its numbers pre-Soundscan.
The AllMusic review sums it up well: "A Farewell to Kings successfully built on the promise of their breakthrough 2112, and helped broaden their audience." Overall, this album was their strongest to this point -- two classics of diverse styles and amiable songs throughout. Perhaps the titletrack and the Cinderella Man/Madrigal duo were a little subdued for some tastes, and Cygnus X-1 could strike you as awfully silly if you're not in the mood, particularly when Geddy Lee hits the highest note/screech you've ever heard.
But that was just part one ...
Hemispheres (1978)
Strange cover, isn't it? Frankly, that may have held back this album. 2112's cover may have made some parents squeamish if they'd been exposed to some of Bible Belt propaganda about satanic influences, but most parents were too smart to buy into it. This one would make your parents and your schoolmates wonder what the heck you were buying.
The other thing holding back this album is the lack of a killer hook. You can blast into the power chords of The Temples of Syrinx, and a lot of rock fans know it's 2112. There are several memorable guitar licks on Xanadu and a singalong melody on Closer to the Heart. The next two albums were textbook classic rock hooks -- The Spirit of Radio, Freewill, Tom Sawyer, YYZ, Limelight. On this album, you might get a glimmer of recognition from a fellow Rush fan if you pick out the main theme from La Villa Strangiato on your guitar. That's about it.
And that's a shame, because on a sheer artistic level, Rush never topped this one. It's a masterpiece.
Start with the end -- La Villa Strangiato, one of the strangest songs you'll ever love. It's the first full-fledged Rush instrumental, and it's almost 10 minutes long. (That helped me when I ran cross-country in high school -- to take my mind off various aches and nausea, I would try to play the whole song in my head as I ran. Get through it twice, and I should be finished with a 5K run.)
This is Rush at its most playful, with all three guys showing off their dexterity with a bunch of crazy riffs and fills that somehow worked in combination. The subtitle is "An exercise in Self-Indulgence," but most prog-rock bands were far worse when it came to showing off. This is a fun listen, not some excruciating exercise conceived to impress a guitar geek.
Working backwards -- the middle song on Side 2 is The Trees, a neat allegory on overpursuing equality. (See the lyrics.) Perhaps that's the Ayn Rand influence, but it's more restrained than Anthem. After a classical guitar intro (extended live, as we'll see later), Geddy Lee chimes in about "unrest in the forest." It seems the maples are upset because the oaks are too tall, blocking all the sunlight. After an abrupt shift to 12/8 time, our third time signature in a relatively short song, we learn that the creatures have fled. We get a brief musical interlude and then the punch line: "the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe and saw."
You can find a bit of debate in various corners of the Web about the interpretation, but to me it's pretty simple: Equality shouldn't mean that the most exceptional among us are cut down.
Still working backwards to finish off the three-song Side 2: Circumstances is the least substantial song here but still an interesting power-rock listen. Wikipedia says it has made a stirring comeback in Rush's live show after a 28-year absence.
That leaves Rush's second and final 20-minute, full-side epic: the titletrack, or Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres. It's largely forgotten, not appearing in any form on any Rush live album or compilation until a few bars popped into the R30 Overture on the 30th anniversary DVD.
And yet, I'd argue that it's a better piece of music than 2112. There's much more to it, lyrically and musically.
The "hemispheres" are the left brain and right brain. They're represented here, as in Greek mythology, by Apollo and Dionysus. They struggle for supremacy until the guy who fell into the black hole shows up in some of Peart's best imagery -- "I have memory and awareness, but I have no shape or form. As a disembodied spirit, I am dead and yet unborn. I have passed into Olympus as was told in tales of old. To the city of immortals, marble white and purest gold."
From his outsiders' point of view, he's able to convince the gods that they need both reason and emotion. They call him Cygnus, the god of balance, and Geddy sings an acoustic-guitar final movement to reminds us what we've learned.
More Rand? Well, maybe and maybe not, as Wikipedia notes. Though Rand also argued for the union of heart and mind, she may have been paying lip service to the "heart" part. From the Wikis: "Peart is quoted in his view of the events of Woodstock and Apollo II as being mutually beneficial (notably, against the opinion of Rand, who was not a fan of Woodstock.)"
Take that, frat-boy libertarians.
AllMusic's Greg Prado argues that Hemispheres deserves mention along with Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures as one of Rush's best albums. Perhaps, although this one didn't have the impact of the next two. After working through four albums of prog-rock experimentation, the last three quite successful artistically, Rush was ready to pare it down a little and put its grand ideas in more digestible chunks. And that would make them megastars, at least for a few years.
We'll talk about that in Part IV.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Strange search terms
I checked out the page counter today and discovered that someone arrived at this blog by searching for "megyn price lesbian."
Not sure why anyone would be searching along those lines. I haven't seen any rumors, and she and her husband are apparently expecting.
(A hazy memory from Grounded for Life, one of Price's former shows: Donal Logue tells a nun his life has been difficult because he had three kids so young. Nun: "And whose fault is that?" Logue: "Yours!")
She was also one of USA TODAY's Top 20 High School Students back in the day, which is impressive. Not exactly an airheaded blonde sitcom star.
Also apparently not a lesbian.
Grounded for Life had its moments, but I never really got into it. I liked the premise -- two parents who are far too young, trying to be fun-loving young adults while dealing with a house full of kids -- and Logue and Price are terrific. But it was held back by the occasional sitcom cliche, and some of the supporting cast was truly horrible.
I haven't seen Rules of Engagement, her new show, and I know I should. I like Patrick Warburton, and I need to see Bianca Kajlich to be truly up-to-date with U.S. soccer.
(Why? Meet Kajlich's husband.)
Anyway, back to Price -- at Yahoo, this blog is the 19th result for "megyn price lesbian." But in 16th, it's ... my work blog?
Not sure why anyone would be searching along those lines. I haven't seen any rumors, and she and her husband are apparently expecting.
(A hazy memory from Grounded for Life, one of Price's former shows: Donal Logue tells a nun his life has been difficult because he had three kids so young. Nun: "And whose fault is that?" Logue: "Yours!")
She was also one of USA TODAY's Top 20 High School Students back in the day, which is impressive. Not exactly an airheaded blonde sitcom star.
Also apparently not a lesbian.
Grounded for Life had its moments, but I never really got into it. I liked the premise -- two parents who are far too young, trying to be fun-loving young adults while dealing with a house full of kids -- and Logue and Price are terrific. But it was held back by the occasional sitcom cliche, and some of the supporting cast was truly horrible.
I haven't seen Rules of Engagement, her new show, and I know I should. I like Patrick Warburton, and I need to see Bianca Kajlich to be truly up-to-date with U.S. soccer.
(Why? Meet Kajlich's husband.)
Anyway, back to Price -- at Yahoo, this blog is the 19th result for "megyn price lesbian." But in 16th, it's ... my work blog?
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The pseudo-intellectual's guide to Rush, Part II
From The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (PDF): "Put more bluntly, if the early progressive rockers' conceptions of utopia reflected Marxian and neo-Marxian totalistic visions of the 60s, the utopianism of Rush's work (both lyrically and musically) reflects the more decentralized, individualist and less totalizing visions of Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, and F.A. Hayek that gained intellectual currency in the 70s."
The writer briefly tackles the idea of whether Rush drifted away from Rand over the decades, but he omits Geddy Lee's appearance on a charity work (Tears Are Not Enough, Canada's answer to We Are the World, which was the U.S. answer to Band Aid) and the bleeding-heart compassion that infused their more recent albums. He also forgets to mention that Ayn Rand sucks. (Trust me -- I was a philosophy major. And music.)
And yet Rand inspired their breakthrough. And it's not bad.
2112 (1976)
"Hey, kids! Check this out! It's a 20-minute sci-fi epic inspired by a philosopher you'll pretend to understand and then pretend to like until you finally wake up your senior year and realize most of her followers are frat boys just name-dropping to excuse their habit of pissing out the dorm window! The big red star on the cover will be just enough to make your parents worry that you're dabbling in satanism! It covers a lot of the same territory as Styx's Kilroy Was Here, though Tommy Shaw probably likes this one better."
I'm underselling it. This is a classic album -- the second-biggest seller of Rush's career -- with good reason.
The titletrack is an inherently silly story, the now-cliche tale of someone in a repressive society discovering rock as a liberating force. The saving grace is that it's told well. The overture effectively builds the drama with a series of stirring riffs. Then come the bad guys -- "the priests at the Temple of Syrinx" -- with an appropriately menacing power-chord riff. The good guy then finds a guitar -- still plugged in, apparently -- and quickly teaches himself everything from harmonics to bar chords before rushing off to show the priests. They don't like it, he somehow dies, and then we have a revolution.
It's mind-blowing stuff with a lot of terrific guitar lines and some of Neil Peart's best drum fills. That's saying a lot.
Side 2 offers five unrelated songs of varying quality. Something for Nothing has more solid classic-rock fundamentals from Alex Lifeson but is ultimately forgettable. Lessons is kind of amusing. The much quieter Tears -- a ballad more traditional than just about anything Rush would do in the next three decades -- features a mellotron NOT played by Geddy Lee, though Geddy tiptoes into keyboards on the titletrack. I see a listed song called The Twilight Zone, but I honestly can't remember it.
That leaves A Passage to Bangkok, which is curious in that it's a drug song by a band known for spending most of its offstage hours reading and working out. But it's a killer guitar riff. I've always had a vague sense that Rush fans consider this an overlooked gem, which would explain the opening bit in the R30 DVD in which Jerry Stiller (yes, THAT Jerry Stiller) laments that "they never do Bangkok."
Rush had hit the big time, which made this an opportune time to start a tradition of releasing a live album after every four studio albums ...
All the World's a Stage (1976)
Which is interesting only for collectors or anyone trying to trace the evolution of Peart's drum solos. Rush wound up releasing several more live performances from this era, undercutting the value of this one.
At the time, though, it was useful, giving Rush its highest-charting album to date at a lofty #40. Yes, 2112 actually never got that high on the charts, which were skewed in those pre-Soundscan days, even though it's gone platinum several times over.
If Rush had never scaled such heights again, 2112 may have been forgotten. Instead, this was the beginning of what you'd have to consider Rush's Golden Age. (OK, Platinum, to be picky -- 2112 started a run of 10 straight platinums.) For the next four albums, Rush would rarely hit a bad note.
The writer briefly tackles the idea of whether Rush drifted away from Rand over the decades, but he omits Geddy Lee's appearance on a charity work (Tears Are Not Enough, Canada's answer to We Are the World, which was the U.S. answer to Band Aid) and the bleeding-heart compassion that infused their more recent albums. He also forgets to mention that Ayn Rand sucks. (Trust me -- I was a philosophy major. And music.)
And yet Rand inspired their breakthrough. And it's not bad.
2112 (1976)
"Hey, kids! Check this out! It's a 20-minute sci-fi epic inspired by a philosopher you'll pretend to understand and then pretend to like until you finally wake up your senior year and realize most of her followers are frat boys just name-dropping to excuse their habit of pissing out the dorm window! The big red star on the cover will be just enough to make your parents worry that you're dabbling in satanism! It covers a lot of the same territory as Styx's Kilroy Was Here, though Tommy Shaw probably likes this one better."
I'm underselling it. This is a classic album -- the second-biggest seller of Rush's career -- with good reason.
The titletrack is an inherently silly story, the now-cliche tale of someone in a repressive society discovering rock as a liberating force. The saving grace is that it's told well. The overture effectively builds the drama with a series of stirring riffs. Then come the bad guys -- "the priests at the Temple of Syrinx" -- with an appropriately menacing power-chord riff. The good guy then finds a guitar -- still plugged in, apparently -- and quickly teaches himself everything from harmonics to bar chords before rushing off to show the priests. They don't like it, he somehow dies, and then we have a revolution.
It's mind-blowing stuff with a lot of terrific guitar lines and some of Neil Peart's best drum fills. That's saying a lot.
Side 2 offers five unrelated songs of varying quality. Something for Nothing has more solid classic-rock fundamentals from Alex Lifeson but is ultimately forgettable. Lessons is kind of amusing. The much quieter Tears -- a ballad more traditional than just about anything Rush would do in the next three decades -- features a mellotron NOT played by Geddy Lee, though Geddy tiptoes into keyboards on the titletrack. I see a listed song called The Twilight Zone, but I honestly can't remember it.
That leaves A Passage to Bangkok, which is curious in that it's a drug song by a band known for spending most of its offstage hours reading and working out. But it's a killer guitar riff. I've always had a vague sense that Rush fans consider this an overlooked gem, which would explain the opening bit in the R30 DVD in which Jerry Stiller (yes, THAT Jerry Stiller) laments that "they never do Bangkok."
Rush had hit the big time, which made this an opportune time to start a tradition of releasing a live album after every four studio albums ...
All the World's a Stage (1976)
Which is interesting only for collectors or anyone trying to trace the evolution of Peart's drum solos. Rush wound up releasing several more live performances from this era, undercutting the value of this one.
At the time, though, it was useful, giving Rush its highest-charting album to date at a lofty #40. Yes, 2112 actually never got that high on the charts, which were skewed in those pre-Soundscan days, even though it's gone platinum several times over.
If Rush had never scaled such heights again, 2112 may have been forgotten. Instead, this was the beginning of what you'd have to consider Rush's Golden Age. (OK, Platinum, to be picky -- 2112 started a run of 10 straight platinums.) For the next four albums, Rush would rarely hit a bad note.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Strains of cynicism
News people are cynics. They should be skeptics rather than cynics, but they're not.
Sports people also are cynics. But they're very different. Here's how:
News people will follow anything political no matter how scummy the people involved might be. In fact, the scummier the better. A crook who speaks with little regard for truth and decency generates better stories than an amiable low-key representative. The most strident spokespeople get coverage for their organizations or their blogs.
Sports people are more willing to declare something -- a team, a game, a sport -- illegitimate or unworthy because they loathe the people involved. If they get sick of the NFL and NBA, they'll turn to something they deem less corrupt like Little League or Patriot League football.
I'm not sure which is worse. "News" has become much less useful as it descends into a mere catalog of extremists. Reporters and bloggers take seriously a lot of people who really should be ranting at ducks in a neighborhood park. That attention helps those people sell books and get elected, and that's a Bad Thing.
But the news folks are at least a little more open-minded than sports people.
What brought this on? This post, in which a guy a Blogcritics declares this summer devoid of interesting sports.
Here's a partial list of what's he ignoring:
1. An unusually competitive America's Cup
2. Possibly the best men's tennis player ever
3. The possible self-destruction of a golf prodigy
4. The emergence of an auto racing pioneer
5. International soccer all over
6. A scary-fast U.S. sprinter
All of which makes me glad I'm not a cynic, however uncool I might look.
Sports people also are cynics. But they're very different. Here's how:
News people will follow anything political no matter how scummy the people involved might be. In fact, the scummier the better. A crook who speaks with little regard for truth and decency generates better stories than an amiable low-key representative. The most strident spokespeople get coverage for their organizations or their blogs.
Sports people are more willing to declare something -- a team, a game, a sport -- illegitimate or unworthy because they loathe the people involved. If they get sick of the NFL and NBA, they'll turn to something they deem less corrupt like Little League or Patriot League football.
I'm not sure which is worse. "News" has become much less useful as it descends into a mere catalog of extremists. Reporters and bloggers take seriously a lot of people who really should be ranting at ducks in a neighborhood park. That attention helps those people sell books and get elected, and that's a Bad Thing.
But the news folks are at least a little more open-minded than sports people.
What brought this on? This post, in which a guy a Blogcritics declares this summer devoid of interesting sports.
Here's a partial list of what's he ignoring:
1. An unusually competitive America's Cup
2. Possibly the best men's tennis player ever
3. The possible self-destruction of a golf prodigy
4. The emergence of an auto racing pioneer
5. International soccer all over
6. A scary-fast U.S. sprinter
All of which makes me glad I'm not a cynic, however uncool I might look.
Friday, June 29, 2007
The semi-intelligent guide to Rush, Part I
Two reasons I'm doing this. First, I've always wanted to do an "Idiot's Guide," Jefito-style. Second, Jefito recently took up a Rush song (Dreamline) and made me realize I had mixed feelings about the band's 1990s output. Third (because I can't count), I have mixed feelings about the new one. So I'll go on some self-exploration and sort out my feelings, but instead of venting about relationships (happy) or work, I'll riff on an often-great band.
Should be fun, right? Right? Aw, come on -- would it help if I told you I think the new one sounds a little like Primus?
I'm tackling the first three here. Enjoy. And see the whole catalog at Amazon.
Rush (1974)
It's easy to dismiss this album as a pedestrian clone of the blues rock on FM radio at the time. cranked out by a couple of Canadian 20-year-olds who happened to impress a few people on the bar-band circuit. AllMusic does exactly that, giving it a lowly two stars. It bears little resemblance to the rest of their output, simpler both lyrically and musically. It's the only album released with original drummer John Rutsey.
And yet a couple of songs live on after all these years, which is more than you can say for, say, early Alanis Morissette releases. Finding My Way is built on a couple of terrific riffs that have lasted in Rush shows to this day, with Neil Peart expanding on Rutsey's original drum parts. Working Man, which broke the band, shows up from time to time. For a couple of decades, the typical Rush encore included a gleeful rip through In the Mood, perhaps just for the irony of a couple of 40something parents singing about bad pick-up lines.
No, the other five songs don't offer much. But .375 isn't a bad batting average for a debut by a couple of guys who had just found their stage names and wouldn't be old enough to drink in today's America.
Fly By Night (1975)
AllMusic again gives two stars, but the review is kinder: "It showed that the young band was leaving their Zep-isms behind in favor of a more challenging and original direction."
Neil Peart's arrival -- Rush's only personnel change in 30-plus years -- changed the band in two ways. The lyrics were more interesting -- Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson would contribute a few more words over the next couple of albums but would eventually give the new guy free rein. And the sound was more ferocious.
Both traits were in full effect on the opener, Anthem. (See cheesy, badly synced, embedding-disabled YouTube clip.) Peart's power is a firm backdrop for Lifeson and Lee's riffs, which were already much more complex than what you heard on the debut. Lyrically, Peart was in his Ayn Rand phase -- I'd love to interview him today and find out how he reconciles this one with the social consciousness of current Rush work -- but it was eloquently expressed. Besides, a little libertarian streak isn't such a bad thing, right? It's not like he's Ted Nugent.
The titletrack also benefits from some propulsive Peart fills, along with a classic riff that is still the first thing I play when someone hands me a guitar to check it out.
By-Tor and the Snow Dog is as silly as it sounds, but it's a fun occasional listen and a worthwhile experiment in writing an extended suite.
Most of the songs here aren't bad -- Rivendell is a pretty change of pace and Beneath, Between & Behind is a good marriage of a clever Peart lyric and a shifty rhythm. Best I Can, with a Lee lyric, falls a little flat.
Caress of Steel (1975)
Like U2's October, you have to figure this is one of those albums they just, forgive the pun, rushed out. It's easily the least memorable Rush album to this day.
And yet it has one powerful song that lasted in live shows for quite a while -- Bastille Day. Good riff, sound retelling of the French Revolution -- not bad at all.
That's followed by I Think I'm Going Bald. Yes, you read that correctly. Rush recorded a song called I Think I'm Going Bald. (Funny thing -- Geddy Lee is nowhere near bald, 32 years later.)
Then it's Lakeside Park, a dreary look at the supposed good times they had hanging out in the park.
And then the first two attempts at breaking the 10-minute mark -- The Necromancer and The Fountain of Lamneth.
You could almost consider this an outtakes album with one gem and a couple of experiments gone awry.
But those experiments laid the groundwork for what was to come. (See, aren't you already looking forward to Part II? If not, I'll have other content here soon. I promise.)
Should be fun, right? Right? Aw, come on -- would it help if I told you I think the new one sounds a little like Primus?
I'm tackling the first three here. Enjoy. And see the whole catalog at Amazon.
Rush (1974)
It's easy to dismiss this album as a pedestrian clone of the blues rock on FM radio at the time. cranked out by a couple of Canadian 20-year-olds who happened to impress a few people on the bar-band circuit. AllMusic does exactly that, giving it a lowly two stars. It bears little resemblance to the rest of their output, simpler both lyrically and musically. It's the only album released with original drummer John Rutsey.
And yet a couple of songs live on after all these years, which is more than you can say for, say, early Alanis Morissette releases. Finding My Way is built on a couple of terrific riffs that have lasted in Rush shows to this day, with Neil Peart expanding on Rutsey's original drum parts. Working Man, which broke the band, shows up from time to time. For a couple of decades, the typical Rush encore included a gleeful rip through In the Mood, perhaps just for the irony of a couple of 40something parents singing about bad pick-up lines.
No, the other five songs don't offer much. But .375 isn't a bad batting average for a debut by a couple of guys who had just found their stage names and wouldn't be old enough to drink in today's America.
Fly By Night (1975)
AllMusic again gives two stars, but the review is kinder: "It showed that the young band was leaving their Zep-isms behind in favor of a more challenging and original direction."
Neil Peart's arrival -- Rush's only personnel change in 30-plus years -- changed the band in two ways. The lyrics were more interesting -- Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson would contribute a few more words over the next couple of albums but would eventually give the new guy free rein. And the sound was more ferocious.
Both traits were in full effect on the opener, Anthem. (See cheesy, badly synced, embedding-disabled YouTube clip.) Peart's power is a firm backdrop for Lifeson and Lee's riffs, which were already much more complex than what you heard on the debut. Lyrically, Peart was in his Ayn Rand phase -- I'd love to interview him today and find out how he reconciles this one with the social consciousness of current Rush work -- but it was eloquently expressed. Besides, a little libertarian streak isn't such a bad thing, right? It's not like he's Ted Nugent.
The titletrack also benefits from some propulsive Peart fills, along with a classic riff that is still the first thing I play when someone hands me a guitar to check it out.
By-Tor and the Snow Dog is as silly as it sounds, but it's a fun occasional listen and a worthwhile experiment in writing an extended suite.
Most of the songs here aren't bad -- Rivendell is a pretty change of pace and Beneath, Between & Behind is a good marriage of a clever Peart lyric and a shifty rhythm. Best I Can, with a Lee lyric, falls a little flat.
Caress of Steel (1975)
Like U2's October, you have to figure this is one of those albums they just, forgive the pun, rushed out. It's easily the least memorable Rush album to this day.
And yet it has one powerful song that lasted in live shows for quite a while -- Bastille Day. Good riff, sound retelling of the French Revolution -- not bad at all.
That's followed by I Think I'm Going Bald. Yes, you read that correctly. Rush recorded a song called I Think I'm Going Bald. (Funny thing -- Geddy Lee is nowhere near bald, 32 years later.)
Then it's Lakeside Park, a dreary look at the supposed good times they had hanging out in the park.
And then the first two attempts at breaking the 10-minute mark -- The Necromancer and The Fountain of Lamneth.
You could almost consider this an outtakes album with one gem and a couple of experiments gone awry.
But those experiments laid the groundwork for what was to come. (See, aren't you already looking forward to Part II? If not, I'll have other content here soon. I promise.)
Programming note
I don't usually apologize for long absences from the blog, but I figured it'd be worthwhile to let you know what I've been up to:
- Weekend trip to Boston
- This story
- This story
- Story to run in another week or so
- The usual blog
- Parenting
We resume regular programming now. Wait, no, I don't have regular programming. So in this case, I'm going to start a series on Rush. But I'll mix up topics so you're not reading about Rush until September.
- Weekend trip to Boston
- This story
- This story
- Story to run in another week or so
- The usual blog
- Parenting
We resume regular programming now. Wait, no, I don't have regular programming. So in this case, I'm going to start a series on Rush. But I'll mix up topics so you're not reading about Rush until September.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Boba Fett obsession
What's the deal with Boba Fett? Is it the suit? The name? Why do people think he's so cool? Isn't he kind of an intergalactic jackass?
Friday, June 08, 2007
Why Spinal Tap rings true
"There's such a fine line between clever and stupid." -- David St. Hubbins, in This is Spinal Tap
"I don't know whether you'd call him a genius or just a complete idiot." -- Rick Allen (Def Leppard) describing late bandmate Steve Clark in a VH1 Classic Albums piece on Hysteria
"I don't know whether you'd call him a genius or just a complete idiot." -- Rick Allen (Def Leppard) describing late bandmate Steve Clark in a VH1 Classic Albums piece on Hysteria
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Song review -- Midnight Oil, "Feeding Frenzy"
(Lyrics)
The late, great Musician magazine once had a story on Midnight Oil that recounted how Aussie radio stations refused to play their early stuff because the band were "antisocial." Musician rightly noted what a crock that is, that Midnight Oil may sound angry but are one of the most socially conscious bands around. As I recall from various interviews, they're actually a fine bunch of Christian lads*, though they never recorded anything with a religious theme that I know of. (Maybe on one earlier work.) They're not yelling out of hate. They're yelling to make things better. And it's not Peter Garrett's fault he's tall, bald and a little intimidating.
Yet the Oils did indeed sand down the punk edges a bit as they matured. The breakthrough 1987 album Diesel and Dust -- a classic if there ever was one -- mixes up tones and textures with great skill.
But even after DandD, the follow-up Blue Sky Mining and the requisite three-year breaks in those days for bands that had "made it," Midnight Oil could still summon some righteous fury.
This is the opening track in Earth and Sun and Moon, which would prove to be something of a commercial swansong for the Aussies, at least outside their home country. (They recorded three more studio releases before Garrett went into politics full-time and got elected to Parliament.) It's clear from the first note they're not messing around.
Bones Hillman lays down a menacing bass line over Rob Hirst's shimmering cymbals. Once that's established, Jim Moginie takes a swipe at the organ, then slowly builds a chord from the bottom up and brings it back down. The organ fades, the bass keeps going, and then Hirst batters out a quick roll and a powerful fill. By the time Martin Rotsey (I'm guessing, barring some overdubs) announces his presence with a double-bend, you know you're about to hear something important, like a message from some musically proficient cousin of the Emergency Broadcast System.
Yet this is one of Garrett's more abstract lyrics. He's going for imagery here, painting a picture of our lives of consumption teetering precariously on the edge of a threatened Earth.
The bass line chugs through the verses, letting Moginie and Rotsey hint at the chord structure with a few ominous notes in the distance.
The band's dramatic skill shines most in the bridges, with swelling organ chords and the Oils' trademark Arpeggios of Doom. Seriously -- this band can take simple arpeggios and make it sound as if the flood is coming, and you'd better get moving on that ark. (Ah -- NOW we find the Christian themes.)
Not one of their better-known songs, but a good concise introduction to the band in case you haven't heard them before. On the album, it forms a potent one-two with My Country, which reminds us of the old saying about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. After that, it's not their most consistent album. The single Truganini and the acoustic-driven Bushfire are the standouts.
* -- if you want to read about Garrett's take on faith and politics, check his site for an eloquent speech.
The late, great Musician magazine once had a story on Midnight Oil that recounted how Aussie radio stations refused to play their early stuff because the band were "antisocial." Musician rightly noted what a crock that is, that Midnight Oil may sound angry but are one of the most socially conscious bands around. As I recall from various interviews, they're actually a fine bunch of Christian lads*, though they never recorded anything with a religious theme that I know of. (Maybe on one earlier work.) They're not yelling out of hate. They're yelling to make things better. And it's not Peter Garrett's fault he's tall, bald and a little intimidating.
Yet the Oils did indeed sand down the punk edges a bit as they matured. The breakthrough 1987 album Diesel and Dust -- a classic if there ever was one -- mixes up tones and textures with great skill.
But even after DandD, the follow-up Blue Sky Mining and the requisite three-year breaks in those days for bands that had "made it," Midnight Oil could still summon some righteous fury.
This is the opening track in Earth and Sun and Moon, which would prove to be something of a commercial swansong for the Aussies, at least outside their home country. (They recorded three more studio releases before Garrett went into politics full-time and got elected to Parliament.) It's clear from the first note they're not messing around.
Bones Hillman lays down a menacing bass line over Rob Hirst's shimmering cymbals. Once that's established, Jim Moginie takes a swipe at the organ, then slowly builds a chord from the bottom up and brings it back down. The organ fades, the bass keeps going, and then Hirst batters out a quick roll and a powerful fill. By the time Martin Rotsey (I'm guessing, barring some overdubs) announces his presence with a double-bend, you know you're about to hear something important, like a message from some musically proficient cousin of the Emergency Broadcast System.
Yet this is one of Garrett's more abstract lyrics. He's going for imagery here, painting a picture of our lives of consumption teetering precariously on the edge of a threatened Earth.
The bass line chugs through the verses, letting Moginie and Rotsey hint at the chord structure with a few ominous notes in the distance.
The band's dramatic skill shines most in the bridges, with swelling organ chords and the Oils' trademark Arpeggios of Doom. Seriously -- this band can take simple arpeggios and make it sound as if the flood is coming, and you'd better get moving on that ark. (Ah -- NOW we find the Christian themes.)
Not one of their better-known songs, but a good concise introduction to the band in case you haven't heard them before. On the album, it forms a potent one-two with My Country, which reminds us of the old saying about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. After that, it's not their most consistent album. The single Truganini and the acoustic-driven Bushfire are the standouts.
* -- if you want to read about Garrett's take on faith and politics, check his site for an eloquent speech.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Re-recording Sgt. Pepper
Fun videos from the BBC of several bands re-recording songs from Sgt. Pepper. Naturally, I gravitated toward the Stereophonics entry.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
To blog or not to blog?
Through Mindy McAdams' blog, I stumbled into some back and forth on why all journalists should blog. Or not. The last word for now goes to Bobbie Johnson of The Guardian, who wrote the initial "not" post in this conversation and, naturally, finds himself on the defensive.
That's the way things go in these discussions. As Bobbie puts it, debates over journalism and the Web tend to have a lot of "with us or against us" rhetoric. Scott Karp, who pushes the "all journalists" theme here, is actually a bit more receptive to Bobbie's argument than most Web hipsters I've seen. I've been in some conversations with people who have all the dogmatic zeal of a religious convert, and they don't appreciate even a gentle teasing -- say, being labeled as a "Web hipster."
Basically, there's a "cool crowd" in journalism these days, and it's full of early adopters of any Web technology you can imagine. You'd think I'd fit in with them, having spent close to a dozen years involved with the Web, but I really don't. For one thing, I've seen too many "latest things" on the Web fail. Web hipsters can gripe about newspapers all they want, but newspapers are still in business -- and quite profitable, though they're obviously not growing in the way stockholders would like.
I usually see where the Web hipsters are coming from. I often like the technology as much as they do. I'm just not as willing to posit my news-reading habits on the population at large, and I share Bobbie's aversion to sweeping generalizations.
In this case, Karp makes a convincing argument on the benefits of blogging. But he doesn't convince me everyone should do it. Here's part of the response I left on his site: "Blogging is just one of several skills you can develop as a journalist. A reporter who can blog is valuable, but so is a reporter who can edit. So is an editor who can create multimedia presentations. So is a Web content developer who can debug code."
That covers one half of the argument -- that blogging rounds out journalists' skills. The second half is that blogging teaches journalists how dive into the messy but rewarding world of interacting with readers.
But that assumes journalists weren't interacting with readers before "blog" entered some dictionaries.
Just as blog evangelists (including me) could argue that journalists could learn something about interaction via blogs, newspaper vets (also including me) could argue that every journalist should spend time with a small- or mid-sized paper, dealing with angry callers and getting yelled at by high school coaches.
And the feedback you get via blog is rarely representative of your readership as a whole. If you're out in the neighborhood and people know you're working for the paper, they'll often tell you what they think of the paper. Blog feedback is less random -- and frankly, less useful.
Because here's the funny thing about all the lecturing that Web hipsters love to give journalists: You can convince the journalists that they're supposed to be doing all these things. But you might not convince the readers the they're going to use the tools the way you've envisioned.
That's the way things go in these discussions. As Bobbie puts it, debates over journalism and the Web tend to have a lot of "with us or against us" rhetoric. Scott Karp, who pushes the "all journalists" theme here, is actually a bit more receptive to Bobbie's argument than most Web hipsters I've seen. I've been in some conversations with people who have all the dogmatic zeal of a religious convert, and they don't appreciate even a gentle teasing -- say, being labeled as a "Web hipster."
Basically, there's a "cool crowd" in journalism these days, and it's full of early adopters of any Web technology you can imagine. You'd think I'd fit in with them, having spent close to a dozen years involved with the Web, but I really don't. For one thing, I've seen too many "latest things" on the Web fail. Web hipsters can gripe about newspapers all they want, but newspapers are still in business -- and quite profitable, though they're obviously not growing in the way stockholders would like.
I usually see where the Web hipsters are coming from. I often like the technology as much as they do. I'm just not as willing to posit my news-reading habits on the population at large, and I share Bobbie's aversion to sweeping generalizations.
In this case, Karp makes a convincing argument on the benefits of blogging. But he doesn't convince me everyone should do it. Here's part of the response I left on his site: "Blogging is just one of several skills you can develop as a journalist. A reporter who can blog is valuable, but so is a reporter who can edit. So is an editor who can create multimedia presentations. So is a Web content developer who can debug code."
That covers one half of the argument -- that blogging rounds out journalists' skills. The second half is that blogging teaches journalists how dive into the messy but rewarding world of interacting with readers.
But that assumes journalists weren't interacting with readers before "blog" entered some dictionaries.
Just as blog evangelists (including me) could argue that journalists could learn something about interaction via blogs, newspaper vets (also including me) could argue that every journalist should spend time with a small- or mid-sized paper, dealing with angry callers and getting yelled at by high school coaches.
And the feedback you get via blog is rarely representative of your readership as a whole. If you're out in the neighborhood and people know you're working for the paper, they'll often tell you what they think of the paper. Blog feedback is less random -- and frankly, less useful.
Because here's the funny thing about all the lecturing that Web hipsters love to give journalists: You can convince the journalists that they're supposed to be doing all these things. But you might not convince the readers the they're going to use the tools the way you've envisioned.
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