Chit-Chat Check-In #164 • Transcript
Listen. Music snobs. As much as I don’t want to admit that I am one, I probably am a lot of the time. I certainly have been, many times over the course of my life, very dismissive of things that everybody likes. And I promise I’m not going to do that thing that I see music snobs doing all the time, which is where they state, publicly, something along the lines of, “You know, well, actually, The Beatles were good.” That drives me crazy. No shit, Sherlock. You’re just reverse-engineering some rationalization for your belief that you’re better than everybody else and have exquisite taste that rises above the masses. It’s bullshit. It’s funny to watch, but it’s something I really hope I don’t ever do. Because I rediscover bands all the time, and I feel like I can usually admit to myself that I was wrong and everybody else was right. And actually, that feels good, to figure out why something was so popular and people loved it so much. And continue to love it so much.
And all of this is being said to get to the fact that I saw Rush the other night. And, spoiler alert, they’re fucking fantastic. I grew up not liking them, partially because they were one of the bands beloved by my tormentors. That does dampen one’s enthusiasm for a band, when the kids who are teasing you are wearing Rush t-shirts, for example.
They’re doing god’s work, getting an arena full of middle-aged men to weep. They did that with nostalgia, with beautiful tributes to their fallen drummers—they have a new drummer, Anika Nilles—she’s great. An inspired decision to hire her over what I would imagine would be a long line of extremely adept Neil Peart fans, a lot of them already famous drummers. You could see that it would have been easy to find some drummer from some other, bigger band. But they opted for a woman, which in and of itself is kind of a beautiful statement for a band that has historically been associated with a mostly male audience, in a field that has often been pretty dismissive of female musicians. So, she kicked ass. Spellbinding.
It was an incredible night that I got to share with Mark and most importantly, with Glenn, who would have maybe been one of the drummers standing in line if he had been given the opportunity to audition for Rush. Because I think it would have been his teen fantasy. They’re just down-to-earth, beautiful, unapologetically nerdy guys. Very welcoming.
I think about why there were lines in the sand between bands like Rush and bands like Black Flag, and the things I responded to as a kid. We looked at each other with suspicion. But it was a mistaken suspicion. We should be suspicious of the people that don’t have something that sustains them, and that they’ve fallen in love with. And Rush was absolutely something that gave people courage. I could go on and on about how valuable I find them to be, but then I’m doing the thing that I talked about at the beginning of this post. “Well, actually, you know, Rush was fucking good. Did you know that?” You probably knew that.
Anyway, this is my attempt to play a Rush song. They have so many fucking memorable songs. But this is one of my favorites, and the only one I could figure out how to play solo acoustic. That’s another thing—I don’t know if you know this about Rush, but it’s very complicated music, lots of odd time signatures, and lots of notes. So I’m playing about a tenth of the notes in this version.
Hope you’re all well, hanging in there. Go see Rush, if you can.
OxO—Jeffy
This Week in Wilco, Etc.
2025 / July 24: At Summer Stage at Tree House Brewing Company in South Deerfield, MA, Jeff plays a 27-song set with Sammy, Spencer, and Liam Kazar. Hannah Cohen opens the evening. Before the show, Jeff records a video performance of “Throwaway Lines” for the Sessions at Tree House series that will be released on August 4.
2021 / July 26: Happy birthday, Starship Casual!
1997 / July 26: Wilco plays a 10-song set at Franklin County Field Days in Highgate, VT as part of the Another Roadside Attraction Tour with The Tragically Hip, Sheryl Crow, Los Lobos, Ron Sexsmith, and more.
Tom Sawyer (Rush cover)
