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Have you ever written a song so epic that by the end of the song you were actually being influenced by yourself in the beginning of the song?
Stephen Colbert interviewing Rush on The Colbert Report, July 17, 2008

Holding On With All My Might

Rush - “Headlong Flight” Official Lyric Video

I’m really not a big fan of the recent “official lyric video” trend that artists are falling into. It just seems like a cheesy cop-out to get the music out there in a visual way without trying too hard. I realize it has to be more convenient than spending several days on a sound stage someplace or spending the big bucks to get some big-shot video director and/or producer to create a concept piece for the song, but as a official card-carrying Grumpy Old Fart™, I just don’t like it. At least this one is more innovative and creative than most.

As for the song? I love it. It makes me more excited about the upcoming Rush album Clockwork Angels than the nearly two-year-old sneak peeks we got in the form of “Caravan” and “BU2B.” “Headlong Flight” is the heaviest thing I’ve heard from Rush in a very long time, and it comes across as a mixture of styles tapped from some of their best work over the past couple of decades. Topped off with a crazy Lifeson solo that sounds like something from pre-Moving Pictures era Rush and some killer bass work from Geddy, the album is shaping up to be something special if the rest of it is similar to this.

Enjoy!

We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost
Rush - “Bravado” (Roll the Bones, 1991)
Now I have the reward of listening to the drum parts I have performed for this album, and recognizing with quiet satisfaction that I am working at a whole new level of both funky, dirty, greasy groove and fancy show-off technique—a combination I have been seeking my entire drumming life.
Neil Peart, “At the Gate of the Year”, a blog post documenting (among other things) his new approach to composing drum parts for the upcoming Rush album Clockwork Angels

One, two, three
Add without subtraction
Sound on sound
Multiplied reaction
H to O
No flow without the other
Oh, but how
Do we make contact
With one another?

Electricity? Biology?
Seems to me it’s Chemistry

Rush - “Chemistry,” Signals, 1982

I Let My Skin Get Too Thin

Neil Peart discusses “Time Stand Still” on Taking Center Stage

On October 14, Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart will release a new instructional 3-DVD set called Taking Center Stage: A Lifetime of Live Performance through Hudson Music:

Filmed in various locations over the course of a year, Neil takes you on a behind-the- scenes look at Rush’s 2010-11 Time Machine Tour. This includes rare and exclusive footage of Neil’s personal pre-tour rehearsals and backstage events at a Rush concert (including a visit to the soundcheck, an unprecedented backstage interview, and Neil’s warm-up routine)…

With in-studio rehearsal footage, backstage scenes, live concert performances, and breathtaking interview footage filmed in Death Valley National Park, California, this package documents not only Neil’s approach to live performance, but the very essence of his drumming style

If this is your sort of thing, you can pre-order your copy of Taking Center Stage today. Additional features include:

  • Over 6 hours of footage
  • Neil’s personal drum rehearsals
  • Set-up and soundcheck footage
  • Backstage interview as Neil warms up for a Rush concert
  • Detailed discussion of classic Rush drum parts, with slow-motion, drums-only demonstrations and e-Book with transcriptions
  • Live, drum-camera performances of every song on the Time Machine tour
  • One-hour interview, explanation, and demonstration of new Rush song, “Caravan”

In this clip from the DVD, Peart discusses the timbale fills in the intro of the Hold Your Fire track “Time Stands Still,” the inspiration for which he later discovered was not actually a real human performance. This man never ceases to amaze me.

Enjoy!

We just kind of figure that our fans would rather see us up there with our technology rather than see us fill up the stage with sidemen.
Rush’s Geddy Lee on the prospect of bringing in extra musicians rather than playing keyboards, working foot pedals, and triggering sequencers while singing and playing bass, The Costco Connection interview