Kevin's Watch

Usivius wrote:"Spock's Beard"?...
who's that?

(don't make me google...!)

You have twelve .... hundred new messages...

Rush is nearly finished recording its next studio album, which is
expected sometime in 2007 via Atlantic. The tracks were put to tape at Allaire Studios in upstate New York with co-producer Nick Raskulinecz. "I have never enjoyed the recording process so much, nor been so satisfied with the results," drummer Neil Peart writes on his Web site.

Peart went on to relate an instance in the studio when Raskulinecz
pushed him to try something out of the ordinary. "We had been working on a complex, syncopated section in one of the songs -- a part that had taken me hours to learn -- and Nick turned to me and said, 'Do you think you could solo over that?'"

"Ha -- what a question! Of course I could solo over it. I'd love to! But
I would never dare to suggest such a thing myself," he continued. "When
Nick pushed me like that, he would say, 'Hey man, I wouldn't ask if I didn't
know you could do it,' and of course that was a kind of challenge. All
of us picked up that 'can do' spirit, and it came to express the mood of
our sessions at Allaire -- brash, confident, determined, inspired,
challenged, fired-up, defiant, excited."

Peart previously told Billboard.com some of his lyrics for the new songs
were inspired by his motorcycle journeys throughout the United States,
chronicled in the recent book "Roadshow: Landscape With Drums."

"Just seeing the power of evangelical Christianity and contrasting that
with the power of fundamentalist religion all over the world in its
different forms had a big effect on me," he said.

"You try to put your own way of seeing the world into some kind of
congruence with other peoples, and that's difficult for me," he admits.
"I mean, I see the world in what I think to be a perfectly obvious and
rational way, but when you go out into it and see the way other people
think and behave, and express themselves on church signs, you realize,
'Well, I'm not really part of this club.'"

The upcoming album will be Rush's first since 2002's "Vapor Trails."

Menolly wrote:Oh dear...

Has Rush gone Chr-stian Rock?

"Peart revealed few details about the record, except to say that reflections on faith emerged as a clear theme from the very beginning. 'I tried hard to look at it as a subject - what's good about it - and tried to balance that against what I saw as not being a good thing,' said Peart, noting his experience as a Canadian living in the United States for the past six years has given him a unique perspective on world events. 'All we're seeing, especially in the world today, is a very malevolent kind of faith, in fundamentalism of all kinds, on both sides. One of the lines I use in the new songs equates Middle East and Middle West, because this stuff is going on in both localities, although both would probably be insulted by the comparison.""

Producer Producer Nick Raskulinecz talks about working with Rush in a new interview with Knoxville's MetroPulse.com:

"Nick Raskulinecz was a Rush freak when he was playing bass and guitar in local Knox rock bands circa 1990...imagine the excitement for Raskulinecz—now a well-regarded record producer living in L.A.—when the band’s management called last year and offered him the chance to produce the venerable outfit’s 19th studio album. Raskulinecz accepted, needless to say, and spent five weeks living and working with the trio in a remote woodland studio on a mountaintop in upstate New York...'It was a dream come true, because they were one of my favorite bands since I started listening to music when I was 10 years old...Suddenly, I was sitting in Geddy Lee’s kitchen, Alex Lifeson is there drinking coffee, and we’re talking about preproduction. I think they needed someone to kind of come in and kick them in the ass, and I was able to do that. We had a great time, and I think we made their best record in 15 years...For a few weeks, I was basically the fourth member of Rush,' Raskulinecz says of his production method. 'I become part of it. I have to really be able to get inside the songs; when I make a record, I can’t just be casual about it.' He adds that the upcoming release will have 'the sound and vibe of an old Rush record'—i.e. one of those gloriously overwrought sci-fi prog-metal epics he grew up with, albums like 2112 and Hemispheres and Permanent Waves." - Nick Raskulinecz, Knoxville's MetroPulse.com, Jan. 10, 2007

Peart says he was struck by the ubiquity of religious billboards that have sprung up on America's highways, which got him thinking about some weighty topics. "Just seeing the power of evangelical Christianity and contrasting that with the power of fundamentalist religion all over the world in its different forms had a big effect on me," he says.

"You try to put your own way of seeing the world into some kind of congruence with other peoples, and that's difficult for me," he admits. "I mean, I see the world in what I think to be a perfectly obvious and rational way, but when you go out into it and see the way other people think and behave, and express themselves on church signs, you realize, 'Well, I'm not really part of this club.'"

"I looked for the good side of faith," Peart says. "To me it ought to be your armor, something to protect you and something to console you in dark times. But it's more often being turned into a sword, and that's one big theme I'm messing with."

Malik23 wrote:Been listening to Vapor Trails in headphones. I usually listen on my main stereo. Holy. Crap. This. Recording. Was. Ruined.

It's horrible, garbled, distorted versions of some the most beautiful, rocking songs Rush has ever written. I can't wait for the remaster. This is painful.