{"id":73045,"date":"2020-01-13T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73045"},"modified":"2020-01-12T17:04:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-12T23:04:28","slug":"a-farewell-to-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73045","title":{"rendered":"A Farewell To King"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Neal Peart, drummer for prog-rock and high school sci-fi-nerd-rock mainstays Rush, <a href=\"https:\/\/popculture.com\/music\/2020\/01\/10\/neil-peart-iconic-rush-drummer-dead-67\/\">died of brain cancer last week.  He was 67<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He&#8217;s iconic for his technical prowess on the skins, of course &#8211; and that&#8217;s nothing to sneeze at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Neil Peart Drum Solo - Rush Live in Frankfurt\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LWRMOJQDiLU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And along with those immense technical chops came a taste for really, really big drum kits.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How big? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Big enough to serve as a cultural punchline for people from a certain generation &#8211; in this case, one of the kids in <em>Freaks and Geeks<\/em>, perhaps the only retrospective sit-com my generation is ever going to get.  It sure got this right:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Freaks and Geeks - Big drum kit\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3CqOtEz6PfA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the years, when looking for drummers in bands, when I hear from people claiming to be influenced by Peart&#8217;s style, I can feel the back-ache setting in from a long, kit-heavy load-in and load-out even on the phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But for me, the most important thing about Peart &#8211; who replaced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2589\">John Rutsey<\/a>, who died even longer before his time &#8211; had little to do with drum technique.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My favorite drummers have tended to be either the human metronomes (Charlie Watts, Max Weinberg) or power-driving madmen (Keith Moon, Johnny Badanjak, Kenny Aronoff).   Technical virtuosi like Peart, and Stuart Copeland of the Police, interested me less for their drum chops than for their place in the chemistry of theit various bands.  Copeland took the edge off of some of Sting&#8217;s interminal pretension and self-importance&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;and in a genre where bloated pretense was the coin of the realm (Yes, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, King Krimson), Peart was part of an ensemble that simultaneously wrote some great prog-rock (admittedly a genre I care very little about) and had a rollicking sense of humor on the subject, about the genre, and about themselves:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rash:Time Machine Tour 2011, Closer To The Heart Polka\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bmx5CI9Hxk4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>RIP Neal Peart<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neal Peart, drummer for prog-rock and high school sci-fi-nerd-rock mainstays Rush, died of brain cancer last week. He was 67. He&#8217;s iconic for his technical prowess on the skins, of course &#8211; and that&#8217;s nothing to sneeze at. And along with those immense technical chops came a taste for really, really big drum kits. How [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoriam","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73053,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73045\/revisions\/73053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}