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Subject: 10/02/92 - The National Midnight Star #528
Status: R
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Midnight Star, Number 528
Friday, 2 October 1992
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
Convention Postcards
Re: Rush and Ayn Rand
Mercury w/ new Rush CD's
Pink Floyd Fanclub
Newv. Old
chill out
Rush Equipment
Waves and wars
Radio Play...
Some Ann Raynd Noise
sound at intro to to Dreamline
Old vs New Argument!
The sounds of silence
Conventions/books
----------------------------------------------------------
From: rush-mgr <The National Midnight Star Editor>
Subject: Administrivia
Date: Fri Oct 2 17:38:43 EDT 1992
Anyone catch those Rand references in last night's episode of The
Simpsons? (Too funny..) By the way, for you new people I'd like to say
in addition to the NMS (available electronically), there are 2 excellent
Rush fanzines (yes, even the band reads them) available to complete your
Rush collection. They are:
A Show of Fans Spirit of Rush - UK
c/o Steve/Mandy Streeter 25 Garden Close
PO Box 292 Chinbrook Road
Canton, CT 06019 Grove Park
Phone: 203-693-0506 London SE12 9TG
ENGLAND
Subscriptions for ASOF are $15/year (4 issues + "Pressure Release" newsletters
on happenings with the band as they become available between issues.)
The latest ASOF issue #5 is mailing out this weekend. ASOF #4 has a nice
letter from Neil to the fanzine. Check it out! Back issues available.
Subscriptions for SOR-UK are $20/year (4 issues) available through ASOF.
SOR-UK and ASOF are sister magazines and are completely *independent* of
each other, but are fine complements of one another. As a result for US
subscriptions, SOR-UK is available through ASOF. Back issues available.
As a subscriber of both, I can vouch for their strived quality as a
non-profit publication run by fans, for fans. Give them a try and tell
them you heard about ASOF and SOR-UK through the NMS.
: rush-mgr
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Chris Schiller <chris@cdc.hp.com>
Subject: Convention Postcards
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 17:09:17 PDT
John Satore has been asking for postcards to show intrest in a
convention. It seems that since this is an e-mail list, the best
way to respond is through e-mail. I can speak for myself and say
that I want to go to the convention, but I will probably not take
the trouble to find a postcard, find John's address, and burn a
stamp for a possible convention a year from now. I realize John
cannot handle the possible e-mail responses--neither can I. Maybe
someone else out there can volunteer, or a special address can be
set up at syrinx.
Anyone else feel this way or have comments?
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 18:57 PDT
From: rseymour@reed.edu (Robert John Seymour)
Subject: Re: Rush and Ayn Rand
Neil stated in an interview that he did not base _2112_ on
_Anthem_ by Ayn Rand. He wrote 2112 and upon finishing most of the
work, realized that it was almost exactly like Anthem, and so gave
credit to Ayn Rand in the liner notes. While the two are similar,
they also have their differences.
In 2112, the protagonist lives in an "idealized" society,
ruled by a small set of persons who control the various aspects of
life. The protagonist feels that his life is good, and is generally
happy at the outset. One day, he discovers an ancient guitar which he
takes to quite nicely (notice how soon he learns harmonics). He
thinks this is the greatest thing in the world, and so he brings it
to the leaders (the "priests" of the Temples of Syrinx). They tell
him that they know all about it, and to forget it. They say that he
should think of the average man, and what use this would be to him.
He is, needless to say, unnerved by this, and goes to think about it.
In the dream he has, an oracle shows him men of the past world (that
presumably created the artifact). He finds his life a dead end of
dispair and commits suicide. After this, the persons of the ancient
world reclaim the society and "assume control".
In Anthem, the protagonist lives in an "idealized" society,
ruled by a small set of persons who control the various aspects of
life. The protagonists isn't very happy with his life, and despises
the work that the board assigns him. He secretly runs off during a
type of general meeting and conducts scientific experiments in an
abandoned subway section (from another time and society). One day
he's playing with wire, and sees that a frog convulsed when touched
by two wires that were in a jar of bile. He goes on to rediscover
electricity, and presents it to the ruling board. Like 2112, the
board rejects the product, telling him to think of the producers of
candles and laterns. This infuriates him, and he runs off into the
woods. Eventually he finds an abandoned house with literature from
the old society. He discovers the personal pronouns (i. e. "I", which
is 1001001 in ASCII binary), and renames himself Prometheus. He goes
on to set out to free the rest of man...
The two do have striking similarities, but I doubt Neil made
any conscious goals towards Anthem. By the way, Anthem is a great
book and I would highly recomend reading it along with _The
Fountainhead_, also by Ayn Rand. Her fiction is amoung the best, and
her philosophies are thought provoking at least. Hope this answers
your question, email me if you want more information.
Robert Seymour rseymour@reed.edu
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 15:54:57 HST
From: puanani@ahi.pbrc.Hawaii.Edu (Puanani Akaka)
Subject: Mercury w/ new Rush CD's
Jello...
I've just heard the latest news from a very reliable source about
Mercury and their latest attempts at the ole "let's milk more $$ out
of Rush" schemes:
*There will be a "Chronicles: Live" double-CD package coming
out sometime. Presumably with the _studio_ versions of "What You're
Doing" and "A Passage to Bangkok"...
-- whether *this* is the "Chronicles II" package or is
something entirely different is not known at this time. Anyone know
for sure?
*"Moving Pictures" will be coming out on Ultradisk in Nov.
(I forgot the exact date -- the 6th or the 9th or something like
that). :-)
--NOTE: this has nothing to do with Mercury/Polygram Rec.
Presumably, this will have taken from the master since the W. German
CD's have that infamous missing initial sec. or so. So it should be
a complete CD.
Anyway, that's the latest. Skid Row is coming to town in a couple
weeks (ed note: with no where near the performance of Pearl Jam...)
so it'll be interesting to see if they *do* perform "What You're Doing".
I hope so. I'd like to know how they do the song... If anyone's
interested, e-mail me after the 12th of Oct. and i'll let you know
how they played it (if at all...).
That's a wrap! Ho-hoo!
puanani
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 18:21:52 -0700
From: Jonathan G. Moskow <moskow@ocf.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Pink Floyd Fanclub
I'm sorry to break up the Rush posts but...A friend of mine said that a Pink
Floyd mailing list was posted on this mailing list. Can anyone send me the
address of the person I should contact? Thanks. E-miling me would probably be
easier. Thanks again. Jonathan
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 14:14:38 +1200
From: mphillip@matai.vuw.ac.nz
Subject: Newv. Old
>From a musicians point of view (I'm a drummer/percussionist (I played
percussion for an orchestra) I must disagree with Dan's comment that the
New Rush isn't interesting to musicians. On the contrary, Neil Peart's
drumming was excellent but predictable prior to Power Windows. From that
album onwards he has really come into his own and created a very individual
style. Probably explains why his drumming on Power Windows won him many
awards. His drumming prioir to that was largely unrecognisable from any
one of many double bass drum, large kit players (perhaps with the exception
of some of Signals eg The Weapon & Digital Man (my fave Rush track) and
other prog-rock players such as Bill Bruford were far more interesting to
listen to. I'm not saying this to get any flames or enter into a lengthy
debate, I just think that the 'new Rush" is much more interesting from this
musicians point of view..
Regards
Martin
Martin Phillipson
Faculty of Law
Victoria University of Wellington
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Telephone +64 4 472 1000 x 8284 OR
+64 4 471 5342 x 8284
Fax +64 4 495 5236
E-Mail (Internet) mphillip@matai.vuw.ac.nz
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 22:59 EST
From: THE QUIET MAN <OWENK%EARLHAM.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU>
Subject: chill out
Hello out there,
Hey, if you happen to like Rush's older material, great. If you like
their new stuff, wonderful. All bands change with time if they want to
continue as a viable group, and no band (not even Rush) has universal appeal
to all of their constituency.
There is no safe seat at the feast...
Owen
----------------------------------------------------------
From: tvos@ais.org (David A Warner)
Subject: Rush Equipment
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 0:08:45 EDT
I saw the post about what ged,alex, and neil use in a live concert setting
but I forgot to save the file.. could that person email me the whole
set up rush uses for their live performances.. thanx
tvos
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Waves and wars
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 23:26:09 CDT
From: dts@quad.sialis.com (David Sandberg)
J.C. Rush <cook@donald.cs.umn.edu> writes:
> I don't know what whoever said the beginning of Dreamline was a car
> sound was smoking, but it is most certainly NOT a car driving by.
> It was a the sound of a passing wave, and here's proof: In the tour
> book, one of Geddy's pieces is a Korg Wavestation, a device for pro-
> ducing such waves in any pitch and length.
This was intended as a deadpan pun on the word "wave", right?
However, in case anyone doesn't get what I presume is a little
joke, let me just say that a Korg Wavestation is just another
synthesizer, albeit a very good one in my opinion (I ordered
a Wavestation EX for myself last week, and I didn't even know
that Geddy had one! B-). It can produce a car sound just as
easily as the sound of a passing wave... the synth's moniker
has nothing to do with the sound of "waves", at least not the
watery kind. (That idea was good for a laugh, though. I hope
I don't always have to play this thing in the bathtub. B-)
qsp!danb@uunet.UU.NET (Daniel Benbenisty) writes:
> ........................ Maybe most musicians (even literate ones! :)) are
> less lyrically (than musically) oriented than the general literate, book-
> reading public. BTW, I've met many musicians who enjoy old Rush, but I have
> NEVER met a musician who likes the new stuff at all. You would be the first,
> if you're a musician.
This was not addressed to me, but as a long-time professional
musician I felt I should respond. I like Rush's new music almost
as much as their older stuff... just for different reasons. It's
true that most of the new music does not require QUITE as nimble
of fingers as the old stuff did, but I find their songwriting to
be much more coherent now than it used to be. Good songwriting is
the element of music which I've come to value the most since I
matured past the "how many notes can we squeeze into THIS measure"
phase... just as Rush has matured past the same phase.
I do agree that most musicians tend to respond more to music than
to lyrics (at least it holds true for me). But what is it that
makes music "good"? That will always make for some disparity of
opinions, amongst musicians as much as anyone else.
BTW, the other guys in my most recent band were uniformly into
Rush as well, including the newer music. You should have heard
some of the impromptu Rush jams we broke into this last summer,
between bouts of working on our own music... of course, it helps
when you have a lead singer who happens to sound almost EXACTLY
like Geddy (both in tone and vocal range).
Finally, a plea to all concerned: can we please stop arguing
about whether old Rush is better than new Rush, or visa versa?
In all the time I've been reading this list, this is about the
most idiotic topic I've seen, and it's starting to become very
difficult to wade through all of this glarp in the hopes of
finding something worth reading. If Mr. Peart were to read the
NMS these days, his comments might well make "Get A Life!" seem
comparatively mild. B-(
Thank you. It feels good to have gotten that off my chest. B-)
--
\ david sandberg dts@quad.sialis.com /
/ "Winners take that praise - losers seldom take that blame." \
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 01:28:40 EDT
From: "And, Bang, I'm three seconds into the future..."
<vaghini@scoman.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Radio Play...
I was just wondering...
Lately there has been a lot more Rush being played on
the radio, I live in the Boston area, and it seems that
they just can't get enough of Rush lately. WBCN even
played ALL of 2112 on Neils B-day, sure it was at 1 in the
morning, but they did it. I've heard alot of non-mainstream
stuff being played too, such as_I think I'm going bald_ and
_Lessons_ is it just me who manages to catch these glipses
of justice?
(is justice too strong of a word?)
John V
ONRQ:"I've been slandered, libeled, called names I never heard
in the bible..."
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: 02 Oct 1992 02:00:00 -0700 (MST)
From: Jerry_Jahnke@tikal.biosci.arizona.edu (Jerry Jahnke)
Subject: Some Ann Raynd Noise
Reply to: Some Ann Raynd Noise
I know this does not belong here, but I just had to share it.
Did anyone else catch "The Simpson's" last night?? Marge was rehearsing for
a musical version of "Streetcar Named Desire" and had to put Maggie in a day
care center. As it turns out the one which is recommended to her by the
director of the play is the "Ann Raynd Day Care Center." It was a hoot.
Woman at Center: "Do you know what she is saying when she wants a bottle?"
Marge Simpson: "Ba-Ba?"
Woman at Center: "NO! 'I am a leech.'"
(a rough paraphrase)
The final scene at the center has to be seen and heard to be believed,
thousands of babies all sucking on passifiers the sound had me rolling on
the floor in laughter. It really does have to be seen to be believed.
Sorry for the noise, but I had to share it, and I could think of no better
group with which to share it.
Jer,
----
Jerome Jahnke
Biology Learning Center
University of Arizona
'jahnke@biosci.arizona.edu' or +1 (602) 621-3820
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 11:23:27 -0500 (CDT)
From: RKB6116@SIGMA.TAMU.EDU (Mr. Weather)
Subject: sound at intro to to Dreamline
>From the very first time I heard Dreamline, I thought the sound was
a car passing by very quickly on a _wet road_. In my own mind, there
was never any question about this, however it's only MHO.
:)
Mr. Weather <> aka Ken Blair <> rkb6116@zeus.tamu.edu <> Aggieland USA
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Friday, 02 October 1992, 13:52:31 EDT
From: Charles J McDonald <chuck@geosci.lan.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Old vs New Argument!
Argh!
I thought this newsletter was for RUSH appreciation!
If you don't like some RUSH, fine. But is this really the place
to go on about it?
[ Contructive criticism always welcome, intellectual discussions
encouraged, opinions shared. Flames discouraged :rush-mgr ]
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
: "May the sands of time never get in your suit."
:
: Charles J McDonald
: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
: McGill University
: 3450 rue Universit (514) 398-6767
: Montreal, Que H3A 2A7 fax (514) 398-4680
:
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
----------------------------------------------------------
From: calexan1@eos.ncsu.edu
Subject: The sounds of silence
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 14:35:06 EDT
Ok, maybe I'm being a bit retentive and all, but does it bother anyone else
besides me that the 'dead' time or silence between tracks on most Rush albums
(and especially the later ones like RTB) is not the same length? For example,
Bravado starts almost immediately upon the end of Dreamline, but it takes a
good few seconds for Ghost of a Chance to get started. Is this done on
purpose, or is it just accident, or what? It's like that on both my CD and the
vinyl copy (yes, I bought RTB on vinyl). It also seems to be this way on HYF
and Presto and most of the other (earlier) ones as well.
Or am I just being too picky about this sort of thing?
Chris
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Alexander |"We need, in love, to practice only this:
calexan1@eos.ncsu.edu | letting each other go."
| -Rainer Maria Rilke
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 17:33:46 -0400
From: jlang (~ Rush Fanatic ~)
Subject: Conventions/books
>Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 21:35:47 -0400 (EDT)
>From: John Michael Santore <jsbh+@andrew.cmu.edu>
>Subject: More on the convention
>
>I'll try and organize some sort of convention, but I need interest....
>I'm using the postcards as a reference guide to how many people are
>interested, to estimate costs, and logistics....if you even have a
>remote interest please send one.... If I don't get a bigger response
>soon, I'm just going to write it off....
>
If enough people are interested, such a proposed convention could be
advertised through the Rush fanzines? A Show of Fans perhaps, I'm sure
would be happy to get the word out, and with enough detail, I'm sure the
NMS could get the word out to new subscribers, an announcement of some
type. (email me if you need help getting the idea around.)
I don't know if sending in a postcard is a popular idea, email seems to
be a more viable medium for information. Just my opinion though. At
least for "net people" For ads in ASOF fanzine, then maybe a postcard
would be in order.
>
>Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 23:12:10 EST
>From: The Professor <MGALL@ucs.indiana.edu>
>Subject: RE: 09/30/92 - The National Midnight Star #526
>
>Dearest Rush-Heads,
>(Anybody know about the B-Man';s book, or the camera mans?)
>
Last heard, the B-man's book is going through 2nd revisions. Was
originally set for December to come out but may not be out until next
year now? Anyone else hear anything specific?
The "camera man's" book (Andrew McNaughtan), nothing is heard really
except that he is writing a book about the band. No date heard about
release.
-Jimmy
jlang@syrinx.umd.edu
----------------------------------------------------------
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Copyright The Rush Fans Mailing List, 1992.
Editor, The National Midnight Star
(Rush Fans Mailing List)
********************************************
End of The National Midnight Star Number 528
********************************************