Neil Peart, drummer for Rush, dead today at 67. he had been secretly struggling with brain cancer for three years.
you Rush fans know what’s up, but for you others, lemme tell ya somethin about Neil. the special thing about neil is there is no question that he was the best ‘rock’ drummer that ever lived… (and probably that will ever live since ‘rock’ has become commercialized and dumbed down by western capitalism). nobody will dispute that. but it’s not a matter of other drummers being close to Neil’s level but not quite there. no, there was a recognizable void between him and the others; Neil was up here holds hand up… and the others were down here holds hand down. of course Rush’s music was technically considered progressive-rock, but not quite fusion, so we think of Neil as a ‘rock’ drummer in general (although we was a very capable jazz drummer; see buddy rich tribute solo). another thing he’s noted for his is lyrics. very unique in the sense of the themes of the lyrics. science and philosophy oriented, especially. check out the albums ‘hemispheres’ and ‘permanent waves’ to hear his lyric writing at its best. the song ‘natural science’ is fucking phenomenal.
yeah it’s gonna be hard to have to live during an age when all the greats are getting old and dying. millennials won’t have to experience this because all the bands from their days are shit, so nobody will miss em.
show em how it’s done one more time, then you can rest, boss…
I put my music on shuffle then I accept my interpretation of those lyrics as if they are messages from Heaven, from people I’ve known passed. Some times God takes over my playlist. I call him the Boss DJ. I drink copious amounts of coffee while I receive these messages. I’ve been doing this for the past two years of my life (maybe longer).
…interesting. A fantastical musical journey, it sounds like.
My playlist started selecting itself, which is how I got to hear music I didn’t even know existed, so would never have been able to search for and listen to, myself.
1980 marked the end of their ‘concept’ album period… ‘hemispheres’ being the last of that style. but that’s what distinguished the prog rockers from the ordinary rock bands. whole sides of an album were dedicated to developing one major theme through a series of parts and stages. ordinary rock bands would fill album sides with individual songs, because they were too dumb to put something together longer than four minutes. see what i mean? it was a glimpse of what was to come in a music industry ruled by capitalist production quotas that needed to establish efficient formulas that could be quickly and easily produced. this is why the 70s was the end of a major epoche of musical creativity. why the 80s began as a period in which new technologies were used in a creative manner - the spirit of the 70s wasn’t yet fully ruined by the capitalist modes of production - but then quickly lost momentum as we approached the 90s, the last living era of music. today, we don’t find any ‘artists’, but zombies, the walking dead, who on account of the creative elements being now exhausted, only repeat and recreate all the formulas that are demanded by the market. same shit, different song. artists are now obnoxious caricatures of the machines that make the music through them. to sell it it has to be trendy. to be trendy, a face has to be put to it. put taylor swift here, dr. dre there. one for the middle class white college kids, another for the lower class black minorities. next we need something for the white middle class kids that sympathize with the spirit of hip-hop. let’s give em 21 pilots or something like that. etc., etc.
but you better get a good look at these guys because they are a breed that’ll never exist again on planet earf. real, cool super-dork musicians with no pretention or false bravado whatsoever. pure artists that lived, worked and journeyed to reach the fountain of lamneth not yet poisoned by late stage capitalism.
