Just wondering sometimes when they mention rush or play a song on a t.v show why is it connected with nerds? At my school people most people who listen to rush aren't nerds and just like the music but for some reason which i don't understand rush supposedly has some nerd following. Beats me why, i just like the music.

Isn't Geddy the ultimate nerd? Kinda' looks like one. ;)

In the 80's, before I liked RUSH, my buddies played D&D while listening to RUSH... and they were nerds (I was too).:D

If Geddy Lee is a nerd then he is the coolest one ever. I'm into punk rock but "Freewill" gets me revved up everytime

Because it's nerdy to like good music.

Yeah, a lot of people think that music that isn't on the top 40 chart is nerdy. Personally most pop music makes me want to cut my throat with construction paper... I think maybe the Rush - nerd connotation comes from the singer's lead voice and some of the lyrics. I love Rush, but that song about unrest in the forest (I know it's a metaphor) does sound a little nerdy to my ears, until they rock out of course. Most people are too focused on getting caught riding dirty to worry about trouble with the maples.

You talkin' smack about "The Trees"?!?!?!
;)

Just wondering sometimes when they mention rush or play a song on a t.v show why is it connected with nerds? At my school people most people who listen to rush aren't nerds and just like the music but for some reason which i don't understand rush supposedly has some nerd following. Beats me why, i just like the music.

It's because "prog" rock or "math" rock is considered a thinker's form of music. A Musician's musician-made creation that is complex and technical far before it is ever sexually appealing.
The listeners are mainly guys, and since there have been so many sci-fi themes to their songs, they tend to be the scienceclub/comicbook/sausagefest types.
I've only had one girlfriend who owned a rush album, most of the time I'm lucky if I find a girl who can tolerate them. I wait a good month before I spring the massive Rush collection on them.
I recently got the Rush R30 dvd, and my current girlfriend sleeps in the other room now. Heheh.
I'll have to fly cygnus x-1 all the way to dreamland (or dreamline) by myself!

+1 Ad Nauseum!

I guess I'm lucky in that I always liked prog rock, but my girlfriend was the one who really got me into it. She introduced me to Emerson, Lake and Palmer and I turned her on to Rush and Jethro Tull. We both already liked Yes. It must have worked out because now she's my wife! :D

As for the Rush nerd factor, I'd agree that the scifi and fantasy lyrics on their 70's albums were a big contributor. But a lot of prog bands were doing that.

Hey Brian,did you see that they will be in Atlanta this year for the new tour?I haven't seen them live since the mid 80's. Also,does your wife have a sister that's just like her,and single?

If you can't tell who the nerds are . . . guess what . . . :hiding:

I think it is because the lyrics are often associated with Lord Of The Rings type fantasy.

Long live Rush, and us nerds who listen to it!!!!!

Hey Brian,did you see that they will be in Atlanta this year for the new tour?I haven't seen them live since the mid 80's. Also,does your wife have a sister that's just like her,and single?

That's cool. I haven't seen a tour schedule yet. I last saw them in 2004 here in Atlanta. I saw them a couple of times in the 80's and I can't count the times I saw them in the 70's opening for other bands and later as headliners. They seemed to tour constantly back then.

My wife doesn't have a sister. She does have three brothers, but they're all spoken for. :D :D :D

If you can't tell who the nerds are . . . guess what . . . :hiding:

I think it is because the lyrics are often associated with Lord Of The Rings type fantasy.

Long live Rush, and us nerds who listen to it!!!!!

+1

The "Fly By Night Album" (their second album the first with Neil Peart) has a track called "Rivendell". Can't get nerdier than that!

+1

The "Fly By Night Album" (their second album the first with Neil Peart) has a track called "Rivendell". Can't get nerdier than that!

That song was like a freakin lullaby to me when I was 13. Worked better than sleeping pills. Panacea too.

Time to make song lists! Top 5 songs I want to hear this tour:
1: Lock And Key
2: Marathon
3: Losing It
4: Something For Nothing
5: Nobody's Hero

6th would be Bangkok. heheh.

screw it, top 10...

7: Here Again
8: Show Don't Tell
9: Chain Lighning
10: I think I'm Going Bald

Maybe we're considered nerds because of how retardly excited we get over them?

MAY 1ST! MAY 1ST! MAY 1ST! :hyper:

Panacea too.


Panacea is amazing. So soft and sweet, before breaking into the joyous rock of Bacchus Plateau. Still one of my favourite Rush songs (a song within a song), so simple, and with that amazing solo at the end from Alex that reminds me of birds singing.

Rock music is SUPPOSED to be about sex and cars and partying, or at least rebellion (hmmm, couldn't we put Red Barchetta in the car category and The Trees in the rebellion category?) and Rush deal with subject matter that is philosophical, literary and political.

When white audiences adopted rock and roll from black musicians in the 50s and 60s, it was a way of rebelling against their parents and/or the establishment's music. Up until then, every kid took piano lessons. In the 50s/60s, they got a guitar and learned 3 chords and the blues scale instead.

So rock is supposed to be "the people's music", and when you start playing in odd time signatures with chords that have more than 3 notes in them with lots of virtuosity and lyrics inspired by Ayn Rand, its less "blood and guts" and more "intellectual."

BTW, most Rush fans I know (including myself) are nerds.:hiding:

i do think that it is a requirement to be smarter than most people around you to listen to rush.

it defininately is thinking mans music

Just wondering sometimes when they mention rush or play a song on a t.v show why is it connected with nerds? At my school people most people who listen to rush aren't nerds and just like the music but for some reason which i don't understand rush supposedly has some nerd following. Beats me why, i just like the music.

nerd band? Hardly. WHen I was in HS and 2112 came out, it was all the "burn-outs" and long hairs who were listening to it.

I'll say this. I've never been in a band YET where every musician didn't like and admire this group. it's amazing. they are definitely a musician's band.

well, i'm a girl and i love Rush. so it's a thinking person's music. :D

rush is cerebral music - and supposedly, rock is about a region just south of the waistline. and you can't dance to rush music. maybe that's why people think it's uncool.
or maybe 'cause they never engaged publicly in all the rock n roll shenanigans.

meh. if we like them, then they MUST be great! :D

well, i'm a girl and i love Rush.

Do a lot of nerds hit on you?

Rush really seems to be musician's music. People just listen to garbage. Today I was in study hall writing out some sheet music for Theory class, and this kid kept looking over my shoulder with a "***" look on his face. Beh.

In my opinion, Rush is the most overall talented band of all time. So tight.

Where are you people getting the tour dates? It isn't on their site or ticketmaster.

lowsound

There aren't any tour dates posted yet. May 1st is when the new album comes out! :hyper:

I just got into Rush a couple months ago and all I can say is WOW!! I'll definetely try to catch them on tour if they come around D.C. As far as nerds liking Rush, I can definetely see where that might be coming from, although I know a lot of people that like them (most most are still musicians of some sort).

I'm a big Rush fan, but it's sort of a guilty pleasure... something I share only with musicians. Geddy's voice and the mathiness of the music definitely contribute to the nerd factor, but for me the lyrics are what clinch the Nerd title. "The Trees" is quite possibly the nerdiest and most pretentious rock song ever written - albeit great, if you can stop yourself from laughing out loud at the lyrics. Peart's lyrics remind me of a 15 year old's poetry: clumsy, pretentious, and overly thesaurus'd. I believe that Peart's dad is/was a professor of English Lit, and you definitely get the feeling that Neil is out to prove something. It would be okay if he had something interesting to say, but seems to me the lyrics are fairly simple minded... he's like the annoying turtleneck and goatee guy at a party who has to keep mentioning loudly how much he likes Nietzsche.

"The Trees" is quite possibly the nerdiest and most pretentious rock song ever written - albeit great, if you can stop yourself from laughing out loud at the lyrics. Peart's lyrics remind me of a 15 year old's poetry: clumsy, pretentious, and overly thesaurus'd. I believe that Peart's dad is/was a professor of English Lit, and you definitely get the feeling that Neil is out to prove something. It would be okay if he had something interesting to say, but seems to me the lyrics are fairly simple minded... he's like the annoying turtleneck and goatee guy at a party who has to keep mentioning loudly how much he likes Nietzsche.

I can *kind of* see why one might get that impression. But oddly I've never found The Trees to be "pretentious" or to not have "something interesting to say". To me it was all a simple analogy for humans getting along, with humor added in at the end implying that we might never get along without being forced to do so.

I'm not trying to say that the bulk of the public would agree with me and just take it for what it's worth, but far be it for the public to view a song without colorizing it based upon what they're used to. Even Peart has described his feelings about some of their early work as like showing off their grade-school drawings that used to hang on their parent's refrigerators.

And I don't know Peart and never have met him, but I'd fall out of my chair if I learned he had to "stretch" to get the lyrics of that song, much less stretch to reach the thesaurus on his bookshelf. The guy comes across as quite smart and aware.

Having said all that, I can find lyrics amongst my favorite Rush songs that I don't like. But for each of those is a lyric I *do* like and which seems like wheat in the chaff of popular music.

Compare this to a band like Green Day who were so warmly applauded for having their song writing "grow up" and "arrive" when they came out with their anti-Bush, anti-war themes. Wow. Original AND provocative. Join the freakin' club! Who *hasn't* touched those themes in the past six years? I preferred them when they wrote songs about masturbation -- At least they made me laugh for the right reasons.

HooBass

I remember sneaking into my sister's room to steal her Permanent Waves album. I would take it up to my room and listen to it time and time again. I had the entire Rush discography within a few months of that time. Granted they were only up to Moving Pictures at that time. Yeah, I was ten years old. Geddy inspired me to start playing bass and songs like Freewill shaped my tender young psyche.

Within a few years of that I started playing bass.

I am a nerd. I love music. As long as those guys keep rocking, I feel young and excited about music. It is also really cool to read of people just discovering Rush.

The ten second snippet on the Rush.com website reminds me of the old 70's Rush. When Alex hits that chord, it just screams Hemispheres. I cannot wait to hear the new album. But, don't get me wrong, there is not a single Rush album that has not been played over and over again in my house. I have bought every album on its release date since about 1984.

Prog rock seems to be coming back around. Bands like The Mars Volta have opened folks up to the uniqueness of the genre. Rush may be coming back around full circle on this album, we will have to wait and see, or at least listen. I love every Rush album for different reasons. They are a band that has continued to evolve and try new directions. Ever seen the Time Stand Still video? Good song, horrible, nerdy video.

all rush videos have been pretty bad

all rush videos have been pretty bad

In contrast to my defense of Peart's lyrics in The Trees above, I must say I too have found that all of the videos have a pretty embarrassing quality, IMO.

I was trying to think of if there are ANY videos that are an exception for me. Big Money wasn't too bad, and maybe Mystic Rhythms (which itself has some of those lyrics I was saying I *do* find awkward; I remember a friend's girlfriend saying she thought they were saying "Mysterious Moonbase" which exemplifies someone looking in from outside and seeing nerdiness). I don't include any of the concert performance "videos" among these -- I'm only thinking of the vignette videos.

HooBass

I really hope that they play a bunch of shows in Canada for once. Come on, they are Canadians after all, PLAY SOME SHOWS IN YOUR HOME TOWN!

lowsound

Ever seen the Time Stand Still video? Good song, horrible, nerdy video.

That song is simply amazing. The video may be cheap and cheerful, but it's still great.

However, the Afterimage video takes the cake in terms of buget, it must have cost $5 and a pack of gum to make! Still, another brilliant song!

i suppose the video for lock and key could definately be worse

i suppose the video for lock and key could definately be worse

Not the most immediate choice for a second single from that album though.

Do a lot of nerds hit on you?


oh, i wish! at this point, i'll take anyone that offers....:smug:

That song is simply amazing. The video may be cheap and cheerful, but it's still great.

However, the Afterimage video takes the cake in terms of buget, it must have cost $5 and a pack of gum to make! Still, another brilliant song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylViJpX1KBs

I hate Geddy's hair in a pony tail. It's a bit girlish looking...but yeah, good song, although very "not Rush" -- some Rush fanatics I know absolutely abhor the song

i didn't think nerds hit on girls...in real life at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylViJpX1KBs

I hate Geddy's hair in a pony tail. It's a bit girlish looking...but yeah, good song, although very "not Rush" -- some Rush fanatics I know absolutely abhor the song

Well, I consider myself a Rush fanatic, and for me, the highlight of their illustrious career was 1986-1991. Watching A Show Of Hands still knocks me flat, as does listening to the record. That said, I know some Rush fans who detest everything post Signals...some even extend the blanket of disdain to Signals! Talk about limiting your experience!