Some of the best times I had, musically speaking, happened during 1989. I was between bands, had some live and recording studio experience under my belt, and was actually becoming confident and pretty good on the electric guitar. Most of that year I jammed twice a week with the drummer from my previous band, Rob. I was going to night school for business (blech) and Rob was going to night school for accounting. On our free nights I’d drive over to his house with a 12-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes, and we’d play in his basement for two hours.
What would we play? Some of our old originals from the band we were in and some old originals from the other band I was in. We’d play a couple of cover tunes, such as Starship Trooper and maybe some Led Zeppelin. We even played a few Living Color (!) tunes. But primarily we played Rush songs, because both of us were huuuuuuuuuge Rush fans.
I don’t know if I can adequately convey the appeal of Rush to any non-musicians reading this. Rush is a trio of virtuoso musicians who write complex songs best described, I’d guess, as progressive rock, whatever that is. Different time signatures, often within the same piece of music; off-the-beaten-track chordage; timbre pallets from acoustic twelve-string to syrupy overflanged crunch guitar. The drummer writes the lyrics sung by the bass player, and the lyrics range from science fiction to libertarian philosophy to workingman blues. If you are a drummer, you worship Neil Peart; if you are a guitarist, you worship Alex Lifeson; if you are a bass player, you worship Geddy Lee. It’s as simple as that.
These were pre-Internet days, so access to guitar tab was extremely limited to non-existent. You developed your ear and your musical chops by figuring out the songs while listening to the CDs. (Yes, these were the days of CDs, though the first two works by Rush I had were vinyl.) Or else you learned piano music, i.e., traditional music notation. When I first got into Rush back in my freshman year in college, I got a Rush compendium of songs from their first six albums in traditional music notation. So I had a general idea of the chords and such from most of their early tunes.
So me and Rob would guzzle beer, smoke cigs, and jam on Rush tunes two hours a night twice a week over the course of a year. He grew as a drummer and I developed as a guitarist. We fiddled around with my Tascam 4-track recorder, and I still have the evidence 20-plus years later. And though we never became good friends, as I would later do with other bandmates, it was probably the highlight of my life during that period. If you are familiar with Rush, you may be wondering what songs we played regularly. Well, okay, off the top of my head, these –
Xanadu
The Analog Kid
Countdown
Finding My Way
What You’re Doing
Bastille Day
Lakeside Park
No One at the Bridge
Making Memories
The Trees
La Villa Strangiato
Circumstances
Cygnus X-1
Jacob’s Ladder
Red Barchetta
Passage to Bangkok
I Think I’m Going Bald
By-Tor and the Snow Dog
Lessons
Something for Nothing
Working Man
In the End
Fly By Night
The Necromancer
2112 (various parts of this 22-min epic)
to varying degrees of competency and coolness. While I had decent guitars at this point (a brand new Les Paul and a 1969 Gibson SG), I was kinda limited by the amplification I could afford: a Peavey practice amp and a Roland Jazz Chorus 100 Watt amp, both enhanced with an assortment of foot pedals (distortion, flange, chorus, and delay boxes). To be heard over Rob’s drums in that tiled, wood-paneled basement I had to be loud, and the louder I got the greater the loss of distinction, so to speak.
But it was still a blast. I’d love to revisit those days ...
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