Mrow
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Oil
Free Books
I learned this yesterday and took advantage of it today. If you are an audible member, Neil Peart’s books are currently on sale for… free. This doesn’t include Clockwork Angels or Clockwork Lives as those are technically Kevin Anderson’s. I think it’s a nice little treat for fans, but I hope audible/amazon is still sending Neil’s royalty checks to his family.
I am hoping Rush has a few live records in the can that they can sneak out in the years to come. I want Neil’s family to be looked after. I know they have been releasing anniversary, deluxe editions of some records. I hope that continues. I will probably buy them rather than just listen to them on Apple Music or Spotify. I remember hearing people bitch about how Pink Floyd was always releasing compilations. There was a reason for it that wasn’t obvious though. All of those comps had at least one or two Syd Barrett songs. They were always finding ways to re-issue his music so that his Floyd related income never dried up. They were trying to look after him without interfering in his life. Those releases never moved big numbers, but it was enough to help Syd and his family. I hope so at least. I’d hate to learn otherwise.
Anyway, if you’re an audible member I recommend Ghost Rider. I know I’ve read at least one other book too, but I can’t remember which one. I think it was Far and Away. I bought it, started reading it, and realize I’d already read the whole thing. Well, a lot of it at least. Neil was a blogger and that book, if that’s the book I am thinking it is, was made up of old blog posts.
Someone pointed out the other day that we probably should have known something was wrong in the Peart camp because it had been a long time since he updated his website. He had his blog but he also shared recipes and had a sort of book club thing, if I remember it right. I hadn’t heard of any new posts there for a long time. In hindsight it feels like he was circling the wagons.
Anyway, listen to his music and read his books.
I took my photo a day picture this morning. It was another record player picture. 138/365, call it Moving, Moving Pictures.
Nervous
Okay, I’m a little nervous. We have a gig on February 1st. Given that we took the holidays off that means we have had one practice over the last month and we will only have two more before the 1st. Now it looks like there might be a conflict this Sunday. We are hoping to move the rehearsal to Saturday but there is a snow storm in the forecast. Monday is a holiday and I have it off, I think I’m the only one, so I don’t have my long commute to worry about. We should be able to have our usual 6:00 start time if the weather doesn’t cooperate on Saturday. I don’t think we’re going to miss one of our two remaining weekends but like I said, I’m nervous. We won’t be adding any new songs, but we are hoping to polish off the handful that we added in 2019 without ever playing to an audience. I have some wood shed time ahead of me, for sure.
On the plus side, our singer told us he bought a new digital mixing board today. One that we can control with an iPad app. Does that mean we will turn into one of those bands and all of us will have iPads on stage with us? Maybe. Larry and I had a completely unrelated discussion the other day about in-ear monitors. I would say this is the time to start experimenting with them, but sweet christmas they can get expensive. No thanks. If I happen to find a reasonably priced set that fits into my gigantic head (literally, not figuratively) that can also take the place of my ear plugs then maybe, but I don’t see that happening. Greg uses an in-ear and said it cost him $600. From what I have seen, that is cheap. Nope.
Allow me to give some credit here. In the last few months Greg has really come through for us in the P.A. system department. I have a mountain of gear that I can bring to the band table, but a good P.A. system is not included. Greg has stepped up and helped out in a big way. Now we just have to book gigs so we can use all of the new stuff.
Change of subject, I mentioned the other day that my Uncle was having surgery. It was actually a triple bypass. We found out today that he is now off of the ventilator, which is good, but he still has a long way to go before he recovers. On top of that my mother was having a bad night last night and there was talk of taking her to the ER. Fortunately she improved and the hospital was not necessary. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for her and her siblings. Her older sister spent some time in the hospital a week or so ago, and her younger sister might have to go back on chemotherapy after being in remission for years. Pardon me, oh universe, but do you have to be a dick to all of them at once?
As I typed that last sentence, the sun broke through the clouds. Is that a sign? Is the universe messing with my head? Dick.
So Neil Peart mentioned me in one of his books. Not really. In Ghost Rider he tells a story of a stop on the Test for Echo Tour in 1997 where his daughter, Selena, joined him and his riding buddy, Brutus, on a between gig motorcycle adventure. She met up with him at a show at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. Yup, you guessed it. I was there. June 23, 1997 to be exact. Neil Peart, Selena Taylor, Brutus McTrash (that’s his name on facebook, if I remember correctly), and I were all in the same room at the same time. Granted there were something like 12,000 other people with us, including Mike and Maria. I don’t think Maria was there with us, we didn’t start the band with her until after that, but I know she was there. In the story they left Mansfield and drove North into Maine and then the next day hopped onto their motorcycles and explored the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Pretty much the same thing my wife and I do a couple of times a year. The difference being our vehicle has four wheels and theirs had two. Given that Neil’s publishing career was made up of all travel books, I would say that he had good taste in road trips, which means Jen and I have good taste in road trips too. Yeah, we rule.
I’m still doing the photo a day thing over on Flickr. This morning before work I took the three minutes I should have spent shaving and took a couple of pictures. This one is the outtake. You’re welcome.
Vital Signs
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Replay X3
The liner notes from the Rush Replay X3 DVD box set includes a (small) reproduction of the ’81, ’84, and ’87 tour books. 1987 was the first tour I saw. I have a copy of the tour book buried in a closet somewhere at my parents house.
Here is what Neil’s gear page looked like…. because Rush was nerdy enough to include write ups of their gear. 
I had this zany idea of ripping the DVDs so I could watch them on my computer. It doesn’t seem to be working…. yet.
Clip On
I swore I’d never use one of these. Well… maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, maybe I just said publicly that I prefer to have my tuner be a pedal rather than a clip on, but whatever. Most tuner pedals double as kill switches and that is really useful.
One of the positives of being a guitar playing gear obsessed nerd is that you can usually come up with a pretty good Christmas list. My siblings and our spouses do a secret Santa every year. There are always plenty of gadgets that I can put on my wish list and this year I added a clip on tuner. Today was the first time I used it. It worked. I’m pleased.
I wonder if Alex Lifeson ever pulled out a clip on tuner at a Rush rehearsal and if he did I wonder if Neil Peart ever made fun of him for it. Geddy Lee probably would have. I can totally see that happening. I can hear Dirk and Pratt saying something like, Lerxst, you look like an idiot with that little clip on thing. I might be projecting lines from the restaurant scene from the Beyond the Lighted Stage documentary onto this topic, partly because I am a dork. Okay, totally because I’m a dork.
Don’t kill Pratt, it’s bad for business.
She had a watch. I hated that fucking watch.
It’s not lyrics, it’s evidence.
Waiter (putting Alex’s appetizer onto the table): pork bellies
Alex: What did you call me?
I called her, Urgh
Audiobooks and a Kick in the Crotch
I mentioned the other day that I added Neil Peart’s Ghost Rider to my audible collection. I have read it once before, years ago, but I want to listen to the audiobook on my commutes because… well… because I miss the guy. Don’t judge me, I’m a little messed up over here. A big part of my youth just up and died on me and I’m trying to deal with it. Give me a break. Sheesh.
Anyway, I needed to get through the book I was already listening to before I could start Ghost Rider. If I stop one book before it’s finished I’ll probably never go back to it, as evidenced by the Shelby Foote book that’s been sitting in my audible collection at 20% read for something like a year now.
The book I was listening to was Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and his son Owen King. It was pretty good. Not a world beater by any stretch but definitely a fun story. All the women in the world go to sleep and won’t wake up and all the men left over lose their shit trying to deal with it. Give it a read, it’s pretty good.
I was getting close to the end of the book. The audio file was down to the last hour or so, maybe a touch longer. One of the characters quotes something else and says something along the lines of everyone is just looking for a Peaceable Kingdom.
Fuck.
Rush, the album Vapor Trails, track four is called Peaceable Kingdom.
The two Misters King, without knowing and without any malice, just kicked me in the crotch.
Damn it.
Oh and Vapor Trails track three is called Ghost Rider… just like the book I have queued up next. They even hit me with a song from the same damn album.
Sonofabitch.
Neil Would be Pleased
Neil Peart would likely be pleased to know that I can still flub my way through Stick it Out from the Counterparts album, and Circumstances from the Hemispheres album.
He’d probably also laugh his ass off at how badly I suck, and that would be fine by me. 
