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Neil Peart dead at 67

garb811

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This loss of a Canadian musical icon. I was privileged to see them live a few times over the course of my life, I always wished I had taken the time to see them one more time before they retired.

Rush drummer Neil Peart dead at 67
Neil Peart, the drummer of iconic Canadian band Rush, has died at age 67.

The influential musician and lyricist died Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif., after having been diagnosed with brain cancer, according to a statement issued Friday by family spokesperson Elliot Mintz.

His death was confirmed by Meg Symsyk, a media spokesperson for the progressive rock trio comprising Peart, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson.
...
More at link.
 
garb811 said:
, I always wished I had taken the time to see them one more time before they retired.

That is exactly how I feel...
 
Awful news. Far, far too early.

Rush is an acquired taste, all fans know this. But Peart’s drumming was something to see. His rhythm and syncopation skills are hard to rival.

I never saw Rush in concert, unfortunately, but I had the opportunity to see Peart at a percussion clinic in Toronto years ago. It was amazing.

Sad, sad news.

 
First time I saw them was in a basement of a building at the University of Guelph, with Max Webster in 1975...….wow, doesn't seem all that long ago.
 
Dave Grohl on Rush Drummer Neil Peart: ‘We All Learned From Him’

“His power, precision, and composition was incomparable,” says Foo Fighters frontman and Peart acolyte who inducted Rush into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame


Daniel Kreps January 10, 2020 6:11PM ET

Dave Grohl, a Neil Peart acolyte who inducted Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, penned a tribute to the drummer following news of Peart’s death Friday.

“Today, the world lost a true giant in the history of rock & roll,” Grohl said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “An inspiration to millions with an unmistakable sound who spawned generations of musicians (like myself) to pick up two sticks and chase a dream. A kind, thoughtful, brilliant man who ruled our radios and turntables not only with his drumming, but also his beautiful words.”

Grohl continued, “I still vividly remember my first listen of 2112 when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: We all learned from him.”

As Grohl told Rolling Stone in 2013, ahead of Rush’s Rock Hall induction, it was Peart’s work that inspired him to pick up the drumsticks. “When I got 2112 when I was eight years old, it fucking changed the direction of my life. I heard the drums. It made me want to become a drummer,” Grohl said.

The Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer also reminisced about meeting Peart for the first time during rehearsals for the Rock Hall ceremony. “I was coming to rehearsal and I was meeting Neil for the first time, and this man was as influential as any religion or any hero or any person in someone’s life. He said, ‘So nice to meet you. Can I make you a coffee?’ And he made me a coffee, man,” Grohl said in 2013. “And later on that night, I went to dinner and had a couple glasses of wine, and I started fucking crying because my hero made me a fucking coffee. It was unbelievable, man. So that’s kind of how this whole experience has been.”

Both Peart and Grohl landed in the upper echelon of Rolling Stone‘s list of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Grohl, like many drummers in rock, paid tribute to one of the greatest to ever play the instrument. “Thank you, Neil, for making our lives a better place with your music. You will be forever remembered and sorely missed by all of us. And my heartfelt condolences to the Rush family,” he wrote. “God bless Neil Peart.”

Grohl’s Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins had a more succinct, yet equally poignant, statement. “Neil Peart had the hands of God,” he tells Rolling Stone. “End of story.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dave-grohl-neil-peart-tribute-936401/
 
This article of Peart’s (transcribed by Jeff Robertson) from long ago was a lovely, reminiscent read. It’s making the rounds again for obvious reasons.

I’m from the same area Neil Peart grew up in, and he has a lot of fans there. (If anyone didn’t know, Rush’s “Lakeside Park” is an actual location and it’s still a favourite spot of mine.)

If anyone’s interested in reading his words, I highly recommend taking the time.

A Port Boy's Story

by Neil Peart

St. Catharines Standard, June 24 & 25, 1994; transcribed by Jeff Robertson


...
Still, after a couple of years I became restless with country life, and convinced my parents to move to the big city - St. Catharines. My father became parts manager at Dalziel Equipment, the International Harvester dealer on St. Paul Street West (gone now, but I worked there too in later years, right before I joined Rush). Our little family settled briefly into an apartment on the east side, then into a rented duplex on Violet Street, in the Martindale area.

A year later, the stork brought my brother Danny, and sister Judy a year after that. They were nice enough siblings, but I really wanted to be an only child - I never liked to share.

We only lived on Violet Street until I was four, so my memories are few, but I do remember tumbling off my tricycle and falling headfirst into the corrugated metal pit around the basement window, crashing through the glass to hang upside-down, staring at my mother as she stood, drop-jawed, at the wringer washer. Miraculously, I wasn't injured - although in retrospect, I may have suffered a little brain damage. It would explain some of my behavior in later years. But it didn't discourage my early taste for pedal-power, or adventure travel, for 30 years later I would find myself cycling through China, many countries in Europe and West Africa, and around much of North America.

In 1956, we moved to a brand-new split-level on Dalhousie Avenue - then Queen Street, before the imperialist forces of St. Catharines invaded Port Dalhousie, in 1961, and amalgamated it (like Saddam Hussein amalgamated Kuwait, it seems to me).

Our new subdivision had until recently been an orchard, and four pear trees remained at the end of our yard (over the years we ate so many pears off those trees that I have never been able to eat them since). Just behind us was Middleton's cornfield, which occupied the middle of the block, and in late summer it became a cool green labyrinth, perfect for hide-and-seek in the long twilight hours...

More at link

http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19940624stcatharinesstandard.htm


 

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Tribute article from The Guardian.

Neil Peart obituary

Joel McIverSun 12 Jan 2020 15.24 GMT


Drummer and songwriter with the Canadian rock band Rush regarded as one of the world’s greatest percussionists

The drummer Neil Peart, who has died aged 67 of brain cancer, enjoyed such a reputation for his deft, powerful drumming with the Canadian rock band Rush that he became adept at deflecting praise from interviewers on the subject. “What is a master but a master student?” was a common response on Peart’s part, a hint at his interests in esoteric philosophy as well as an indicator of the reflective thinking that made him also an acclaimed lyricist for the band.

The many songs that Peart wrote for Rush, for all but one of their 19 studio albums, were inspired by subjects as diverse as libertarianism, fantasy fiction, religious thought and the pressures of fame – the last of these expressed most clearly in the 1981 single Limelight, in which he used Shakespearean phrases to illustrate his points.

His drum parts on tracks such as Tom Sawyer (also 1981, both from the bestselling album Moving Pictures) and Spirit of Radio (1980), locked in with singer Geddy Lee’s bass-playing to form a complex rhythmic signature, which became renowned. Many fans flocked to see the band live because of the epic nature of Peart’s drumming, performed on a huge, futuristic, gold-plated kit that included wood blocks, timpani and gongs as well as the standard set.

In 2016 Rolling Stone magazine put Peart at No 4 in its list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, after John Bonham, Keith Moon and Ginger Baker. As the Nirvana drummer and FooFighters frontman, Dave Grohl, said: “Neil Peart – that’s a whole other animal, another species of drummer”.

Born in Hagersville, near Hamilton, Ontario, to Betty and Glenn Peart, who sold farm equipment, Neil was the eldest of four children. Like many budding drummers, he had a habit of playing rhythms on household furniture, in his case with a pair of chopsticks: this led his parents to buy him a basic drum kit on his 13th birthday. A year later a full kit followed, accompanied by lessons at the Peninsula College of Music in British Columbia, and Peart debuted as a drummer at a school pageant.

A series of bands followed, including Mumblin’ Sumpthin’, the Majority, and JR Flood, with gigs at small venues in southern Ontario. Aged 18, he moved to London to try to make it as a musician while also selling jewellery in Carnaby Street, but met with little success and in 1972 he returned to Canada to work for his father’s business.

In 1974, while playing with a local band called Hush, he was persuaded to audition for Rush, a band similar in name but very different in style.

The other musicians, Lee (born Gary Weinrib) and the guitarist Alex Lifeson, had recorded a self-titled debut album that year, but their original drummer, John Rutsey, had left due to health issues. Lee described Peart’s audition in 2018: “He comes in, this big goofy guy with a small drum kit with 18-inch bass drums. Alex and I were chuckling – we thought he was a hick from the country. And then he sat down and pummelled the drums, and us. I’d never heard a drummer like that, someone with that power and dexterity. As far as I was concerned, he was hired from the minute he started playing.”

Rush’s first album with Peart, Fly By Night (1975), demonstrated the musical expertise and lyrical opacity typical of the band. Despite being dismissed by critics as making “music for nerds”, their 1976 album, 2112, was an enormous success. Its 20-minute title track featured lyrics written by Peart that were at least partly inspired by the writings of the controversial author Ayn Rand, adopted by many on the right of politics. Despite having been a young fan of the author, Peart later disavowed those beliefs.

The albums Permanent Waves (1980) and Moving Pictures (1981) saw Rush established as the epitome of prog (progressive) rock, which the subsequent world tours did nothing to dissuade. Live shows included a long drum solo that was the centrepiece of the band’s performance. Audiences responded with enthusiasm, but the introverted Peart did not enjoy being famous.

A major hiatus came after Peart’s 19-year-old daughter Selena was killed in a car accident in 1997 and her mother, Jacqueline Taylor, died 10 months later. The drummer took time away from Rush, seeking therapy in long motorcycle journeys through the Americas. He later recounted his recovery in the book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road and wrote six other volumes of non-fiction.

In 2000 he married the photographer Carrie Nuttall and settled in Los Angeles, becoming a US citizen. He rejoined Rush in 2001, when classic rock was experiencing a resurgence and the band’s profile was on the rise again, and they went on several world tours. Their last studio album, Clockwork Angels, was released in 2012; Rush celebrated their 40th anniversary with the R40 Live Tour three years later. Peart’s lengthy drum solos consolidated his reputation as one of the world’s greatest percussionists.

However, his unique playing style had created health problems, and in 2015 Peart stated that the band would no longer tour due to his tendonitis. It later emerged that he had also received his cancer diagnosis around this time.

Peart is survived by Carrie, their daughter, Olivia, his parents, and his siblings, Judy, Nancy and Danny.

• Neil Peart, drummer and writer, born 12 September 1952; died 7 January 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/12/neil-peart-obituary
 
Stumbled across a unique tribute from the US Army Band. A very noticeable lack of percussion...

Time Stand Still
...
SFC Whalen relfects, "The lyrics to this song have always resonated deeply with me, and they show Neil’s heart. I wanted to showcase the deep humanity he had in his writing. The song is about life moving too fast, due to both things we can control and things we can’t, and the desire to hold onto something just a little longer. This is such a universal message, whether it be children growing up too fast, a loved one dying, or a soldier leaving home wondering if they’ll ever see their family again.”
 
Trying to find the piece where I read this, but Neil Peart was evidently so talented that he heard a percussion piece from another band and worked to recreate it. When he played it in a studio, the engineers were amazed, since (they told him) the piece he was playing had been sped up in the recording process to achieve the effect he was doing "live"....
 
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