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How Did you find Rush? Who or What got you into the band?


TheGhostRider
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2 hours ago, Claude_verret said:

First album that I bought on release day was Roll The Bones and also the first tour seeing them live.

Me too. Saw them twice on that tour - I still remember how good Geddy sounded, as a singer, at that time. They seemed larger than life. 

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Friends of mine created a monster in '81-'82.  The seed was planted then. Heard them all of the time. Later when everyone went away to college, I had everything within six months and the rest is history. It's been quite quite a ride. Still is. Thought it was a fad, turned out to be for life.

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Rush was around me from an early age because of my older brother.  I don't exactly remember Signals coming out (I would have been 10), but I remember it being their newest album when I started really loving them.  I can also remember some guys in the 8th grade saying that Rush sucks now because they'd "gone disco".  I guess this was a reference to the 4 on the floor beat in The Weapon...but this seems like an obscure tune to form an insult around, even if it was on the new record.  So I remember that feeling of rocker guys starting to leave the band behind...but I was an age where the direction they were going was totally fine by me - I wasn't married to some idea of what Rush had to be, because I was discovering their music all at the same time.

 

It's weird to think of that time now...of course there was no internet, but there was also not a ton of info out there about the band - especially if you're a young kid who's not buying rock magazines.  I remember one flimsy little book about them.  And my brother had a mishmash of the albums - some on vinyl and some taped from his friends....We had a tape with A Farewell To Kings on side A and Moving Pictures on side B, with Permanent Waves on another tape, but the vinyl of Hemispheres.  We had Archives on record - but no copy of 2112 at all. When you're 10 or 11 and that's what you have,  you're not really piecing together the discography in a chronology that makes sense.  It's all just hitting you as one thing.  I actually remember getting the vinyl of All The World's A Stage for my 12th birthday...and being disappointed when I looked at the track listing that there was no drum solo...because YYZ wasn't on there!  I just had no concept of what happened when.

 

But I'm glad for how and when I became a fan, because I wasn't burdened with some sense that Rush was a heavy metal band and that was all.  Grace Under Pressure was the first record that came out that I was waiting for - that I taped the lead off single off the radio, that I waited to see the new videos for, that I got on vinyl as soon as I could.  And I loved it.  I loved that they sounded modern.  Led Zep was like 4 years gone at that point, and to me, that was old fashioned music.  The Police, Talking Heads, Big Country...this was what was happening for me..and Rush fit right in with it all.

Edited by Timbale
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I had to "Like" everybody's response. It's so neat to hear all the reasons and times in life when the band was appreciated.

My older brothers were fans. As a kid I also heard Johnny Winter, Rory Gallagher, Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, it all played loud when our parents were away.

But RUSH stood out because it didn't sound the same, the other bands were different but I could always tell who it was once I knew the band.

But with these three guys I would ask who is that? RUSH. And that? RUSH. Wow!

And then on my early morning paper routes I would listen to them on my Sony Walkman, in the cold slush and snow, the bright warm summer mornings, always RUSH.

 

Growing up in Willowdale, Ontario (Toronto) my friends and I (walking back and forth from Boy Scouts) felt we "knew" the band. Hardly (they all live in Casa Loma - that's how they can make so many albums!), but it was this sense of wanting to know them. We collected empty bottles of pop to return for refunds so we could buy bottles of pop and we collected misguided golf balls from a golf course on the Don River to sell for a nickle so we could buy more bottles of pop.

 

There are some lines in the Necromancer "...the three travelers, men of Willow Dale, emerge from the forest shadow. Fording the River Dawn..." We thought it was the coolest song in the whole world.

The rest of my life and the band are for another story, I guess, as this is How did you find RUSH...

 

But leave it to say that I followed them until Signals and then family/life stuff got in the way and I was off to University. I heard news about tragedy, achievement awards, solo albums and remember there is very little radio play up here in Canada, then got married, worked on an old house and left the band behind - another CD on the mix of CDs. It was Clockwork Angels and R40 that brought me back and I have spent a lot of time (more than I care to admit) learning as much as I can. Books, every album, 40th releases, concert DVDs, interviews, building half a book shelf worth of stuff. Reading Neil's stuff and finding myself snowshoeing through a forest and realising I was finding a similar peace, it really had a big impact on me.

 

I absolutely love these guys and still order more stuff every few months just to build up a collection, because each part means something to me in my life. My last concert was the R40 with my brother.

"The best seat at a RUSH concert is..."

"Where I am sitting".

 

I am STILL finding RUSH and who or what got me into the band.

 

Edit: Golf balls.

 

 

Edited by Bahamas
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22 hours ago, Timbale said:

It's weird to think of that time now...of course there was no internet, but there was also not a ton of info out there about the band - especially if you're a young kid who's not buying rock magazines.  I remember one flimsy little book about them.  And my brother had a mishmash of the albums - some on vinyl and some taped from his friends....We had a tape with A Farewell To Kings on side A and Moving Pictures on side B, with Permanent Waves on another tape, but the vinyl of Hemispheres.  We had Archives on record - but no copy of 2112 at all. When you're 10 or 11 and that's what you have,  you're not really piecing together the discography in a chronology that makes sense.  It's all just hitting you as one thing.  I actually remember getting the vinyl of All The World's A Stage for my 12th birthday...and being disappointed when I looked at the track listing that there was no drum solo...because YYZ wasn't on there!  I just had no concept of what happened when.

 

I kind of miss that era.  There was a magic to discovering Rush in a state of innocence, so to speak.  I had a similar experience to you, I had no sense of the chronology of the band.  I clearly remember asking my parents to find me a Rush CD with both Limelight and Half the World on it, because I'd heard those two songs on the radio and liked them.  (This was around the time T4E was released and Half the World was actually getting some airplay.)  I had no idea that I'd set them up for an impossible task, and no way to find out what albums those songs actually came from.

 

I loved that feeling of discovering the band, one album at a time, in no particular order.  I can remember my first encounter with some albums, but not with others.  Roll the Bones is still crystal clear, because that was where it all began for me, as I mentioned earlier.  I know Permanent Waves was an early find - I picked it out at the Future Shop (RIP) and my grandparents bought it for me.  I also remember buying Presto with money from my first job working on a tobacco farm and listening to it through headphones; I would have been 13 at the time, in August 1998.  2112, Fly By Night and Test for Echo were other early acquisitions.

 

I also found a few albums on other formats.  I'm reasonably certain my first encounter with Moving Pictures was on vinyl, a copy that I picked up at a flea market in town (which I still own), and I first heard A Farewell to Kings when I bought it on 8-track, of all things, at another flea market.  My best friend's mother gave me an old 8-track deck to listen to it on, and I still remember that there was a track change in the middle of Xanadu.  Ka-CHUNK.  That same friend's mother later bought me my CD copy of Moving Pictures, even as she laughed and told me she hated Rush.  She was a kind soul and I miss her dearly...

 

I'm pretty sure Hemispheres was the last of the studio albums that I found, around the same time as the debut and Exit... Stage Left.  Counterparts was another late purchase, although I remember seeing it regularly at the Future Shop - I didn't recognize any of the songs on it and the somewhat bland cover didn't make me feel like I needed to buy it.

 

My God, I wish I could go back and live through all those first listens again...

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23 hours ago, Rush Didact said:

 

I kind of miss that era.  There was a magic to discovering Rush in a state of innocence, so to speak.  I had a similar experience to you, I had no sense of the chronology of the band.  I clearly remember asking my parents to find me a Rush CD with both Limelight and Half the World on it, because I'd heard those two songs on the radio and liked them.  (This was around the time T4E was released and Half the World was actually getting some airplay.)  I had no idea that I'd set them up for an impossible task, and no way to find out what albums those songs actually came from.

 

I loved that feeling of discovering the band, one album at a time, in no particular order.  I can remember my first encounter with some albums, but not with others.  Roll the Bones is still crystal clear, because that was where it all began for me, as I mentioned earlier.  I know Permanent Waves was an early find - I picked it out at the Future Shop (RIP) and my grandparents bought it for me.  I also remember buying Presto with money from my first job working on a tobacco farm and listening to it through headphones; I would have been 13 at the time, in August 1998.  2112, Fly By Night and Test for Echo were other early acquisitions.

 

I also found a few albums on other formats.  I'm reasonably certain my first encounter with Moving Pictures was on vinyl, a copy that I picked up at a flea market in town (which I still own), and I first heard A Farewell to Kings when I bought it on 8-track, of all things, at another flea market.  My best friend's mother gave me an old 8-track deck to listen to it on, and I still remember that there was a track change in the middle of Xanadu.  Ka-CHUNK.  That same friend's mother later bought me my CD copy of Moving Pictures, even as she laughed and told me she hated Rush.  She was a kind soul and I miss her dearly...

 

I'm pretty sure Hemispheres was the last of the studio albums that I found, around the same time as the debut and Exit... Stage Left.  Counterparts was another late purchase, although I remember seeing it regularly at the Future Shop - I didn't recognize any of the songs on it and the somewhat bland cover didn't make me feel like I needed to buy it.

 

My God, I wish I could go back and live through all those first listens again...

Future Shop!!  RIP indeed...

 

It's funny you had experiences with 8 track!  I must be 13 years older than you...and I actually had a really old hand me down stereo that had an 8 track player on it...but it NEVER occurred to me to seek out a Rush record on that format!  I had a couple random 8 tracks that I didn't really like, and because the system kinda confused me, I just never engaged with it.

 

Thinking about the different records coming at you at different times...I knew both ATWAS and Exit backwards and forwards before I ever really sat and listened to 2112.  Even to this day, the studio recordings of the main piece and Bangkok both sound wrong to me...way too timid, haha...

 

 

 

 

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I was in 7th grade and had enough money to buy what albums I wanted and bought A Farewell to Kings based just on the cover.  I loved the whole thing especially Cygnus X1 and the sound effects and narration.  Bought Hemispheres right when it came out so I could see what happened to those dudes.  Got into high school and all the cool older band kids were into Rush and then I heard 2112 . . . 

 

Dropped off at Power Windows got into the bootleg scene in the early Usenet groups at the turn off the century found the recording of my first show 2-2-80 @ Tarrant County Convention Center.  Bought Vapor Trails the day it came out got 20 seconds in and I was back.

 

:thumbsup:

 

 

 

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I think it was around early 1982 that I first heard their music. I had heard the band name previously but knew nothing about them. Caught "Vital Signs" video on MTV and mistakenly thought it was Supertramp (the vocals are similar) who were popular then. Saw the end credit as Rush. Thought it was an interesting song because I couldn't say what genre of music it was. It was a mix of hard rock and new wave. Began seeing the ESL versions of Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, and Limelight over the summer and my interest increased. But "Subdivisions" was the one that pulled me in during the Fall of 1982. I got the new "Signals" album and became hardcore immediately. Didn't see them perform live until the Power Windows tour.

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1982 MTV

 

I was 12, had an interest in playing the drums.  My parents had just gotten cable TV the year before.  I spent a good bit of that summer watching the wide variety of early MTV vids.  At school, some friends all talked about Rush.  One went with his older brother to see them (Carrier Dome, Signals tour.)  Then I saw the videos on MTV  - mostly the ESL videos, Subdivisions, and Countdown.  They also had the midnight showings of Exit Stage Left. I was captivated by the drums and the whole atmosphere that they created - unlike all that pop crap that my sister listened to!  (around that point in time, I did discover lots of other bands, Zep, Floyd, Yes, etc.)  For my birthday that year, one friend got me Moving Pictures, another (the one that went to the show) got me 2112.  I convinced my parents to allow me to take drum lessons and I played in my Middle school band. The following Xmas, my parents got me a small kit. I advanced quickly - really inspired by the Professor. My friends noted that I could air drum very accurately to all of MP (it would be years before I could actually do that on a kit!)  I auditioned for the high school bands and got into the top school groups.  I also started my own rock band (one of the first primitive songs we played was "No one at the Bridge";  our repetoire soon expanded!)  In the Fall of 84, I finally got to see my first Rush show - P/G tour at the Glens Falls (NY) Civic center.  By my sophomore year of HS, my band had pulled an upset victory in the Battle of the Bands - part of our encore set included "What You're Doing".   My Neil infatuation hit full stride - subscribing and absorbing every issue of modern drummer, building my album collection (to all of them!) Started collecting anything and everything Rush.  I wanted to play and look like them.  My band continued through HS  and then new bands during college....at that time, I wrote a letter to Neil via Modern Drummer in 1988; and to my delight, Neil responded to me with a postcard (did this again in 94; both of which are framed and hang above my desk.)  After school, my career started in Florida and I had some money to travel to see shows (and I did - 12 on TFE tour! and obtained a pair of sticks from Larry Allen on the Cp tour) Met some like-minded musicians, wrote and recorded demos, got some record label interest (but never "made it"), got my own little column in Modern Drummer magazine, etc. Met my wife through a band-mate.  Now I'm 52; some 49 shows under my belt, the music engrained in my brain, a lifetime of memories, and my semi-pro career in music continues; all inspired by those early viewings of Rush on MTV...

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On 12/19/2022 at 2:36 PM, BigMontanaSKY said:

Hearing them on the radio.

Up here in Canada, they did not get a lot of airplay. Reading somebody say "the radio" is not trivial.

Thanks BigMontanaSKY - any reason to give for learning about the band is nice to see. 

 

:cheer:

 

 

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I'd imagine I had heard them on the radio but in 1978 we moved to a very small town in Illinois and a guy that became one of my best friends was a huge fan. There were four or five of us who spent a lot of time at his house, always listening to music, and much of the time it was Rush. I'll never forget when Permanent Waves was released, he wrote a long letter to the band expressing his concern about the direction the band was going. In return, he got a form letter and info about how to join the Backstage Club. 

 

Being the nerds we were, we often had "name that tune" contests where he'd drop the needle and then quickly pick it up and we'd guess.

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Probably around 1979/1980 during my time in 6th form and playing darts in the school common room.

The common room had an old school record player which we played various albums at low volume. While playing darts someone put on Permanent Waves LP and "Spirit of Radio"

 

I was absolutely taken by the song and Geddy's high-pitched singing. And of course the front cover of the album was "intriguing" also.

 

I asked my friend if I could borrow the album and for the next 2 weeks I played it to death on my music centre until eventually I bought the album, and the rest is history as they say

 

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In 1976, I was at a friends house, and he was one of those guys that was always saying "Wow, you need to hear this"!  Put an album track on and freak out, then say "whoa, here's another one"!  And play like 30 seconds of a tune, not giving you enough time to just get into it.  So one night, I was there, and he goes "wait...you're a drummer, right?  You need to hear this guy!"  So it was like less than a week after All The World's a Stage came out, and he drops the needle on Working man and says " there's a drum solo at the end of this, and you're going to be amazed"! 

 

So he actually let the entire tune play, and go into the drum solo, and I was TOTALLY blown away since up until that point, I've NEVER heard anything so wild!! he told me who the band was, and when I got home that night I grabbed the Columbia House catalog, and FOUND ATWAS and Caress of Steel in their albums, so I asked my mother to order them, and she did.  When they came I think I listened to ATWAS like 10-15 times, before I put Caress on, and was totally hooked! SO in three years, I'll be a fan for 50 years! 

 

Archives was the next album I got, then when A Farewell to Kings came out, I got the new one the day it was released! 

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I think I first remember hearing a band, and group called Rush, but with their music, I wasn't familiar.  When I lived in Bramalea, and Brampton, ON., a friend of mine was listening to some of their music before.  He showed me "Moving Pictures'" front album cover, and asked me if I've heard, and listened to Rush, and that album of theirs before.  I said to him I haven't, so I listened to it.  He said they have released more of their other music like "Permanent Waves".  When some of Rush's breakthrough hit songs like "Closer to the Heart", "the Trees", "the Spirit of Radio", and "Tom Sawyer" were on the radio, it got me more into them.  I listened to some of their even earlier released music songs like "Fly By Night", and "2112", and they became my favorite band, and group.  From "Rush" to "Grace Under Pressure", I bought their released music on albums including "All the World's A Stage", and "Exit... Stage Left", but not "Archives", on cassette, "Power Windows", and "Hold Your Fire", and on c.d., all of their releases from "Rush" to "R40: 40th Anniversary Live".   

Edited by Derek19
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