Driven: Rush In The 90s And 'in The End' , livre ebook

Ecw Press - Martin Popoff

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

246 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

In this conclusion to his trilogy of authoritative books on Canada's most beloved and successful rock band, Martin Popoff takes us through three decades of 'life at the top' for Rush's Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. Though this era begins with the brisk-selling Roll the Bones and sees throngs of fans sell out international tours, there is also unimaginable tragedy, with Peart losing his daughter and his wife within the space of ten months and, two decades later, succumbing to cancer himself. In between, however, there is a gorgeous and heartbreaking album of reflection and bereavement, as well as a triumphant trip to Brazil, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and - some say surprisingly - the band's first full-blown concept album to close an immense career marked by integrity and idealism.

Sujets

Popular music

Informations

Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	04 mai 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773056692
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0550€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Driven Rush in the ’90s and “In the End”
Martin Popoff

Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Roll the Bones Chapter 2: Counterparts Chapter 3: Test for Echo Chapter 4: Different Stages Chapter 5: Vapor Trails Chapter 6: Rush in Rio Chapter 7: Snakes & Arrows Chapter 8: Clockwork Angels Chapter 9: “In the End” Photos Discography Credits About the Author Martin Popoff — A Complete Bibliography Copyright

Introduction
The book you now hold in your hands marks the conclusion of a trilogy, a long journey down the path of progressive metal greatness. It started with Anthem: Rush in the ’70s and was perpetuated and provoked by Limelight: Rush in the ’80s , and it concludes now, beyond bittersweet, after the death of Neil Peart from brain cancer on January 7, 2020.
The dark news came to light near the end of the production process for Anthem and Limelight , so in those books Neil remains forever alive and disseminating his wisdoms as “the Professor.” But the tragic end to one of rock’s towering greats can’t be avoided any longer, and so it is part of this story.
For now, however, some background for you, on the subject of this book. If you are wondering why — or indeed how — this book exists, let me explain, quoting more or less verbatim from the intro of the first book from way, way back, Anthem , if I may.
There I wrote:
As you may be aware, this is my fourth Rush book, following Contents Under Pressure: 30 Years of Rush at Home & Away , Rush: The Illustrated History and Rush: Album by Album . And since those, there have been a number of interesting developments that made me want to write this one. To start, only one of those three books, Contents , was a traditional biography — an authorized one at that — but it was quite short, and given that it came out in 2004 before Rush was officially retired, it was in need of an update. I thought about it, but I wasn’t feeling it, not without some vigorous additions.
That, fortunately, took care of itself. In the early 2010s, I found myself working with Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen at Banger Films on the award-winning documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage . Anybody who works in docs will tell you that between the different speakers and non-talk footage that has to get into what might end up a ninety-minute film, only a tiny percentage of the interview footage ever gets used, the rest just sits in archive, rarely seen or heard by anyone. Long and short of it, I arranged to use that archive, along with more interviews I’d done over the years, plus the odd quote from the available press, to get this book to the point where I felt it was bringing something new and significant to the table of Rush books.
So there you have it, thanks in large part to those guys — as well as the kind consent of Pegi Cecconi at the Rush office — the book you hold in your hands more than ably supplants Contents Under Pressure and stands as the most strident and detailed analysis of the Rush catalogue in existence.
Now, to the present tome, what to make of Rush in the ’90s and “in the end,” so to speak, the 2000s and the 2010s, right up until the band’s retirement in 2015 and the great loss to family and friends resulting from Neil’s being taken from us in 2020?
Obviously, we’ll get to that, but this is the place for a spot of personal reflection, so here goes. As an angry metalhead more excited by what Pantera was doing to music now that they had Phil and a major label deal, the twee tones of Roll the Bones had me casting that record aside pretty quick. Sure, there’s always excitement around a Rush album, and this one for some reason generated a bit more than usual, but still, I wasn’t happy.
When Counterparts launched, to my mind, Rush was back — the music was full-bodied, the writing not appreciably different, but it wasn’t hobbled by a lightness that brought the already underpopulated trio down to what seemed like 2.5 or 2.25 members. I loved the record, loved the resonance of the bass, the boom of the drums, the authority howling out of the guitars. Test for Echo left me cold, like the album cover, and then right after, we all had to deal with the shock of the horror that was Neil’s personal life after the death of his daughter, Selena, and then his common-law wife, Jackie. Maybe it was the end of Rush: Alex and Geddy both had solo albums (that sounded like Rush in the ’90s), and there were a hundred other flavors. Yes, maybe this was the end.
Fortunately, it was not to be. Neil mended as best as could be expected under the circumstances, and the band returned with a masterful new record, Vapor Trails . I don’t know what it is about this record, but putting aside the dark wisdom of its lyrics, it’s arguably the best of a top-shelf canon thus far. I felt like this was the first time since Grace Under Pressure that the band had created a whole new style of music, and it was art at the same time. I loved the record — still do — old mix, remix. I’ve always got time for Vapor Trails .
So then a weird thing happens. I do the Contents Under Pressure book and then work at Banger on the movie. Add another couple of Rush books later on, get interviewed for a couple of Rush docs, and suddenly, Rush reminds me of work. I imagine that’s where I am any time I even think to put a Rush record on (this reticence fades, fortunately). But yes, here I am living in Toronto, and it’s all Rush all the time and I’m full up. But then — God love the guys — Snakes & Arrows is issued, and it’s all fresh again. Something has shifted since Vapor Trails . Whether it’s new producer Nic k Raskulinecz or just the band’s typical rapid growth, suddenly there’s a new sound, if I can generalize, one characterized by warmth along with acoustic guitars massaged in with electrics.
Next came Clockwork Angels and little did we know it would be the last. Not only was this a record that lived lively like its predecessor, but there was an additional heaviness due to the subtraction of the acoustics. What’s more, Rush delivered their first concept album proper after stopping at a full side in the past. Here they barreled on through a somewhat befuddling plot, but one brimming with rich imagery with the addition of steampunk to the stew, which was stressed more through the stage sets of the tour.
Then it was all over with a languid goodbye, the band touring the record proper and then embarking on something called R40, a fortieth anniversary tour that found the band playing songs from their catalogue in reverse chronological order, making progressively modest their stage set in tandem, until there they were, three kids rocking songs from 1974.
Four years and five months after the band’s last show, the shocking news reverberated through the rock community that Neil had died, and it was horribly clear to all that the soft retirement of Rush was final. More, unfortunately, on this later, but there you go. That’s where Rush ends and that’s where we can end this set of three books, this particular tome celebrating the biggest expanse of years and the worst news imaginable, but on the happy side, there is a raft of records similar to those covered in both Anthem and Limelight . In any event, thanks for reading along. Whether you parachuted in here with modern Rush or have been following the bouncing ball since the first book, I’m glad to share my deep appreciation of Rush with you. Without further ado, in the immortal words of the Professor, “Why are we here? Because we’re here. Roll the bones.”
Martin Popoff

Chapter 1 Roll the Bones
“We keep looking for the better version of Rush.”
Here’s how the ’90s started for Rush.
One week after Geddy, Alex and Neil would propose an austere something-or-other called Roll the Bones , Guns N’ Roses would drop two near -double albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II .
Another week goes by and on September 24, 1991, Nirvana offered for your consideration their second album, Nevermind , led by a little something called “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Roll the Bones did not sound like Guns N’ Roses or Nirvana, nor did it sound like really anything out there (and that’s not necessarily a good thing), other than Presto , Rush’s similarly thin, mild and modest record from two years previous when the band was facing the same realities: hair metal, grunge and thrash at the fore, Rush’s brand of progressive bonsai tree and origami pop — a curious thing — but let’s go see Rush anyway.
But credit to the guys in one sense: they were believing in the stark and odd and oddball evolutionary path they were on and damn the torpedoes. Rupert Hine returned as producer, signifying that they thought they got it right on Presto . Rupert was in a sort of fourth member role in the Rush cabal, which helps underscore the identity of any given project.
“We felt we were missing something,” figures Geddy, on the importance of these strong outside voices. “We felt we weren’t learning enough. It’s like going into a fantastic restaurant and seeing all these great dishes and wanting to try all of them; that’s how we were. We felt like we had this great start. We had this great upbringing, and we learned a hell of a lot about making records. We were born into this rock world, and we had some tools and we wanted to refine those tools. And the only way to do that was to work with more people, different people.
“Because of the style of music we played, there was a real bias against kind of progressive heavy metal, and we found it difficult to work with all the producers we wanted to work with. And so every time out, we had a new list of people. We came into this whole mode of unearthing producers that maybe would be unlikely peo