The National Midnight Star #126

Errors-To: rush-request@syrinx.umd.edu Reply-To: rush@syrinx.umd.edu Sender: rush@syrinx.umd.edu Precedence: bulk From: rush@syrinx.umd.edu To: rush_mailing_list Subject: 12/11/90 - The National Midnight Star #126
** ____ __ ___ ____ ___ ___ ** ** / /_/ /_ /\ / /__/ / / / / /\ / /__/ / ** ** / / / /__ / \/ / / / / /__/ / \/ / / /___ ** ** ** ** __ ___ ____ ** ** /\ /\ / / \ /\ / / / _ /__/ / ** ** / \/ \ / /___/ / \/ / /___/ / / / ** ** ** ** ____ ____ ___ ___ ** ** /__ / /__/ /__/ ** ** ____/ / / / / \ ** The National Midnight Star, Number 126 Tuesday, 11 December 1990 Today's Topics: In the End- GUITAR Rush Laserium shows Re: 12/10/90 - The National Midnight Star #124 Rolling Stone? Ha! Rolling Stone Critics Guitar Switches on ASOH Re: Rolling Stone mag & RUSH Alex's contributions to the band Reply to "In the End" Rolling Stone Reviews In The End intro chords Weinrib or Leibowitz? NMS reviews Rolling Stone's reviews Brief Rolling Stone Review Review Rush->Rolling Stone & others ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 13:55 EST From: Shane Faulkner <V127L2QZ@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu> Subject: In the End- GUITAR I think I know what you're referring to... the acoustic intro seems to be the same chord progression, but in a different key. I would say the intro is on an acoustic tuned down to D# or maybe D....... -Zulu Ps. The D-G-F-C part is right.... another progression used is F-F-A-G-G-A-A ('I know, I know, Iknow....) and Bm-G('you can take me.. for a littlewhile..') pPS.. just noticed.... FFAGGAA is wrong!!!! shoud be FFAFFGG ---------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Rush Laserium shows Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 11:09:46 PST From: Bob Joslin <bobj@hpindix.cup.hp.com> Fellow Rushians, I've had several people ask me for more information about the Laser Rush show at the Morison Planetarium... First, here's a number to call for more information: 415-750-7138 It's a taped recording about current laser shows. The Morison Planetarium is located in the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The CAS is on the east side of the Music Concourse in east end of the Park. If your coming from the South, take Hwy 280 North to 19th Street. Follow the directions to the Golden Gate Bridge. When you enter the park, take the first right (Martin Luther King Jr Drive). After about 1/4 - 1/2 mile, take the next left into the Music Concourse. The entrance to the Planetarium is on the CAS building. (The Planetarium is actually on the north side of the building. If your not familiar with SF, get a map! The Laser Rush show times are: Friday, 7:30pm and 9:00pm Saturday, 7:30pm and 9:00pm Sunday, 5:00pm I don't know when they will stop playing this show, however, it probably will be playing at least until the end of the year. Call ahead to verify the show is still playing and for show time updates. I'll probably go again on Saturday, so I try to see how long they plan on keeping this show around. The show lasts just under 1 hour. I don't remember the complete list, but here's some of the songs played. 2112 Overture / Temples The Spirit of Radio Tom Sawyer YYZ Subdivisions (?) New World Man (?) Body Electric Red Lenses Show Don't Tell There's at least 3 songs I don't remember. The show was very good. However, if the audience is quite enthusiastic, the laserist will put more effort into the show. You may even get an encore. So get psyhcied! See ya, aye! Bob ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 13:48 CST From: 2HMAMIMIC@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: 12/10/90 - The National Midnight Star #124 About the Rolling Stone article--- I don't think they really understand Rush's music, to make a bit of an understatement. It seems they always have to use someone else's name to identify it (a "Headbanger's Genesis" (?!?!?!)), or say that they ripped off chords from Foreigner or someone else. I don't think they can pan what they don't understand. They're always best at criticizing albums like Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" or Pink Floyd's albums. When I read that article, I feel like "did you REALLY listen to the album?", because their albums are always interesting in some ways. Maybe I'm just biased because I'm a fan. Sigh. Mark Pickerel ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 14:52:01 -0500 From: "Michael Rashas" <mr0@beach.cis.ufl.edu> Subject: Rolling Stone? Ha! I haven't had the dubious pleasure of reading some of the earlier Rolling Stone reviews of Rush prior to seeing them in TNMS, but I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by their general tone. Just goes to show: if you want a truly musicianship-based review, as opposed to one cluttered with pretentious and condescending mumbo- jumbo, read it in a musician's magazine (like _Guitar For The Practicing Musician_ -- and no, this is *NOT* a shameless plug! :) ). Reminds me of a particularly telling Rockline interview with David Lee Roth and his band back in '87: Caller: The Rolling Stone Readers' Poll has a category for _Best New Band_... I sent your name in. Steve Vai: Rolling Stone? Dave: Send it in anyway! Just putting in my nickel's worth (inflation, ya know) :), Michael Rashas mr0@beach.cis.ufl.edu P.S. Happy holidays! ---------------------------------------------------------- From: rlr%bbt@rti.rti.org (rader) Subject: Rolling Stone Critics Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 15:03:50 EST > What does Rolling Stone have against Rush? > I think every interview hacked on Geddy's voice, or on Neil's Lyrics... Rolling Stone has brutalized nearly every "heavy" band since the late 60s. Rolling Stone tends to hire reviewers who have a significant slant towards what is "now and happening" as opposed to what they think every 17-year-old white male is listening to. Rush has done quite nicely without positive RS reviews, though, and can be regarded on their own merits, not on what the critics write. The concept of professional critics sucks in general, even though I used to write reviews for my college newspaper. Led Zeppelin was constantly marauded by RS. The RS reviewers slammed almost every LZ album. They bitched about the "overly pretentious rock pyrotechnics" of LZ I and II, and then had the nerve to bash LZ III for moving beyond the hard rock/blues of the previous two albums. To be honest, not every RS critic is prejudiced against Rush or against hard rock in general. Their reviews are pretty lame, though, and if I actually used them to guide my record purchases, I'd have the worst collection of crap in the US! -- ron rader, jr rlr%bbt@rti.rti.org = Opinions are my own and do not | | i gotta six- rlr%bbt$rti.rti.org@CUNYVM = necessarily reflect those of | | pack, & nothin' to do ...!mcnc!rti!bbt!rlr = BroadBand Tech. (SO THERE!) *** Punk ain't no religious cult, punk means thinking for yourself - DKs *** ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 11:46 EST From: THOMPS00%SNYBUFVA.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu Subject: Guitar Switches on ASOH Ok...I just got the ASOH video, and noticed that in "Turn The Page" ALex is playing a black guitar in some shots, and a white one in others...Same with 2112. Was the video shot from 2 different shows or did he have to switch guitars because of a string breaking? Beeker ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 13:07:24 -0800 From: bancroft@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu (Steven Bancroft) Subject: Re: Rolling Stone mag & RUSH > From: Barry Lowell Brumitt <bb1v+@andrew.cmu.edu> > > What does Rolling Stone have against Rush? > > I think every interview hacked on Geddy's voice, or on Neil's Lyrics... > > Very odd. > > Comments? It seems that whenever I read a Rolling Stone album review of ANY kind (those including RUSH as well), I _always_ disagree with the opinions presented by whoever is reviewing the album. They like an album, I don't. They cut on one, and I like it. My rating = (5 - R.S. rating) in stars, in most cases. Needless to say, I don't read Rolling Stone reviews much anymore, but, it does provide another point of view for me to consider from time to time. Steven Bancroft There is no safe seat at the feast University of California, Davis Take your best stab at the beast The night is turning thin Internet bancroft@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu The saint is turning to sin BITNET smbancroft@ucdavis.BITNET UUCP ..!ucdavis!smbancroft --RUSH ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 15:37:30 -0600 From: Ed Federmeyer <ed@iitmax.iit.edu> Subject: Alex's contributions to the band In a recent posting by: lutanist@EBay.Sun.COM (Dennis Richards Montgomery) With the subject: "Re: Rolling Stone Album Reviews" he writes: > >> [Rolling stone says: -EdF] >>oppressive. In addition, Alex Lifeson is not a particularly >>interesting lead guitarist, [the bastards :-) EdF] > >A fellow Rush fan (but non-musician) asked me what I thought Alex's >contribution was. My answer was creativity. His chord voicings are >unusual. He seems to love adding 9th's and using odd inversions. >He also has this knack for creating chords (check out the haunting >ending of "Cygnus X-1")...and his solos are totally bizarre with respect >to phrasing and his use of harmonics. Give a good listen to his solos >from "Tom Sawyer", "Chemistry", and "Kid Gloves" to see what I mean. >Speaking as a guitarist, I find Alex's creativity and ability absolutely >inspirational! I read in some magazine (maybe "Musician", or "Guitar Player" or one of those kinds of things) two interviews with Alex and Geddy. (Each one was interviewed seperatly, but both interviews were published in the same issue...) The gist of what Alex said was that for his solos, he would go in, lay down a few dozen ideas, go away for a few hours and let Neil and Geddy splice tape, come back and listen to what they had put together... In other words, his solos were (are?) a compilation of his ideas, "re-arranged" by the other guys. I just thought I'd mention this, you may find it to be an interesting bit of trivia... I'll check the issue/date/tile of the magazine when I get home, but I think the interviews were around the time of "Power Windows". In light of this, I think we need to re-think Alex's contributions to the band! :-) :-) :-) In the same vein: The Rolling Stone reviews mention that "Signals" was not a very good album. In particular they harped on the fact that there was to much synth and not enough guitar. Personally, I think Signals is one of Rush's best albums, because I feel that it is an outstanding example of the "perfect" (to me :-) mixture of synth sounds and Rush's guitar/singing/lyrics/rythm/etc... ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Dec 90 16:49:18 From: Cris Fuhrman <Cris_Fuhrman.DIAL_976@gateway.qm.apple.com> Subject: Reply to "In the End" Subject: Reply to "In the End" This goes out to Steven Bancroft, the guy who asked about the chords on "in the end"... If you notice on the studio version, the first set of chords (acoustic guitar) is in a different key than the second set (distortion electric guitar). Perhaps the acoustic was tuned differently, or a capo (sp?) was used to change the tuning. If you notice on the live version from ATWAS, there's no key change. Then again, I'm not a 6-stringer... I'm a bassist, but I pay attention to the key sigs. Hope this helps. -Cris "And the meek shall inherit the Earth." ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 20:37 EST From: AXEMAN%ALBION.BITNET@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Subject: Rolling Stone Reviews I was throughly disgusted by the Rolling Stone reviews of Rush posted in the special edition NMS. I also now have more reason to hate Rolling Stone :). One comment which particularly disturbed me was the mention of a lack of melody. I will agree that melody in Rush tunes doesn't hit you over the head in a poppish manner, but if you look its there and generally developed quite well. As far as Neil's lyrics go, I don't find them too philosophical. In fact I am attracted to Rush largely because of Neil's intelligent lyrics. I'd much rather listen to lyrics inspired by literature or nature than drunken sexcapades. The best review seemed to be Presto, 3 out of five stars. Yet I don't believe that War Paint is "a dog". In fact it was one of the first songs on the album that I really enjoyed. Also, I can't understand the references to Rush stealing songs from The Police and Foriegner. Maybe the reviewer had a special copy of Presto:). Well time to get off my soapbox, but it justs seems that Rolling Stone approaches music with a mentality uncapable of truly understanding Rush. One last thing. Does anyone know what the writing on Geddy's shirt is on the inside of the Presto disc. Bill "axeman" Colyer ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Dec 90 21:56:00 EST From: "Mike Andrews" <kramer@wittenberg.edu> Subject: In The End intro chords > From: bancroft@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu (Steven Bancroft) > Subject: "In the End" Transcription problems > > This question is directed to all 6-stringers out there.. I'm trying to > figure out some of the chords for the intro to "In the End" off of Fly by > Night. Here is what I have so far: > > C -> F/Bb -> ???? -> ???? > > I can't for the life of me figure out what the ???? chords are. > > I tried it in another key (G), and it works out great: > > D -> G -> F -> C For most of the song (the electric part) it IS D, G, F, C. The acoustic intro seems to be a whole step down, so that'd be C, F, Eb, Bb. It sounds to me like he actually tuned the acoustic guitar down to D first.. But I could be wrong.. :-) Anyone have better chords for the intro part? --- Mike Andrews Springfield, OH | A (by)product of the heart of the Bluegrass Internet: kramer@wittenberg.edu | "Tough times demand tough talk demand tough Bitnet: kramer@wittenbg.bitnet | hearts demand tough songs demand..." - Rush ---------------------------------------------------------- From: evanh@sco.COM (Evan A.C. Hunt) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 18:50:45 PST Subject: Weinrib or Leibowitz? Just to throw in my two senses, when I first heard about Geddy's name, I heard it as "Gary Lee Wein<something>". I can't remember what it was, exactly; "Weinrib" doesn't sound quite right, but it's definitely closer than "Leibowitz". I think this info came from Karen Post, erstwhile Goddess--she who was learned of much Rushly lore. For what it's worth, eh ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 08:55 EDT From: Ken Renard <KDRENARD@vms.cis.pitt.edu> Subject: NMS reviews Rolling Stone's reviews First of all, thanks a lot for the Rolling Stone album reviews. They were quite entertaining. I think it is said best in the "Permanent Waves" review: "It is easy to criticize what we can't understand" - Too true, too true. When they talk about Peart's pessimistic views, they are denying the fact that they are the ones limited by these problems. For instance, they say that "Subdivisions" is meant for the "social outcast" in the line "conform or be cast out". The writer is guilty of this himself! Rush is being cast out because their music doesn't "conform" to the simplistic "pop" music played in the high school halls and sold in the shopping malls. Most of us can look back at High School now and see that the "in crowd" was based on conformity, not legitimacy (i.e. look good, not be good) even if we were part of that crowd. The key to success in today's "music industry" (which I think is a contradiction of terms) is conformity and advertising. How many songs _not_ in the 4/4 time signature have been played on the "hip" radio stations in 1990 (e.g. B104, Balt.). Music is no longer an art, it is a business. Groups like Rush are bashed like this because they treat their music seriously as art. That is why I see very little merit in the Grammy, MTV, etc. awards. I believe it's a popularity contest, and has very little to do with music. Everyone is surely free to beleive whatever they want to, but make sure you don't fall into these conformity traps. Base musical talent on music, not on dancing or sales gimicks. It would be interesting to hear the reaction from the boyz about these reviews. Anyone have any info about that? "Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand. Ignorance and prejudice, they walk hand in hand." - Rush ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Dec 90 10:18:00 EDT From: "HINDS" <lerxst@pine.circa.ufl.edu> Subject: Brief Rolling Stone Review Review Just a quickie... I think that the Rolling Stone Reviewer of Presto who called Rush's latest, (and possibly greatest) effort "over produced," would probably also call Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmuzik "over produced' and Beethoven's Ninth "contrived." Over produced? This guy has the music appreciation ability of an earthworm. Happy Channukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to all you RUSHians out there in TV land!!! +--0O0 Lerxst ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 10:56:55 -0500 From: Patrick.Quairoli@cyber.widener.edu Subject: Rush->Rolling Stone & others Berryarry wanted to know what rolling stone had against Rush... well it's the se thing that they have against all musicians that they have felt have been 'linger -ing on'. I personally have never read a review in Rolling Stone which I agreed with. I canceled my subscription to R/S when they flamed Terance Trent D'arby for being humdrum... I've never agreed with there reviews or interviews. People magizine also had a little review of Presto back in Feb. they also flamed Geddy's voice for being too cartoonie but they said it is an aquired sound. (sorry for getting off the beaten path...) So here is to the few the proud and the lucky who have aquired a true love of the arts. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ pq \ / "it digital_man \ / takes a little quairoli@cs.widener.edu \ / more persistance to patrick.quairoli@cyber.widener.edu \/ get up and go the distance"-Rush _______________________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------
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