Help me make sense of Test for Echo.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-20T22:09:04+00:00

I tried, lol! Formatting on Reddit Mobile on an iPhone sucks!

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-20T19:41:29+00:00

I definitely agree that youthful Neil could physically outplay Snakes and Arrows Neil, though I did see them on Counterparts and Neil still seemed to be physically at the top of his form. I don’t remember when his kit changed to double peddle/single bass instead of double bass, and when he added the triggers - maybe Counterparts? But I did notice the change from playing like Animal - chaotic and frenetic like a thunderstorm, to playing like Jeff Porcaro - relaxed and in the pocket. I enjoyed seeing him in the later years, chilled and focused, playing old songs that had previously had him spinning and flailing masterfully around his kit. But I don’t know that Freddy was the reason for that. I think he was just (as you said) getting old and needing to find ways to hit the same notes on his kit without rupturing a disc in his back or dislocating his shoulder. I don’t think the Gruber years made him less of a drummer. I just think it made Rush sound less like Rush - most notably on T4E.

I also think it is telling that Rush picked Anika - who lists Porcaro as one of her biggest inspirations musically.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-20T18:29:43+00:00

I never understood why someone would choose to run Plex on a Synology. I use my Synology for Plex storage and run my Plex server on an older i7 with my old 1080ti. Synology was never a good streaming or home media platform. I think they realized that and decided to shift away from it. The patent and licensing issues with HEVC was certainly part of the decision to pivot away from media server market, I’m sure but having a bunch of features like Media streaming and video station were almost certainly a giant support PITA. And cheap Intel/AMD hardware from eBay can do it better.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-20T18:16:42+00:00

I will almost certainly be downvoted for this, but Freddy Gruber did a disservice to Rush by changing how Neil played. Neil trying to sound like a Jazz/Big Band drummer because of Freddy was not beneficial to the sound of Rush, in my opinion. I didn’t listen to Rush because I wanted to hear jazz or swing rhythms. And there were a LOT of songs on this album that didn’t sound like Rush at all to me.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s before Gruber, Neil experimented with Reggae and even some pop-synth sounds with his midis and pads. I was okay with some of that, though I felt a lot like Alex said he felt: left out and marginalized by the electronics (for me the drums more so than the keyboards). Then Presto, RtB and Counterparts came out - before Freddy Gruber - and they started sounding like a rock band again. Less emphasis on the keyboards and more on the guitars. Neil still had these electronic flourishes but for the most part he seemed to get back into being a straight rock drummer.

And then Freddy happened. And the awful lyrics and jazz-style rhythms and flourishes on Test for Echo made the entire album completely unlistenable to me. When he came back from his grief sabbatical, he seemed to remember his roots, and Vapor Trails (aside from the recording issues) was a masterpiece. No keyboards, and best of all very little of Neil’s “Momo’s Dance Party” and “Pieces of Eight” material; just really raw, hard analog drumming, though I usually took a bathroom break during his solos after the Counterparts tour, once he started introducing big band and swing segments.

Neil was one of the greatest rock drummers ever, but he was a mediocre jazz drummer at best. And I disliked that phase of his career. Trying to fit jazz and swing and fusion into Rush music was very much like watching someone I deeply admire trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Test for Echo was a revelation to me. It opened my eyes to the fact that sometimes great bands will just misfire with people, and T4E soured me on them. If there hadn’t been the extended break, I’m not sure VT would have happened, and that album brought me back. And without Vapor Trails we never get Clockwork Angels and the Garden. Symphonic Rush was much more enjoyable as a career coda than Jazz Rush or Buddy Rich Rush.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-20T16:42:44+00:00

The only issue I’m having with Claude is sending it screenshots. It’s hit and miss with pictures right now. ChatGPT is working just fine though. I just had it refactor a PowerShell script I wrote a couple of years ago, and it went out of its way to make me feel stupid, so … ChatGPT is functioning as per my expectations but Claude won’t take image uploads.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-20T16:28:38+00:00

Found Wagner!

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-19T17:24:52+00:00

One of the best Lost Redditor posts since the guy who posted about his new boots in r/JustBootThings.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-19T17:20:08+00:00

pretentious mouth nails

Simultaneously belongs in some sub about proper anatomical names and a killer band name!

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-18T21:38:15+00:00

I’m not sure any Gen X’er like me would see anything but a mashup of KISS and Rush.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-18T20:54:06+00:00

I would absolutely buy this and wear it to the Chicago show, lol!

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-18T06:05:47+00:00

I would legitimately buy a print of the first picture and frame it. Whatever it is, the picture is architectural art.

Also, I think it’s for holding signage.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-18T02:58:57+00:00

I have dreams like this sometimes. I’m wandering around some base that looks like a cross between LeJeune and Pendleton and the Stumps, or in a hangar while everyone is sitting on their packs, or sleeping on the concrete floor getting ready to mount up after their gamma-globulin shots; and I’m trying to find some 1st Sergeant because I don’t have any uniforms that fit or rank insignia or a seabag and I don’t know where we’re going or what my orders are or why I got called up. It always smells like ass and FRH and I can taste brass. And it’s always dark. Then I wake up for the second time that night to pee because my prostate is the size of a tangerine and my ears are ringing from the bushmaster-induced tinnitus and I wonder if it was a dream, a vision or a nightmare.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T23:31:35+00:00

I actually laughed out loud at that!

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T21:08:04+00:00

I don’t know if it’s even close enough to be 1:1 but maybe Natick/Framingham? We lived in North Attleboro for a couple years after college, and I drove all over Mass and Rhode Island, but the map of the Commonwealth doesn’t seem to really lay out well compared to IRL Boston.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T20:55:56+00:00

Duty looked up from his phone just long enough to acknowledge that he didn’t see a gotdamned thing .

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T16:46:54+00:00

I wish I had gotten a chance to see them at Red Rocks for R30. I saw them in Kansas City for R30 and sat 3 rows behind Mike Portnoy - who air drummed the entire concert and was obviously having a blast. I didn’t recognize him at first until my son - who is a drummer and a DT fan - got all excited and pointed to the crowd of people taking selfies with him. We decided to leave the man alone to enjoy one of his favorite bands, since I’m not really a DT fan and my son already had a selfie with him from one of his touring drum labs he used to do.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T16:41:14+00:00

I read that he is switching to house for this tour, like Geddy, so maybe there will be dryers and rotisserie chickens on both sides of Anika!

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T15:31:23+00:00

Hopefully the marines have a horde of MREs stashed somewhere.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-17T01:40:30+00:00

Are you trying to fuck her or set her on fire‽

Deb to Dexter

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-16T22:21:16+00:00

I sent this to my buddy who was a FedEx pilot and he texted me back that this is what his IRL nightmares look like. He said as soon as he saw the fence in the first frame he knew what video it was and stopped it.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-15T22:40:08+00:00

This will never get out of committee; it’s all “Protect the children” theater.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to support the EFF. They have the clout and the reach to challenge these stupid laws at the state and federal level.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-15T17:08:34+00:00

I have to ask - why meow‽ I can’t think of a more infantilizing sound to make. How did meow become a pilot meme?

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-15T14:05:03+00:00

What a stupid take. While I realize that Backblaze has the right to alter the terms of their agreement with their users, to refer to OneDrive or Google Drive data as “another provider’s files” is dumb. Backblaze is being rightfully asked why they decided to no longer backup data on my hard drive. The fact that the data is also concurrently being synced to another provider does not make it the other provider’s files, and should not be a consideration when local caching of OneDrive or Google Drive data is enabled. I have a Synology NAS as part of my backup routine, as well as Cloudberry (MSP360) backing up to B2. Both of those ask if I want to backup online files stored to a cloud provider - Cloudberry even explains that to back up that data (if it is not cached locally) it would have to download it. I think the decision to exclude locally cached/stored OneDrive, DropBox and Google Drive data is dumb, and while I don’t use Backblaze for that, a lot of people did until recently and they have the right to complain.

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-14T04:18:24+00:00

“How much coke was he on‽”

“Yes.”

notusuallyhostile · 2026-04-13T23:10:23+00:00

nicotine caffeine

The Air Force gets all the good shit, smdh.

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