Tag: Rush

By-Tor Overdrive Pedal

After announcing two new amplifiers made in partnership with Mojotone and sold under the name Lerxst, Alex Lifeson unveiled an overdrive pedal today, again made by Lerxst/Mojotone, called the By-Tor.

It’s a duel pedal with an overdrive and a boost. You can select the order they run in, which is a nice feature. The two channels share drive and tone controls though. I’m not sure how that works. Also, the price is $300 which is a little too ouchie for me these days. The $2k+ Omega is crazy expensive but about normal for a 50 watt tube head. $300 for a drive/boost feels a smidge high to me.

Geddy Lee: Two New/Old Songs

We’ve known about these two songs for a few weeks now as he’s been playing the recordings on his book tour, but Geddy Lee released two new/old songs today under the title “The Lost Demos”. They were recorded during the writing of his one solo record, “My Favorite Headache” back in 1999 or 2000 or so. He dropped them from consideration as they were a little two personal to share. One is apparently about an argument he had with his wife and the other is about the death of Neil Peart’s daughter.

After one listen, I like them both. Good stuff. Enjoy some new/old/previously unreleased Geddy Lee!

After two books and one TV show (which is out soon… possibly today, I think. Not sure) it’s time for Geddy to start writing some new music. Preferably with Alex Lifeson, but another solo record would be welcome too. We’re ready, Geddy. Bring it on.

Lerxst Omega Amp

Looks like Alex Lifeson and Mojotone are bringing out new versions of Lifeson’s signature Lerxst amps.

That sound you are hearing right now (not the youtube clip) is me drooling. They are too expensive to really consider, but that doesn’t matter. I’m still drooling. Literally.

Hopefully we’ll have some good review videos soon. I want to hear more.

Before and After

Before (May 4, 2022):

After (May 4, 2023):

I still have the pair of jeans you see in the before photo. I might put them on and take a bonus mirror selfie, just for laughs. I mean, that is literally the reason I never got rid of those pants.

These pics are screen shots from one of two selfie-a-day apps I have been using. The plan was to take a selfie a day for the first year, then upgrade the apps to the paid versions and save off a video of all of the pictures. I will do that today and upload the videos here. I failed to take a shot a day. Failed miserably in fact. I think I have around 300 pics in both apps. We’ll see how they look.

In closing, when I typed the title of this post the song of the same name from the very first Rush album, released 49 years ago, popped into my head and I am hoping it will stay there for a while.

More Desk Fun

I shared a bunch of pictures on Tuesday of the changes I made to my basement office. Mostly I was focusing on splitting my work computer off into it’s own space. Doing that freed up a ton of space on my home computer desk but I didn’t really do much with it.

Until now!

Jen bought new speakers for her computer upstairs and I inherited an old set. I put them on the desk on Tuesday, but I didn’t have an amplifier that would work with them. Off to amazon.com we went and I was able to set it up this morning and test it out.

The new desk audio setup is sah-weeeet.

New speakers:

New digital audio converter:

Can you guess what the first test subject was? I bet you can. Sure you can.

PRS

As I was sitting in the living room feeling terribly nauseous and sick I put on Youtube and poked around. I found a rig rundown video with Alex Lifeson’s guitar tech from the Time Machine Tour in 2010. They checked out his guitars. Most of them were his signature Les Paul model, the Les Paul Access. There were a couple of older Les Pauls too and his gorgeous ES-355, and that one Telecaster he plays now and then. There were also a couple of 90’s Paul Reed Smiths.

Lifeson started playing those in the late 80’s or early 90’s (I think) after he stopped playing those Signature strat copy things that I think he was a part owner of the company. I was so happy when he stopped playing those things and I really liked how he sounded playing those PRS guitars but I was sort of hoping he’d start playing Les Pauls again, which eventually he did. I mean, Geddy Lee once said something along the lines of Alex doesn’t sound like Alex unless he’s playing a Les Paul. I don’t remember the exact quote but it was something like that, and once Mike my lifelong bass player said the same thing about me and that was pretty much the best compliment I’ve ever heard.

Anyway…

After I watched that rig rundown video I found today’s new episode of That Pedal Show and who should they have as a guest? Paul Reed Smith himself.

Maybe someday after I win the lottery and buy a bunch of Les Paul Standards from 1957-1960 I might treat myself to a two humbucker Paul Reed Smith model. They are great guitars. Even that weird strat copy they make for John Mayer is a great guitar, even if it’s basically a stratocaster with a funny looking headstock.