who needs to carry on?
so Rush retires. that's that.
I guess I'll have to give in and read Neils Books, though I prefer his lyrics to his commentaries. When he speaks he seems to have a certain pretense that what he says has Gravitas, which sometimes is troublesome for me personally. He sometimes crams a whole segment of American society (the south) into kind of a small can, which I hope, is just my perception. For someone who tells you he is shy, he sometimes has a lot to say. I'll give it a shot. Whats his "best" book?
I got nothin' :
...avoiding any implication that I have ever entertained a cognizant thought.
live samples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwbCFGbAtFc
https://youtu.be/AEE5OZXJioE
https://soundcloud.com/yodelgoat/yod...om-a-live-show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUe3YhCjy6g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VOCJokzL_s
I haven't read all of them, but I liked Roadshow a lot. Haven't gotten around to reading Ghost Rider. Traveling Music is okay, and it did open my eyes/ears to music I hadn't given much thought to before, but I sometimes found the tone of it in places a bit condescending. Nevertheless, I'll be getting the new one in a couple of weeks.
In general, I think their "particular niche" has pretty much expired when I survey the current popular music landscape.
Seems to me, the reality is there will NEVER be another band with that special combination of hard rock muscle and prog smarts, and with that added ability to write something "popular" like Tom Sawyer or Subdivisions.
I used to think if anybody could pick up the Rush mantle it would be Porcupine Tree and their hard rock/prog smart/melody whiz kid Steven Wilson, but that dream seems to have died a premature retirement. Maestro Wilson is still eminently capable of some kind of AOR breakthrough at some point, but I think the odds have diminished somewhat without the PT recipe.
I noticed Radiohead mentioned upthread, and while they have the popularity and some real prog cred, I've never detected even a little bit of "hard rock muscle" in their output, so I think that avenue is a dead end.
And sure, there are lots of great latter day Prog rock bands that do offer the muscle and the prog smarts, but Rush has left gigantic T-Rex footprints that just leave the relative mouseprints left by bands like Saga, Presto Ballet, Ayreon, Riverside etc. etc... obscured in the dust.
Which leaves TOOL. Help me Obi Wan Maynard. You are our only hope.
“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Anderson
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Bookmarks