Music
Seattle Rush Commentary
Last night I was fortunate enough to see Rush for the third time this calendar year. Considering I thought the band was done with after their last tour in 2015, I see these shows as bonus gifts. Manna from heaven, you might say.
A frustrating part of my pre-show experience yesterday was heading up to the show without tickets. This is not my usual way of seeing shows. That said, despite enormous hassles with both Ticketmaster and my credit card company, my buddy and I ended up scoring great tickets on Alex’s side for about 45% off full face value.
The sound where we were at was amazing. We sat in a very similar spot night two in Toronto in August and the sound last night was much cleaner. For whatever reason, I was able to pick up on the full range of sounds Alex was able to make with this guitar. Geddy’s vocals were in top form, which is truly amazing considering his age and the high notes he is required to hit in several songs, including Freewill. The set list was also fantastic. It is such a breath of fresh air to see Rush mixing up their set lists from show to show. Indeed, each of the six sets I saw this year were different. Of the songs that are not played every night, I was stoked to see Analog Kid, La Villa Strangiato (a masterpiece of rock and roll instrumental music!), Caravan, The Trees, and A Passage to Bangkok,’ their ‘only love song.’
The one thing about Rush shows that is disappointing is the way the fans enjoy the show. I am used to the jamband scene (Dead and offshoots, Phish, Panic, and Goose) where people are mostly up and grooving from the first note through to the encore. Rush shows are not like that. The crowd is older, and being a North American crowd, there are a lot of people who are not looking super healthy. Plus, the music is not really dance music. I get it. That said, sitting down at a rock show, no matter the type, is anathema to me. Oh well, Sitting for ¾ of the show was a small price to pay for a masterclass in rock music. 10/10 as far as the music went.
I am hoping Rush announces shows at Sphere in Vegas next year. That might be my only realistic chance to see them again. We shall see…
No One's Disciple
I’m not sure how long this will be up on Youtube, but it is up now. I’m talking about the new tribute documentary about Rush drummer and lyricist Niel Peart. This is a must watch for any Rush fan, and frankly any fan of late 20th century rock music.
This is also an appropriate time to recommend Niel’s brilliant memoir Ghost Rider. The TL;DR is that Niel suffered the death of his only daughter and then his wife within 10 months then took the roads of North America on his BMW motorcycle to process his losses. The book is a meditation on death, as well as a travelouge. Read it if you haven’t already.
3 Substack Blog Posts and Some Tunes
- WTED Goose Radio
As a massive Goose fan, I was very happy to recently discover this 24/7 streaming Goose radio station. They also have a great Goose 101 page for newbies.
- Substack blogger Rob Henderson on How I Read
As an avid reader I am always interested in other people’s take on reading and how they manage to read at volume. This is an interesting take.
- Substack blogger Joseph Heath on Becoming Less Full of Shit.
This is another Substack blog post I have come across recently that I enjoyed. At this particular juncture, we definitely need less bullshit.
- Substack blogger The Existential Contrarian on why modern young people’s liking for socialism suggests a failure of American schools
This one is relevant to social studies teachers, a group I belong to. Good stuff.
- New Stephen Wilson recording, Requiem for a Village
Stephen Wilson is the musical genius behind Porcupine Tree and tons of other great musical creations. He is a prog god and this new tune (it looks to have been released two days ago on Youtube, on September 11) is killer.
Priceless
Modern life grates in many ways. However, there are also quite a lot of elements I greatly appreciate. For instance, right now I am sitting in my favorite reading chair on a Friday night watching my beloved Stanford Cardinal play football (not very well at the moment) against Miami down on The Farm, while simultaneously listening (and half watching) a live stream from the floor of Phish’s first set at ‘Dick’s’ in Commerce City, Colorado where I have several friends dancing the end of summer away. This sort of entertainment may seem standard in our day and age, but I don’t take it for granted. Grooving to a unique jam, knowing your friends are there in attendance, while watching your favorite football team play, while sneaking in some reading at the same time is, as the old, classic Mastercard ad said, priceless.
Rock and Roll
I continue to plow through Louis Menand’s deeply researched The Free World, which is about ‘art and thought in the cold war.’ Happily, I am now in the part of the book where Menand recounts the story of rock and roll music. I was familiar with the general contours of the story, but am enjoying learning details I was previously ignorant of.
One part of the story that is interesting to me is creation of the new genre’s name–rock and roll. The term was a nautical term as far back as the 1600s, describing the behavior of ships at sea. In the early 20th century, the term emerged as a slang term for dancing, and a double entendre for sex. The first musical recording using the term was by Trixie Smith in 1922 (“My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)”. Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed then popularized the term in the 1950s.
Like jazz before, and like rap later, rock and roll was first an African American phenomenon before it went mainstream.
Thinking about this, especially the important role of Alan Freed in Cleveland (whose popularity soon got him a better gig in New York City), I am reminded of the role a disc jockey named Donna Halper played in catalyzing Rush’s popularity in the midwest. Halper, arguabley, turned many OG Rush fans onto the band.
RIP Dolly Parton
Another musical legend passed away today, the very well loved Dolly Parton. She was 80 years old. I was not a fan of her music, but everything that I’ve read about her makes me like her. To be clear, I did think she had a wonderful voice, I just never listened to her music much. However, I was well aware of her philanthropy. Perhaps her most well known giving had to do with reading. Her father grew up illiterate in Appalachia so Dolly started a program called the Imagination Library that, according to their website, has gifted over 332 million books to young children! The way it works is that a child can be signed up and will then receive a book each month until they are 5 years old. So cool!
As a massive Judas Priest fan, I also need to mention Dolly’s relatively recent collaboration with Priest’s Rob Halford.
Here is a link to the New York Times obit.
Goose in Bend For the Win!
My summer has come to an official end after two super fun nights seeing Goose, my newest musical obsession, in beautiful Bend, Oregon. The stars aligned. Not only ws the weather damn near perfect, but I was with great friends and wsa able to make some new ones. The music was mostly outstanding (it is never ALL outstanding with a jam band in my opinion because of subjective elements like set list and the proximity to chompers). Needless to say, the music scratched an itch and we all had a ton of fun. For the record, I was up front slightly to the right for the first set on Friday, then moved to the lawn for the second set. On Saturday, was up on the lawn for the first set, then went down on the far left side by the rail and speakers for the final set of the weekend. The vibes were great everywhere, but man the folks down on the floor were moving and grooving. I came across the Reddit post below today while checking out what others thought of the shows. I find Colonel_Dent’s reflection to be spot on and worth sharing.
Rush is My Jam for Real in Toronto
My fantasy Rush tour turned into the real thing last week in Toronto. The band did not disappoint. My buddy and I had tickets to the Sunday, August 9 show with plans to try and pick up tickets to the show on the 7th. The morning of the show, we went online and lo and behold there were some great tickets available. Being far from home, we bit the bullet and got the tickets, which ended up being great. We were straight back, with a clear sightline of the stage about 10 rows back so that we were basically looking straight ahead. The sound was great and there ended up being some space around us. My friend informed the nice Canadians behind us that we had come from Oregon and would definitely be standing, and they, being Canadian, said that would not be a problem. That first show was fun, though the set list wasn’t an A+ for me.
That said, I want to acknowledge how happy I am with Geddy and Alex that they took a page from the stalwart jam bands that I love seeing and mixed up their set lists from show to show. On Sunday, we heard many of the same songs, but we also heard 8 different songs plus all of 2112! Needless to say, I was satisfied. Indeed, the only songs I was dying to hear that I didn’t see them perform (that are being played on this tour) were The Camera Eye and A Farewell to Kings.
Our seats the second night were very different, too. We were side stage on Alex’s side. It was much louder and it was cool to be close enough to the stage to watch all the musicians. We also had a very lively, engaged group of fans around us that added to the good vibes, including another Oregonian (a professor from Oregon State). In line on Sunday we met a lovely family from Birmingham in the UK.
These were my 15th and 16th Rush shows.
Woody Guthrie's Portland Paycheck
Yesterday while listening to a Great Courses (Great Rivers That Shaped History, Episode 16: The Columbia, Once Wild, Now Tame) episode I learned something about Portland that I did not know. It has to do with the great folk singer Woody Guthrie. Apparently, in 1941, when he was still in his twenties (and financially struggling), he was hired by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to be an early version of an influencer. They called him an ‘information consultant’ and paid him $267 for the month of work.
The BPA was new and controversial. Some on the right called it–wait for it….socialism! (Once a boogyman, always a boogyman!) They hired Guthrie to write music for a documentary about the building of the dam, and to obviously build support for the government’s effort to provide cheaper electricity in the Pacific Northwest, and he holed up Portland where he wrote 26 songs in 30 days, including “Roll On, Columbia,” “Grand Coulee Dam,” “Pastures of Plenty,” and “The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done.”
The dam wasn’t completed until the end of the decade and the film once it was released was not a success. Indeed, only a few of Guthrie’s songs made it into the final production. Ironically, the government under Eisenhower ordered all copies of the film and its songs destroyed once officials learned about Guthrie’s leftist associations. This makes sense in light of the second Red Scare that was ongoing in the early 1950s. However, it is weird and sad that our government ordered the destruction of art it had commissioned itself.
It is always good to learn a bit of lore about your hometown!
Broken Down, On the Side of the Road (Yeah!)
My DayOne journal reminded me that on this day 11 years ago I had a bit of an unusual day. Phish was starting their summer tour in Bend and I was driving with my crew across the state on a warm summer day for the shows. Unfortunately, I could feel my clutch acting funny as the trip started and as luck would have it, the clutch failed about 2/3 of the way there in a spot with no cell signal. We were stuck on the side of the road. Did I mention my 19 month kid was with us?
We ended up getting rescued (because Oregonians are good people) and I had my car towed quiet a way to east Bend. We were able to get my kiddo dropped off with her baby sitter and we made it to the show on time. In addition, one of my friends worked some Jimmy White Club magic in the back of the tow truck to get his AAA membership reinstated so I wouldn’t also be stuck with a $300 (or thereabouts) tow ride. Thanks JC! Needless to say, I was especially appreciative of being at that show. Indeed, it has become part of our Phish lore. It is worth noting that Phish debuted two songs that first night that have since become staples of their repertoire, Blaze On and No Men in No Man’s Land (seeing debuts is always cool).
Good times!
Panic in Bend on Deck
This weekend I am going to be seeing one of my all time favorite bands at the Hayden Homes Ampitheater in Bend. I saw my first Widespread Panic show on November 13, 1994 at the Warfield in San Francisco. To this day, it remains the loudest concert I have every experienced. We had great seats that night, directly in front of the band and Panic became a staple in my musical life. Indeed, during the rest of the 90s, when Phish blew up, Panic was always my favorite. When Phish 3.0 began (in 2009) I started seeing more Phish shows and Panic sort of fell off. That was partly due to the sad fact that the original guitar player for Widespread died of pancreatic cancer in August 2002. The guitar never quite sounded the same after he passed on.
Nevertheless, Panic has a deep bench of great songs. They also have great taste in what they cover, as well. Furthermore, they are a jamband, which suits my tastes. That means every show is different and it means being a fan means you’re part of a community of fellow travelers that are in on the same esoteric references that you are. And everyone knows the main goal is to have a good time. Of course, Phish and Panic fandom also means you’re swimming in the larger Grateful Dead universe, which I am comfortable with.
These will only be the 3rd and 4th times I’ve seen these guys in the past 10 years, so I’m excited. Mid-July, outdoors in beautiful Bend will be quite the scene. The band has a new guitar player at the moment (their 4th all together) and I really like the way he sounds. I’m planning on seeing some old high school friends, too.
There’s another song playing, and we can hear it in the wind outside
For the Heads
This YouTube channel has got to be one of the coolest Grateful Dead related things on the internet. If you’re a head, you’ve probably seen them before…but maybe not!
They call themselves Searchlight Productions, as in ‘search light casting, for thoughts in the clouds of delusion.’ You know. There are a few aspects of their production that I love. First, the host is a young dude who likely never saw the Grateful Dead. He also is dressed like a middle brow professor type. Yet he comes across as a fierce lover of the music and he definitely knows his shit. Indeed, these videos are steeped in GD lore and they aren’t shy about dropping primary source (and secondary source) materials on us. The videos are a perfect mix of Grateful Dead and history, which zaps my dinger. The video shared below covers the history of the band’s performances on July 3. Watcing the video, it was fun to see that I was at the last July 3 Dead show in 1994 at Shoreline. I think it was the only time I saw Fire on the Mountain unpaired with Scarlet Begonias.
I noticed in the video that the host has a few ‘history’ books about the Dead on the desk. One of them is a great book called Heads that I have read and highly recommend.
Currently...
I always enjoy these sort of listicles from others because they get me out of my own world a bit and expose me to different ideas. Here are 5 things I am ‘Currently…" doing and or thinking about:
- Road tripping to the Redwoods in Northern California
I try to go on a road trip with my kiddo every summer. We’ve gone north and east, so this year we are heading south to the giant Redwoods that reside along the northern California coast. Our trip will take 8 days and we’ll stay in hotels, a few Airbnbs, and do some camping. Good times!
- Listening to Goose’s new album and current tour
Big Modern! is another solid effort by Goose. I especially love the way the album ends. Bandcamp makes it easy to listen to their live shows pretty much immediately after they happen.
- Looking forward to lots of great live music this summer
I’m going to see one or two Rush shows in the YYZ. I also have two Bend weekends booked for Widespread Panic and Goose. Summertime, back-to-back shows in Bend is hard to beat! I’ve also got tickets to see JRAD (finally!) in downtown PDX in mid-August. No Phish this summer, but I am not feeling like my live music itch isn’t going to get scratched.
- Enjoying some fiction (for once)
My reading diet leans heavy to the non-fiction side of things. However, I am really enjoying the bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl. The book was originally self published and is now a smash hit. I can see why. If you enjoy quirky science fiction, I highly recommend it.
- Appreciating another summer to recharge
The life of a teacher is cyclical. For me the hardest stretch is mid October through the end of work in December, as the days get shorter and the grading starts to pile up. However, every summer I get 10 weeks to recharge my batteries. I really, reallly appreciate this part of my career. This is especially nice because summers in the Pacific Northwest are so beautiful.
That One Random College Roommate
Sometimes, we cross paths with famous people, or in my case, with people whoe who would become famous. The summer after my freshmen year in college I lived in a small, affordable apartment with two other dudes behind the Safeway in east Davis. One was my buddy MI, who I befriended in 2nd grade and with whom I am still friends. Our other roommate that summer was another Davis kid named Josh Davis. I don’t recall how it is that Josh became one of our roommates, as he was a year younger than us and wasn’t part of our crew. As I compose this, I think the connection was that he also worked at Steve’s Place Pizza, which was the local pizza joint (owned by the father of a classmate) that many of my friends worked at at one time or another during the early 90s. Yeah, that’s it–he was a Steve’s Place co-worker!
MI and I lived with him that summer, which was a fateful summer for us because it was the summer we became fully immersed in the world of the Grateful Dead, and all that that entailed. (Suffice to say, we didn’t get in to the Cal Expo shows that summer, but we did visit the parking lot.) Anyway, Josh was going in a very different direction. Keep in mind, this was 1990. Josh was getting into hip hop and had a show on KDVS, the local college radio station. From there, after parting ways with him that summer, Josh eventually became a world renowned DJ with moniker DJ Shadow. Being an era before social media and the era I went down the Grateful Dead rabbit hole, I lost touch with Josh and didn’t realize until about 15 years ago that he became a successful musician. I remember that he was a pretty chill roommate and a good co-worker.
The reason I am sharing this story today is because I came across an article announcing that DJ Shadow is playing a concert this December with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. Pretty cool!
Big Red Spotted Court Side in the Times Today
Browsing through the New York Times today and who do I spot? Phish frontman Trey Anastasio, sitting courtside at a Knick’s game. The article was published today, spot-lighting the team’s owner James Dolan. Of course, Phish has played the Knick’s home arena, Madison Square Garden, more than any other musical act other than the great Billy Joel. Dolan also owns the Garden. And Sphere in Las Vegas, where Phish was the second band to play, behind U2.
Anyway, I love it when my world’s collide. In this case, the sports page and PHISH.
32 Years Ago Today
Being a Gen X Deadhead means I also was in my early 20s when Phish started to make a splash on the scene. I had first heard of the band while in England in late 1991 from a UCLA student that was in the same junior study abroad program I was a part of and who was at the same university I was. The album he turned me on to was Lawn Boy.
When I returned home from my time abroad I settled in with my crew and got busy seeing as many Dead shows as I could. A few of the friends that I was hanging out with and seeing shows with indicated we needed to go see Phish. Having been introduced to them already, I was down with that. Of course, this was also the time that I was introduced to Widespread Panic by a Southern refugee from Auburn University who crashed on our couch for a few months in 1993 (he was a high school buddy of one of my roommates).
As it happened, I saw both Phish and Widespread Panic for the first time in 1994 at the venerable Warfield Theater in downtown San Francisco. That venue was the site of the some legendary 1980 Dead shows, and for me and my friends, some super fun Jerry Garcia Band shows in the early 90s. Deal, anyone?
It was 32 years ago today, on May 25, 1994, that my friend JC and I walked into the Warfield to catch Phish for the first time. I remember we sat in either the very last row of the venue or the second to last row and had an absolute blast. I didn’t know the band’s catalog all that well, but it didn’t matter because JC and I knew how to have a good time, even in the very back of the venue!
In hindsight, the set list isn’t one I’d like to see or hear today. Rift as a set opener? No thanks! There are some nuggets in there though, including Chalk Dust Torture, Tweezer, and Maze. I have seen 69 Phish shows in the intervening 32 years and still love the band. Indeed, the joy I’ve experienced with my friends at those shows is, in my mind, the ripening of extremely good karma.
Here’s to a bunch more in the future!
Hat tip to Phish.net for sending me an email reminding me of my first show!
Rush is My Jam Show #16, for Geddy!
To celebrate the great new Rick Beato interview with Geddy that dropped today, I’m sharing another setlist in my ongoing fantasy Rush tour. This interview reminds me of one of the reasons I love Rush so much, which is that the guys in the band seem like such down to earth, nice guys.
This show, #16 on the tour, would be killer. Heavy hitters and deep cuts aplenty. Thanks Geddy and Alex!
