Episode 12
Bonus Episode: My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee
Mindful Mutiny
Bonus Episode: Book Review My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee
Dive into the
world of rock legends with Jeremy Van Wert's latest Mindful Mutiny episode,
featuring an in-depth book review of Geddy Lee's autobiography, "My Effin’
Life." Geddy Lee, the iconic singer and bass guitar player for the
legendary Canadian rock band Rush, opens up about his extraordinary life and
the band's remarkable 40-year career.
📖
Geddy Lee's autobiography offers a unique perspective on Rush's journey,
touching on pivotal albums like "Moving Pictures,"
"Signals," "2112," and "Clockwork Angels." Learn
more about the band's evolution, collaborations, and the indelible mark they
left on the world of rock music.
🥁
Explore the enduring legacy of Rush, delving into the contributions of Neil
Peart, the virtuosity of Alex Lifeson, and the band's early years with drummer
John Rutsey. Jeremy Van Wert provides a comprehensive review, shedding light on
the anecdotes, challenges, and triumphs that shaped "My Effin’ Life."
🔗
Connect with Jeremy Van Wert and discover more engaging content:
- Website: www.jeremyvanwert.com
Uncover the untold stories
behind the music as Jeremy Van Wert reviews Geddy Lee's autobiography.
Subscribe for more insightful reviews, captivating interviews, and a deep dive
into the world of rock and roll. #MindfulMutiny #BookReview #GeddyLee #RushBand
#RockLegends #MyEffinLife #JeremyVanWert
Transcript
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I
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::Jeremy Van Wert: test test test. Get this thing
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::Jeremy Van Wert: where it needs to be. Okay, William, I have not rehearsed this, and so I'm going to do my best to
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::Jeremy Van Wert: get through this in a really
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::Jeremy Van Wert: positive way.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and a lot of this is going to mean me speaking extemporaneously with
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I've got. I've got it all laid out. So gonna be a little bit more editing involved here. But I leave. I believe that I'm going to be in a bit of a thing. I'm gonna take it in sections and so that I can
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::Jeremy Van Wert: get through this. Okay?
::Jeremy Van Wert: Welcome to the mindful mutiny, podcast and what I'm going to be doing today is a book review, something that's going to be a new feature in the mindful mutiny. Podcast and I'm going to start with a very special book. And this is Getty Lee's my eff-in life.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Now, I've been a rush fan for all of my life. I am a drummer, and of course you can't
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::grow up and take yourself seriously, unless you are air drumming to some degree by the incredible licks of Neil Pierce
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and this band
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::Jeremy Van Wert: it's hard to explain. But if you're a rush fan, you know, Rush being the incredible Canadian rock trio from Toronto, Canada.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: very young in my life. I found a cassette tape on a bus that I was riding on in marching band, and it was a rush album, and I didn't know who they were, and I started listening to it. And
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::it wasn't long after that these incredible philosophical words that I was hearing were becoming something to live by, and when I understood, as a 14 year old, that this was a rock band called Rush, and that they had many other albums. I started just buying and buying, and not just learning
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::Jeremy Van Wert: how to drum to them, but learning from the lyrics and getting
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::Jeremy Van Wert: these wonderful tips on great books to read, because the philosophical framework of every single song is something wonderful and different.
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::Now Teddy Lee is the
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::Jeremy Van Wert: lead singer and bass player for the rock trio rush. And the reason that I am reviewing this book on the mindful mutiny podcast is that I am all about growth. I'm all about the great things that make a life meaningful.
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::This book speaks to the commitment, the high commitment to a craft between 3 amazing human beings and musicians. the both of them.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, at the stop.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, I'm going to start again. I need to remove the 3 of the both of them. I'm going to start again right there.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: The 3 of them, Alex Neil and Getty. were very strong in not compromising at all through their careers what they were known for, and this book does an amazing job of talking about just how difficult that was and how committed the 3 of them were to not compromising. And the last thing that I'll get to at the end of this book review is the tremendous amount of friendship and loyalty that there was between these 3 gentlemen.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm gonna take that last line again, because I so I list a little bit.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And lastly, another reason why I'm reviewing this book is just about the tremendous amount of loyalty between these 3 people which I'll get to towards the end.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay. Next section
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::Firstly, Getty goes through an amazing and heart wrenching account of what his family went through in the holocaust before he was born.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: A family. Many people that he never came to know because they were murdered.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: made sacrifices so that his parents would be able to be together, and his parents were married in Bergen-belsen concentration camp after the Liberation, and emigrated to Toronto, where they started a new life in the way that so many survivors did.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I was so impressed by the heartfelt way in which Getty went through the ways that his family survived, and the miracle that it was for every single person and family that was able to survive that terrible time
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I love that he started this book with that because it was such a tremendous and honest homage to just simply the miracle that he ever existed. And I just I want to thank
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::Getty. If you're watching you for doing that, I think, was a tremendously dignified and wonderful way to start your memoir.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, the next section is childhood.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Getty covers in great detail his childhood and the early musical aspirations of him, and also just how different he felt as a young Jewish lad in Toronto, and how that
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::Jeremy Van Wert: played into a lot of now I want to start this again. Okay.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: The early part of the book also covers Getty's childhood. How different Getty felt than the other kids on his block and in his school and his early aspirations in music. And anybody who's been a young musician knows just how difficult it is when you're trying to find your people, and you're joining this band, and it's not working out, and you're joining that band, and it doesn't quite jive. But it's about getting more experience and learning who you are as a person and
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::a musician. He does an amazing job of discussing how he came to have the values that he had, and when he met another student named Alex, who became part of this incredible trio how much the 2 of them gelled and just kind of nerded out on the same kind of music, and it put the both of them on a very
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::Jeremy Van Wert: similar trajectory, which put at odds the first drummer of Rush. one John Rutzi, who had a different philosophy and a different set of likes and dislikes about music.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: What I loved about this book is how heart rendering Lee transparent.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Getty was about the people who are the heroes and the zeroes in his story, and he spoke in a very candid way, quite surprisingly so about many people, and he always does this in his characteristically dignified way, but
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::he speaks about things in a way that makes you truly feel it as a human in the way that people have righted and wronged throughout the time of his life and throughout the career of Rush's time.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, I'm going to move.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Move on to the next, which is early rush.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: No guarantees. Every single break was hard earned. Struggle.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay?
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I really enjoyed Getty's incredible explanation of the early time of Rush, because this was at a time when they were figuring themselves out and figuring where it was that they sat in the Pantheon of different rock acts that there were, and he explains, without saying just how there were a couple of breaks that happened. But those things were so incredibly hard earned. And it's a great
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::Jeremy Van Wert: kind of story on just how hard you have to work in order for your band, for your business, for your brand.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: for your company, for your product, to really break. Those things don't come in some sort of magic way, because some music producer just happens to attend your show somewhere, and all of a sudden sign you to some great deal, or buy your big piece of art, or infuse your company with a million dollars so that you can really get started. Those things take years and years of work, lots of setbacks, lots of frustration.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and a dedicated crew of people who are there who are dedicated to the mission and support one another. That is truly key in your story and in Gettys.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: alright.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Here is the next section, which is the refusal to compromise. 5, 4, 3,
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::Jeremy Van Wert: critical to the history of Rush. Rush never caved, they never compromised, they never produced an Oo baby song beyond their first album, when they were still trying to figure out who they were.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: A lot is said about Rush and an early affinity with ein Rand's work, including anthem and the fountain head, and Atlas shrugged. And they've been unfortunately kind of pigeonholed into. Well, they're an Einrand band, while at a certain point in their life they kind of were because they were reading this wonderful philosophy, and really resonating with how hard it is to keep your
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::Jeremy Van Wert: your vision uncompromised, how easy it is for somebody to buy you, and whether or not you're going to allow for somebody to do that. And there have been interviews with both Neil and Getty where they spoke about both of them with Alex
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::Jeremy Van Wert: ready to
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::Jeremy Van Wert: throw in the towel. If it's not going to work, we'll all just go back to work at at a hardware store, pumping gas, or whatever it is because we are going to do music our way. We are going to create what we want for the world. And if the world loves it, fantastic. But we're going to create this music out of our own values. And so for that period of time which was in the 1970 S.
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::This band lived by this, and it became just a foundational value, even though they wouldn't necessarily call themselves an Ein Rand band.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: They would call themselves a band who worked very hard to produce music and art based upon their own values, and those of us who have been lifelong rush fans appreciate them so much for this because they didn't go down a road of fast cash by producing music that wasn't authentically about them. They produced music that became incredibly
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::Jeremy Van Wert: meaningful, and they developed a fanbase that was so incredibly dedicated. Why? Because it was that genre. It was that thing. There was no other band that was like them, and they could reach into your heart and tell you.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: keep going. Don't give up. Be loyal, be loving to the people around you, which is in many cases the kind of lyrical theme of much of their work.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay? the next family. Okay.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: alright. Next one is family and relational difficulties.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay. 5, 4, 3.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Something that I really appreciated in this book is Getty's willingness to just simply be open and vulnerable, something that's not easy for people who are famous.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: He spoke over several decades of how difficult it was for him to maintain the most important relationships in his life, which is, of course, a marriage, and being a father.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: he had a difficult time doing this because of the demands of recording and the road, and he talked in vivid detail in a way that I feel is so important about what it felt like for him to be on a plane leaving his family and going? Am I doing the right thing?
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Am I the right kind of father? Am the right on either? Am I the right kind of
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::Jeremy Van Wert: okay? I'm going to start again. Am I the right kind of father? Am I the right kind of person?
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::Jeremy Van Wert: He also discussed the importance that going to marriage therapy helped with him and his wife in their lives, in being able to rediscover each other, and in being able to communicate with each other, to rediscover what they love about one another, and they have been together for a very, very long period of time, because they fought for it because of the communication.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: The other thing about this is, he talks about communication, not just in his marriage, but between the 3 band members and the importance. And this is really important of communication for the sake of understanding whether or not everybody's still on the same page.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and if you don't talk about it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: you all kind of assume that you are on the same page. but sometimes you're not, and you don't know that until you actually have that communication hopefully not spurned on by somebody who is absolutely at it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: because that sort of thing can be very destructive.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: He talks about the importance of communication when you are on a team, that there is a regular check in a regular check in for what is going on. If you're creating with the same
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::Jeremy Van Wert: sense of excitement together, and when you need to make a turn for the sake of keeping everybody on the same page. The 3 of these men did this so beautifully, because they were all so completely dedicated to being at the same level on a team absolutely masterfully done over an entire lifetime. It is a lesson that all of us can learn about the power of humility
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and loyalty.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, the next session section is
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::Jeremy Van Wert: humanity and rush
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::For those of us who are rush fans. It's really difficult to explain just how much love we have for these 3 guys because of the people that they are and the music that they've created, that have become the soundtrack for our lives.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: What Getty does a wonderful job of is explaining just the humanity that these 3 men lived with.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm having. Okay. I'm gonna start this over because I'm really, I'm really fucking this up. Okay, sorry about this humanity of Rush
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3,
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::Jeremy Van Wert: one of the wonderful things that Getty did. A wonderful job of including is just simply the real struggles, the real humanity that these 3 men dealt with
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::Jeremy Van Wert: as a part of the band. I didn't know that Neil had a tremendous fear of flying, and that during a flight he had to actually have the private jet that they had.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: that they had rented land because he just needed to get off. It's a very human thing.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and also the physical difficulties that Alex had in kind of keeping up with life on the road towards the end of the touring career of Rush. And of course, Getty's insatiable desire to be a creator, somebody who
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::Jeremy Van Wert: continues to
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::Jeremy Van Wert: to be a performer, and how hard it was for him, at the end of Rush, to deal with the fact that that was at that point the end of all of that, and how hard it was for him to cope with that.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and that he still wants to produce music which all of us hope that he definitely does Jesus Christ. William, I'm so sorry I will be back in like 60 s. I've got a piece so bad.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, drink. It's on
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::Jeremy Van Wert: right before this. That was a good thing to do, wasn't it? Okay, so this is going to be more of a finale for this. So
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::Jeremy Van Wert: there we go. This is friendship. I mean. Alright.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Finally, the most profound, and I think the biggest theme of this book for me personally, was the power of loyalty and friendship.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And at the end of the book there are a number of stories that he tells about the profound, the profound.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm gonna start again because II don't want you to have to dive into that. Okay, friendship 5, 4, 3,
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::Jeremy Van Wert: one of the biggest themes for me in this book was the power of friendship and loyalty.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and towards the end of this book he tells a few very vivid stories about what some of the band members went through, and it touches you to the very core of you. We're talking about tragic things that have happened in the lives of the band members, and the way that they rallied towards one another, and the way that they supported one another through everything.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: It's very difficult in life to find people who are truly loyal to you. and all of us know what it's like to be deeply betrayed.
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::But the 3 of these men never did that
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::Jeremy Van Wert: they stuck with each other through thick and thin, through arguments, through laughter, through differences. They always respected one another. and this culminated in an end of book that was just, absolutely, mind blowing in terms of the power of friendship and the power of
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::Jeremy Van Wert: of loyalty. and how these 3 men created such beauty in the world together. and they did it with hearts that were completely
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::Jeremy Van Wert: completely about their friendship and their loyalty, and how much in the end, that actually ended up meaning to them in the passing of the drummer Neil.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and in the end how much that meant to them.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: especially in the passing of Drummer Neil Pierre, and how much that was.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Sorry I'm gonna try that again.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and how much that I'm sorry I'm having a hard time with this.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and how much that friendship and loyalty meant in the end, with the passing of Drummer Neil Peart. and in the final moments of them all together as friends. I'm so happy that this book was written. And I'm
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::Jeremy Van Wert: feel like, I know these guys better, even though I'm just a fan.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Think it's very important as a take away from this book that the lessons of staying with your values, of profoundly hard work, of communication, of friendship and loyalty.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and of not compromising your values and the things that you are creating by yourself
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::Jeremy Van Wert: or with your friends or with your team loyalty matters. And that's one of the big takeaways from this book that I think anybody can quite learn from.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I would recommend this book, certainly, to anybody who has ever loved Rush. but also to people who just want to hear a profoundly wonderful story about a group of people who spent a lifetime in a wonderful way together and produced beauty together.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, home stretch. Here.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm going ahead and giving this book
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::Jeremy Van Wert: an absolutely profound okay, no.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm going ahead and giving this book a complete 5 stars.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Why? Because I'm totally biased. I was going to give it 5 stars before I read it, but I'm telling you this book in the way that it is vulnerable in the way that you can take something away from it, no matter who you are in the way that it is vulnerable.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Excuse me. Okay, 5 stars. Take it again.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm giving this book a 5 stars, and I'm giving this book a 5 stars because I would have given it a 5 stars, no matter what? Because I'm a huge rush fan, but 5 stars, because of the story telling of the vivid nature of things, and that you really get a sense for who these people are. They don't just care about each other. They cared about their road crew, they cared about their lives. They cared about making sure that if somebody had a health problem
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::they were able to support that person into getting the help for their health problem. That is true humanity.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And these 3 men have created such an amazing body of work that can be enjoyed for generations to come. So in the end, a wonderful, wonderful book by an incredible man who has been the the front man for Rush.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: one of the greatest rock acts of all time.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So, anyway, go out. There be something great
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and do good things for other people, but
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::Jeremy Van Wert: really fucking with you, William. Sorry.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So go out there and be something great.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Be good to one another. Be loyal, communicate with one another, and treat the people on your team and the people around you with dignity and grace, because in the end that will spell the worth that you had in this life.
