Re: (TV) Rush To Judgment / Radiohead

[raw408@aol.com]

I've gotta say, I rarely if ever post to this TV board and appreciate the views and opinions of those who post regularly. That being said, as a 51 year old white male who grew up in NYC in the prime of the "punk rock" heyday and the music scene that followed, I am more than a bit curious about the comments flying around about Rush. I have never been a fan of any of their music, not could I even name a song of theirs. I'm sure they're great musicians ( I know a fairly well known NYC based bass player who is reverential about their stuff), and know that just 'cause I don't like something doesn't mean it isn't good. BUT, I just never, ever, in any way thought they were cool. And for me, that matters.


-----Original Message-----
From: Russ <russvr@gmail.com>
To: tv@obbard.com
Sent: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 4:26 pm
Subject: Re: (TV) Rush To Judgment / Radiohead



Ditto, on the Rush "demographic" for me. Back in the high school daze though
I really wasn't into them that much - I associated them bands like Cheap
Trick and Kiss. Back in the 70s all of the "stadium" type bands had to
strike the rock-star postures to some extent. Later on, around , some where
between Hemispheres and Permanent Waves, I got to be more familiar with them
and appreciated them to be "more intellectual" than bands like Styx or
Journey. I had always seen Rush as sort of a Zeppelin sound-alike but that
wasn't a  bad thing. I don't know, I hear a real ethereal rock in them. Sure
- some of their stuff is pretty corny - the 2112 stuff - though super rocked
out at the same time. But I think their hearts are in the right place. Neil
Peart's (I'm afraid to use apostrophes in this group) personal story , his
losing his wife and daughter in one year, is pretty tough. But really it is
about the music for me, the rock-star stuff aside. Disclosure: I was in a
band where the drummer just worshipped the band - and while that should have
turned me against them , it had the opposite effect.


On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 2:41 PM, andy fekete <andy.fekete@gmail.com> wrote:

> For me, Rush was an important contributor to the disillusionment in
> rock music that eventually led me to punk in the 70s.
>
> I mean, I was a perfect candidate for Rush fandom: young, white,
> middle-class, male, a typical denizen of suburban America with a
> stereo, disposable income and a large album collection dominated by
> mainstream bands with a proggy bent (Yes, ELP, King Crimson, etc).  I
> was so squarely in Rush's target audience it wasn't funny.
>
> So I saw Rush -- twice, actually: once for curiosity and a second time
> to be certain. Both times I came away with the opinion that Rush's
> live shows were even more bombastic and overwrought than their
> records.  These were disturbing "the emperor has no clothes" moments
> for me, as I was really, really into FM AOR music. Both times I ended
> up being the lone (and quite unpopular) dissenter in a carfull of
> heavy metal parking lot party people.   I just couldn't see why I had
> to play along with the band's rock-star posturing, nor with the
> crowd's willingness to believe that they were indeed witnessing a
> significant band creating significant music: it seemed obvious to me
> that any significance was purely a function of the crowd's dearly
> wishing it to be so, having paid so much to be there, and of the
> band's clearly calculated onstage histrionics.
>
> Never got over that.  Even today, Rush's music, like Journey's,
> Styx's, Kansas's and many others, still makes me grit my teeth.
> Irrational, I know.
>
> -A
>
> On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Russ <russvr@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't have much time to type this morning ,but I could go on a lot on
> this
> > subject. Let me just say that RUSH is one of the most talented three
> > musicians ever to record in the rock idiom. They're not punk, not hip
> (since
> > about 1977), but they have always been cool. I would controversially
> > conjecture that bands like Husker Du (All you have to do listen to
> > "Celebrated Summer" to hear Rush influence)  were as much influenced by
> RUSH
> > as they were influenced by The Ramones.
> > -Russ
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Leo Casey <leocasey@comcast.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I thought this was extremely funny even though it's (note the
> apostrophe)
> >> short and
> >> I'm not familar with a single note of the band's 35+ year output.
> >>
> >> "Prog Bites, Eight Completely Awesome Rush Moments [The Boston Phoenix]
>  By
> >> http://thephoenix.com//Boston/Music/62876-Prog-bites/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> More serious but worth reading is this interesting interview:
> >>
> >>
> http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/62874-Rush-survive-40-years-on-rocks-very-edge/
> >> A few excerpts (I like the Radiohead example):
> >>
> >> "Rush are one of rock's most quietly enduring success stories: 40 years
> >> later, the
> >> Canadian trio's rabid fan base and enduring legacy continue to frustrate
> >> those who'd
> >> like to pretend that '70s prog never existed. ... Geddy thinks that the
> >> whole "prog
> >> is a four-letter word" stigma is all smoke and mirrors. "
> >>
> >> " 'Look at a band like Radiohead:  they are a big-themed band, and
> they're
> >> kind of
> >> the leader in the current prog-rock parade, in my opinion. They are
> >> probably loved by
> >> a lot of people who don't like 'prog rock,' ****because they have an
> image
> >> that makes
> >> them acceptable, a grooviness that supersedes their music. And I think
> >> that's part
> >> and parcel with acceptance of certain bands: if they have a groovy buzz,
> >> then it
> >> almost makes what they are doing musically acceptable by association**.
> I
> >> think it's
> >> a lot about a time and a place, more than the actual music that they're
> >> playing.' "
> >>
> >> [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which
> had a
> >> name of winmail.dat]
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