"Unfortunately, like the prog rock generation, [this] will last 48 minutes and will make no sense to anyone." — Richard Hammond, "Top Gear"

Nerd rock? Sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. Like lowfat Twinkies. Or — to pick something so ridiculous it could never possibly exist for real — Jews for Jesus.

But just like that aforementioned "fiction", nerd rock is quite the reality. REM, for example (at least according to landsman Scott Ian, anyway). Even super cool Led Zeppelin has enough Tolkien-inspired titles (Misty Mountain Hop, anyone?) to get our dorkdar a-flashing.

But nobody, and we mean NOBODY, out-geeks Rush. They wrote a 22-minute-long science fiction paean to Ayn Rand for G-d's sake! And acted like that was cool! That's going above and beyond the call of nerdy into some realm of high-pants-thick-glasses-pocket-protection that makes even comic consumers such as ourselves cringe.

Don't believe the word of a bunch of web writing Jews? That's fine. Rolling Stone once referred to Rush fans as "the Trekkies of rock." Yeah, so there's that.

But even we must admit we're a little skeptical. After all, how nerdy are you if you have billions of fans, millions of dollars, and a legion of beautiful women ready to sleep with you at the drop of a hat?

In other words, even though we're convinced that Rush IS nerd rock we're still not convinced there can be such a thing in the first place. But if there were, well, you knew a Jew would have to be in on it, right?

Oh yeah.