Ha ha -- could not resist that title. But as I rehearse with the band for our CD release gig on Sept 10 in Portland (Dublin Pub, 7 p.m.), I cannot help but get into the four more proggy songs on my new CD, A Fear Of Flashing Light.
Yes there are eight other tunes that range from acoustic based storytelling type songs to straight ahead rockers, but I am really digging what I call the proggy songs. Those are tracks 1, 7, 8 and 11 (The Garden, Comfort Zone, The Mokus, and Rescue).
Also, for anyone who has been waiting for an actual CD version (as opposed to the digital version that came out June 1), you can get that now. Just order from the site and we'll ship it right away. Only $5 including shipping - what a baaaargain! Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
I know I posted earlier that the fabulous Classic Albums series was going to put out episodes on Rush 2112 and Moving Pictures. Looks like they will both be available on Sept 28, and are still slated to run on VH1 and VH1 Classic around that same time frame. In the meantime, whet your appetite with this killer preview from the Moving Pictures episode:
Just like 80s music stalwarts The Talking Heads and The Police, there has always been major doubt about The Cars ever reuniting. Front men David Byrne, Sting and Rik Ocasek all made it pretty clear they did not want to go back in time and reunite with their lesser band mates.
Clearly in the case of The Police, Sting had a change of heart and that reunion tour was very successful.
Based on a random photo thrown up on the band's Facebook page, the four surviving Cars might just have something brewing as well.
The photo shows Ocasek, guitarist Elliott Easton and two other surviving Cars (bass player Benjamin Orr passed away in 2000) in a studio, presumably jamming. This has led to rumors that the band is reuniting for some reason. Clever buzz generation by just popping that photo up on the official Facebook page and letting the wind fan the flames.
The Cars were always a boring assed group live, but you cannot deny that their first few albums were fantastic. They for sure milked a New Wave image, and Ocasek's voice fit that mold for sure, but really they were a good little rock band before success turned them into MTV hitmakers.
Could be interesting to keep an eye on. Here is the photo:
As noted in an earlier post, KISS plan on donating one dollar from every ticket on the current North American tour to a veterans organization called Wounded Warriors.
Well, the tour just kicked off and in typical KISS fashion, they will make a photo opp out of every town's donation. And, judging from some of the photos so far, the total seems to be about $15,000 per gig. That will add up to a lot of cash! Good for them.
It will also make for some awesome photos and videos, like these from Cheyenne, Wyoming - the middle of the conservative, ranching-based Rocky Mountain states. Perhaps to get the check they need to have the city council in makeup or something. I hope none of these guys ever plan on running for major political positions - these photos will for sure be used by some right-wing political group to discourage the election of clown face paint wearing liberals!
I used to love Iron Maiden's videos back in the day because they would always focus on long shots of the band either playing live (or on a soundstage) or in the studio, donning headphones like the Flight of Icarus video.
I had not seen any of the band's latter video efforts until just this week, when I checked out the band's latest for the new song The Final Frontier. I have to agree with my good friend Pat that El Dorado is a better new song than The Final Frontier but I am just glad to get any new Maiden at all, so there.
The video is very, very high budget and it breaks from the old tradition in that you don't see the band at all in the video. In fact, it's almost a short movie with Maiden music playing in the background.
The beginning is almost like the Powerslave song Aces High set to film and thrown into the future. It's a very cool dogfight sequence. The rest is some kind of weird take on Alien and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but hey that can't be bad, right? And this is for sure the most bad-ass Eddie we have ever seen!
Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think:
Now HERE is some KISS news worth sharing. I was watching an interview with the band after its Leno performance Monday and half way through, they say that times are tough so if you are 14 years and under and come with an adult, you get into any summer KISS show for free. A lawn seat, yeah, but free.
If this is true, it's a class move. The band is also donating a dollar from every ticket to Wounded Warriors, a non-profit organization that honors soldiers of the U.S. Armed Forces. Classy part two.
OK so this is hella cool. According to Rolling Stone:
It's official: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock has the most epically prog-rock sequence of any music video game yet. Rush have teamed with Activision for the fall release, which features a story-based Quest Mode that includes with hero wannabes playing the entirety of "2112," a seven-part suite from the Canadian band's 1976 album of the same name. The story of the game's final segment roughly follows Rush's opus, and will be narrated by lead singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson. "In our story, the caves of 2112 are where our hero finds the lost guitar," says Lee. "This rediscovery of music is much like the Guitar Hero warriors' journey to find the Demi-God of Rock's Legendary guitar, which has been trapped in a cavern."
Peart, Lee and Lifeson join Kiss' Gene Simmons as Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock narrators. Simmons' contribution begins with an introduction asking players to "Come with me, and enter a world populated of Demi-Gods and Beasts. Transform from an everyday person and become the savior of rock & roll."
I love that Rush is getting more and more 'mainstream' without compromising itself. I mean, think of all the kids who will get turned on to 2112 because of this game. Very cool interviews with Geddy and Alex at this video:
Told ya it would be Modern Day Delilah. Still can't figure out if they are lip syncing this or not. The drummer usually gives it away and by the end I am pretty sure it's live. What do you think?
I also wonder how many kids stayed up to watch this like i did in the late 70s? I bet not as many, as you can just key up any KISS video you want on YouTube or use a DVR. Back in the day seeing KISS live on TV was like fuckin Christmas.
There is so much KISS stuff going on these days, I avoid posting it because it's all over the place. KISS Dr Pepper ad campaign? Really? Don't care...
However, two interesting things are coming up this week. First of all, the band will play on the Tonight Show tonight (Monday) at 11:35 p.m. Leno has always been a huge KISS fan and supporter and they have been on his show before. I predict they will do Modern Day Delilah, and it is always interesting to see how their huge fire and brimstone show translates to a small studio stage.
Second, A&E runs a program on the band tomorrow night at 10 p.m. The trailer looks pretty blah but I do like Tommy Thayer golfing backstage in full regalia. I guess there is a good amount of behind the scenes stuff from a recent Australian tour so what the heck.
An ad I saw said: "For the first time in their 35-year career, rock icons KISS give you an all access pass to the 'Alive 35' Australian tour. When Paul [Stanley] and Gene [Simmons] decide to launch a spontaneous mini-tour with only one week's notice, the entire KISS family must scramble to make it a reality. Malfunctioning pyrotechnics, faulty flying righs and missing drummers are the least of their challenges."
Wow. I go off the grid on vacation for a week and Pink Floyd get back together. Well, not really, but close.
According to a Billboard article a couple of days ago, the recent Gilmour-Waters reunion at a charity gig came as an offer from Gilmour, who said if Waters joined him at the gig to do the obscure "To Know Him Is To Love Him" by the Teddy Bears, Gilmour would join Waters onstage for ONE Wall gig to rip his Comfortably Numb solo, presumably from the top of the wall just like in the old days.
Waters says Gilmour emailed him with a tongue-in-cheek offer for them to collaborate at the 2010 benefit on the Teddy Bears' "To Know Him Is To Love Him," in a nod to the pair's famously rough-and-tumble relationship. Waters says he "loved" the idea, and the duo agreed to also round out their set with the Pink Floyd classics "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb."
The only trouble: Gilmour began sending Waters "a number of very musical and eloquent demos of how we could do the song in two-part harmony." Waters then got cold feet and told Gilmour performing the song in that fashion was "way outside my vocal comfort zone," to his "eternal shame."
According to Waters, Gilmour then made him a better offer. If Waters would agree to perform "To Know Him Is To Love Him" at the Hoping Foundation Benefit, Gilmour would guest on "Comfortably Numb" at a to-be-determined show on Waters' upcoming tour featuring Pink Floyd's "The Wall" being performed in its entirety.
"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Waters says. "How f*cking cool! I was blown away. How could I refuse such an offer. I couldn't, there was no way. Generosity trumped fear. And so explaining that I would probably be sh*te, but if he didn't mind I didn't, I agreed and the rest is history. We did it, and it was f*cking great. End of story. Or possibly beginning."
The plan is for Gilmour's appearance to be a surprise, adds Waters.
Are you kidding me? This is a fantastic development and I hope it leads to further collaboration between the two. Hopefully Gilmour will have such a blast on his one show that he'll do a few. WOW!
The audio to the below is from the Live 8 reunion but there are lots of great photos from last weekend:
Logged into the "I swore I'd never see this happen" file is the news story I saw on Spinner.com this morning.
Roger Waters and David Gilmour performed four songs together over the weekend at a charity event for the Hoping Foundation Benefit Evening at Kiddington Hall in Oxfordshire, England.
The duo were backed by longtime side guys Guy Pratt (bass and acoustic guitar), Harry Waters (keyboards), Andy Newmark (drums), Chester Kamen (guitar) and Jonjo Grisdale (keyboards). The line-up performed in front of 200 people, raising some £350,000 for the foundation.
They played "To Know Him Is To Love Him," (a cover) "Wish You Were Here," Comfortably Numb" and "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), and of course this was the guys' first time back together onstage since the Live 8 reunion in 2005.
This is obviously notable because despite the 2005 reunion, the two have not been totally complimentary of the other and most held out little hope of them playing together again.
This totally begs the question, will Gilmour join Waters to rip out his Comfortably Numb lead on top of Waters' giant Wall on any dates on the upcoming tour? Let's hope so!
SPOILER Warning: If you are trying to steer clear of anything to do with the new Rush tour (I couldn't take it anymore and looked at the set list yesterday - it's very different but very, very cool in my opinion. Lots of stuff I have never seen them play live), don't read this post.
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Alex Lifeson must have gotten tired of Geddy having dryers, chicken cookers etc instead of amps on his side of the stage because as you'll see in the below video, Alex now has some pretty whiz-bang visually killer new Hughes & Kettner amps that run along with the theme of the tour (time machines, steam engines etc).
There are some sneak peeks at the set list and of course some of the stage look is given away in this video. But if you don't care, and you dig weird assed amps and yabbing on about gear, watch the video!
Any dream of a Beatles reunion was of course shattered by Lennon's senseless murder in 1980. We did get as good of a reunion possible with the Anthology project. The DVD bonus features of the three surviving Beatles jamming is pretty priceless even though they seem a little tentative around each other.
Of course with Harrison's death a few years later, we have half the band dead. Just like The Who as a matter of fact. So we take whatever we can get when it comes to reunions.
Which leads me to this post. Ringo turned 70 this week. He is on his umpteenth All-Starr band tour and who joined as a surprise guest in New York? The one and only Sir Paul. As reported by Spinner:
All Ringo Starr asked for as a 70th birthday gift on July 7 was "peace and love" from all his fans around the world. However, he was the one who delivered a big birthday surprise to the wildly cheering attendees at his celebratory concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York when Paul McCartney joined the legendary Beatles drummer onstage, fronting Ringo's All-Starr Band for a joyous encore appropriately consisting of the Fab Four's 'Birthday.' Sir Paul, clad in a tight black suit and skinny tie right out of 1964, waggled his iconic Höfner bass in time while delivering his full-throated take on the song. Starr merrily bashed away behind him on his kit alongside his drummer son Zak Starkey, with Joe Walsh joining in to supply guitar pyrotechnics.
And thanks to the Internet (God bless the Internet), here it is:
After the band's atrocious Super Bowl performance I was about ready to throw in the towel and say The Who have officially jumped the shark for me, again.
I say 'again' because they jumped it when they had Kenney Jones replace Moon in 1979, again in 1989 when they rolled out the Who Review tour with a full horn section and line of backup singers. And despite the intense resurgence of the band's energy in the 90s through Entwistle's death, they jumped it yet again with the thud of a new album (Endless Wire) and boooorrrring tour I saw in 2006 and reviewed here.
I don't think anything would get me back into an arena to see these guys again. Except perhaps Quadrophenia. My interest and passion for the band was fully renewed in the mid 90s when I saw the guys (with Entwistle of course) tear through the whole album live, with guests Billy Idol as the Ace Face and Gary Glitter as the pedophile.
The performance ripped my head off and Townshend was fully engaged. Something about the music on that album up-levels the band's game, and I would eagerly see even this rather gutless, tired version of the band play Quadrophenia again.
I MAY get the chance, based on what Daltry told Billboard yesterday:
"We're just working out what to do next," singer Roger Daltrey told Billboard.com. "We've got ideas ... We're looking on probably being out there, hopefully if all goes well, in the spring of next year ... We definitely don't want to stop. We feel it's the role of the artist to go all the way through life 'til you can't do it anymore."
While there are tour plans in the works, there are a few things that the Who need to sort out -- namely, the potential of incorporating the band's 1973 rock opera 'Quadrophenia' into the show.
"There are issues with it to make it work at our age," Daltrey said. "I'm 16 years older than when we last did it and I always had a bit of a problem as far as the crowd was concerned, with the way we were presenting the show, the way our position within the piece was explained. For the newcomers, it was narratively a bit of a puzzle, what Pete and I were to this guy on the screen. It needs a revamp. It would be dated to put it out as it is now. We need to fix that area, but I know how to do it."
One more thing that Daltrey cites as a concern is bandmate Pete Townshend's severe Tinnitus, but he believes it's something that shouldn't be too much of an issue with the help of technology.
"It's nothing that can't be sorted out -- just different monitor systems, different onstage volume, which is where the issue is," Daltrey said. "Pete being the addictive character he is, if he gets carried away he tends to turn up his volume to the odd levels, and that's when it causes the trouble. That's one of the problems with rock 'n' roll, once the old adrenaline kicks in."
As seen on ClassicRock.com this morning, Ozzy confirms in an interview with Pulse Radio that he was against the idea of replacing Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake’s work on his first two solo albums. I blogged about this issue here earlier.
The crux is that in 2002, bassist Daisley and drummer Kerslake were removed from the Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman albums, after they took legal action for unpaid royalties. Their parts were replaced by Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin who were in Ozzy's band at the time.
Ozzy told Pulse Radio: “Believe me, it wasn’t my doing. I mean, I didn’t know that was being done, ’cause Sharon (Osbourne) was fighting all the legal things that were going down at the time. I said, ‘What did you do that for?’ And she said, ‘The only way I could stop everything was if it went to that level.’ And I said, ‘You know what, whatever the circumstances were, I want the original thing back.’ I mean, I wouldn’t have done that.”
Well, mistakes are mistakes and I am glad it's being fixed. Now I can actually get those albums on CD soon.
Breaking sad news in the KISS family. Bill Aucoin, original manager of KISS, has died. Aucoin discovered the band, got them signed to their first record deal, bankrolled their early days, and steered the direction of the band in regards to merchandising, redefining the role of band manager the same way guys like Peter Grant (Zeppelin) and Brian Epstein (Beatles) did.
Put it this way - when I was a little kid and loved KISS, I knew who Aucoin was. Who can name the manager of a recent artist with the same degree of recognition? This is another legend passing away here.
Bill Aucoin, who discovered the rock group Kiss and helped build them into a musical and merchandising juggernaut, died Monday in Florida. He was 66.
Aucoin died at Aventura Hospital and Medical Center in Aventura of surgical complications from prostate cancer, said Carol Kaye, a family spokeswoman.
A former television cinematographer, Aucoin discovered Kiss in New York City in 1973 and helped launch the makeup-wearing, fire-breathing quartet into a moneymaking machine.
He financed the band's first tour on his personal American Express credit card when money was tight, but he was well rewarded when the band's popularity exploded in 1975 with the hit "Rock And Roll All Nite."
"He was the fifth Kiss," said drummer Peter Criss, who had Aucoin serve as the best man at his second wedding. "If it wasn't for Bill, there would be no Kiss."
Aucoin first saw the band at a showcase gig at New York's Diplomat Hotel, then brought it upstairs to meet with record company executive Neil Bogart, who signed it as the first act on his Casablanca Records label.
Criss said Aucoin had an eye for what was visually striking and recognized the vast merchandising potential of rock bands in a way that few others could. With Aucoin's help, Kiss became as famous for the vast array of products bearing their likeness — including belt buckles, Halloween costumes and makeup kits, action figurines, vitamins and even a Kiss pinball machine — as they were for their music.
ClassicRock.com posted a great interview with Aucoinhere.
The KISS home page has put up a splash screen with some kind words. Here is an image of it:
I took my loving, patient wife on a date night to see the new Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage. Well, it was actually her suggestion and we have seen Rush a couple of times live, so I knew it was not going to end with a train wreck.
I have read just about every bio on Rush, seen all the DVDs, read all of Neil’s books etc, so my question was, am I going to learn anything new? I did glean a few new nuggets such as Alex Lifeson’s opinion on the keyboard-laden late 80s albums, or Rush’s work with Kevin Caveman Shirley on Counterparts, and why that album is so heavy.
But overall if you are a big long-time Rush fan, there is not a lot of new stuff, bio-wise. However, there are loads and loads of live performance clips, photos and interviews from back in the day that I had never seen. I mean, how did they get a film of Lifeson telling his parents he did not see why he needed to finish high school to pursue a life in music?And who are all those other people in that scene? It looks like an intervention!
The film does an excellent job presenting how the band came together, the bond between Lee and Lifeson, how they all overcame great challenges to stay true to their vision, and how they keep reinventing themselves as a band, to this day.
The new interviews with all three guys are great, especially the Neil interviews, which are very informative and telling. For a guy who is pretty much a recluse, he really opens up in the film.
Some of my favorite moments are the interviews with people who admire Rush, including a couple of very articulate life-long fans, Jack Black (yes Jack Black) and Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins who makes a great case for why Rush is one of the best bands in history despite the fact that they are always marginalized by the powers that be who hold the keys to institutions such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
One of the musicians interviewed said something along the lines of, it was way back in the 70s and 80s when it was fashionable to not like Rush but that was a long time ago, and they are still around, selling out arenas year after year – you need to get over it and if still don’t like/respect them now, you are just being an old dickhead. Nice.
The one time the filmmakers show the whole band together (offstage at least) is in the rolling credits where the three are having wine in a restaurant and are clearly lit up a bit. They throw jokes back and forth across the table and are clearly really enjoying each other’s company. One would be lucky to have friends as close as these guys are, much less make fucking awesome music together and sell 40 million albums worldwide.
Great job, filmmakers, for allowing us into that private world to see a little bit about what makes one of our favorite bands tick. I DVR’d the film off of VH1 so I can watch it again until I buy the DVD when it comes out June 29. It's just that good.
Caught Iron Maiden last night in the second week of their Final Frontier tour. As expected, the band did mostly material from its last three albums, much to the chagrin of many Maiden fans based on Internet chatter. I too wish they had struck a better balance between all the various eras of the band, mainly because I did not know the bulk of the material performed.
The day before, I had put together an iPod playlist of the set list (I had to buy most of it on iTunes), and we listened to it in the car. Great stuff for the most part, but I like to have a better grasp on a band’s music before seeing it live. Especially when the average song length is seven or eight minutes.
But last night, people were into it! It seems for example that Fear of the Dark, a song I had never heard prior to the last tour, is a huge fan favorite. Same with Brave New World. Huh.
The band exploded onto the new outer-space themed stage set after an opening of Mars The Bringer of War by Holtz. The Wicker Man was first and it went on from there. Two things really struck me this time. Bruce Dickinson’s voice was in top form, and Dave Murray was totally on fire. He has always been my favorite Maiden gunslinger even though Adrian Smith might be technically better. But Murray was totally inspired. His leads blew me away and he has that unique tone where he uses the wah pedal only part way engaged so it has that washy sound. Awesome.
Steve Harris was manic and precise as usual, and Janik Gers annoyed me far less than the last two tours. Probably because he has a big role in these latter era songs, as he played on those albums. I really enjoyed the three-guitar interplay, actually. Whether it was a three part harmony or a layer of three totally different parts, it was really interesting. You just don’t see bands with three virtuoso guitarists who equally share the spotlight.
The place was packed all the way back to the lawn. Dickinson joked that Maiden must be getting the overspill from the cancelled Christina Aguilera tour. Ha ha. The set was high energy and if people were pissed at the set list they didn’t let on. People stood the entire time, fists in the air, and again people seemed to know these songs and sang along all night.
Aside from the five older tunes, my favorites were the new El Dorado, which absolutely kills live (and I got the solo order wrong in my review – it’s Smith, Murray, Gers!), and the two songs from A Matter of Life And Death. I wish they had done more from that CD, as I still think it’s one of their best post Seventh Son efforts.
Reviews of the tour have overall been positive, performance-wise. Meaning, people bitch about the set list but in the next breath say, “But Maiden was awesome as usual.”
I think it just depends on when you discovered the band. Before the song Blood Brothers (which Dickinson dedicated to Dio, by the way – very cool), Brucie asked how many people were seeing the band for the first time. A LOT of hands went up and there was a sense of torches being passed. But instead of a KISS concert where the same old torch gets handed off, with Maiden you get a whole new set of tunes to call your own.
Put it this way – one kid I talked to (the son of a friend) brought his Brave New World CD for Steve Harris to sign. He told me that Out Of A Silent Planet from that album is the best song Maiden has ever recorded. He was very adamant about this. I had never heard the song before and I barely knew the handful of songs Maiden would pull live from that album.
But I realized on my way home that to this kid, Brave New World is his Powerslave. Or if you are even older than me, his Killers. This is the CD he probably discovered Maiden with and who am I to say it’s no good? He was rightly stoked they were going to do four songs off of it, as I was stoked last time to hear so much from Powerslave.
It’s very, very cool that Maiden can provide so many different frames of reference for its multiple generations of fans.
We heard that after this short tour of the States there is a World Tour and the band would be back to the U.S. next year. Will I go again? Likely, yeah. And you know what? I have Brave New World stuck in my head and am enjoying discovering some ‘new’ Maiden! Mission accomplished.
Set List:
The Wicker Man Ghost Of The Navigator Wrathchild El Dorado Paschendale The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg These Colours Don't Run Blood Brothers Wildest Dreams No More Lies Brave New World Fear Of The Dark Iron Maiden
Encore: The Number of the Beast Hallowed Be Thy Name Running Free
Short video I took of Wrathchild:
As usual, my buddy Pat who knows Steve Harris from the early 80s got us all passes so we were able to say a quick hi to Steve and then I was able to wander a bit near the latter part of the show to take some close up photos. Here are a few of the better ones overall:
As I mentioned yesterday, Rush and Iron Maiden recently released digital singles in advance of their 2010 tours. I reviewed Rush's single here and today it's time for Iron Maiden's El Dorado, the single from the upcoming Final Frontier album.
First of all, I am seeing the band perform tonight so I am pretty fired up. The last two tours have leaned heavily on the classics, and now it's time for the U.S. to pay the price with mostly 2000-era Maiden. Yep, most of the songs I will see tonight are from the last three albums - Brave New World, Dance of Death and Matter of Life and Death. I love the latter album but don't really know the other two.
Fellow blogger Vince Neilsteindid a solid job earlier this month laying out the debate over the pros and mostly cons of this move. He called the post-2000 material Iron Meh-den, which is pretty funny.
It's a hot topic in metal circles for sure. Me? I wish they would just do a little of everything instead of leaning towards "classic" or "modern." But I am just glad to see them at all.
OK the song. It's a tad under 7 minutes, and is pretty typical prog-metal from Maiden. I am always hoping for something as catchy as Two Minutes to Midnight or as epic as Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but those days are long gone. What we do have now is a triple guitar onslaught. It just occurred to me that poor JanikGers had to suffer through the last two tours windmilling his way through songs he didn't play on on the albums. Hmm.
OK, El Dorado -- After a nicely noisy intro, we get that familiar Steve Harris gallop! (think The Trooper). Ripping triple guitar onslaught. Good Dickinson performance - he still has yet to phone it in. The guy always delivers. Song is a little repetitive through the second pre-chorus and the chorus is pretty decent. Air Raid Siren Dickinson emerges but a little strained on the high end. Usual complex Maiden center section leading to triple solos. I think it's JanikGers, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith in that order. But we'll see tonight if I nailed that one or not. Out of the solos - more galloping, then another verse/pre-chorus/chorus. Overall it's a good tune. I like it.
And shit, they are giving it away - grab it and tell me what you think! You can get the song El Dorado from Maiden's Web site here.
My review of the last tour is here and here. I hope to post a review of tonight's show this week.
Two classic bands (read, 'been around since the 80s or earlier') to get their shit together for the new era of music discovery, delivery and consumption (read 'Internet and mobile devices') are Rush and Iron Maiden. Both bands have released previews from their upcoming full length albums ahead of summer tours.
In Rush's case, the band decided to put out a single, tour and THEN record the bulk of the new album, so their chops would be particularly rocking. In Maiden's case, the album will be out after the tour has started, but it's pretty much cooked.
On Rockline recently, Steve Harris confirmed the band would just do the one pre-released song live and wait to unleash any more new material until the full album is out. Same with Rush - we can expect to hear both of their new songs live on this year's tour.
The new Maiden song, called El Dorado is offered as a free download, and the new Rush single costs $2.49 and includes a 5-page digital booklet.
OK, all good. But how are the songs? Here is my take on the Rush tunes. I will review Maiden's tomorrow in advance of me seeing the band live tomorrow night.
Rush - Caravan/BU2B: It took me a long time to fully appreciate these songs, as usual for me with modern Rush.
There is a LOT going on here. The general vibe? Heavy. Caravan starts out like the soundtrack to a Godzilla movie, if Godzilla is the size of the Empire State Building, which I imagine is slightly bigger than his actual size. Um, well, you see where I am going: The song is large and lumbering.
The opening riff gets turned on its head once the drums come in, and is as solid as any Rush riffage. Geddy comes out swinging with fairly typical Neil lyrics:
In a world lit only by fire Long train of flares under piercing stars I stand watching the steamliners roll by
The caravan thunders onward To the distant dream of the city The caravan carries me onward On my way at last On my way at last
Which yields to the very catchy chorus refrain of "I can’t stop thinking big, I can’t stop thinking big, In a world where I feel so small, I can’t stop thinking big."
After the second chorus there is a multi-part instrumental freak out that is for the most part, well fucking awesome. It took me a while to really grasp what is going on in this section because it changes pretty quickly. I still don't get it all but the bass and drums interplay going on under the guitar and solo are incredibly strong and complex, and then out of that they just hit that big chorus one more time, freak out some more and wrap it up.
The second song, BU2B is even heavier if that is possible. Lyrically very consistent with Neil's science over religion bent:
I was brought up to believe The universe has a plan We are only human It’s not ours to understand
The universe has a plan All is for the best Some will be rewarded And the devil take the rest
This song follows the 'new Rush' tradition of throwing in some super duper heaviness on each album, along the lines of Spindrift and Earthshine from their last two albums. Pretty pummeling vibe, sometimes atonal guitar. But there are some moments of relief, such as the bridge which brings back some of that 80s keyboard padding. Doesn't last long though and we're back to the main plodding riff. Fucking huge. Not sure I have heard them this huge.
These songs are going to blow people's minds live. And if the whole album sounds anything like this, it's going to be kick ass.
In more Rush news, the documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage will air on VH1, VH1 Classic and Palladia this Saturday, and will be preceded in some markets by the Classic Rock album series episodes on 2112 and Moving Pictures. That's a whole lotta Rush and I like it! Full reviews on that shiteness next week.
I play guitar for various Portland bands (colorfield, Flat Stanley, The Floydian Slips). Find out more about me on my Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/mULCrf
SXSW Day Three: Every Band Is A Girl
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I pretty much stayed at Hotel Vegas(Hotel Hot Burrito, Mustache Central)
the whole damn day and fuck you for telling me for two weeks now that I
missed any...
Free Download Friday: Steven Wilson
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I wrote a review of Steven Wilson's new album, *4 1/2 *for the Moshville
Times. While I was researching it, I found a bucketload of free downloads
on Steve...
Ha ha -- could not resist that title. But as I rehearse with the band for our CD release gig on Sept 10 in Portland (Dublin Pub, 7 p.m.), I cannot help but get into the four more proggy songs on my new CD, A Fear Of Flashing Light.
