No Intro needed, except to say, " In the Style of" ALEX F'n Lifeson!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gball said:
Yeah, they were one of my first favorite bands and part of the whole formation of my musical sensibilities. I was lucky enough to see them a bunch of times during the period that I consider their creative apex, at least for the longer complicated multi-section songs that to me define them - 1977 to 1984. Just to watch those three dudes pull off something like 'Cygnus X-1: Book 2 Hemispheres' live was an education in itself.
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Me too.

I still remember how I stumbled upon Rush and of course just about all the other bands in a fairly incremental order after my love of music began in elementary school till the foundational years in Jr High.

At 8, I heard Deep Purple for the first time as I sat in my barber's chair at the Hess shoes store at York Rd and Belvedere Ave. Smoke on the Water. Right around '73, I got my first taste of live band playing when a YMCA day camp I attended had some cool dudes jammin for us 8-9 year olds. I can remember them playing some Brownsville Station and really digging the bass playing.
Once I got to around the 5th/6th grade I was hearing 3 Dog Night, Grand Funk, The Beatles, Elton John, Jackson 5, BTO, Steppenwolf, lots of Motown via Soul Train, and then came 7th-8th grade in my new school when my mom took us from Towson and left our dad to live in Cockeysville. My catalog of groups to check out unfolded va my Cockeysville friends. I still remember being in my buddy Johnny's apartment next to our building. We were checking out his older sister's albums when I heard Dark Side of the Moon for the first time. Add to that another buddy turning me on to all his other Pink Floyd albums and his killer stereo with Cerwin Vega speakers. Next came VH1, Boston, Alice Cooper, and about this time, 8th/9th grade for me, some friends who were likely older boys, had their Rush concert T's on. My guess is that it was through talking to them, that while scanning through the 100's of albums at the record store, I decided I wanted to try my first RUSH album purchase. Not ever hearing them, I rifled through the 6-8 choices and those BIG BLUE NUMBERS and RED STAR won out. I cannot lie, when the needle landed on that first song, WOW what an intro OVERTURE!!!!! All I can say is once I got the hang of Geddy's voice, I was hooked, Neil's drums, Alex's SMOKING guitar. Geddy's bass, EXPLOSIONS, the MEEK inheriting the EARTH was mind blowing.

I think I literally said to myself," WOAH WHAT is THIS, WHAT DID I JUST DO? " and I could not wait to see what came next with each song.
 
gball said:
That's a cool article. His tone has changed so many times over the years it'd be hard to pin anything down.

To me, his definitive sound is the 'Exit...Stage Left' version of La Villa Strangiato. Good god, that is the tone of my wet dreams, probably the sound I have been chasing my whole life.
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Exit Stage Left was so killer to me as well.

My pinnacle of Alex's sound will always be Discovery/Presentation/ at the 12:59-13:50+ blistering way he ascends into sonic nirvana for my ears and then mellows to the Dream and ramps back up to Oracle. Those first few seconds from 12:59 to about 13:10 are like lighting the fuse on a pile of dynamite.

 
Speaking of Lerxst being a beast, Listen to his volume swells in the above clip of La Villa.
I saw an instructional on trying to pull them off. Found it I think, this guy definitely can pull it off.


And if they aren't enough, Alex's shrill high and blistering runs from 5:12-5:30 seem like they would be impossible to replicate. He freaking rules in that section.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
HA Mouse, I might have to make a disclaimer, ALL clips, including the actual Alex Lifeson are NOT me playing.

BUT with the good videos this guy youtubed, I can now see how Alex played the songs that are some of my favorites. ALSO, like me and I know Gball do, we like Wine Red Les Pauls ( Customs and Standards)
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Oooo a wine red Custom! My 76.

turZJMO.jpg
 
Mouse said:
Well the "good work" part is subjective. :ROFLMAO:

Let's see if this works. I set it so anyone with the link can see but I usually don't post from Google Drive so it could be user error. Here's both a link and an embedded video.

La Villa Strangiato

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Sounds GREAT Mouse.

I can now study how to play it. As a life long beginner, I sure wish I could make my fingers play what my ears hear.
 
Alex Lifeson leaves me speechless. Such a soft spoken guitar hero. WOW, Alex even mentions Venneman Music near DC, Montgomery County MD making him a guitar.

PS, The comment below among 2600 others really stuck out for me from a viewer of this video. Alex, You will forever be a class act in my book.

@jeffk144 ​

1 year ago

This will just get buried in 2k comments but here's a story of the awesome guy Alex is. It was '77/'78 and my girlfriend's younger brother had cancer and was really having a hard time. I had given him 2112 because it was my favorite record at the time and Philip really loved it, became a huge Rush fan, all the while going through cancer treatment and a rough life. But he could put on his headphones and rock out to 2112. Well, I wrote to Alex about Philip and just asked if he could send a signed picture or something encouraging. I didn't figure he'd ever read my letter... Rush was on the rise then with lots of fans. Not long after that Philip got a HAND WRITTEN LETTER from Alex, a few pages long written on a plane ride to England where they were going to record their next record. It must have been Hemispheres I guess. Alex even mentioned that there was a classical guitar part in one of the songs that was hard for him. The Trees! I mean, this was like a 25 (ish?) year old rock star and he wrote an actual letter, not just "Hey Philip, hang in there!" kind of thing with a stock photo sent by his publicist. What an amazing gesture of kindness and humanity. Philip lost his leg and not long afterwards passed away but that letter from Alex was the highlight of the difficult time he had at the end of his life. I will always love Alex for that.
 
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chilipeppermaniac said:
Speaking of Lerxst being a beast, Listen to his volume swells in the above clip of La Villa.
I saw an instructional on trying to pull them off. Found it I think, this guy definitely can pull it off.


And if they aren't enough, Alex's shrill high and blistering runs from 5:12-5:30 seem like they would be impossible to replicate. He freaking rules in that section.
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Interesting that he could pull it off like that. Alex uses a volume pedal to do it, and I would probably take that route if I was trying.
 
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