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@otherdemon РYeah, maybe. Or maybe I was just high on being at my first MP gig and other stuff. It's all so subjective. At Roadburn this year one of my friend's said he found the improvisatory noodling at the beginning of Un Chien was dreadful, just screechy and pointless. He was up in the balcony. I was on the floor, dead centre, about ten rows back and to me it was glorious. He said there were no bass tones or rhythm to ground it. I was shocked. I asked, did you not hear Bent's three repeated bass notes [like in the Roadworks K̦ln recording] giving the whole thing form, direction and grounding? No, he replied. Oh well. You never really know.
@supernaut – at least we agreed on some things
And thanks for prompting me to go back and listen to some old (and not so old) Rush again. It's been a while. And sometimes you discover things aren't what you thought they were. 
@otherdemon and supernaut – They opened with ASFE in London – my first ever MP gig, and I exploded. I thought it was a perfect opener, full of mad energy that just made me want to relive my punk youth and start pogoing! Not so easy at 55.
I couldn't so easily imagine it in the middle of a set though.
Peart can play that stuff ok (as you say, it's not one or the other), I just don't see it as his forte. There are a lot of drummers who can't do what he can (or as well as he can), but can do amazing groove till the cows come home. It's just a matter of some drummers being better at one thing than another – like some guitarists are great shredders but not as good as others at playing great rhythm. No criticism from my side of Peart, Geb or Tomas – I think all three are great, but they each have their own style and areas of expertise, which in some areas overlap and others don't. Compare Peart with Bruford – Peart could never play the way Bruford does on, say, Starless and Bruford could never play the way Peart does on, say, Tom Sawyer. And even if they could, why would they want to?
EDIT: So I just listened to both For What It's Worth and Mr Soul from the Feedback album. The first, apart from Alex's lead contributions, leaves me pretty cold. It certainly has none of the soul of the original (and that includes Peart's drumming), though it's a competent enough cover. The second was a little more engaging but again the drumming feels much like a run-through. Doesn't stop Peart being one of my all-time favourite drummers by some distance. The funny thing is, his groove does come through during, for example, the mid-section of Jacob's Ladder, where the patterns are more complex but he uses them to drive the song forward like very few else do. Subdivisions might be another example – he's pushing the groove, but not with simple beats, even though it's a straighforward song. He's playing all around the beat but still keeping it on point, and that's part of where his brilliance lies for me. Than again I might be dreaming
Interesting discussion. It is true that some drummers can't do both (take Neil Peart for example – a big favourite among rock drummers but not really a groovemeister), but as supernaut says, they don't negate each other. As for Tomas – not sure, maybe you have a point Marc. Will go away and listen to ASFE right this damn moment!
@Aman Dime = Dimeadozen
It's a torrenting site. If you're new to torrenting you'll need to do a bit of reading up first. And I recommend you read some of the material on the Dimeadozen wiki page too:
Just watched the video on YouTube of Amgala Avenue – far out, love it. It reminds me a little of short-lived but brilliant Magma spin-off One Shot (who are well worth checking out). Definitely looking into this a bit more. Thanks for the signpost.
@supernaut – Listening to a couple of the recordings from this mini-tour (Bielefeld and Erlangen) I kinda know what you mean about Tomas. He sounds loose (in the good way), relaxed, confident, unencumbered. I'm really getting off on his playing on these recordings. I'm glad you had such a far out show.
@otherdemon – That's funny and so true. For me it's nearly always the music first and that includes the musicality, texture and expression in the vocals rather than the lyrics. In some cases I don't really care about the lyrics at all.
Now, back to spacebandit's phenomenal recording of this Bielefeld gig – it's rare to hear an audience recording so good.
@otherdemon – Interesting observation – I hadn't thought of sax but David Jackson's sax playing was quite different to Mel Collins' style as I recall (I only have a couple of VDGG albums – Godbluff and The Least We Can Do … – and rarely play them). You could be on to something!
I think it's mostly Hammill's voice that puts me off more than anything.
@spacebadit – Thanks again … seriously.
@otherdemon – I'm not really a VDGG fan so perhaps that's why my thoughts don't lean that way (and I'm not disagreeing with you), but to me it has 70s King Crimson written all over it – in a good way … a very good way. The musical language was very familiar from the word go. I was a bit worried that Bent's instagram messages about them going full-on prog might be an indication that they're heading in a direction that would be more technical and less soulful, but this one track has allayed my fears as it seems to have both that pastoral beauty and the discordant crunch found in the best Crimson material, but of course being infused with MP heart and soul (why on earth would I be even 'a bit worried'
). Love it. Can't wait for the album.EDIT: I just listened to spacebandit's recording of Lux Aertana with the headphones on and … my jaw just hit the floor. :MPD:
@Spacebandit. Thanks so much. Can't wait.
