All right, even if you can’t stand 1980s alt-rock, this is amazing:
Capo’d at the 2nd fret, of course.
Music
Neil Peart
The music of Rush is supposed to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but somehow I managed to fall in the middle. Long-term, devoted fans don’t always love their early ‘80s material but I think the Permanent Waves-Moving Pictures-Signals era was magnificent. Alex Lifeson’s guitar had a lovely chorus pedal sound which meshed with the synthesizers that the band was experimenting with, and brought out the best in some of their best songs.
It’s thanks to Neil Peart that I learned something about music. A couple of high school jazz band friends had whatever the current Rush concert video was at the time, and could not say enough about Peart’s drumming. One of these guys was a drummer, and the other a serious Rush fan, and I realized that some folks like music not for any song by that artist, but because of the sheer musicianship.
And I hope Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson keep going in some form.
Rest in peace, Neil Peart.
Inside Out
And I spent too much time away from the blog again. But there is much more writing stuff coming soon, novels and more.
In the meantime …
I love a catchy song. Also a clever music video. It’s even more cool when the two coincide, such as right here:
Because Point Five Less Than the Roman Numeral C is Not Enough
This is my 99th blog post.
The 100th post is imminent.
It’s going to be a doozy . . .
And 2019 Begins
And so 2019 begins . . . with an amazing piano rendition of “Limelight” by Rush. I’ve got writing stuff to share in the near future, but for now please enjoy this fantastic music:
Classical Metal Wonderland
In honor of recent October weather that belongs no earlier than November, here is Bruno Hrabovsky’s piano rendition of Black Sabbath’s “Snowblind.”
Yes, I know this song is not actually about cold weather precipitation, but it creates a wintery mood anyway.
Could Be Cold No More Midwest May
Been away from the blog for far too long and will have more stuff up soon, including a new short story. In the meantime, just for fun, just because it’s awesome, just because there’s nothing else like it, well, this video speaks for itself:
La-La Land Records Has Had Enough of Vinyl
I read over at Film Score Monthly this comment from M.V. Gerhard of soundtrack label La-La Land Records:
It’s not worth our time, space, resources or money.
[Star Trek: The Motion Picture] is our last vinyl. Don’t get me wrong — it did incredibly well (will most likely sell out by year’s end), but we would rather focus on many other cd, blu-ray and film projects.
It’s gratifying when someone in the know confirms one of your pet opinions. I’ve long believed that the decade-plus vinyl revival is a hipster affectation, motivated by the democratizing effect that high-bandwith Internet had on the availability of rare music.
To put it another way: when I was growing up, you had to pay $20 for that imported Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians CD single just to get a weird bonus track. Now those rare tracks are all over YouTube, and it’s very hard to be cooler than the other cool people. But thanks to vinyl, large amounts of money can be flushed on a cumbersome, expensive, and fragile format that takes dedication to collect.
Whatever, I still feel like it’s 1987 and visions of a large CD collection are dancing in my head.
And if you want to experience Jerry Goldsmith’s majestic and mysterious score for STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, get La-La Land’s magnificent 3-CD release.
Catching Up
I’ve been away from the blog for too long, so I’ll get everything up to speed:
–Belatedly . . . Happy Easter!
–A big congratulations to this year’s Rondo Award winners, announced just this past Sunday night. My book I Cannot, Yet I Must did not win in its category but I honestly did not expect that it would. The competition was stiff indeed, and the winner and runners-up are absolutely deserving. Myself, I’m still just tickled to be a nominee and that I can forever call myself a Rondo-nominated author.
–With Easter recently celebrated and springtime here, it’s time to post some exuberant music. And I can’t imagine anything more exuberant than this thundering, brain-melting, blistering performance by Simple Minds from Newcastle, England in 1982. Enjoy!
The Ecstasy of Gold
Ennio Morricone, with Susanna Rigacci:
