Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Why Am I Still Up?

4:20amPain
Thanks to you, I have been watching Neil Peart instructional drumming videos on YouTube!


4:22amPerdu
That is so funny about Peart. as my kitchen cleaning whirlwind was FUELED BY RUSH!!!!


4:22amPain
2112 motherfuckahs!


4:22amPerdu
WE ARE THE PRIESTS....OF THE TEMPLES...OF SYRINX!


4:23amPain
You sire are SO right abour Signals! Brilliant, and totally underrated album!

4:23amPerdu
Did Rosemary show you the video of "Subdivisions" that I sent her in my Anisette-crazed reverie last week/

4:24amPain
I recently watched their latest concert video from the 30th anniversary tour (2003), and those guys STILL have it!

Yes!

I remember that video well!


4:25amPerdu
I told her that "I was the dude in the glasses" in the Subdivisions video. And it is true. I was that person.


4:26amPain
So was I....which is why Adam and I cruised every Friday night in his black Peugeot listening to RUSH!

Time to move from Anisette to "the Green Fairy" my friend!


4:27amPerdu
Creme de Menthe? Or Absinthe?


4:28amPain
RUSH was always, in my mind, the nerds' hard rock band! Geddy Lee was the guy who was ugly as butt, but still got all the girls because he ROCKED!!

Abynthe!

Still banned in many countries, I believe


4:29amPain
I always looked at Mr. Lee and thought, there is hope..

AND, he certainly rocked the thunder broom!

But Neil was the 29-piece drum set GOD!


4:31amPerdu
I cannot believe how I completely wrote off Rush as an 8th-grade dalliance! I have owned these cassettes for going on 26, 27 fucking years, AND I NEVER LISTENED TO THEM! Just because it was something I ordered from the Columbia House Record Club in 1982, no way could it be good, and then I'm digitizing them last week and I'm like "HOLY SHIT" this is incredible!!!


4:31amPain
didn't he have to be lowered in with a crane or something?

You wrote RUSH off!?!?!? As an 8th grader!?!? My GAWD!


4:33amPerdu
Not as an 8th grader...maybe as a 10th grader...by then I had moved on to R.E.M. and Talking Heads. It's just that I never thought to try them out again...for TWO DECADES.


4:33amPain
I'd be writing manifestos in font size .25 with my own excrement if it wasn't for RUSH!

They helped me survive HS


4:34amPerdu
CONFORM OR BE CAST OUT!!!


04:34amPain
Exactly!


4:35amPain
Not all of their albums are great, but they had a good stretch for a while (2112 --> Grace Under Pressure)

Then Geddy went all Depeche Mode with the keyboards!

But they've gone back to basics lately

I was fascinated by Neil's objectivist-inspired lyrics


4:37amPerdu
But I was just going to give a shout out to GL for the keyboard work on the albums I do have (2112 ->Signals). Just excellent. I tried to get Stumpf to bring his Yamaha to SS so we could rock out on "Countdown."


4:38amPain
YEAH!!!

Well, the keyboards went a little overboard in the late 80s until mid 90s


4:39amPerdu
I must say I do have a strange new fascination and appreciation for Peart's libertarian themes.


4:39amPain
The remasters are mighty fine btw...


4:40amPerdu
Hmmm..remasters could work. I had to punch up some "Treble reduction" on my iPod to cancel out the hiss from the tape.


4:40amPain
I think that Cygnus X-1 Book II could become SS's theme song


4:42amPain
I bought a bunch of RUSH remasters from someone who was friends with someone at UFE I think...


4:43amPain
The inside picture of the band in 212 is priceless! Uh.....gay!

2112

I mean, WTF is Neil wearing?

"Let me put on my satin bathroom for this shot"

bathrobe


4:46amPain
So, yeah, RUSH is still the shit, no doubt!


4:47amPain
I envy you, rediscovering them after 20 years! It must be so orgasmic!


4:47amPerdu
I have no albums...All I have of "2112" is the little cassette that the Columbia House Record Club sent me...insid the little card is a list of "MORE POP TAPES" including Ohio Players, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 10-cc, Uriah Heep, and Thin Lizzy.


4:48amPain
Thin Lizzy, another great, underrated band!

10-cc, not so much

See, this is a good reason to get the reissues....with all the pictures, lyrics, etc.

2112 had this great text inside, under the "gay" pic of the band


4:51amPain
"I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon. City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey. The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky. I used to think I had a pretty good life here, just plugging into my machine for the day, then watching Templevision or reading a Temple Paper in the evening. My friend Jon always said it was nicer here than under the atmospheric domes of the Outer Planets. We have had peace since 2062, when the surviving planets were banded together under the Red Star of the Solar Federation. The less fortunate gave us a few new moons. I believed what I was told, I thought it was a good life, I thought I was happy. Then I found something that changed it all..."

I mean, when you are 13, this is like, poetry!

A bit of trivia:

Megadon was a coin-operated arcade game from the '80s that is listed as very rare now. The game merged maze games like Pac-Man with space shooting games, like Space Invaders.

I did not know that.....weird, wild stuff


4:53amPain
The only thing that was a bit of a turn-off was Neil's obsession with Ayn Rand

I just didn't get that


4:56amPerdu
Speaking of arcade games, have you seen the documentary "King of Kong?" About two guys, our age, who are still playing arcade games and trying to be the best Donkey Kong player in the world. Highly recommended.


4:57amPerdu
As a youth, I don't think I really grokked the Ayn Rand stuff from Peart. I've never been one to focus on lyrics anyway, which I do recognize as a failing.


4:57amPain
I heard about it through a friend here, and have yet to see it...but I will put it on the ol' Netflix list

Thanks!

4:59amPerdu
The director's commentary on King of Kong is pretty funny as well.


5:01amPain
"It's 2 in the AM here in lovely Mid-City Los Angeles..."

Why Am I Still Up? hartman/gossot copyright 2008


5:01amPerdu
Yep...time to get some sleep...this was fun, though! I'll try your AIM account soon...talk to you later

5:02amPain
OK....oh, almost forgot: I went to a Dodgers game today - they beat the iNdians 4-3

It was fun, but I did wish you and Helen had been there

Good night, and sleep tight my friend!

3 comments:

Eve's Apple said...

So that's what you guys are up so late doing!

Eve's Apple said...

Ok Pain, OK Perdu... enough chatter about Rush. Please put use your gooey goodness expertise to use and edumacate us common folk about this here economic crisis!! The people need their French Toast!

laps(e) said...

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

Okay, i admit, i never listened to Rush, and maybe i missed something. But when "Trees" somehow turned up on my iPod (courtesy of UFE favorites, i think), I had to laugh out loud as i pedaled to work, at the juvenile allegory of it.

Me, i was partial to Genesis. PRE-COLLINS genesis, that is! although even they had their moments.

Best worst lyrics ever...at least in my collection..."every day a little sadder, a little madder, someone get me a ladder" (ELP; Still..You Turn me On") ...or "And now I'm standing on a grave of a soldier that died in 1799/
And the day he died it was a birthday/ and I noticed it was mine" (Cathedral, CSN...blame it on Nash).

wow, so this is what real people do at night? love, laps