Rediscovering Rush

[The Writer]

Well. Hello. I was going to plunge right in, and let you work this out as we go along, but I think that's probably not fair.

 

On you, I mean - it's equally unfair on me, because this is going to be a tough enough task without doing a preamble as well as an introduction. Still, I thought I ought to try to explain what's going on here; why I'm doing this, and why you might want to read it.

 

You might not, I suppose.

 

 

 

Preamble

 

I'm not really a writer, but we can all dream. I'm older than I feel, and younger than I look. Old enough to have bought 'Moving Pictures' on vinyl (of course), the day it was released; young enough not to have heard anything before '2112' until it was almost too late. I have other online presences; I just wanted this not to be part of them; I wanted this to be something I did for myself, and then I thought that I might as well put it somewhere it might get an appreciative (or at least not totally disinterested) audience.

 

Through this exercise, if other pieces of my writing are anything to go by, I'll probably repeat myself; use too many adjectives; use way too many semicolons; be inconsistent in the way I refer to things; refer to the members of Rush as if they were personal friends (they're not); refer to places in the UK assuming that everyone will know where they are and use British (or even Scottish) spelling.

 

And I'll probably repeat myself.

 

Me? I''m Scottish by birth, live mostly in England, spend more time than is good for my waistline in Italy (and more time than is good for my sanity flying Alitalia), and do... stuff for a living. More detail may emerge as time passes.

 

And I'll explain what I'm on about in a minute, I promise.

 

One more thing:

 

This is just an exercise for me; a kind of discipline if you like. The results will be uneven and patchy, but I hope they will be interesting. Feel free to join in; comment; disgreee, whatever. Equally, feel free to say nothing, ignore this, and just let me ramble. No skin off my nose either way.

 

*Takes deep breath. Plunges*

[physics23]

I've been waiting for you to write something already. Welcome to The Rush Forum.

[sullysue]

I'll wait. I'm patient.

[The Writer]

Introduction

 

I first stopped listening to Rush sometime after 'Power Windows'. I don't really know why; I haven't stopped to analyse it too much; it's just one of those things that happened. Life went on; time failed to stand still; I got married, moved house, moved house again, changed jobs, lived life.

 

One day I was contemplating the tediously pointless daily car journeys I was making, and decided to buy myself a Rush album to while away the hours. So, I bought 'Hold Your Fire' on cassette tape, and I got right back into it all again.

 

I bought 'Presto' on tape, too. Then...

 

Then, nothing. I stopped again - this must have been about 1990. After that, Rush was just this band I used to listen to. My musical tastes changed, and for more than ten years now the only concerts I have gone to have been classical ones: I heard a magnificent Grieg Piano Concerto on Friday night; remind me to tell you about it some time.

 

Then I saw 'Different Stages' in a Virgin Megastore in Brent Cross one New Year - in the sale, it was, and I thought 'Why not?' And I was off again - it lived in my car CD player (I've moved on and - I like to think - up in cars since the 'Hold Your Fire' days) for months, and I grew to love all these old songs again. I even grew to love some of the new ones - that bass solo on 'Driven' is terrific, and I can't resist -er, 'Resist', being Scottish.

 

Then - you're probably getting the idea of this now.

 

Last Christmas, my family gave me an mp3 player. It's a nice one - a Creative Zen Touch - and it has room for lots of Mahler symphonies. And the odd bit of rock music. I loaded some things on there I hadn't heard for years - all that long-haired, sweaty music I loved 25 years ago - and I tried to pick just one representative Rush track to put on it.

 

And, of course, I couldn't. So I loaded up representative tracks from all the Rush albums. And then I realised that wasn't enough; I needed more. At the same time, following an intense period of work, I felt the need to get back to writing again, and needed a project to stimulate me.

 

So I hit on this utterly stupid idea of 'Rediscovering Rush'. I have been intrigued and fascinated these last few months to realise that these three guys mean more to me than anything else I listened to all those years ago. I'll be honest with you - they don't mean as much to me as some classical music does - please don't engage with me on the topic of Mahler's second symphony unless you want to be bored rigid by my private enthusiasms - but there is something special in their music, and I'd like to find out what it is.

 

So, here's the plan. Over the next - well, however long it takes, to be honest - I am going to listen to the entire Rush back catalogue on my little Zen Touch - while I'm exercising; while I'm flying to Italy (or Canada, soon); while I'm sitting here browsing while I should be working, and I'm going to write about it all. I'm going to try to find out just what connects so strongly with me, and I'm going to try to find out what I think of all this music now - am I more critical now? Am I still excited by it? Will I fall in love all over again with something I'd completely forgotten? Will I make it to the end of 'Feedback' with my sanity intact?

 

Tune in and find out. I don't really know where this will go, but I aim to have at least a little fun finding out.

[sullysue]

You most certainly found the right place to conduct your exercise, Writer. I'll tune in.

 

(I've been where you are now. A lot of us have.)

[Warren]

Interesting, The Writer. I can relate to a lot of that, minus those blasted symphonies. Welcome to the forum. Let us rediscover!

[The Writer]

Rush

 

History:

 

Not the first Rush I heard, this has always felt like an oddity to me. I often wonder what would have happened if I'd picked this up instead of Deep Purple's 'Burn' when I was trying to impress my friends at school - would I have been disappointed by everything that came after, and pined for the rough, raw sound of this? Would it have led me to Led Zeppelin and all that clearly influenced this? I'll never know. What I do know is that I am a completist. I had several Rush albums, and I had to have this. Then I found it in a record shop in Edinburgh in the 'Anthem' triple-set, so I bought it, and instantly completed my Rush collection. This must have been early Eighties - I owned pretty much everything Rush had released in the UK, including copies of 'Battlescar' and 'Take Off'.

 

I can't honestly say that I listened to it much - I was much more of a 'Moving Pictures' kind of guy, but it was there. I would have last listened to it all the way through about 20 years ago - probably more. I remember three tracks here, but I have absolutely no idea what any of the others sound like. I'm ready; let's go.

[yyzena]

Welcome T_W

 

Looking forward to your writings.....

[liquidcrystalcompass]

QUOTE (The Writer @ Aug 15 2005, 03:52 PM)

Rush History: Not the first Rush I heard, this has always felt like an oddity to me. I often wonder what would have happened if I'd picked this up instead of Deep Purple's 'Burn' when I was trying to impress my friends at school - would I have been disappointed by everything that came after, and pined for the rough, raw sound of this? Would it have led me to Led Zeppelin and all that clearly influenced this? I'll never know. What I do know is that I am a completist. I had several Rush albums, and I had to have this. Then I found it in a record shop in Edinburgh in the 'Anthem' triple-set, so I bought it, and instantly completed my Rush collection. This must have been early Eighties - I owned pretty much everything Rush had released in the UK, including copies of 'Battlescar' and 'Take Off'. I can't honestly say that I listened to it much - I was much more of a 'Moving Pictures' kind of guy, but it was there. I would have last listened to it all the way through about 20 years ago - probably more. I remember three tracks here, but I have absolutely no idea what any of the others sound like. I'm ready; let's go.

Listen to Vapor Trails. No offense, are ou ADD?

[Pags]

As a fellow Creative Zen Owner (I have the Zen Xtra 40GB).... I welcome you to TRF, and look forward to reading about your journey as you rediscover this awesome band.

 

One thing you may learn, is that the discovery never ends. It certainly has not for me.

 

 

 

 

edited to get rid of my repetitive use of the word discovery (in its various forms).

Edited August 15, 2005 by paganoman

[liquidcrystalcompass]

QUOTE (paganoman @ Aug 15 2005, 04:03 PM)

As a fellow Creative Zen Owner (I have the Zen Xtra 40GB).... I welcome you to TRF, and look forward to reading about your journey as you rediscover this awesome band. One thing you may learn, is that the discovery never ends. It certainly has not for me. edited to get rid of my repetitive use of the word discovery (in its various forms).

si' si' senor

[rushgoober]

welcome to TRF - I look forward to your musings as well...

[The Writer]

(By the way - I don't intend to post at this pace all the time; it's just that I have some spare time now, so I'm using it. Things will calm down; I promise)

 

Finding My Way

 

I wonder how many people there are who bought this when it first came out? How many of them stayed the course, and are still here, endlessly rocking? What can it have been like to know nothing about this other than what you can read on the sleeve, to put the needle carefully down on Side 1, Track 1 and hear this riff? What I hear now is the stereo separation - I realised, as I was powerwalking around the village earlier, that I had probably never really heard this through stereo headphones before. I genuinely didn't know that the guitar sound wanders from channel to channel at the start. It's really rather effective, and means that the entrance of the rest of the band is particularly satisfying, having been prefigured like that.

 

(look, I'm going to try not to be pretentious, but sometimes it'll just come out. Sorry.)

 

Pretty much all the Rush ingredients are right there: the voice, the bass, the guitar sound, the-

 

Oh, hang on. What's the one thing we know about this record? That's right - it's The One Without Neil. Well, you know what - the drumming is just fine. Not pyrotechnic, but all things considered, it's more than just OK. The lyrics - well, that's a whole other story, quite literally. But, actually, on this track, there's nothing wrong. It feels right, it rocks along very nicely, and it stops.

 

Personal quirk no.1 in a series of way too many: Why can't people write endings to songs? If you're going to play it live, you're going to have to work out an ending, so why not do it right from the start? Where did this practice of the fade-out come from? And why does it irritate me so much?

 

I think I'm going to like this project - first track, and I'm ready for more. Of course, that's how it always used to work, wasn't it? The strongest track goes at the start of Side 2; the next strongest at the start of Side 1, and the complex, difficult one goes at the end. Do bands still do that?

 

Need Some Love

 

The first track I really don't remember, and it's really not what I was expecting at all. Now I've heard it again, I still don't remember it, but I can easily fit it into the time and place - here's a bunch of guys who have been listening to lots of British music, and extrapolating from it. I think this is what they used to call a 'fast-paced rocker' with a nice changedown into the chorus. Doesn't really do much for me - maybe it's the lyrics - but I have a clear vision of a sweaty club, and this song getting everyone bouncing. And are those guitars double-tracked? How did this sound live?

 

Take A Friend

 

Hoo, you're trying to annoy me aren't you? Fade - in? Eep. All together, boys and girls - can we say Led Zeppelin? I think that the ambience of hearing this on a mono record player with a dusty needle would have improved the lyrics no end; they really don't need to be heard in clear stereo, piped directly into my ears. Meanwhile, it's gradually dawning on me that the production on this is pretty damn fine, considering the time and place it was done. It's fun, but it's not going to be in the top ten personal favourites at the end of this, I can tell.

 

Here Again

 

Ah, yes - that's the other given, isn't it? The obligatory 'slow-burner' at the end of Side 1 - look; we don't just rock out, you know. Actually, this is pretty odd, hearing Geddy's voice over an instrumental track which could have been laid down by - I don't know, Mountain? Time I paid a bit more attention to the guitar solo, I think. And that just reinforces my first reaction to hearing this all again - musically, Geddy and Alex hit the ground pretty much fully formed, didn't they? That bass sound is already distinctive, and the lead is derivative, sure, but full of ideas. You can't help seeing this through the lens of 30 years of music, but they've definitely got something.

 

 

Well, that's Side 1; think I'll call it a day for now. More when I get the time.

Edited August 15, 2005 by The Writer

[clearingsky]

Just listened Side 1 Rush myself-enjoyed the analysis-I think you've really hit on something here Writer! I'd just note that I seem to grow fonder of this album with every passing year.

[giardn]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been lurking around the forum for some time, but I haven't had anything worthwhile to say until now.

 

I totally identify with you TW, and 'what you're doing' (pun intended) is inspiring. My experiences that pushed me over the edge with Rush are different than yours, but ultimately not that dissimilar.

My discovery of Rush started with Moving Pictures, then forward through Test for Echo, then all the way back through to RUSH, and finally Vapor Trails and Feedback. Quite the journey in its own right. I'm currently filling in the gaps....

 

I as well look forward to your discoveries/analysis, and I hope I can contribute as well.

 

Nathan

 

[rushgoober]

QUOTE (giardn @ Aug 15 2005, 07:52 PM)

Hi everyone, I've been lurking around the forum for some time, but I haven't had anything worthwhile to say until now. I totally identify with you TW, and 'what you're doing' (pun intended) is inspiring. My experiences that pushed me over the edge with Rush are different than yours, but ultimately not that dissimilar. My discovery of Rush started with Moving Pictures, then forward through Test for Echo, then all the way back through to RUSH, and finally Vapor Trails and Feedback. Quite the journey in its own right. I'm currently filling in the gaps.... I as well look forward to your discoveries/analysis, and I hope I can contribute as well. Nathan

QUOTE

I've been lurking around the forum for some time, but I haven't had anything worthwhile to say until now.

 

there are a lot of people with nothing worthwhile to say, doesn't stop them!

 

seriously giardn/nathan, welcome to TRF - and post! eat, drink, be merry! don't be a stranger!

 

peace,

gary (goober)

Edited August 16, 2005 by rushgoober

[LiveBlues]

Great thread so far! As one who has rediscovered Rush many times over the last 30 years, I can relate somewhat. It's easy to get sidetracked muscially, but oh so easy to get right back in the groove. I'm looking forward to each of your posts!

[Snowdog]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Aug 16 2005, 12:17 AM)

there are a lot of people with nothing worthwhile to say, doesn't stop them!

Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle

[Test4VitalSigns]

QUOTE (Snowdog @ Aug 16 2005, 05:45 AM)

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Aug 16 2005, 12:17 AM) there are a lot of people with nothing worthwhile to say, doesn't stop them!     Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle

[Dr.Gomez]

[rushgoober]

QUOTE (Snowdog @ Aug 16 2005, 02:45 AM)

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Aug 16 2005, 12:17 AM) there are a lot of people with nothing worthwhile to say, doesn't stop them!     Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle them's fighting words, mister! http://www.gametalkzone.de/bilder/smilies/boxen.gif   it was meant mostly as a joke, but are you're saying i have nothing worthwhile to say? should i be insulted?

Edited August 16, 2005 by rushgoober

[rushgoober]

ANYhoo, i look forward to hearing about side two of , and then fly by night, caress, etc.!!! Edited August 16, 2005 by rushgoober

[The Writer]

OK, I'm back. I probably ought to say that I don;t know how often I'll be updating this - it depends on many factors, including how frustrating a day I've had and whether I have made enough time to listen properly. This will happen at its own pace, I think.

 

Still, I'm here now - might as well post.

[The Writer]

What You're Doing

 

The first thing I notice, before the song has even started, is that it's not called " What You're Doin' " - it's a small thing, but it's indicative of a certain class, I feel. We plunge straight into a familiar riff - do I remember this, or does it remind me of something else? I can't pin anything down, so perhaps my memory is still pretty good. Odd, random things occur to me as we go along - that drumming is actually pretty damn good; this is a song assembled in sections, and I can hear some of the joins; are Geddy's vocals going to be echoed all the way through?

 

Turns out they are. Not sure that Im too fond of that effect. Still, I like the song.

 

In The Mood

 

The first song I've heard more recently than 1984, this was one of the ones I put on my original selection, mostly because it is absolutely the perfect rhythm for powerwalking to. It's a lovely riff and a great middle eight, just don't take the lyrics too seriously. Actually, there's a thing:

Another of those things which bother me: The word 'baby'. I mean, please. Last taken even remotely seriously around the time of The Beatles' "Drive My Car", all it is by 1974 is a placeholder for those moments when you can't work out how to fill those two beats - goodness knows what purpose it serves now. I suppose it's probably gone through the ironic, 'Austin Powers' thing, and is now a kind of post-ironic cool thing to say. I wouldn't know; I'm middle-aged. Still, with any luck that will be the last time we hear Geddy singing 'baby' to anyone.

 

Before and After

 

Before and after what, I wondered to myself. Then I got about halfway through the song, and all became clear. I have absoultely no memory of this song, yet it is exactly of the type that the 20-year-old me would have loved - a lyrical instrumental gradually building to flat-out rock. I was a real sucker for that kind of thing back then. Thing is now, I can't hear the charms for all the thoughts crowding in on me. Firstly, that lyrical beginning; it takes three listens to work out what's bugging me - the skipped beat in the repeated measure at the beginning. They do it something like eight times, and it sounds odder each time I hear it. It's quite a good idea, because otherwise that repeated phrase might sound a bit bland, but it's a little unsettling to listen to at first. This is not a bad thing, you understand.

 

Secondly, the two halves don't seem to gel - I don't hear the relationship of the second to the first really. That's probably from listening to too much classical music, where every theme is developed, and all the strands seem to relate. These two sound a bit too much like two half-finished songs glued together in the studio. I don't think they were two half-finished songs; but they sound a bit like it. Also, more doubled guitars, and now I realise what it reminds me of.

 

Wishbone Ash. No, really - I wonder if there was any conscious or unconscious influence there?

 

Also, guess what? Back there, that wasn't the last time Geddy sang 'baby'. Let's hope this one is...

 

Working Man

 

This is the first track which is difficult to sort out in my mind. First of all, I have heard it many times over the years; it's kind of a standard; part of the mental furniture. Also, it's a genuine classic, isn't it? So what can I bring to it save for some idle speculation about the mid section.

 

Well, what the heck. Let's do that:

 

I may be old and cynical, but this seems to me to be a triumph of expediency over intention. The record needs to be in the vicinity of 40 minutes long (20 per side, kids) and here's a song which, without the middle - it's not a middle eight, really, more a sort of middle sixty-four - would be a simple, one-riff plod. So this extended jam got shoehorned in; once again it doesn't really fit the rest of the song, but it doesn't half show off the musicianship of these three guys, and when we get back to that Black Sabbath-like riff, its an old friend. Having said that, it works superbly well; much better than it ought to.

 

Summary:

 

Well, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed time-travelling back to 1974. That album which I didn;t play all that much even in my Rushaholic phase turns out to be a fine example of its time - wearing its influences on its sleeve, to be sure, and lacking a certain something in the lyrical invention department, but if you're in the mood (sorry) for a little ealy seventies bluesy rock, you could do a lot worse than this.

 

Baby.

[Scheming Demon]

I've enjoyed reading this post and can totally relate to it. I was a huge Rush fan from the mid-70's through the early 80's. I didn't like when they went into the keyboard phase starting with Signals. I stopped listening to anything after Signals for 10 years. Then I re-discovered them and started listening to the 10 years worth of material I had missed and found that I then liked a lot of it. The metal head in me deprived me of some cool music because I wasn't quite ready to be more open minded.

 

I am still nostalgic I guess and still prefer the stuff from the 70's and early 80's. Each album has at least a couple really killer tunes and the musicianship has never flagged.