Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.metal
Titolo: Neil Peart on Rush new material

RUSH drummer Neil Peart has posted the following update on his official 
web site, 
www.neilpeart.net
:
"In early March, winter still ruled the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec. 
The snow was often at its deepest in that month, piling up through the 
blizzards of January and February until it covered the ground up to your 
waist. The plowed snow made ten-foot walls along the little country 
roads, and around my house, making it feel cozy and protected.
"The day I picked up Alex [Lifeson] and Geddy [Lee] at the local airport 
was sunny, but near freezing, and the three of us hugged each other 
through masses of coats, scarves, and gloves. All bundled-up like . . . 
Canadians in winter.
"We loaded their overnight bags in the back of my new winter 'hot rod' — 
an Audi S-4 Avant, with a 4.2-liter V8 crammed into a tight little 
all-wheel-drive sports wagon — and I drove us to my house on the lake, 
sometimes playing Finnish rally driver on the snow-covered roads. Along 
the way, we passed near the village of Morin Heights, where we had 
shared so many good times, recording at Le Studio — now closed and 
abandoned. The number of albums we had made there stretched from 
'Permanent Waves' in 1979 to 'Counterparts' in 1994. Those long stays at 
Le Studio's comfortable guest house had been for the purpose of 
recording, yes — but also playing volleyball, pedal-boating, 
cross-country skiing, watching movies, dining on fabulous 
French-Canadian food, and having some of those kinds of nights you're 
glad you only half-remember.
"Earlier this winter, when the three of us were making plans for our 
meeting in Quebec, I had been jokingly calling it our 'corporate 
retreat.' And indeed, we do have some 'business' to discuss, but first — 
we eat and drink.
"Traditionally, Alex had been the chef among us, going right back to the 
early years. We would be away songwriting in a cottage or farmhouse, 
with no catering or nearby restaurants, and Alex would cook for us. Over 
the years, I have had so many amazing meals from the kitchen of 'Papa 
Paisano' (pounding his chest with one fist and declaring, 'I will cook 
for you!'), and it was Alex who taught me why a person might spend all 
day cooking food for other people — it was an act of love.
"So I was a little intimidated cooking for 'Papa Paisano', as well as 
for Geddy, an internationally schooled and sophisticated connoisseur of 
food and drink — an experienced winer-and-diner.
"Geddy brought a bad cold with him, unfortunately, and was feeling 
poorly, and Alex was just getting over the same winter malaise. I always 
notice that when I'm in Quebec for a month or so in winter, I never get 
sick unless someone visits from the city — bringing all the 'latest 
germs.' That was the case this time, for the next day, I started to get 
the cough and aching, too.
"However, Geddy also brought some choice wines from his well-stocked 
cellar, and we started by uncorking a fine burgundy to accompany a lunch 
of mushroom ravioli (from a batch prepared by my friend Brutus, on his 
visit the previous week, when we noticed that we seemed to spend most of 
our days in the kitchen cooking together — how evolved we men are these 
days!). I sautéed the ravioli with olive oil, garlic, orange zest, and 
plum tomatoes.
"The three of us stayed gathered around the kitchen island, music 
playing while I rolled out the pastry for a blueberry pie, and got it 
put together and in the oven. (It was only my second attempt at a 
pastry-type pie, and it wasn't very pretty — the crust uneven and 
patched up a little crudely — but I was hopeful it would taste good.)
"As recounted in my previous news report, back in January I had sent 
Alex and Geddy some lyrics. I knew they had been working with some of 
them, but I hadn't heard anything yet. That day in my kitchen, we had a 
momentary panic when Alex went searching through his bags and couldn't 
find the CD — frantically calling his son Adrian in Toronto to try to 
have it sent up, or to be uploaded somehow to the Internet so we could 
download it there (the extremities of modern technology). Adrian 
reported that he couldn't find the CD in Alex's studio either. Alex had 
another look in the part of his bag where 'he would never put it,' and 
walked back into the kitchen holding the clear plastic case, shaking his 
head.
"'That was close.'
"We gathered before the fire in the living room and started listening. 
As the songs played out, the response we all shared was a sense of 
clarity — for Alex and Geddy, playing the songs for me that first time 
threw their strengths and weaknesses into sharp contrast, and they kept 
saying things like, 'I know what we have to do here.' Same for me, 
lyrically — I was very gratified to hear parts that worked, saying 
'Yeah' when I heard Geddy sing a line just perfectly, while also knowing 
right away what I could improve upon.
"There were five song sketches — guitar, vocals, and drum machine — and 
I liked them all. I also noticed those songs already seemed to have a 
sort of unity, a stylistic approach of chord structures, rhythms, and 
vocal delivery that I could only describe as 'spiritual.' I'll say no 
more about that aspect until we get farther into it, but it was 
wonderful that after thirty years of working together, we could still 
find different paths to explore together.
"Then it was time for dinner. Back in the kitchen, we nibbled on pâté de 
foie gras with a bottle of Sauterne that had been aging in my wine 
closet for many years — waiting for such an occasion — and a couple of 
fine Quebec cheeses. I prepared the appetizer: scallops sautéed in 
garlic and butter with avocado vinaigrette (my California influence 
brought north), then I dished out the main course: fillets of fresh 
pickerel baked with cherry tomatoes, asparagus tips, dill, and chopped 
onion; jasmine rice; grilled red, green, yellow, and orange peppers in 
olive oil; snow peas, baby carrots, and yellow beans.
"It was all very colorful, that's for sure, and the secret for me is all 
in the timing. A few years ago, when I was first starting to learn how 
to cook, I said to Geddy that I couldn't believe I could actually do it, 
after years of thinking cooking was 'magic' or something.
"Geddy replied, 'Of course you can cook — you can play drums!'
"That was funny, and incisive, for there were indeed some relations 
there — counting down the rhythmic intervals of the different 
ingredients until everything arrives at the perfect 'doneness,' at the 
perfect time.
"Geddy contributed a delicate Chablis to accompany that main course, and 
finally, we dived into that warm blueberry pie (I called it 'ugly pie' 
when I brought it out of the oven, all lopsided and bubbling over with 
purple goo, but I had to admit it tasted amazingly good) with ice cream 
and coffee.
"Earlier, Geddy had decanted a bottle of vintage Bordeaux, but we 
decided the perfect coda for that symphony was Calvados. (Sadly, when 
the guys flew back to Toronto the following day, I had to drink that 
Bordeaux all by myself.)
"It had been a good meal, a great day, and I was exhausted. Geddy went 
off to the guest house to get some rest and nurse his cold, while I lay 
on the sofa in front of the fire, and Alex cleaned up the entire kitchen.
"If you ask me, that's an act of love!
"So now I'm going to spend the month of May in Toronto, where we have 
rented a small studio. It will be great to have the opportunity to work 
together on those songs, and hopefully some new ones, too. For me, after 
spending more than a year working on my book, Roadshow, it will be nice 
to take off the 'author' hat (BMW Motorcycles baseball cap) and put on 
my 'lyricist' hat (the old cowboy special, given to me by a fan in 
Dallas, that I always think helps keep my versifying down-to-earth) and 
my 'drummer' hat (African prayer cap).
"I like all of those hats, and all of those jobs, but it's especially 
the drumming I'm looking forward to right now. Lately I've been getting 
all inspired about 'hitting things with sticks,' driving around 
listening to Steve Smith's recorded work (to keep me humble) and 
enjoying a couple of sessions of 'drum duets' with my friends Chris 
Stankee and Gregg Bissonette (another humbling, but inspiring experience).
"One night in early April, I went to a Hollywood jazz club, Catalina's, 
with my drum teacher, Freddie Gruber (now seventy-nine-years-young), and 
a couple of his other 'students' — though all of us were in our fifties. 
I've compared Freddie before to a tennis coach, and with him, once 
you're a student, you're always a student. One evening that same week, 
he and I were sitting around his living room, listening to great old 
songs on the radio and talking about everything in the world. Out of 
nowhere, Freddie picked up a pair of drumsticks from the coffee table 
and started demonstrating something on a handy practice pad. Our 
companions at Catalina's were Jim Keltner and Ian Wallace, both master 
drummers with long resumés, and we were there to see and hear one of the 
all-time great drummers, Roy Haynes.
"Roy was eighty-one, yet played with a mastery, artistry, and musicality 
that made the four of us turn to each other and smile, and lit another 
fire of inspiration for me. Between shows, we went back to say hello to 
Roy, meeting another great drummer, Ndugu Chancler, and we all sat in 
the little dressing room and listened to Freddie and Roy tell stories 
about the 1940s jazz scene on 52nd Street in New York.
"'This drummer used to play with that band, and sit in after hours at 
this club that was just down from that club, across the street from that 
other club, you know, where those two young actors shared the apartment 
upstairs.' Their stories revealed those two actors to be Marlon Brando 
and Wally Cox, and name after name spilled out in Freddie and Roy's 
conversation — sax players, drummers, actors, poets, painters, hustlers, 
and hookers, a whole magical time and place brought to life through the 
memories of those two forever-young characters.
"For Roy's second show, our table was joined by another drummer, Joey 
Herredia. Freddie and I had gone to see Joey play the previous year, 
when Freddie had assured me, in his dry manner, 'It will be . . . of 
interest.'
"Indeed it was — Joey was a stunning young Latin drummer, with that 
angular, syncopated time sense that seemed so powerful, so exotic, so 
impossible to me. Again, I felt inspired — by a style of drumming that I 
hadn't heard before, and couldn't play myself (but I'm working on it).
"That evening at Catalina's was quite a 'drum summit' for me to be part 
of, and perfectly timed, as I began to feel myself swept up into the 
world of rhythm once again.
"I wrote earlier that when I first heard the new songs from Alex and 
Geddy, the word that occurred to me was 'spiritual.' I wonder if there's 
such a thing as 'spiritual drumming?'
"I'm working on it."

(but I'm >working on it).
Leggere queste cose dette/scritte da Peart ti riempie il cuore. Vederlo che 
in pratica dopo anni di illustre carriera dice che ha ancora da imparare e 
che "ci sta lavorando su" é veramente bellissimo.
Pikkio 


Peraltro dopo (o prima?) di Counterparts ha passato mesi andando a
lezione da quello che è considerato il migliore percussionista
canadese in assoluto.
Neil Peart. A lezione. Con lra cartellina e la mela per il maestro.
Ma poi è riuscito a smettere di fumare?
Speriamo di no, le conseguenze potrebbero essere irreparabili: non
dimentichiamo che tutti i grandi batteristi hanno le emissioni di una
Lada in pessime condizioni con l'acceleratore a tavoletta.
--
Io.