Since I’ve gone Galt for the past few days, I thought that this seemed an appropriate story to come back with:
Rand Paul, the Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, is a big fan (of Rush). Not only will he quote lyrics from the band on the campaign trail, he also likes to rock out to its music to get his rallies rolling.
[…..]“The public performance of Rush’s music is not licensed for political purposes: any public venue which allows such use is in breach of its public performance license and also liable for copyright infringement,” Farmer wrote.
[…..]y the way, the songs Paul plays at his campaign rallies? “Spirit of Radio” and “Tom Sawyer.”
Breezeblock
I’ve always understood that Neil Peart (Rush drummer and lyricist) is rather a right-wing kind of fellow, with some sci-fi thrown in.
nitpicker
Well, sci-fi and libertarianism seem intrinsically connected somehow.
TomG
I’m a fan of Rush’s music, but I agree with them and all other bands – if you don’t GET PERMISSION in writing from a band, don’t play their damn music in public !
How simple is that, really ?
Xecky Gilchrist
Non-payment of music royalties is a plank in every Republican platform.
How that dovetails with the support of rabid anti-downloading legislation on behalf of music megacorps, I’m not sure.
Lancelot Link
He sounds more like a “moocher” to me.
Maude
@Xecky Gilchrist:
The musicians are DFH, that’s why and Shut Up, Also.
JDG
@Breezeblock – I think Mr. Peart has distanced himself from his Ayn Rand days…
Barry
Maude, you forgot ‘Ay-rabz iz wurser’, which means that you’re and anti-semite!!!!!!!!
You know who else never said ‘Ay-rabz iz wurser’?!?!?!?!
Hitler!
Stalin!
Clinton!
Pol Pot!
Kyle
Property rights are sacred…unless you’re a dirty hippie, in which case I’ll not bother getting permission and pay you nothing.
Walker
It is well known that 2112 is the rock opera version of Rand’s Anthem. Though I was under the impression that Peart is less of a Randian these days.
rickstersherpa
Apparently property rights are sacred, except when they are not. Rush owns the copyright. Rush tells the Rand people you don’t have our permission to play our music at public events, so don’t. Rand to Rush, stick your copyright rights where the sun don’t shine, we are the Tea Party and our will is the law.
cleek
What about the voice of Geddy Lee,
How did it get so high?
I wonder if he speaks
Like an ordinary guy.
“I know him and he does.”
Then you’re my fact-checkin coz.
awww
Morbo
The space he invades he gets by on you.
Not getting by with this one, Randall.
GregB
Mmmm. Capitalism doesn’t work if people don’t pay for goods and services Mr. Ayn Rand Paul.
artem1s
more from the land of not-really-racists-new-republicans (teabaggers)…
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/03/sc-senator-weve-got-one-raghead-in-the-white-house-we-don%E2%80%99t-need-a-raghead-in-the-governor%E2%80%99s-mansion/
debbie
If I’m not confusing my lyrics, isn’t Rush the group that sings “Come sail away”? I wish Rand would listen to that song.
scudbucket
Paul is making an important political statement here – he’s separating himself from the cowering LINO pansies who won’t use their Gawd-given liberty to break the law when it’s useful and appropriate. Hard core for-realsies libertarians aren’t constrained by anything. It’s all liberty all the time.
Walker
@debbie
That is Styx. Let me suggest that you never say that in front of a Rush fan. The reaction is likely to be rabid.
Geeno
@debbie: That’s Styx
scav
the reek of eau d’Übermensch is strong in this one.
Frank L
Debbie, “Come Sail Away” was Styx.
Dan
I’ve always, with few exceptions, found Rush fans to be big pricks.
Don’t know if it is because Rush appeals to pricks or because listening to Rush turns you into a prick.
Musically, Rush is just Yes without the melodies, harmonies, guitar licks or decent lyrics. Also, Yes had the good manners to retire when they were spent.
Bob L
Talk about the definition of a Moocher stealing from a Creator. I may not agree with Ayn Rand in politics or finance but in the arts she is dead on the mark.
Bobby Thomson
@debbie: Bwahaha. Tommy Shaw is a bigger douche than Neal Peart ever was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOWK7Tam01M
But now I want to hear Cartman cover Tom Sawyer.
Joel
@nitpicker: Both are fantasy-based with a bit of truthiness thrown in?
cleek
and if Eric Cartman hears any of the words to “Come Sail Away”, he immediately has to sing the entire thing.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Breezeblock: He’s not .. he .. like a lot of people .. had a youthful fascination
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Walker: And wasn’t Peart 24 when he wrote it?
redbeardjim
@Dan:
Good to know you too.
BTelfer
Didn’t anyone tell Paul that Geddy Lee is a socialist immigrant’s son from the Commie dictatorship of Canuckinstan?
shortstop
OT, I always enjoy hearing my Toronto friend Maggie’s impression of Geddy Lee singing the hilariously bad lyrics to “Closer to the Heart.” When she wails through “PhiLOHHHSophers and PLAGHAOUGHmen,” I pee my pants. That is all.
Death Panel Truck
I can deal with “I Think I’m Going Bald” from Caress of Steel, because it’s straightforward 70s metal without the pompous art-rock excess, and because it brings back pleasant childhood memories of my long-deceased older brother, who was a Rush fan. He was 18 years old when he was killed in an automobile accident on Halloween night in 1979.
As for the rest of Rush’s oeuvre – ugh.
TomG
Dan @22 – Well I consider myself both a huge Rush fan AND a huge Yes fan (at least through Big Generator, I haven’t heard much past that album). So where do I fit in ? Sounds like you have stereotypes about Rush fans.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Walker:
Actually, “Anthem” is Rush’s version of Rand’s “Anthem.”
As for Peart being an Ayn Rand fan, he’s said something to the effect of, “I read one short story by her and I liked it enough to write a song about it. I had no idea she was crazy.”
FWIW, he is in no way right wing. From reading one of his travelogue books (Ghost Rider), I came away with the impression that he’s a total jackass in person. He’s the sort of small scale libertarian that objects to anyone telling him he can’t smoke wherever he damned well pleases and to hell with what other people think. Big picture, though, he’s comfortably left of center.
Surly Duff
Not only do his ideas suck, but his taste in music is also poor!
JohnR
@nitpicker:
I’m thinking ‘libertarianism’ is more fantasy-related than science fiction. I think we can agree, though, that its connection with present-day reality is somewhat tenuous.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Dan:
Which, fortunately, has not yet happened. I like the stuff Yes is putting out these days more than the 1970s stuff, which I think is pretentious and often unlistenable. At it’s best, 1970s era Yes is the rock equivalent to Johann Strauss: pleasant and very, very pretty, but ultimately empty. Magnification, on the other hand, is a very fine album.
They haven’t done much in the last couple of years, at least in part because Steve Howe has been busy with a resurrection of the original lineup for Asia.
Dan
Apologies to the Rush fans here. I suppose if I introduced you to the Rush fans I know, you’d agree that they are pricks with or without the knowledge of their musical preferences.
It could be coincidental with no causation.
Nutella
Why am I not surprised that Rand Paul is a big supporter of the property rights of white people when it comes to keeping out paying black customers, but not of the property rights of anyone who has something he himself wants to
steal/use without permission?Roger Moore
@Xecky Gilchrist:
IOKIYAR. SATSQ.
Bill In OH
Maybe it’s because Rush hails from the soc a list paradise of Canada that Paul feels justified in taking their intellectual property without fair compensation. Or maybe it’s because he’s a colossal douche.
I speculate, you decide.
burnspbesq
Rush, Journey, Kansas, Boston, Blue Oyster Cult – one big, undifferentiated mess of 70s bombast. Chops in search of an idea, and not finding one. Horrible when released, and passage of time hasn’t made it any better.
NobodySpecial
Wow, the pretentiousness is thick in this thread.
And yes, there’s plenty of libertarianism/right winger mentality in some of the older music (Anthem/The Trees/Red Barchetta, for three examples). The newer music? Not so much. Snakes And Arrows had some pretty good shots against right wing conservatism as it exists today.
And comparing a power trio with roots in Zepplinesque rock and roll with a prog rock band who recorded as early as their second album with a thirty piece orchestra is the sort of thing I’d expect from a starched-panties elitist like Christgau, not the folks at BJ.
cleek
@burnspbesq:
personally, i really like golden-era Rush (2112-Signals). they have their moments of suck, but when they’re on, they’re awesome.
Journey, meh. a few catchy songs, but mostly… meh.
i always confuse Kansas with Foghat and Styx and a bunch of other bands.
Boston’s first album is a solid classic. and anyone who listens to classic rock radio knows every song on that album.
BoC. meh. though “Burnin For You” is a sentimental fav – when MTV started, i would watch it for hours and hours and hours, and that song was one of their first vids.
The Moar You Know
@Breezeblock: You would be very wrong.
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): This. Right to the heart of the matter.
eric
@burnspbesq: as opposed to what time period of “popular” music? the 80s? the 90s? the 00s? Journey is fun (not to mention that Steve Smith is a “friggin monster”).
Steve Howe and Steve Hackett are two of the three most underappreciated great guitar players. (Uli John Roth wins that category hands down.)
eric
mr. whipple
This is a pretty funny thread, as I sit here listening to the Mills Brothers.
Comrade Misfit
I’m not saying that I hate Rush’s music, but for me, it would be a tossup between listing to their songs and listening to a dental drill that was drilling into my molars.
eric
@cleek: The technology employed by Boston was cutting edge…I had one of his portable amps back in the day.
Lots of these bands had some really cool tunes, though not all certainly.
If you listen to Working Man, that song is pure Black Sabbath from the opening power chords to the bridge pick-up solo. Great tune.
eric
Comrade Kevin
They may be an undifferentiated mess to someone with cloth ears.
justme
Property is Theft!
theturtlemoves
So, when did this site turn into fucking Pitchforkmedia? Yeah, yeah, prog rock sucks and is over the top and blah, blah, blah. You know what, your favorite band also sucks and the sports team from your area is inferior to the sports team from my area.
burnspbesq
@eric:
Some of the stuff I listened to in the early and mid 70s still sounds good: Little Feat, Poco, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Steely Dan, Bruce Cockburn, J.D. Crowe and the New South, the David Grisman Quintet, Warren Zevon, Richard & Linda Thompson, early Bruce Springsteen.
Some of the stuff I listened to in the early and mid 70s, I realize with the benefit of time and distance, was mediocre-to-crap: Loggins & Messina, Firefall, Dan Fogelberg, most of the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, Miles after “Bitches Brew.”
Things got interesting beginning in about 1977: Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Television, the Clash, Joy Division, Tony Rice, Rodney Crowell.
I have a couple of guilty pleasures from the 70s, particularly Karla Bonoff and Valerie Carter.
Redshift
@nitpicker:
Oh, please, no. It’s true that the SF fan community has a libertarian subculture (based on Heinlein rather than Rand, which even I have to admit is a step up), but that’s largely because it’s accepting of pretty much anyone. It’s definitely a subculture and nowhere near a dominant thread.
The Fool
You can tell a lot about a peron by the music they love.
Rush?
Give me a fucking break. There’s no accounting for taste…
The Fool
Despite the now conventional wisdom about music sucking the seventies — therefore alegedly necessitating the punk movement — it actually didn’t. In the mid-70’s the following legends released some of their greatest albums. Not ok albums, mind you, but among their greatest:
Bob Dylan
Led Zeppelin
The Grateful Dead
The Rolling Stones
Bob Marley
Pink Floyd
Aerosmith
Bruce Springsteen
Crosby Stills Nash & Young
Eric Clapton
Lynnyrd Skynnyrd
Little Feat
Joni Mitchell
canuckistani
When i was 15, getting Hemispheres on red translucent vinyl was the pinnacle of my musical existence. But within a year, I had found Elvis Costello, Devo and the Clash, and Rush turned into the band I liked when I was a kid.
jrosen
I don’t know Rush. I love Bach. (so did Procul Harum, BTW).
Redshift
@The Fool: But punk wasn’t a response to the mid-70s, it was a response to the late 70s. I was in high school in the late 70s, and while there are some exceptions, the music that got airplay then generally sucked out loud.
Most people’s musical tastes are formed either at high school or college age. I don’t know anyone my age who listens to the music from when we were in high school.
MikeBoyScout
If Randroid were interested in playing Rush at his events, a far more appropriate song for him is “Limelight”
Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage
Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact
Lancelot Link
One thing about music I discovered is, there really is no such thing as intrinsically good or bad music. It’s all subjective.
RedKitten
@cleek:
…you guys.
cleek
@Redshift:
The Ramones’ first record came out in 76.
Nevermind The Bullocks in 77.
@RedKitten:
that’s the best part!
RedKitten
Rush? Blech. Hearing Rush just reminds me of being 14 and all the boys who listened to Rush were angry, full of zits, wore army jackets, and spent their time sulking or making model fighter jets.
b-psycho
Meanwhile, some of us notice that the concept of “intellectual property”, in the form of copyrights, patents, etc., is a creation of government…
RSA
Clearly no one on this thread has wasted enough time talking to hardcore libertarians, some of whom deny the existence of intellectual property (using the Randian phrase “illegitimate concept”, if I remember correctly, but I’m too lazy to look it up). The idea is that violations of copyright aren’t really theft, because the owner of the book, music, or whatever still retains access to it, something that’s not true in the theft of physical property.
Don’t ask me to argue this position, I’m just passing it along as something that some people seriously believe.
Andy K
In other news, Liz Cheney is a big fan of post-Gabriel Genesis.
themann1086
This thread reminds me of this video, specifically, @ 1:33.
I hate you! I hate the band you like!
wrb
@Dan:
And an enraged insect as lead singer
Cheryl from Maryland
Saw a bumper sticker today that said “John Galt Who?”
Wile E. Quixote
Actually Rush wrote a song all about Rand and his teabagger pals.
Witch Hunt
Bill Murray
@RedKitten: how did you tell them apart from the non-Rush fan boys?
The Sex Pistols formed in ~1975, the Ramones in 1974 and toured England in 1976, which was a big catalyst for English punk, so early punk was mostly a reaction to the excesses of the early to mid 70s rock star ethos
Wile E. Quixote
@Dan:
Yeah, tell me more about the great lyrics of Yes, lyrics such as
“I eat at Chez Nous”? Yeah, that’s some seriously hardcore lyrical virtuosity there. Oh, and lest you try the standard lame defense of Yes, namely that “90125” and “Big Generator” were from the reconstituted band of the late 1980s which of course bears no resemblance to the “real” Yes of the 1970s let me share with you the lyrics from “Yours is no Disgrace” from their first album released in what was considered their glory days.
“Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are”? Who could ever parody that? And don’t even get me started on Tales from Topographic Oceans.
I’ve always found Yes fans to be pretentious, ineffectual wankers. I think the Dead Milkmen described them best in the song Anderson, Walkman, Buttholes and How!
In fact I’ll go so far as to say that the best decision Yes ever made was to hire Roger Dean to do their album covers. It was Roger Dean who made Yes, not their music.
Sprocket
@Bobby Thomson:
Your wish is my command.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQL6S8Q2RTk
sneezy
@nitpicker:
“…sci-fi and libertarianism seem intrinsically connected…”
They’re both manifestations of a taste for sheer fantasy.
PurpleGirl
@Redshift: From the friends I have in science fiction fandom and my own reading, I would agree that the libertarianism is more likely based on Heinlein than Rand.
Dr. Morpheus
@burnspbesq:
Wow, so what kind of shit do you listen to?
Face it, the music you like sucks.
Wile E. Quixote
@PurpleGirl:
The amusing thing is that Heinlein wouldn’t fit into the modern Libertarian or Republican parties. Heinlein was big on the idea of serving your country, something which Republicans only give lip service to and Libertarians sneer at. Heinlein was also in favor of things like government sponsored scientific research, something which Republicans hate and Libertarians say will be done by the free market.
In fact in his younger days Bob Heinlein supported socialist Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California (EPIC) campaign, which explains where he got a lot of the ideas he used in Beyond This Horizon. The sanitized, Libertarian version of Robert Heinlein, based largely upon ideas he explored in his later works is a much less interesting person than Heinlein was in real life.
Chris
This is awesome: we’ve got a band whose songs are apparently popular with libertarians falling back on the rule of law (well, copyright/IP/whatever) to attempt to prevent a poser-libertarian (despite Lanny Davis’s self-created impression) from using their songs to promote his campaign.
What is this, the latest episode of Dave Chappelle’s “When ‘Keeping it real’ goes bad”?
wrb
I think of those I knew back when who’ve become hard righists and their music seems to be contained within a narrow band- Rush, Styx, Punk, lame NY art rock (spawn of the Velvet Underground), Journey..
dave
@rickstersherpa: Most Libertarians don’t support strong Intellectual Property laws. They support physical property ownership, but don’t believe that the government can determine who owns an idea or thought.
http://libertariannation.org/a/f31l1.html