New RUSH Album!

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by goofyfish, Mar 28, 2002.

  1. goofyfish Analog By Birth, Digital By Design Valued Senior Member

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    5,331
    I just received the following message from a RUSH mailing list (indeed, it is the ONLY message I have ever received from that list, which I don't even remember having signed up for):

    ======

    The wait is over! Rush have just announced details of their eagerly awaited new album, VAPOR TRAILS. The 13-track collection - produced by Rush with engineer Paul Northfield (Marilyn Manson, Hole) - is set for release on May 14th.

    VAPOR TRAILS sees the legendary power trio - Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart - redefining their intensely individualistic music, blending their famously complex dynamics with driving melodic hooks and a passionate, personal lyrical approach. Tracks like the kinetic "How It Is," the emotive "Sweet Miracle," and the propulsive album-opening "One Little Victory" are angular, atmospheric and altogether extraordinary. With the visionary new VAPOR TRAILS, Rush has taken a bold step forward, making it clear that one of rock 'n' roll's all-time great bands are more than just back, they're better than ever.

    The album will be heralded by the single, "One Little Victory," slated to ship to rock radio outlets nationwide on March 29th. The band is currently finalizing plans for a major North American tour. Tentatively set to kick off in late June, the trek will mark Rush's first live performances since July 1997. The tour's first leg will be announced shortly.

    VAPOR TRAILS is Rush's 17th studio recording, and their first all-new collection in over 5 years. The Canadian trio's 22 albums have all been certified RIAA gold-or-better, with cumulative worldwide sales of over 35 million. Their most recent Anthem/Atlantic releases are 1996's gold-certified TEST FOR ECHO, followed by 1998's gold-certified multi-disc live set, DIFFERENT STAGES.

    Rush: "VAPOR TRAILS"
    Track Listing
    1. "One Little Victory"
    2. "Peaceable Kingdom"
    3. "Ghost Rider"
    4. "Ceiling Unlimited"
    5. "The Stars Look Down"
    6. "How It Is"
    7. "Vapor Trail"
    8. "Out Of The Cradle"
    9. "Earthshine"
    10. "Sweet Miracle"
    11. "Nocturne"
    12. "Freeze (Part IV of 'Fear')"
    13. "Secret Touch"

    ======

    So they are apparently following in Douglas Adams' footsteps and adding a fourth part to a trilogy. It kills me that we'll have to wait 'til May when they're releasing a single this month!

    Peace.
     
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  3. Ana Registered Senior Member

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    111
    YEEEEHAAAAA!

    That's right little buddy! And I'm waiting to buy tickets to my first (and probably only) Rush CONCERT this summer!!!! Can't wait! I'm going nuts just thinking about it!

    Did ya check out the new pic of the trio? Neil is OPENLY SMILING...yes, you read correctly...OPENLY SMILING....ahhh...the boys are back and better than ever I suspect! Can't wait for the official Rush page to get going....the "eye" on it is not cutting it for me anymore! www.officialrush.com
     
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  5. Counterbalance Registered Senior Member

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    373
    LOL!!!

    Now, why are we NOT surprised to see that Ana has made the first post on this thread?!?!

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    Kinda giving me the impression that you're excited (or something!) about this new cd and tour.

    Gosh... can't imagine why.

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    Counterbalance

    (who is ALSO looking forward to hearing the new stuff!!! )
     
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  7. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Rush... Those guys must be getting rather old.
     
  8. Ana Registered Senior Member

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    111
    EM YA BUT...

    RUSH AGES LIKE A FINE WINE....
     
  9. Ana Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    111
    Oh Dr. Evyl....

    dude, check out www.2112.net/powerwindows/

    if you haven't already.......

    oh and in case you weren't aware you may purchase tickets already for their concert tour.....perhaps you may use your "evyyyyl" connections to get good seats cuz the scalpers are having a field day......from the original 72.50 for front row they manage to up the price to 150 to 350 ---- and Rush doesn't see a dime above their original contract price.....but that's another debate.....

    I'm excited......yeap, yeap, I'm excited. Can't wait to go to my FIRST Rush concert......I feel the rush already--doh! there I go again.

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    :bugeye:
     
  10. goofyfish Analog By Birth, Digital By Design Valued Senior Member

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    5,331
    October 25. Hershey, Pennsylvania.
    Watch out folks... The Fish is coming to town!

    Peace.
     
  11. Ana Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    111
    Scalpers suck

    Last I checked ticket prices....from "another source" the price was 510 for 2nd row in San Antonio.....

    Bastards
     
  12. Counterbalance Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    373
    ACK!! It’s the fifteenth and nobody’s posted a word about the new CD?? (CB sweeps the room with an incredulous glare) "Whut?! You’re all too spellbound? Too dumbfounded??" (A knowing grin spreads slowly...) "...‘Cuuzzzz, like, you never really doubted it would kick ass, right?"

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    (And oh how it does!

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    )


    One more suh-weeet victory for the boys. Tickets go on sale in this area tomorrow. Hell or high water, I’ll be there.

    ~~~

    From “Peaceable Kingdom”

    “All this time we’re talking and sharing our Rational View
    A billion other voices are spreading other news
    All this time we’re living and trying to understand
    Why a billion other choices are making their demands...

    Talk of a Peaceable Kingdom
    Talk of a time without fear
    The ones we wish would listen
    Are never going to hear...


    ~RUSH~
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2002
  13. Counterbalance Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    373
    Greetings, Dr Evyl..

    I’ve heard that others have been disappointed as well. And the one similarity in these less than enthusiast reviews, I think, has been a tendency to compare the new RUSH project to something they’ve already done. This makes sense when a listener has come to love works like “Moving Pictures” or “Grace Under Pressure” for example, and yet doesn’t feel quite the same appreciation for others like “Counterparts” or “Test For Echo.“ And of course they’re not the same, but as best as I can ascertain, RUSH never intended for them to be overly similar. And they, the band members themselves, are “works in progress.” (And this is not a criticism of your own observations or preferences, btw. Just sharing a couple of my own.)

    From the first time I ever heard RUSH I was struck by their “in your face” willingness to be different. No apologies. But then, they didn’t need to apologize! Good musicians producing great music and mind-opening lyrics. Over the years they’ve stated that they love it when we love their music, yet they‘ve made no secret about the fact that they “make” the kind of music they love most, first and foremost.

    RUSH songs that didn’t strike me as so great at first have without failure grown on me in time--as you noted might happen for you. In Vapor Trails I’m hearing intriguing subtleties and oddly/unexpectedly mixed nuances as well as their reliable (and justifiably proud) assertive musicianship. In the music and the lyrics I hear the latest tales of where they’ve been, what they’ve seen, and some of what they’ve experienced since they last shared their view of how things are going in this and their own worlds. (Nice to hear that Peart’s remarried since the tragic deaths of his wife and daughter.)

    On this cd, from Alex, (prank-loving guy!), I hear trippy little fits of wit and whimsy blended into the melodic whole that tells me nuthin‘ has changed. He loves to let his fingers play; he is still dancing mad intricate circles around the others.

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    From Neil, a freedom and fluidity in his drumming (a by-product of his work with Gruber a few years back?) --a re-invented groove that still drives and compels the listener to MOVE. No lack of energy detected by me.

    Geddy’s voice, now deeper, more mature, and somewhat like butter at room temperature, spreads more easily over the taut, the dark-n-grainy, as well as the smooth and gently undulating mix of compositions. The older he gets the more I appreciate that voice with its soothing wisdom and wicked wiliness.

    No question this is a hard rock band, but like a well-seasoned jazz group that‘s also been together for decades, and more so now than in the past, I think Lee, Lifeson and Peart have found ways to achieve their individual creative objectives whilst also producing an adventurous blend that actually works--for me, at least. For whether they intended it to turn out this way or not, I‘ve already caught the glint of hidden gems that are going to draw me along one fanciful side path after another for some time to come.

    Guess you could say I really like it.

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    So, yeah, I’d agree that some of what might have been hoped for is missing, but I am lovin’ what’s been served up in it’s place. Thinking it’s going to be a great show and hope you all enjoy.

    thx,

    Counterbalance
     
  14. Counterbalance Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    373
    Sent to me by Ana, bless her little RUSH-lovin' heart. Thought others might enjoy it as well--if you've not read it already.

    CB

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    By Neil Peart

    "Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on fire."

    I found those words on the wall of a bar in Montana, attributed to somebody named Reggie Leach. It seemed an
    unlikely place to find inspiration, but I carried it away with me, and thought of it more than once during the making
    of this latest Rush album.

    On a cold Monday morning in January of 2001, Geddy, Alex, and I gathered at a small studio in Toronto to start
    work again. It had been almost five years since Test For Echo, but after twenty-seven years and sixteen studio
    albums together, we were hopeful that the chemistry among us could be awakened once more, the fire
    rekindled. Deep down we were a little apprehensive-would we really be able to put together enough songs that
    we liked to fill a new album?

    Always a burning question, and more so this time, when so much life had flowed beneath our bridges. Also, in the
    past few years both Geddy and Alex had produced their own projects, for themselves and for others, and each of
    them was used to being the Supreme Boss of Everything. For many reasons, the process of meshing again had
    to be gradual, exploratory, and careful.

    We laid out no parameters, no goals, no limitations, only that we would take a relaxed, civilized approach to this
    project. No hurry, no pressure, no marathon stints in the studio (at first anyway); we would simply keep working,
    day after day, trying to strike sparks from each other and feed the slow-burning fire of collaboration and mutual
    inspiration.

    Per our usual pattern, Geddy and Alex started working together on musical ideas in the studio's control room,
    while I retreated into another little room with pen, paper, and computer to start trying to assemble lyrics. I began by
    going through my "scrapyard" of jotted notes and phrases I had collected, looking for connections to stitch
    together, while Geddy and Alex began by simply playing, setting up a rhythm machine and jamming along with
    guitar and bass.

    After a couple of weeks I had put down a few lyrics to pass over to them, but it seemed they weren't ready to get
    serious yet-they just wanted to "play." Sometimes I would take a break from wordsmithing and go down the hall to
    have a bash at my drums in the main recording room, and I would pass the control room where the two of them
    were working. Usually I heard them riffing away, exploring some interesting directions and recording everything,
    but there weren't any songs yet.

    We would talk at the beginning or end of the day, and I knew the two of them were starting to get excited about
    their explorations, but didn't want to stop for the relatively tedious job of listening through all those raw ideas and
    choosing the best ones to assemble into a coherent structure.

    For myself, once I had a half dozen lyrics finished I began to feel a little unsure how to proceed. I wanted to know
    which ones might be "working" for them, to receive some feedback, and some influence, from where they were
    going musically. So I stopped lyric-writing for awhile, and started writing a book instead. (As one does.)

    Eventually Geddy began to sift through the vast number of jams they had created, finding a verse here, a chorus
    there, and piecing them together. Often a pattern had only ever been played once in passing, but through the
    use of computer tools it could be repeated or reworked into a part. Since all the writing, arranging, and recording
    was done on computer, a lot of time was spent staring at monitors, but most of the time technology was our friend,
    and helped us to combine spontaneity and craftwork. Talk was the necessary interface, of course, and once
    Geddy and Alex had agreed on basic structures, Geddy would go through the lyrics to see what might suit the
    music and "sing well," then come to me to discuss any improvements, additions, or deletions I could make from
    my end.

    Gradually the songs began to come together, "Out Of The Cradle" among the first, along with "Vapor Trail," "The
    Stars Look Down," and "Earthshine." That last is notable for being the only Rush song I can recall that was later
    completely rewritten, keeping the same lyrics but replacing every single musical part. "Cradle" also underwent
    some serious surgery as time passed, and that was the kind of relaxed approach we were taking, allowing us to
    reexamine songs with the luxury of perspective, and repair or replace any parts that didn't survive that test of time.
    Sometimes a developing song seemed to lose momentum, or our faith (the critical force), and was abandoned,
    but that had always been our version of "natural selection."

    Once I had the reassurance of knowing that some of the lyrics were working, and had a feel for the musical
    context, I carried on with the lyric writing. And switching to my "drummer" hat, now that I had some song sketches
    to work on I started spending a few nights a week creating and refining drum parts, playing along to the
    still-evolving arrangements of music and vocals as my guide. Alex was my personal producer and recording
    engineer, as he had been for this phase of many past albums.

    More songs came together too, like "Secret Touch," "Sweet Miracle," and "How It Is," and as often happens,
    once we had a few songs finished that we liked, the newer ones started to get weirder. Daring grows out of
    confidence (or what the ancient Greeks called "hubris," I guess), and from this combination came "One Little
    Victory," "Ceiling Unlimited," and "Nocturne."

    By that time we had been working on our own for about six months, and felt we had enough material to benefit
    from an "objective ear," a coproducer. Paul Northfield had worked with us as recording engineer on albums going
    back to Moving Pictures and Signals in the early eighties, and on several live records over the years (as well
    as my Buddy Rich tributes), but this was the first time we had worked with him in a more creative capacity. We
    wanted someone who knew us and our music well enough to make a shortcut straight into the composing and
    arranging area, for there were still more songs to be written and organized, and make a transition from there
    straight to recording.

    That was an important difference in the way we made this record, compared to any in the past. We used to spend
    a period of time working on the songwriting, arranging, and our individual parts, then do some last-minute
    preproduction work with a coproducer before moving to a big-time studio to start the "official" recording. The
    pressure this imposed on us could be productive, and in particular I found that it could often drive me to a level of
    performance I hadn't reached before, but this time we wanted to do it differently-more gradually, with more time
    for revision and renovations.

    Some of the songs had been worked on over a period of months by that time, and were ready to record, while
    others were still under development, and a few hadn't even been written yet. So for the first time we were able to
    simultaneously work on writing new songs, arranging older ones, and recording finished performances on the
    ones we were "satisfied" with. Geddy had been able to record the vocals on his own, and Alex the guitars,
    experimenting and layering to their hearts' content, and some of those performances would remain irreplaceably
    right. In each case we were "leap-frogging" ahead, improving our individual parts and discussing changes, then
    responding to the work the others had done on their own. After so many years of playing together we intuitively
    understood each other musically, and even if we worked in isolation, we were working together.

    Paul's influence was strong through this phase, for he could help us judge the performances as "finished" or "not
    yet," and he saw possibilities that sometimes escaped us (urging "Ghost Rider" from the verge of abandonment
    to its glorious realization, for example). He also encouraged our "eccentricities" in the later-emerging songs like
    "Freeze" and "Peaceable Kingdom."

    By then certain common musical themes had emerged, like a "veiled complexity" in the parts and arrangements
    (the drum parts for "Freeze" and "Peaceable Kingdom" took me days to work out and refine, for example). Alex's
    particular agenda steered us away from the use of keyboards or guitar solos, and Geddy experimented with
    multi-tracked backing vocals as textural alternatives. Lyrically, no overall concept emerged, but I can trace some
    interesting sources for particular lines, like Walt Whitman in "Out Of The Cradle" and Thomas Wolfe in "How It Is"
    ("foot upon the stair, shoulder to the wheel") and "Ceiling Unlimited" (Wolfe's title Of Time And The River and
    looking at a map of the Mississippi Delta suggested the "winding like an ancient river" lines). "Ceiling Unlimited"
    also offers a playful take on Oscar Wilde's reversal of the Victorian lament, "drink is the curse of the working class,"
    while Joseph Conrad's Victory gave the "secret touch on the heart" line. "There is never love without pain"
    echoed from my own experience and the novel Sister Of My Heart, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and W.H.
    Auden and Edward Abbey (Black Sun) influenced certain lines in "Vapor Trail."

    An article in the magazine "Utne Reader" called "What Do Dreams Want?" contributed to my ideas in "Nocturne"
    (as well as the enigmatic mantra, "the way out is the way in," for "Secret Touch"), and I was also struck by a
    psychologist's approach to analysis and dream interpretation, "without memory or desire."

    The nineteenth-century Quaker folk artist, Edward Hicks, painted no less than sixty versions of the same biblical
    scene, "Peaceable Kingdom," and the tarot card "The Tower" seemed a chilling reflection of the events of
    September 11, 2001. A series of works by Canadian painter Paterson Ewen helped to inspire "Earthshine," and
    the title of a novel by A. J. Cronin, The Stars Look Down (which I've yet to read), seemed to express a fitting
    view of an uncaring universe.

    In the self-contained universe of our work, everything had been going very smoothly, and it was only when we
    moved into the final mixing stage that we got bogged down. It seemed that all of us, Paul included, had become
    too deeply immersed in the material, and we could no longer step back and hear the songs whole. After a few
    unsatisfying attempts, we called in a specialist, David Leonard, and he was able to sift through the parts and make
    them bright and new again, to find the hidden dynamics and textures and bring out the subtleties of the music
    and the performances.

    And so it was that we suddenly found we had been working on this project for over a year. It was not because we
    had any special difficulties, or because it was at all "overwrought," for many of the final takes of the songs had
    been captured fresh and spontaneous, more than they had ever been in the past. Far from being stale or
    over-rehearsed, often they had only been played that way once. The difference this time was that instead of
    working to schedules and deadlines, we simply carried on writing songs and recording them until we felt the
    collection of music was complete. (Someone wise once said, "no work of art is ever finished, it is only
    abandoned.")

    While putting so much time and care into every detail of the content and performance of the songs, we hadn't
    paid any attention to their length, and now we began to worry if all thirteen songs would even fit on a CD, which
    can only hold 74 minutes. There was some talk of saving a couple of songs for a compilation or something, but
    Rush has never left any "previously unreleased tracks" for anybody to capitalize on, and we weren't about to start
    now. All of these songs had taken a lot of time and effort, and we simply couldn't imagine leaving any of them
    behind. Fortunately they added up to just under 67 minutes, so we were spared any painful choices.

    Then there was the album title-never an easy decision. A unifying theme sometimes appears in the collected
    songs and suggests an overall title, like Counterparts or Power Windows; other times a particular song
    seems emblematic, like "Test For Echo" or "Roll The Bones." Neither approach seemed right this time, so we
    went with the song title we liked the best, "Vapor Trail," and made it plural to refer to all the songs. Then I went to
    work on cover ideas with our longtime art director, Hugh Syme.

    The last big challenge we faced, as always, was the running order of the songs, and we fiddled with that right up
    until the last minute. However, we never doubted which song would open the album, for "One Little Victory"
    made such an uncompromising announcement, "They're ba-a-a-ack!"

    Knowing that our music is nothing if not idiosyncratic, and doesn't really cater to popular "taste," we also
    envisioned advertising slogans along the lines of, "If you hated them before, you'll really hate them now!" Or,
    "And now-more of everything you always hated about Rush!"

    But of course, like everyone, we do hope people will enjoy our work, and that our shared enthusiasm, energy,
    and love for what we do communicates itself to the listener. When you set yourself on fire and aim for the sky, you
    hope to leave behind some sparks of heat and light.

    Like a vapor trail.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2002
  15. Counterbalance Registered Senior Member

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    373
    Another good one, courtesy of Ana-- Rush enthusiast, extraordinare.

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    CB

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



    Rush: New World Men

    "After five years and a series of tragedies, Rush didn't know if it would ever make another album..."

    By Gary Graff
    CDNOW Contributing Writer

    In the wake of a double tragedy -- the 1997 deaths of Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart's wife and daughter -- the Canadian trio went into an indefinite hiatus, with no promise to ever return.
    Singer-bassist-keyboardist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson engaged in solo recording and production projects, while Peart -- whose own solo forays had included a triumvirate of big band-styled
    albums -- slowly, and quietly, dealt with his circumstances, eventually remarrying and rejoining his bandmates.

    Not surprisingly, Rush's new Vapor Trails is brimming with lyrics about loss, renewal, and hope, as well as the occasional foray into world affairs. It's also one of the group's most vigorous outings to date, filled with the palpable sound of three old friends and longtime compatriots absolutely thrilled to be playing music together again.

    Recorded in Toronto with engineer Paul Northfield, Vapor Trails finds Rush in fine, revitalized form -- and, interestingly, using almost no keyboards,favoring instead a punchy and more direct guitar-bass-drums attack.

    CDNOW: Were you ever concerned that Rush would never come back
    together?

    Geddy Lee: I really wasn't sure, to be honest. I sort of thought in the back of my mind there'll come a time in [Peart's] life when he'll sort things out and feel a need to get back on the horse kind of thing. I
    wasn't positive that would occur, but I had a feeling it probably would, and that's what eventually came to pass.

    "By the time we got back together we felt like we'd gotten all the crap out of our systems and felt really kind of focused and excited to go on." -- Geddy Lee


    Alex Lifeson: I didn't know what to think. It was such a difficult period, and we were all in a state. All of
    us, I think, lost the love of what we were doing; I think a loss like that changes everything and the way you feel about everything. Nothing seems important anymore. I guess at some point I thought it was
    very unlikely we'd get back together; it seemed like Neil had been progressing very slowly, up and down, and reached a point where he crashed, and it seemed like it would be a long time before he
    would recover. I think meeting his wife when he did changed everything for him and gave him a new focus, and a new desire to carry on.

    Was bringing Rush back together a delicate process?

    Lifeson: It was a little bit of an adjustment. I had just finished producing a band called Lifer and had a lot of fun doing that. I came into the [Rush] project feeling really good about other things I could do outside of Rush. I think Geddy felt the same way. We talked a lot at the beginning about how the year had affected us and where we were going and what other interesting things we had done. Slowly we
    started playing and started having fun with it. It took a few months before we kind of got it back.

    Lee: Alex and I had to get to know each other again as writing partners. Neil was getting used to being
    back in Toronto. The first few months were not so fruitful and a little frustrating; I think it was us sort of shaking the rust off and Neil kind of building his confidence back. Eventually we said, "Look, let's take a month off now. Let's go away and see what we've been doing here." By the time we got back together -- that was about July of 2001 -- we felt like we'd gotten all the crap out of our systems and felt really kind of focused, and excited to go on. From that point on, things started coming, and it was very fresh and
    even fun. We ended up with way more material than we had expected.

    There's a real renewed energy on Vapor Trails. This is a very hard-rocking record with a kind of joyful feel to it.

    Lee: Absolutely. This record is all about spirit. Once everybody stopped kind of being on tenterhooks and stopped worrying about "Can we produce?" and actually relaxed enough to enjoy the fact we were still here, and we did have a passion to continue ... I think it was really a lot of fun and quite electric when Alex and I jammed; we were looking at each other during some of these jams going, like, "Wow, keep going ..." A lot of those original jams we kept intact, and this album, more than any Rush album, has that sense of kind of live playing.

    There's also much less synthesizer than there has been on Rush albums
    since the late '70s. Lee: Alex wouldn't let me put any keyboards on it [laughs].

    Lifeson: Yes, that was the law ... because they suck [laughs]. I just thought it would be great if we used more organic instruments to achieve the same sort of background sounds the keyboards were providing
    in the past. I wanted to create things with the guitar and with Geddy's voice. It was way more fun.

    Lee: I think he was right in the end; I was becoming a little dependent on keyboards to provide melody, and his desire to stay away from them forced me to use our main instruments in a different
    way. This album is very three-piece and also very intricate even though there's only guitar, bass, and drums. Some songs have three layers of bass tracks, and some songs have five or six nuanced guitar
    parts. And in some songs, the guitars act like violins.

    Lifeson: This record was all about the three of us in a very pure kind of way. It was a rebirth in a lot of ways. It needed to be stripped-down.

    "At some point, I thought it was very unlikely we'd get back together. It seemed like Neil had been progressing very slowly, and … it would be a long time before he would recover." -- Alex Lifeson

    While most of the songs seem to reflect on personal issues, "Peaceable Kingdom" addresses current
    events.

    Lee: That was one of the few post-9/11 songs we wrote. I think it's quite clearly influenced by that event and the aftermath, the thinking and worrying, and the pain of all the things that happened in the world
    after that point. There's something about the song that's very special for me in the fact that it recognizes the rage and the cause, and puzzling nature of trying to understand cultures that are so
    different and so angry, and at the same time, it's all about wishing. It's about praying, in a way, and wishing it all away, wishing for a better time.

    It's been five years since the last record: Where does Rush fit into the rock-and-roll scheme of things?

    Lee: Oh, I don't know ... I think we're like the last descendants of the Zeppelin era. In some ways, we're proponents of hard rock and still with a whiff of progressive rock in there. I don't know what to say beyond that.
     
  16. Ana Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    111
    And to think, they used to give me a headache...

    TAKE IT FROM ME! Rush had to grow on me....I grew up on mainstream stuff and although Rush has plenty of songs that made it to the top in the radio charts....they are quite different from mainstream stuff. At first they gave me a headache....maybe my neurons trying to readjust to new sensory pleasures?

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    Who knows, and at this point, although it still confounds me, I donna give a rat's...rear end.

    So it is, as it was and shall be.....Rush is once again growing on me. It wasn't what I expected....it doesn't really follow a trend, it is a separate work of art. Neil is different, he's a little more mellow in this one (he's warmin' up for the next album???) but you have to take into account that the man was out of his drumming environment for 2 years while he traveled through North America (his new book Ghost Rider will be out sometime in June). And so what if Alex isn't wailing his guitar...he has many interesting things he's offering in this album. Ged is back to his wailing self....and I'm happy to be able to sing along (doh!)

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    . And bless his bass rippin' self...geez that little thing he does at the beginning of Sweet Miracle......ahhh, I've been craving one of those since Counterparts.

    My two fav. tracks of the moment are Vapor Trail and Sweet Miracle. They sound a bit more like "the old Rush" if one can call them that. But the other songs are growing on me. The lyrics already won me over. Neil is more personal this time around and that is refreshing from a guy who normally likes to keep his privacy--private!:bugeye:

    Glad you enjoyed those articles Counterbalance. There are many more, if anyone cares to take a peek at: www.2112.net/powerwindows/
     
  17. goofyfish Analog By Birth, Digital By Design Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,331
    Individual Projects

    I read an article preceding Vapor Trails (by a day or so) indicating that both Lee and Lifeson had done solo albums. Huh?! I know about Lee's, but not Lifeson's! I did a search on Amazon and came up with a 1996 album (only available used -- I can buy it for only $99!) and that he apparently played on the Andromeda TV show's soundtrack. Is that the one the article is talking about? Or is there another one floating around out there somewhere?

    As far as Peart, he apparently has a book coming out called Ghost Rider. According to Amazon, it will be released in paperback June 1. Or maybe it's in September, when a book with the same name but with an added subtitle will be released in both hardcover and paperback. Unfortunately, the publisher (Pottersfield Press -- who did his earlier book about riding in West Africa) doesn't even have info on it. And Barnes & Noble online doesn't list ANY of 'em. So I thought I'd see if anybody has heard anything

    Peace.
     
  18. Counterbalance Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    373
    Clarity is good, Dr. Evyl. (I genuinely appreciate and admire folks who try to improve ‘understanding.’) As for myself I tend not to make hard assumptions where people and their written words are concerned, as doing so rarely pays off. So my comments about comparisons between Rush projects were offered to you as general observation, as one might do when carrying on a casual conversation. (granted, “casual” to one, is not casual to another.)

    Got a kick out of your Dom Perignon remark. Rush is unrivaled in many respects, one of those ways being how completely okay they are about the mixed receptions some of their work has received. I certainly have no beef with you if we have differing opinions about Vapor Trails.

    I’ve listened to the cd now too many times to count and still don’t have a problem with it. And I suspect it’s because I like Rush’s willingness to explore or experiment with their creativity, even with the ‘quality of sound,’ or the number of Lifeson’s solos on a given cd. I don't buy their cd's with set expectations; don’t know what Lifeson may have had in mind, so there wasn’t much of a way for them to let me down. Hmmm... better take that back. If they’d sounded anything like Brittney Spears...(sp?) I’d have had a problem.

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    I still can’t settle on a favorite song, or a top 3, 4, or 5 songs. TODAY... “The Stars Look Down,” “Secret Touch, “Freeze,” and “Ceiling Unlimited” are the ones running through my mind. Yesterday, “Vapor Trails” and “Peaceable Kingdom” were my 'favs.' *Happy Sigh* Can't say that I don't like any of 'em.

    Glad we’re both enjoying it and appreciate the exchange of views.

    ~~~

    Counterbalance
     
  19. Mcomo85 Registered Member

    Messages:
    18
    RUSH Fandom

    Well, Im new at sciforums, so no ones seen me before. But I just want to say that it's awesome to see some sci-RUSH fans out there. Ive found so often that RUSH and science go hand-in-hand. I dont think I've ever had a science teacher that wasnt a die hard rush fan. Call me crazy, but I think there's a connection.
     
  20. goofyfish Analog By Birth, Digital By Design Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,331
    Ok... you're crazy.

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    Welcome to Sciforums!!

    Peace.
     

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