Sept 25: No one's Disciple

I need to find a way to watch this new documentary on Neil Peart...

Any advice on how to watch it in the UK?

Sep 16: Subdivisions - Rush

OK, so it's Rush again, and this time it's a take on teenage life and not fitting in. The 'Subdivisions' are the suburbs of a city in Canada.

The album cover for 'Signals' was particularly memorable. I had the tour t-shirt and programme from this tour.

It was created by Hugh Syme, as were most of Rush's album covers.

The back of the album featured a well rendered vision of a fictional Canadian suburb, with hidden meanings to many of the street names.

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In-between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

The song has featured on the blog before, but here it is again... it's from the R30 tour. I saw this one at the Birmingham NEC.

Sep 8: 39 years ago today

"Tough times demand tough talk

demand tough hearts,

demand tough songs."

'Hold your Fire' was released. I bought my copy from Jumbo Records in Leeds on vinyl...

'Time Stand Still' has become part of their live sets on their current tour - with Aimee Mann turning up at certain concerts very excitingly.

Here's 'Force Ten' - the album's opening track...

Jul 30: 2002 & 'Vapor Trails'

2002 saw the release of Vapor Trails by Rush. It was later re-released as a remastered album in 2013 which solved some of the album's muddy production first time round. It has some excellent tracks on it and I have the remastered version.

Ghost Rider was one of the stand out tracks for me. It is written about Neil Peart's own travels.

I did an assembly some years later about Mark Beaumont's first round the world cycle trip where he smashed the world record... but would later smash it again, circumnavigating the world in less than 80 days.

The band were not happy with the mixing and released a remixed version of the album in 2013.

Vapor Trails itself is an excellent track, along with Ceiling Unlimited - both refer to the sky and upper atmosphere... and the formation of Vapor Trails...

Earthshine - the opening track also refers to a geographical phenomenon which is outlined in the lyrics.

Bob Mould released the 'Modulate' album - a very different feel to previous albums, although he also worked with Richard Morel on a 'Blowout' album - I have all of them of course...

Here's 'Sound on Sound'...

What were your musical highlights of 2002?

Jul 19: 1991

In 1991, I saw a band called 'This Picture' at the Sheffield University Union. They were supporting the band 'Runrig'. I was impressed with them, and ended up collecting a lot of their CD and 12" singles. This is one of my favourite tracks of theirs from an EP.

1991 was a busy year work wise and I remember trying my best to go to concert as often as possible.

Rush released 'Roll the Bones' and I saw the 'Roll the Bones' tour at the Sheffield Arena. I wore the t-shirt for climbing - which I did quite a bit back then - and it didn't fare very well.

The track from the album 'Bravado' is being used while a montage of Neil Peart plays during their R50 tour which is currently playing to great acclaim across the USA.

It Bites were a big part of this year for live music, as they had been through much of the late 1980s.

What were your favourite albums from 1991?

July 15: The Pass

“The Pass” is simply a masterpiece and lyrically, one of Peart’s best ever efforts. Musically, the mood is captured with the pulse of simple, chorded bass notes that prove counterpart to the melody. There is a feeling of an emotional journey throughout as the second verse changes up the backing rhythm and Lifeson’s slow brewing guitar lead in the mid-section is backed by Peart’s drumming with expert efficiency and precision. Stated by the group on multiple occasions as one of their all-time favourites, the true highlight of “The Pass” is the potent lyric right from the top;


“Proud swagger out of the schoolyard, waiting for the world’s applause / rebel without a conscience, martyr without a cause / static on your frequency, electric storms in your veins / raging at unreachable glory, straining at invisible chains…”

Jul 13: Power Windows (1985)

I've been revisiting the Rush album 'Power Windows', which was released in 1985. 

It was an album I played a lot when it first came out. It's a good driving album, and I did a lot of driving up and down the A17 between Yorkshire and Norfolk around this sort of time.

The album had a series of songs on the broad theme of POWER, and looking back at it just over 40 years on, this was a fine album.

I saw many of the songs from this album played live several times.

Recording began at The Manor Studios in Oxfordshire, England, where the basic rhythm tracks and keyboards were recorded. I have a blog post about this studio.

In May 1985, the band had relocated to AIR Studios in the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean - another studios with a lot of history to it, and which is also connected to . They had discussed recording at the studio for several years and booked the facility for three weeks for Lifeson to record guitar overdubs.

Neil Peart shared some of the meanings of the songs, and others have speculated about them.

Here's a few of my favourites from the album.

Territories Live....

I bought a book which was written by Leonard Roberto. It's called 'A Simple Kind Mirror: the lyrical vision of Rush'.

It provides an analysis of the meaning of the lyrics.

We'll finish with the final track on the album.

Watch out for the drum kit rotating from an analogue to a synthesised drum kit which is what Neil had during the tours to support this album.

And also the dodgy mid-80s visual effects which every video seemed to have at this time...

'Mystic Rhythms'

Jul 12: 1984

1984 was an important year for me as I started the final year of my undergraduate studies at Huddersfield Polytechnic. My LP collection was growing too.

In Huddersfield at the time we had the release of a song called 'Relax' which was banned from radio play.

This guaranteed that it went to number 1 of course.

'Welcome to the PleasureDome' was an album by ZTT, who also released the classic 'Propaganda' album which I will be blogging about separately as this was my driving album in the late 1980s. This was by Frankie goes to Hollywood, although much of the music was played by session musicians.

The album was rereleased in late 2025 with a new mix by Steven Wilson including a Dolby Atmos mix.

The music was arranged by Trevor Horn.

Session musicians including Steve Howe from Yes were included.

This was also the era of the 12" single... and endless variations on the original tracks were created.

The PleasureDome was in Xanadu, visited by Marco Polo. See separate post on Xanadu from Rush.

This is one of the more memorable tracks: 'Two Tribes'.

In the summer, we also had the new Rush album: 'Grace under Pressure'.

This included some stand out tracks. I have previously blogged about this album, which received an over the top deluxe re-release earlier in the year, clocking in at over £250 for the full package. Thankfully, a lot of it was straight onto Spotify.

Here's 'Between the Wheels' - the album's closer....

The other album released this year that is worth a mention is The Blue Nile's 'A Walk across the Rooftops'. The story of this album's released has been told elsewhere on the blog.

It would be 4 years before someone played me this album. It was actually in a bothy on the Isle of Rhum. The log burner was lit and whisky had been taken....

Sparkle in the Rain is my favourite album from Simple Minds, and was also released this year. This is a great album with no filler...

What are your musical memories from 1984?

Jun 24: A song by a band you wish were still together

So that would mean a Rush song. 

As I said on January the 7th, the passing of Neil Peart meant the end of Rush. It's likely that they would have finished anyway as Neil was fed up of touring, but after a few years break he may have been tempted back for a final tour. I'm going to add the final song from their final album: a concept album called 'Clockwork Angels'.

The song is called 'The Garden'.

Here's the studio version. 

And here's the live version of the song, with strings...

This was the final song on the final Rush album and it acts as a perfect closure to their career.

I am going to see the tour in 2027 and very much looking forward to seeing Anika Nilles behind the kit, but that will be to see a different band, and not the one that recorded all of Rush's albums.

Jun 17: Ticket Stub #10: Rush

This was the last concert I attended by Rush.... I thought for ever... and certainly the last one with Neil Peart.

It was the Time Machine tour. They played the whole of 'Moving Pictures' including the Camera Eye, which they had rarely played live. They repeated that in one of their shows at the Kia Forum with Annika Nilles on drums.

Half way through the concert I decided to relocate to a new place at the back of the arena which had spare seats as my view was affected by other people. I saw several other people then having the same ideas as the concert progressed. 

This was one of the final concerts that I also parked at a pub in the Sheffield area of Attercliffe called the Cocked Hat. This was a super pub in an area which had quite a few dodgy ones. It no longer exists...

To the left of the entrance was a bar billiards table - you don't see those in pubs very often... I loved having a few games of this with a nice pint of Landlord. Through the back were lots of small boothed seating areas - a great place to sit. From there, you would walk past the stadium built for the World Student Games, where I saw U2, and which was visited by bands such as the Rolling Stones.

Similarly, it no longer exists. Using Street View you can go back to 2008 when it was still there...

After that it was past hotels and restaurants to get to the Arena and the Don Valley Bowl, where cricket was played.

Across the car park from the arena - now called the Utilita Arena - is a pub called the Noose and Gibbet Inn, with an interesting pub sign.

The man hanging outside, looking down at passersby with a mournful expression on his pale, lifeless face, is the notorious highwayman Spence Broughton. He was sentenced to death in 1792 after robbing a mail boy delivering the post to Sheffield and Rotherham. A judge, wishing to make an example of him, ordered that his body be hanged on a gibbet on Attercliffe Common and left on display there as a macabre warning to others. His corpse was left to decompose within a cage and it became a ghoulish visitor attraction, reportedly drawing 40,000 people within the first few days of its appearance close to the road between Sheffield and Rotherham.

Source

My friend Rob Hindle has written a poem-sequence about the incident - details from Longbarrow Press here.

Jun 1: A song you like with a colour in the title...

There's plenty of songs that I could have gone for here. This is an easy way in to the challenge, although the challenge is thinking of one that you particularly like or stands out in some way.

I'm going to go for quite a challenging one: 'Red Sector A' by Canadian band Rush.

The vocalist, bassist and keyboard player is Geddy Lee. 

His family was imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, and survived to be liberated.

It's worth reading Geddy's autobiography: 'My Effing Life' which goes into a lot more detail on this. You can listen to it if you have Spotify.

Neil Peart, the lyricist describes the writing of the lyrics to the song:

I read a first person account of someone who had survived the whole system of trains and work camps and Bergen-Belsen and all of that (...) through first person accounts from other people who came out at the end of it, always glad to be alive, which again was the essence of grace, grace under pressure is that through all of it, these people never gave up the strong will to survive, through the utmost horror, and total physical privations of all kinds.

...I wanted to take a little bit out of being specific and, and just describe the circumstances and try to look at the way people responded to it, and another really important and to me really moving image that I got from a lot of these accounts was that at the end of it, these people of course had been totally isolated from the rest of the world, from their families, from any news at all, and they, in cases that I read, believed that they were the last people surviving.

What are your ideas for songs with colours in the title?

I've made a Google Form to capture some of your ideas.

I'll leave it up a while and share the results later in the year and update the post as well.

Apr 23: Grace under Pressure

The Rush album 'Grace under Pressure', which was released in 1984 has been given a major update and made available in some chunky box sets which go up to over $250 in price!

One of the tracks features a guitar solo by Alex Lifeson which apparently took days to get right.

Alex has also said of the solo on 'Kid Gloves':

That song is from our Grace Under Pressure album. What I like about the solo is, it's the opposite of Limelight: it's got a hip, kind of slinky attitude, a little goofy humor. When I play it, I feel a certain confidence, also like a prankster, which is not the way I am in real life at all. What's funny about it, too, is that it has a plot to it, and I only realized that after I recorded it for the first time - I never have a plot in mind when I'm recording solos; I always just kind of wing them. The Kid Gloves solo guided me; it's like it knew what it wanted to be and I just had to allow myself to follow.

The entire concert from 1984 has now been made available by Rush on YouTube.

It's an era when synthesisers were becoming more dominant in their music, and reducing the amount of guitar that Alex Lifeson was able to contribute to their sound.

Rush are also appearing in 2 music magazines this month, with interviews relating to their new tour. I bought one of them which comes with a free poster and large sticker.

Annika Nilles

Apr 7: Countdown - into space

The Space Shuttle was a phase of space exploration that is no longer... the current Artemis II mission has been very much in the news with a journey on the "other side".

There were several tragic accidents during its time as the main launch vehicle for NASA.

Members of Canadian rock band Rush were invited to a shuttle launch - the first of the Shuttle Columbia in 1981.

The experience became the final track on their 1982 album 'Signals'.

I had the programme from the Signals tour, and remember reading about this memory from Neil Peart - who always wrote the notes to the tour programmes.

We met our liaison man, who conducted us safely into the "V.I.P." zone (Red Sector A) in the pre-dawn hours. We were due to play that night in Dallas, so we couldn't wait much longer. Finally they announced that the launch would be scrubbed for that day. Well, we ran for the car, and our daring driver sped off, around the traffic jams, down the median of the highway, and got us to the airport barely in time.

The next night we had a show in San Antonio, after which we drove off immediately, clambered into a hired jet, and flew straight back to Florida. This time the launch took place on schedule, and it was SOMETHING!!

I remember thinking to myself as we flew back to Fort Worth after a couple days without sleep: "We've got to write a song about this!" It was an incredible thing to witness, truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can only hope that the song comes even close to capturing the excitement and awe that we felt that morning.

— Neil Peart in the Signals tour book.

The song incorporates audio from voice communications between astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen and ground control, specifically Ascent CAPCOM Daniel C. Brandenstein and with commentary from Hugh Harris, Kennedy Space Center Public Affairs Officer.

Here they are playing the track live in Montreal, Canada in 1981.

Via Wikipedia.

The song was used as a wakeup song for astronauts during STS-109, which was the last successful flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. It was used again for astronaut Mike Fincke during STS-134, flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour on its final mission before retirement. Fincke described how his friends Greg Shurtz and NASA employee Ken Fisher chose the song because the band was inspired to write it after viewing the launch of STS-1. Fincke went on to say the song was played as a tribute to the Space Shuttle program, which has inspired people around the world.

Source: https://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19830228circus.htm

Here's the detail from the Signals tour book from the programme of that tour - I had a copy of this.

And here's the Public Service Broadcasting track: "The Other Side" which is the story of the Apollo mission which was the first to do what Artemis II did a day or so ago - and after which astronaut Bill Anders made the classic Earthrise photo that was so important to the environmental movement as it showed the fragility of the Earth... we now have an updated version of that image.

Mar 13: 'The Camera Eye' - Rush

If we are talking about cities - as we have been, then I have always returned to the song 'The Camera Eye' by Rush. It comes from their best album 'Moving Pictures'.

Here's the back of the LP cover.

The song moves between London and New York; two cities known to lyricist Neil Peart.

Here's the performance of the song from the Time Machine Tour - the last time I saw them playing live.

The lyrics and the structure of the song are very well crafted. I also love the music, plenty of Oberheim and bass pedals...

This podcast suggest some of the meanings behind the song - the longest one they had recorded for a while and the last time they recorded a song that long.

Neil had read the work of John Dos Pasos, in particular his “USA Trilogy”. And in those books, Dos Pasos uses a literary device he calls “the camera eye”. That’s where Neil got the title from. One of the books in the USA trilogy is called “The Big Money”. Neil would later write a song based on that, too.

“The Camera Eye” opens with the sound of a city. It’s a city street scene. According to Geddy Lee, when they were putting together that pastiche of sound effects, one of the clips they used was a bit of audio from “Superman”, the 1978 movie with Christopher Reeve.

We start in New York:

“Grim faced and forbidding, their faces closed tight.

An angular mass of New Yorkers

pacing in rhythm race the oncoming night

they chase through the streets of Manhattan.”

And then comes the rain that will connect the two cities together.

In London:

“Pavements may teem with intense energy,

but the city is calm in this violent sea.”

Mar 2: Environmental Songs #2: 'Red Tide'

The second environmental song I am going to mention on the blog (following the first one back in January) is by Rush, from the 1989 album Presto. 

It is called 'Red Tide'. I saw this album's tour by Rush at Sheffield Arena.

Red Tides are algal blooms which are a sign that the water in a place has an imbalance of chemical nutrients.

They are becoming more common unfortunately as well as a result of environmental changes - partly the result of human activity of course.

Here's the song:

Neil Peart's lyrics pull no punches: 

Stay out of the sun
It only burns my skin
Sky full of poison
And the atmosphere's too thin

Bless the sun, the rain no more
River running like an open sore
Black wind falling through the ocean floor
And the red tide washes ashore

This is not a false alarm
This is not a test
Nowhere we can fly away
Nowhere we can rest
The party is disrupted by
An uninvited guest

What are your suggestions for further songs on this theme...

Feb 23: OK, so... what do I do now?

OK, so Rush are expanding their 50 something tour to the UK.

I first saw them play live almost 45 years ago...

How much are the tickets?

Do I really want to go when Neil is not on the drum riser?

Will they fill in some of those gaps if these dates sell out and perhaps go to some better venues? Hmmm....

Answer to my conundrum...

You go onto the Rush pre-sale (code R50) and get yourself a ticket for the O2 at a 'reasonable' price - comparable with other tickets I've paid for this year, such as David Byrne in 2 weeks' time... more on that to come....

“We are thrilled to support the ‘Fifty Something‘ tour, celebrating a band whose music has resonated and inspired fans for generations, and to honor Neil’s extraordinary legacy as both a drummer and lyricist. Neil’s musicianship was singular. Compositions of intricacy and power that expanded what rhythm itself could express. As both drummer and lyricist, he was irreplaceable. Inimitable in his artistry, and unmatched in the depth and imagination he brought to the lyrics that inspired and moved so many, he profoundly shaped how fans connected with him and the band, giving voice and meaning to their own lives. As the band enters this new chapter, it promises to be truly unforgettable. We are excited to see how their new vision unfolds, and to hear this legendary music played live once again.”

Carrie Nuttall-Peart and Olivia Peart, Neil‘s widow and daughter.

And here's my ticket from when I saw them in 1983....

I had to pay more than £6 this time round...

Feb 23: V is for Vertical Horizon

An A-Z of bands suggested by the Spotify algorithm. 

This American band's greatest chart success came back in 2000 when the title track from their album 'Everything you Want' went to number one in the USA.

The band was founded by students at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. It has had quite a few members alongside the core members. With a little more support and luck it could well have been much bigger, but I like all of their albums.

Here's that most famous track from 2000. My guess is you may never have heard it before.

They also recorded several pieces of music with the late Neil Peart from Rush, including 'Instamatic'. The enthusiasm of Matt Scannell for this track was really wonderful to see - I posted it on the anniversary of Neil's passing.

Peart co-wrote the song 'Even Now' on 'Burning the Days', released in 2009. I like this a lot.

Vertical Horizon's discography

What V comes up on your algorithm? Tell me in the comments

Or fill in the Google Form below:

Type each letter in turn and see what emerges...

Update

After quite a few years away, Vertical Horizon released new music this week and announced some live dates.

Here's the new music:

Jan 7: Remembering 'the Professor'

Through the year we will be marking anniversaries of events: some joyful and some immensely sad. The loss of this musician was particularly hard to take....

It's been six years today since the passing of the master musician and lyricist Neil Peart of the band Rush. 

I count myself extremely lucky to have seen him perform many times since 1982. He always gave 100% and the musicality of his drumming was beyond parallel. I've seen many great drummers play live, and he was the best.

Here's one of my favourite Rush songs, which we will also return to later in the year because of its theme of alienation in the suburbs, or subdivisions:

He was a part of my life for over 40 years, and Rush have to be one of the bands that I have played the most whether on LP, CD or streamed on Spotify. 

I was privileged to see Rush play live 7 or 8 times I think from 1982 onwards, to the final live gig I attended in Sheffield on the Time Machine tour in 2012 - I will always regret not seeing them on the Clockwork Angels tour now.... 

One of my favourite non-Rush videos is when Peart laid down a drum track for his friend Matt Scannell from the Australian band Vertical Horizon. 

The enjoyment of Matt as his friend and hero plays drums for him is infectious, and the drum track is awesome.... There are so many Rush tracks I could embed here... but check this out next...



And then check out Red Barchetta live from that Time Machine tour that I saw.

Along with his music, he was a great traveller - particularly on motorbikes but also on bicycles and he wrote about his travels in a series of books, most of which I have. These were excellent travelogues and observations of people, although he was a very private person. He also wrote lengthy pieces for Rush tour programmes - some of which I still have in my collection of tour memorabilia.

In October 2025, we had an interesting announcement from Geddy and Alex...

I'll not be partaking of this particular musical moment.

Here's a well conceived tribute video from Hudson Music... gives a flavour of his legacy and drum technique.

And check out his website.

Neil was partial to ending the day with a glass of the Macallan. But have you seen the price of it? 

I'll raise a glass of something more affordable to Neil tonight, as I have done each year since his passing.

Rest in peace Professor.