H/T: M. for these links full of awesome music:
The Bad Elephant sampler is on this website: http://music.badelephant.co.uk/album/bad-elephant-music-prog-magazine-sampler
Also a different sampler on SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/badelephant/sets/bad-elephant-music-sampler
2112.net has all the details on the tour that is now history:
Digging deep for these setlists, “Losing It” and “How It Is” were performed for the first time ever, and while most of the songs from the first half of the show have been performed on relatively recent tours, many of those performed after the intermission have not been performed in decades: “Jacob’s Ladder” was last played in 1980; “Hemispheres: Prelude” in 1994; “Cygnus X-1: Part 3” in 1980 (“Prologue” was played in 2002); “Lakeside Park” in 1978; and “What You’re Doing” in 1977. Closing out the show is a teaser of “Garden Road”, an unreleased original song last performed on tour in 1974.
And don’t miss Neil’s tour book essay, “Live It All Again“:
A few years ago the band received a couple of lifetime-achievement-type awards, and in response to one of them I remarked – only half-jokingly – that it was our fans who deserved a lifetime achievement award. Because if we have hung in there, they surely have too.
Tony Banks in Rolling Stone on whether he listens to current rock music:
I’ve never really been connected as a listener since about 1968. There’s so much music, and I’m totally disconnected now. People talk about these people, and I’m sure I’ve heard them. I keep the radio on. Certain acts I do like — I’ve heard Coldplay, and I like them. I hear of people like Kanye West, and I have no idea who they are or what the music is. It’s probably not for me. It’s normally for a younger audience than me. I’m 65 now. I don’t feel I’ve moved away at all, though. I love the sound of heavy drums and stuff; I’d certainly rather hear heavy metal than any rap or anything. I still listen, but probably more to old stuff, I suppose. I think rock music has left me behind more than I’ve left it behind. I’m working in the orchestral world now, and that seems to be working for me. People seem to want me there.
Read all about The Tragedy of iTunes and Classical Music:
Apple, which long paid classical more mind than other big tech companies, debuted Apple Music with dismal classical options, as NPR’s Anastasia Tsiouclas and The New Yorker’s Alex Ross have documented.
And even beyond the streaming service, the new version of Apple’s signature music software seems especially broken. In the name of creating a “complete thought around music,” iTunes 12 has crammed a streaming service and a media library and a recommendation service and a file store and a device manager into one interface. The sum is that nothing “just works”—and MP3s especially don’t work well.
…
Apple has already discontinued its iPod Classic, the last media player that could conceivably let you tote around your entire music library in one device. The company is floating to a streaming model.
If classical listeners are ill-served by streaming services, though, they will stick with music files; and that means they represent, as a bloc, the set of listeners who will continue to maintain personal libraries of owned music even as the larger public rents their digital music instead.
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The CDDB is the database which iTunes used to detect what was on a CD while ripping it.
Classical is not the only genre that works poorly with this tagging system, said Jonathan Sterne, author of MP3: The Meaning of a Format, a history and meditation on the technology. Audiobooks, lectures, and sound art don’t really adapt well either.
If anything, said Sterne, the long-playing record and the compact disc—the two great audio formats of the late 20th century—might have been special cases.
With both the CD and the LP, he said, “it just so happened that things that were of interest to the broader world of people who made recorded media, and people who were in the music industry, lined up with those of classical performers and audiences.”
Analogously, perhaps the technology for prog also peaked with the gatefold LP?
Or with the 70-minute epic prog CD that had a fold-out booklet with liner notes and poster?
Read this great post by The Heavy Metal Philosopher about “Generations of Metalheads: Passing On My Bass.”
It’s a wonderful true story about a father and a daughter and a shared love of great music!
Here’s just a taste:
I learned to play bass while I was a young man in the Army, and then when I came back to the States, with my very first paycheck (working at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, in Waukesha, Wisconsin), I went down to the pawn shop and picked her out — a beautiful blue bass guitar that I ended up giving a name to later on, Betsy. I played countless hours over the next five years, jamming with a number of other musicians, practicing and improvising on my own, playing along with tapes and records. I experimented with various amps and effects. Out of necessity, I learned how to use a bass along Lemmy-lines, like a rhythm guitar, but instead of just overdriving it, I ran it through distortion and a bit of chorus into a 200 watt power preamp, down into a 15-inch speaker, with my old 12-inch practice amp taped into the circuit as well.
So, when my daughter asked, “Dad, can I take the bass home?” I had to think — and feel my way through a surprisingly tough decision. I deliberated over it a long time, both by myself and with my wife. And at the end, I made the right decision — but it was tough.
Check out this great list (complete with YouTube videos):
H/T Jennifer Ouellette @JenLucPiquant
Please note:
No list of classic female bass players will ever be complete—there’s always one more name to add, one more bass riff to savor, one more argument to be had over who is over- and underrated.
This is one of my favorite tracks from Time Stands Still — the brilliant new 2015 album by Unleash the Archers.
It’s a killer dose of old-school metal awesomeness. Enjoy!
Steven Wilson remarks that this is “my original demo of the song. This was actually the first of two demos I made of Lazarus, and it features a very different middle 8, subsequently rewritten for the second demo and final album recording.
“Lazarus was one of several songs that were based on a film script that I was working on at the time with my friend Mike Bennion, and the David mentioned in the song is a central character in that script.
“Lazarus (first demo) performed by SW at No Man’s Land, December 2003.”
Great show last night in Vancouver by the hardest working men in showbiz — Rush.
My favorite songs from the first half of the show were “Animate,” “Distant Early Warning,” “Losing It,” and “Subdivisions.”
The second half of the show was Rush Heaven with all their greatest epics from their greatest era of prog creativity. They played all my favorites!
“Xanadu” with the double-neck guitars and orchestral percussion is arguably Rush in their most iconic live configuration.
After “Distant Early Warning,” Geddy announced that the next song they were going to do was one that they had only done three times previously on the tour. But, since violinist Ben Mink lives in Vancouver, they were going to do it tonight! Bam! — number four…
It was incredible!
So, it turns out that I was wrong with all my previous Set List speculations. It turns out that Rush threw Vancouver a curve ball and ended up doing a special Set List just for our city! We got to hear “Set List G” …
The set included “One Little Victory” (never a favorite cut of mine on album because of all the repetition, but I was thrilled by how well it worked live; it was very powerful and I ended up loving it), “Distant Early Warning” (I was hoping for “Between the Wheels” because I really love Alex’s guitar solo in that, but I was blown away by how good this song is live; the massive synth chords are so exciting and the audience went bananas and I was reminded of why it is one of their greatest), “Losing It” (a special once-in-a-lifetime treat), “YYZ” (which rocked so hard and had such a dazzling laser light show it was like an alien invasion had landed at the arena), and “Natural Science” (one of my absolute favorites and a genuine thrill to hear live).
I remember hearing an illicit version of “Natural Science” of Rush live in St. Louis from the Permanent Waves tour. It has some of Peart’s greatest lyrics and the whole concept is immensely appealing to a science geek like me and hearing this version had always had me dreaming of hearing it live because it is just so darn good. Last night my dream came true and I experienced it live. Amazing.
The Rush fan who made me the cassette tape of that concert told the story that it had been fished out of Alex’s trash can at the curb of his house. It was a white label vinyl pressing of a concert being considered for the next Rush live album. But it never happened and therefore the next Rush live album instead was Exit… Stage Left from the Moving Pictures tour. I guess Rush went with that decision in order to establish the pattern of a live Rush album after every four studio albums. Apparently this concert is now widely available thanks to the magic of the Internet, but back in the day it was a real discovery when a fellow Rush fan shared it with me as a secret cassette tape experience reserved for select initiates only. It was a rare and special experience that I will always treasure, especially due to the presence of “Natural Science.”
Just like last night’s concert!
| SET LIST G
Performed on July 17th |
| The Anarchist |
| Headlong Flight (with Drumbastica mini drum solo) |
| Far Cry |
| The Main Monkey Business |
| One Little Victory |
| Animate |
| Roll The Bones |
| Distant Early Warning |
| Losing It |
| Subdivisions |
| -Intermission- |
| Tom Sawyer |
| YYZ |
| The Spirit of Radio |
| Natural Science |
| Jacob’s Ladder |
| Cygnus X-1 Book Two: Hemispheres – Prelude |
| Cygnus X-1: Book One: The Voyage – Prologue |
| Drum Solo |
| Cygnus X-1: Book One: The Voyage – Part 3 |
| Closer To The Heart |
| Xanadu |
| 2112: I. Overture 2112: II. Temples of Syrinx 2112: IV. Presentation 2112: VII. The Grand Finale |
| -Encore- |
| Lakeside Park |
| Anthem |
| What You’re Doing |
| Working Man Garden Road (riff) |
If I had to guess, maybe Rush will play Set List C tonight in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
It would be cool to hear “Losing It,” but that’s probably not in the cards. So, if it happens, “Natural Science” would be amazing.
Then again, I’d really love to hear both “How It Is” and “Between the Wheels,” not to mention “The Camera Eye.”
Let’s “C” how it goes…
Progarchy 