RIP Neil Peart
My Personal Reflections:
I was so saddened to hear about Neil Peart's passing at only 67 of aggressive brain cancer. There are better places to learn about this classy man's life today, more fact based tributes on Rolling Stone and elsewhere where you can find out about this man's life, his personal familial tragedies and how he handled them with grace and inner discovery. I want to simply say that growing up I was not a huge RUSH fan and to this day I am not but when I began learning to play drums (my first instrument) as a junior in high school, Neil was one of the drummers you tried to play like so while I was not a RUSH fan, I was a huge Neil Peart fan. I had a 10 piece Rogers drum set (like any self respecting progressive rock drummer would have) with wind chimes, double kick drums, the whole nine yards as I emulated Peart, Palmer (ELP), Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and later, Terry Bozzio and Clem Burke. I never became a great, great drummer, still am not but can do what I want to do on a stripped down kit. I guess my point is that he was then and will continue to be a luminary that has and will inspire thousands of teenagers to become pristine technical drummers. Hopefully as they delve into his story, they will also learn about grace under fire and how to find peace and catharsis during the worst of times all the while being a nice person, a class act. He will never be forgotten.
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Robb Donker
JUST A Bit of my monster Rogers kit as I tried to emulate the best.
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