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New Rush Gives ME the Summer Time Blues


Uncle Reg

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If you've heard it, then you know. Q107 keeps playing Rush's version of "Summertime Blues' from their new all covers album "Feedback".

Yes, they added large rock out parts in order to please the loyal Rush fans, but, in all seriousness, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???

My 'feedback' is BOOOOOOOoouuuuurrrrnnnsssss!!

G

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Not liking it myself.Also,I'm hearing it way too much for my own good latley.Haven't heard much else off the new album,but I hope that summertime blues isn't an indication of the rest of the album.

I'm partial to the Blue Cheer version myself.

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Here's the CD's title and track listing for this hunk of junk:

Track Listing of “FEEDBACK”

1. “Summertime Blues”

2. “Heart Full of Soul”

3. “The Seeker”

4. “For What It’s Worth”

5. “Shapes of Things”

6. “Mr. Soul”

7. “Crossroads”

8. “Seven and Seven Is”

I may never listen to music again if I ever hear Rush's versions of " Heart Full Of Soul " and " The Seeker ".

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its really funny you mention that....

in his book shakey, neil writes he was a huge fan of the stones around that time, when he met up with springfrield....

i think he actually mentions when he started writing, the first song he set out to write, was taken from the Stones Satisfaction, and added to, changed, until it was his own...

i wonder if it was mr soul he was referring to...

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Keep your chin up, Mr. Musicface.....! We still love ya!

Hah, you know I was so trying to stay out of this, but now that I've been mentioned by name I can't resist... :P

I've actually only heard the full "Summertime Blues" a couple of times, although there's a short clip on rush.com that I re-listened to based on some of the comments here. For what it's worth as resident Rush-defender, here's my two-cents:

Musically, I honestly don't see what everybody here is complaining about. The Rush version of "Summertime Blues" is basically the Blue Cheer arrangement with some Who-isms thrown in. They've taken very little in way of liberties, other than a couple of breaks later in the song if I remember correctly. They didn't add any weird 80s synth sounds or a five-minute drum solo, and other than the fact that they're cleaner 21st century recording equipment and techniques, they've kept fairly true to the 60s sound.

As for the "voice synthesizer" that people are complaining about, I believe this is actually a combination of flange and a little distortion, again used in an attempt to emulate the kinds of vocal treatments/recording artifacts from the Blue Cheer & Who versions.

Now, I do understand a lot of people don't like Geddy's voice... okay, I'm not going to try and defend that here, if you don't like his voice fine, you're never gonna like it.

As to the motivation for the project and song selections, here's a quote from Neil:

"Geddy, Alex, and I were channeling back to 1966 and 1967, when we were thirteen- and fourteen-year-old beginners," writes Peart in the liner notes to "FEEDBACK." "We thought it would be a fitting symbol to commemorate our thirty years together if we returned to our roots and paid tribute to those we had learned from and were inspired by. We thought we might record some of the songs we used to listen to, the ones we painstakingly learned the chords, notes, and drum parts for, and even played in our earliest bands."

Seems like a reasonable and worthy rationale, paying tribute to your roots is a bit of fun and something for the fans. I know they are playing a number of these songs on their current tour. I suspect "Summertime Blues" was probably selected as a single by the label 'cus it's one of the more recognizable tunes, probably no other reason. Personally I'm looking forward to hearing "The Seeker" & "Shapes Of Things" which are better suited to Rush's style IMO.

And I've said this before but I'll say it again - if you don't like what Q107 plays, for gawdsake don't blame the band! It's hardly Rush's fault that they are one of the few Canadian classic rock acts with a large, decent catalog of material. Every time you hear a Rush song on Q, it's part of them fulfilling their licencing agreement. Just thank your lucky stars they aren't replacing every Rush play on Q with a Triumph or Loverboy song.

And hey here's a thought - if you don't like what's on the radio, we've got this great new technology called a Compact Disc player that allows you to listen to whatever music you like - go get one, I hear they are available all over the place.

Peace,

Mr. M.

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Honestly Jay, this track listing is predictable and boring. I'm tired of all these songs outside of The Seeker and the original Crossroads by Robert Johnson.

Yeh okay I can see that, and frankly I thought "Summertime Blues" was a bit of a lame choice for a single. But that was why I posted Neil's comments - if you're those guys trying to get into the space of being 13 or 14 again, this is a prefect list. They really stayed very true to that concept actually, I think pretty well all of those songs (at least the versions they are probably thinking of, not necessarily the originals) were released between about '66 & '69, correct? And they're exactly the songs that you could imagine them in their bedrooms picking away for the first time - can't you just see Geddy slowing down his 45 of "The Seeker" down to 33 to figure out what the hell Entwhistle was doing? I mean, they could have equally gone to the bands that inspired them later, such as Zep, Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, and even bands that inspired them in 80s like The Police & Ultravox, but they had a concept and the stuck to it. I think that aspect is very cool, even if the track list itself is indeed a bit predictable as a result.

- M.

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