Category Archives: Music

Now I just need a 2-liter bottle of Shasta…

Today I woke up with a couple of nerdy ranking lists floating around in my head. I suspect these will get expanded into YouTube videos in the near future, but for now, just the straight lists. These are my personal rankings of all Rush albums, and all Metroid games.

Rush Albums Ranked

It’s probably worth noting here that I got seriously into Rush when I was a freshman in high school, in 1989, so there’s a definite before-and-after feel going here. The stuff that already existed when I got into them seemed mythic and eternal; the stuff after that is all “the new stuff” to me, even though the oldest of “the new stuff” is now 33 years old… but when it came out, the band’s first album was only 16 years old. (As was I.)

  1. Moving Pictures (1981)
  2. Signals (1982)
  3. A Farewell to Kings (1977)
  4. Permanent Waves (1980)
  5. Grace Under Pressure (1984)
  6. Hemispheres (1978)
  7. Clockwork Angels (2012)
  8. Counterparts (1993)
  9. Snakes and Arrows (2007)
  10. Power Windows (1985)
  11. Caress of Steel (1975)
  12. 2112 (1976)
  13. Vapor Trails (2002)
  14. Hold Your Fire (1987)
  15. Fly by Night (1975)
  16. Rush (1974)
  17. Feedback (2004)
  18. Roll the Bones (1991)
  19. Presto (1990)
  20. Test for Echo (1996)

I suspect many Rush fans would criticize my low placement of 2112 but I stand by it. I just don’t think it’s that great. I find the side-long suite on Caress of Steel to be more musically and conceptually interesting, and the other tracks on Caress are much more interesting than the utterly forgettable side 2 of 2112. I couldn’t even remember all of the songs. (After really straining my brain muscle I was able to come up with “Tears,” but I had to look at Wikipedia to remember “Lessons.”) I even prefer “I Think I’m Going Bald” to most of the filler tracks on 2112.

The Live Albums

Yeah, Rush had a bunch of live albums too. Earlier on in their career, they had a nice formula of four studio albums, then a live album. After Neil’s life fell apart in the late ’90s with the deaths of his wife and daughter, and the band’s future became more uncertain, they started releasing a live album after every studio album, plus some other archival material, and things got messy. I’m not even sure I’m accounting for all of them here. Anyway, here’s the list:

  1. A Show of Hands (1989)
  2. Grace Under Pressure Tour (recorded 1984, released 2009)
  3. Exit… Stage Left (1981)
  4. Rush in Rio (2003)
  5. R40 Live (2015)
  6. Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland (2011)
  7. Clockwork Angels Tour (2013)
  8. R30 (2005)
  9. Snakes and Arrows Live (2008)
  10. All the World’s a Stage (1976)
  11. Different Stages (1998)

I have to give special recognition to Grace Under Pressure Tour, because when the DVD of that was finally released in 2009, and I watched it, my jaw dropped. I suddenly remembered that I had seen it on TV in 1985 and was mesmerized by it, but that was the only time TV or radio ever exposed me to Rush growing up. By the time I was in high school, I had all but forgotten it. (Which is to say, when a friend first played me a tape of A Show of Hands, I knew I had heard of Rush, but didn’t remember having ever heard them.)

Metroid Games Ranked

I’m almost as much of a Metroid nerd as I am a Rush nerd. As with Rush, my first taste of Metroid was pretty far removed from my obsession with it. The same friend who introduced me to Rush in high school also owned an NES (I didn’t), and I played Metroid a few times at his house. I was intrigued by this disturbing and immense underground world, but it was also disorienting and brutally difficult.

For various reasons I never owned or even played an SNES (Super Metroid was released when I was a junior in college), and I totally skipped the N64/PlayStation generation of consoles too, because… my god, those polygons and textures just plain sucked, and the games all looked like absolute ass. The GameCube drew me back in though — the first actual console I owned since my Atari 2600 (not counting an Atari 7800 I bought NOS from Radio Shack’s mail order catalog in the late ’90s) — and I was obsessed with Metroid Prime, the first Metroid game I truly experienced.

A year or two later I bought a Game Boy Advance SP, and played Zero Mission and Fusion, then of course Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, also on the GameCube. I loved all of those. The DS Metroid games were kind of crap though, and I could never get the hang of the Wii motion controls on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Fortunately, the Wii also introduced the Virtual Console, and I finally got to experience the magic of Super Metroid. (That was also how I introduced my then 5-year-old son to the world of Metroid.)

After that, the Metroid franchise all but died out, because Nintendo seemed to actively try to kill it with misguided garbage like Other M and Federation Force.

And then came Samus Returns, on the 3DS. Ohhhhh man. That game scratched the itch. Needless to say, Metroid Dread carried on where that one left off, and I am eagerly awaiting Metroid Prime 4.

And now, the list:

  1. Metroid Dread (Switch)
  2. Super Metroid (SNES)
  3. Metroid Prime (GC)
  4. Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)
  5. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)
  6. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)
  7. Metroid Fusion (GBA)
  8. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
  9. Metroid Prime Pinball (DS)
  10. Metroid II: Return of Samus (GB)
  11. Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS)
  12. Metroid: Other M (Wii)
  13. Classic NES Series: Metroid (GBA)
  14. Metroid (NES)
  15. Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS)

Finally… just in case you didn’t get the reference in this post’s title:

Which bass does Geddy Lee use for each song on Moving Pictures?

I have a reason, which will be revealed on my YouTube channel next week, for considering which type of bass Geddy Lee plays on each track of Rush’s 1981 masterpiece album Moving Pictures. There seems to be much debate out there in the world over which basses he used especially on Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures, and Signals (1982), because he was known to play a Rickenbacker 4001 almost exclusively on their late ’70s prog albums, but he briefly worked a Fender Jazz Bass into the mix before going all-in on Wal basses in the mid-’80s (with an occasional Steinberger thrown in for peak ’80s futurism). From the mid-’90s on, Geddy has almost exclusively gone back to the Fender Jazz Bass.

So Moving Pictures really is kind of a pivot point, both for the band stylistically and for Geddy in terms of his bass gear. It is (I think?) well known that he used both the Rick and the Jazz on Moving Pictures, but which one does he use on which song, and how can you tell?

Well, “how can you tell?” comes down to ear and familiarity with the sonic characteristics of the different instruments. The Rickenbacker tends to have very deep, round low end and a ringing high end, with a bit of a scoop in the middle, whereas the Jazz Bass has a lot more midrange growl. That’s oversimplifying it, but once you know the sound, it’s not too hard to tell. So, let’s investigate, track by track.

“Tom Sawyer”
This one is kind of tough, actually. I feel like I could make a good argument for either, but I think my impression of the whole thing is too muddled because I’ve heard so many subsequent live versions of this song — Rickenbacker on Exit Stage Left and then Jazz on the 2000s live albums, plus the 5 times I saw them live — and Geddy kind of has “his sound” regardless of which instrument he’s playing, that I just can’t tell. Fortunately I do not just need to use my ears. The band produced music videos for several songs on the album from the recording sessions at Le Studio, and we can easily see in the video that Geddy is playing a Rickenbacker.

Update (3/8/2023): Not so fast! Geddy himself says in this video that he used a Jazz Bass on “Tom Sawyer.”

“Red Barchetta”
This one, I am fairly certain, is a Rickenbacker, even though Geddy has the mids cranked up. It’s really that first note he hits at the beginning of the guitar solo around 3:20 that is the giveaway to me. There’s no Le Studio video for this one, and on Exit Stage Left he’s playing a Rick, but he plays a Rick on pretty much all of that, so no help there. Not that we really need it.

“YYZ”
It’s kind of hard to nail down the bass tone here because there’s a bunch of chorus on it, but I am fairly confident it’s a Jazz Bass. It has that Jazz Bass growl (as opposed to, y’know, that Rickenbacker growl). Once again you kind of have to focus on the bass during the guitar solo, because when Geddy and Alex are playing together in unison their sounds blend too much. I just think I am hearing the snarl of a Jazz Bass bridge pickup here. My introduction to this song was the A Show of Hands video from the late ’80s, and there, of course, he’s playing a Wal.)

“Limelight”
OK, in listening to this one I absolutely thought it was the Rickenbacker, but hey there’s another music video from the recording of the album, and Geddy is playing a Jazz Bass. Of course the video also cuts to some fake “live” footage that shows Geddy playing a Rick, but that’s from the A Farewell to Kings era, carefully edited to make it (sort of) look like they’re playing “Limelight.” So I think it’s safe to say we definitely have a Jazz here.

“The Camera Eye”
This one is definitely a Rickenbacker. Probably the easiest one to tell on the entire album. I think the verse that starts at 7:30 is where it’s easiest to tell. No question on this one. I was lucky enough to see the band on the Time Machine tour, where they played this album in its entirety, and of course at that point Geddy played it on a Jazz Bass. (Side note: No disrespect to Geddy, but you can tell he is really reaching for some of those high notes, 30 years later. Reaching, but generally hitting them!)

“Witch Hunt”
This song really doesn’t sound like any other in the band’s entire catalog. And the bass on it is unquestionably a Fender Jazz Bass. I think once again the thing that distinguishes it for me is the midrange. The Rickenbacker has a scoop in the midrange but the Jazz Bass seems to be pumping out consistently at all frequencies. (But if your eyes can handle it, you can check out Geddy playing it on a Steinberger on the Grace Under Pressure tour a few years later.)

“Vital Signs”
This one also definitely sounds like the Jazz Bass to me. I think around 1:20 is where it is very easy to pick out the bass tone. Fortunately this is another one with a Le Studio music video, so we can confirm it.

So there you have it. To put it another way, here’s how I break down the album:

Rickenbacker 4001: “Tom Sawyer,” “Red Barchetta,” “The Camera Eye.”
Fender Jazz Bass: “Tom Sawyer”, “YYZ”, “Limelight,” “Witch Hunt,” “Vital Signs.”

Update (3/10/2023): Over at Scott’s Bass Lessons, my fellow Minneapolitan Ian Martin Allison has his take on each track. Our only difference, once I corrected my take on “Tom Sawyer” two days ago, is “YYZ.” But I still say I think he’s playing a Jazz Bass on that one!

How to listen to “classical” music, a 20-second guide

When I was in college, I went to NCUR (’94, I believe) presenting a paper I wrote for music history on Baroque performance practices on modern recordings, using Handel’s Water Music as an example, and specifically comparing an $18 CD by an ensemble that specialized in Baroque music with a $5 budget CD by an anonymous orchestra.

Today I went looking for Debussy (not Baroque, that’s not the point) in Apple Music, and… ugh. Not saying you should judge a book — or a recording — by its cover. But when that’s all you have to go by, it can still be fairly effective. There is so much anonymous garbage on the streaming music services now. (Granted, Spotify is orders of magnitude worse in this regard than Apple, but both are plagued by it.) I feel like I need to write an updated version of that paper for 2022.

Hint: Don’t waste your time listening to an album with a generic landscape cover and a title like “The Most Famous Classical Music” or “The Best Classical Music.”

Although I was hoping to hear something new today, I ended up settling for the same album I have owned on CD for ~25 years. This one is excellent.

Happy holidays from Room 34!

I was stuck inside the house today, so I decided to do this… a few years back I arranged Vince Guaraldi’s “Linus and Lucy” (from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the best Christmas album of all time) for my band, 32nd Street Jazz. I decided to tweak that arrangement just a bit, muster my best effort at brush technique on the drums, and see if I could pull it off. I did!

New album: Interference Waves (2022 Singles, Outtakes & Allsorts)

It’s another new album! This isn’t really “new” music, though. It’s a compilation of tracks I recorded this year that weren’t already included on one of the three (!) other albums or one EP that I already released this year. It’s all on Bandcamp now. And on YouTube too, actually.