With only a fleeting clutch of days before the actual holiday, it seems I'm deplorably behind in my Christmas shopping. As such, I seized the opportunity during the kids' nap-time on Saturday -- foregoing some other much-needed tasks like a getting a haircut (being that I'm starting to resemble a member of Kajagoogo) -- to go procure a few remaining, elusive items. It was somewhat bitterly cold out and the streets were caked with ice and slush after Friday's "storm" (sooo much bellyaching going on over really not so much -- what's happened to your spine, New York?), but I had to do it.
For my mission out onto the slick, slippery Manhattan streets, I dialed up a random selection of Rush on my iPod and was on my way. I can hear some of you groan already. "Rush? Rush! Really??" Yeah, fuckin' Rush and yes, really! While I may be prone to waxing rhapsodic here to oft-nauseating length about the myriad glories of Punk Rock, I'm still a dyed-in-the-wool Rush fan. I've been so since about 1980, circa the release of Permanent Waves. Ain't about to change now.
Rush has never been hip, god bless'em. Arguably too proggy, twiddly, geeky and/or shrieky, they've been lambasted by all and sundry as the ultimate nerd band, rivaled only by Devo (another band I'm slavishly devoted to). Championed by greaseball heshers and bespectacled computer programmers alike, Rush deftly fuse dizzying musical chops, a Zepplinesque propensity for sonic wallop and a tireless penchant for indecipherably eggheaded lyrics (penned by eight-armed Ayn Rand disciple/drummer Neil Peart). They're not tough. They're not sexy. You don't find girls shedding their tops at their shows. But still -- they're Rush. They wrote "Spirit of the Radio," "Passage to Bangkok" and "Subdivisions." You didn't. They rock. You don't.
I remember buying Moving Pictures, Rush's arguable "breakthrough" album on a snowy day in 1981 at a long-since-vanished Disc-O-Mat on Lexington Avenue. I was fourteen years old and distraught about something (what do fourteen year olds generally get distraught about?) Prompted by regular airings of the single, "Limelight," on WPLJ, I slapped down my five bucks for the glossy vinyl LP and took it home. I remember routinely playing it while paging through issues of "The X-Men" (this was during the golden age circa the "Dark Phoenix" saga, with John Byrne doing the illustrating). Rush served as the perfect soundtrack. It quickly became one of those albums I knew back to front.
I continued to furtively follow Rush religiously, even as I was further warming to the comparatively rudimentary thrills of Hardcore Punk. While Rush couldn't hold a candle to bands like Black Flag or Bad Brains in terms of sheer, visceral catharsis, I couldn't walk away. I remember initially chortling incredulously at their seemingly shameless attempts to mimic the Police on Signals (though said album did contain the afore-mentioned "Subdivisions"). I remember thrilling to Alex Lifeson's giddily shrill solo on "Distant Early Warning" on Grace Under Pressure. I remember standing around in the damp cold on some windswept November night with some high school friends in Central Park. Just off the corner of East 79th & Fifth Avenue, a gaggle of my classmates were often inclined to congregate like hooligans with a boombox (I believe we referred to this spot as "Club 79"). The musical fare was usually a mix of Run DMC, U2, AC/DC and -- when my friend Mike was at the helm -- 2112 by Rush. We'd all be standing around chatting, but when Alex Lifeson bursts into that epic riff during "Temples of Syrinx" (we're talking definitively at 02:45), we'd all instinctively stop and air-guitar dutifully. These were happy times.
A year or two after graduating from college, I got a job at LIFE Magazine as a copy assistant. One of my co-workers was a woman named Leslie who was inexplicably friends with Rush. When they came to town that year (on the Roll the Bones tour in 1992), Leslie got me backstage to meet the band. Lifeson was cool and chatty. Lead singer Geddy Lee was mellow and dry and Peart was literally backstage sitting in the lotus position reading Nietsche. I shit you not. Geddy gave me a t-shirt (designed by Septic Death member/Metallica-favorite, Pushead). I cherish it to this day. Better still, we all went out to dinner after the show to Nick & Eddy's in Soho (long gone). I dined with Rush! Beat that, haters!
Anyway, blah blah blah. I believe I've now established that I'm a geeky Rush fan. Truthfully, I haven't kept up with them as much as I used to, but I still have loads of time for them. When this song filled my headphones this afternoon, it was all I could do not to frantically air-drum along with the estimable Mr. Peart. The version of this track -- "Xanadu," originally from A Farewell to Kings -- I listened to this afternoon was from their live 1998 album, Different Stages, but the definitive version for me remains the version below from their 1981 live album, Exit... Stage Left. During my freshman year of college, I used to spend many a high-volume evening playing the entire third side of that double album ("Broon's Bane," "The Trees" and "Xanadu", which all blended seamlessly into one another in a rocktastic mix) while cracking open numerous cans of cheap beer. Again, happy times.
Play it loud.
HOLIDAY RUSH REDUX: After I completed this post, I was chatting with my similarly inclined pal Rob B., who recently sent a hilarious rendition of Rush's unrepentantly ludicrous epic, "The Trees" by one Richard Cheese (geddit?) I enjoy it strenuously. So should you:
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