Grokking Rush
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SKYLAIRE ALFVEGREN GROKKING RUSH AMONG THEIR MANY UNHERALDED ACCOMPLISHMENTS, GEDDY LEE ET AL ARE THE ONLY ROCK BAND CITED IN THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES. Discussed: Trash Cans, The Stealth of True Cool, L-U-V, The Large Hadron Collider, Morse Code, The Exploited Lyrical Motif of Us v. Them, New Age Soccer Moms, Honeydew n 1968, bassist/vocalist Geddy cal percussionist this side of Keith Moon, Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and and a poet to boot, thus helping to create a drummer John Rutsey began musical unit that would go on to polarize performing in the church base- rock aficionados like no other. ments and high-school audito- Largely snubbed by the mainstream Iriums of suburban Toronto. Heavily influ- rock press, Rush is a complete aural anom- enced by Cream, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple, they aly. Jurassic rock radio keeps them in light rotation along- released a self-titled debut in March 1974, marked as much side the corpses of AC/DC, the Who, and the Stones. by Lee’s four-string dexterity as by his vocals—which They received only a sputter of ’80s MTV attention, Rolling Stone would later refer to as a “dog-calling falsetto.” even with a collection of epic, high-concept videos.1 Two weeks before the group’s first U.S. tour, Rutsey fell ill. A soft-spoken farm-equipment salesman by the name 1 These include the eerie, Jan Švankmajer–esque “Mystic Rhythms,” the lavish, of Neil Peart auditioned for the spot, his drums trans- Monopoly-themed sets, and the (at the time) state-of-the-art computer graph- ported in trash cans. He turned out to be the most mania- ics of “The Big Money,” the atomic-age parable replete with Dr. Strangelove al- 28 Illustration by Tony Millionaire And yet the Red Hot Chili Pep- idly conservative). Bands who, on Reaction making contact—mysteri- pers, Smashing Pumpkins, and Pri- paper, boast the most striking in- ously mus all claim them as a major in- fluences—Coheed and Cambria, Eye to I fluence. Members of Tool, Korn, Dream Theater—are less likely to Reaction burning hotter Sepultura, and Iron Maiden have be embraced by Rush fans than, say, Two to one also paid them tribute. the Dead Kennedys and the Kro- Reflection on the water To their fans, Rush is the Spock- nos Quartet. H to O tastic, demonically proficient father Yet it is enthusiasm, and not No flow without the other of progressive metal, harbinger of a passion, which Rush fans exude. Oh, but how do they make contact with one another? singular musical philosophy. To their Rock, by all accounts, is acces- detractors, Rush is soulless, quasi- sorized by sweat and soul, cen- existential, as sexy as pocket protec- tered in the heart and the crotch. o band has so romanti- tors, and about as scandalous as a trio But not one of the 150-plus en- cized both the struggle of Amish farmers. One isn’t seduced tries in the Rush songbook con- N and the potential of the by their rhythms over time. One cerns l-u-v outright; there is the individual—as idealist, prophet, pio- immediately groks Rush, or one contemplative (“Entre Nous”): neer—and, therefore, outcast. Peart’s doesn’t. I’ve made no apologies for “We are planets to each other / protagonists have detailed the birth being a Rush fan, but I have never Drifting in our orbits to a brief of the atomic age (“Manhattan Proj- tried to make converts. eclipse / Each of us a world apart ect”), broken their fast on honeydew KISS has their Army, the Dead / Alone and yet together / Like (“Xanadu”), plunged their spaceship have their Heads, and although two passing ships”; and there is “headlong” into a black hole (“Cyg- I once called them “a sea of IT,” the tenuously optimistic (“Ghost nus X-1”), scaled holy mountains I have come to realize that noth- of a Chance”): “I don’t believe in (“Tai Shan”), participated in the ing unifies Rush fans as much as the stars or the planets / or angels French Revolution (“Bastille Day”), being Rush fans. Reviewing the watching from above / but I be- and survived the Holocaust (“Red band’s ’96 Test for Echo stop at the lieve there’s a ghost of a chance / Sector A”). LA Forum, I noted that “tattered that we can find someone to love.” Peart’s objectivist and mytholog- tour shirts abounded, from Yes to Rush fans find romance and pas- ical leanings have inspired potheads Rage Against the Machine, the sion in the abstract, approaching and PhDs alike. Among the disser- Residents to Miles Davis.” A casual love like cryptographers.2 tation titles: “Permanent Change: poll among Rush fans would more This stanza, from “Chemistry,” Rush, Musicians’ Rock, and the Pro- likely find Fripp and Eno, John seems to express Peart’s general opin- gressive Post-Counter-Culture,” and Wetton–era King Crimson, Gen- ion of the human condition (per- “Grand Designs: A Musical, Social tle Giant and Hawkwind on the haps as it is peculiarly experienced and Ethnographic Study of Rush.” hi-fi than modern practitioners of by Rush’s alien nation fan base): The Journal of American and Compar- the “progressive” genre (a misno- ative Cultures and the scholarly Pop- mer to describe what is, in fact, rig- Signal transmitted—message received ular Music and Society have dissected Reaction making impact—invisibly their work. Rush is the only band Elemental telepathy—exchange of ever to be cited in the Journal of Ayn lusions in “Distant Early Warning,” and the high- energy tech, machinated world of “The Body Electric,” Rand Studies. That article even led wherein sheep-people “give praise to the mother to a Rush-dedicated symposium on of all machines” during “100 years of routine.” Yet 2 The only other female Rush fan I’ve spoken such topics as “Rand, Rush and De- our hero, “one humanoid escaping,” breaks free. to—a physicist—agreed entirely. Which is to say, (Word has it the images come from a film called I may be a Rush fanatic, but I doubt I’d ever Totalizing the Utopianism of Pro- Incident at Channel Q.) date one. gressive Rock.” Their lyrics and 29 album art are steeped in symbol- school dropout, and his flagrant that debuted at the Tribeca Film Fes- ism and metaphor. The semaphoric footnoting of literature, mythology, tival on April 24 (where it won the “dat-duh-dat-dat-dat-duh-dat-dat dat astronomy, and even meteorology Audience Award), was released on dat… du-du-dat… dat dat dat… dat confounds many rock fans, though DVD/Blu-ray on June 29 to coin- dat dat” that kick-starts the instru- I for one am proof that a love of cide with the first night of their for- mental “YYZ” is Morse code for Joey Ramone and an appreciation ty-date Time Machine Tour, kicking the Toronto airport. of Rick Wakeman can coexist in off in Albuquerque. It tells us more Though Peart was named the the same cochlea, one that enter- than we ever wanted to know about second-worst lyricist in rock by tains rumors that the Large Hadron the heady Canuck triumvirate. Blender magazine in 2007 (sec- Collider is being sabotaged from Peart’s unearthly stamina, bizarro ond only to new age soccer-mom the future. time signatures, and arsenal of eso- heartthrob Sting), the band did re- teric percussion led the readers of ceive the Seventh Annual Musicians y what barometer can one Modern Drummer magazine to award of the Millennium award from the measure popularity, or him the Best Recorded Performance Harvard Lampoon. B success? The Beatles have a staggering sixteen times, and to Peart both paraphrases and sold the most albums, the Dead vote him Best Rock Drummer nine quotes outright the likes of T. S. grossed the most live, Led Zeppe- times. Similarly, Lee has been named Eliot, Oscar Wilde, John Barth, and lin sold the most merchandise…. Top Rock Bassist half a dozen times Shakespeare. (“Roll the Bones,” a but Rush is ranked third in the by Guitar Player magazine. title lifted from a Fritz Leiber short world for most consecutive gold On this summer’s Time Ma- story, is one of dozens of liter- (twenty-four), platinum (eleven), chine Tour, Rush intends to play ary references found in the Rush and multi-platinum (three) albums, Moving Pictures, their 1981 best-seller, songbook.)3 Peart was a high- more than any other rock band ex- in its entirety. The encroaching tide cluding the Beatles, the Stones, and of synthesizers (and Lifeson’s new- 3 Based on my anecdotal survey of the Rush re- Aerosmith. Half a million U.S. fans wave haircut) that followed the 1982 sistance, Peart’s literary allusions rank second to made their 2007 Snakes and Arrows album Signals led many hard-rock- Lee’s banshee wail as the most alienating aspect of tour the third-highest-grossing ers to abandon the band—but by the trio’s oeuvre. The lyrics of Peart (himself an author of numerous nonfiction books) are exam- rock tour of the year. As the New my estimation, Signals is among the ined at length in Mystic Rhythms: The Philosophi- York Times noted, “Rush has main- Rushiest of Rush albums—jammed cal Vision of Rush (Carol Selby Price, with theo- tained one of rock’s biggest cult as it is with “Subdivisions,” that bat- logian husband Robert M. Price, Borgo Press, 1998), A Simple Kind Mirror: The Lyrical Vision of followings.” tle hymn of suburban torment, med- Rush (Leonard Roberto, iUniverse, 2000), and But they’ve yet to be inducted itations on being human, chemistry, Rush, Rock Music and the Middle Class: Dreaming in into the Rock and Roll Hall of and space-shuttle launches.