Log #100 - The log Rushes to a Century

Log no. 100! 100 weeks of logging 6 albums per week. I thought I should revisit my original premise:

Several years ago when my CD player expired I replaced it with a 6-CD magazine changer I found on ebay for around £30. Providing not an endless stream of music but a good 5 hours worth, plenty enough for a weekend. It has been one of my best ever purchases.

One weekend I was shuffling through my 6 CDs and realised my current choices were what I would consider atypical of my usual tastes. How did I get here I thought to myself? Would this be symptomatic of a permanent change in taste or were there good temporary reasons for my choices?

So here the idea of a journal of listening was born. A musical journey through listening choices over a year - 52 weeks and (potentially) 312 albums. The log derives from a snapshot of the contents of my magazine changer taken each Sunday. Each log contains thoughts on the reasons behind the choices and a brief review of the albums, interspersed with occasional separate lengthier reviews of CDs and gigs.

I also started a youtube playlist but that became so unwieldy I abandoned it after about 80 entries and now embed most reference videos in each post. I have of course gone past 52 weeks now. I suspect I've exceeded 312 albums too (bearing in mind that some albums stay in for more than a week, and some are inevitably repeat listens).  Many weeks I only review one or two of the 6 albums - I have realised that 6 albums is actually a lot of listening in a week. 

I have covered many artists (246 to date) as indicated by the appearances chart, but there are of course still many who have not yet made an appearance (of course I'm talking from the perspective of someone whose record collection is heavily weighted towards rock music). One such example is this week's entry, Rush. They were my favourite band for a brief time - around the age of 18 or so but fear their particular brand of prog has not aged well. We shall see this week as I've gone for a clean sweep - an honour rarely bestowed in the log.

Appearances in the log - we have a clear leader

Rush in the 70s were a teenage dream with their skilful musicianship, pretentious concepts and spectacular gatefold album sleeves. But I do remember (although I didn't appreciate it at the time) reading a review of one of their concerts where the writer observed that there was no one over 18 in the audience. I was indeed one of those 18 year olds in the audience at The Brighton Centre sometime in the 80s. Using the amazing setlist.fm I'm going to see if I can actually find the very gig...

I'm pretty sure it was this one...

2/11/1981 Rush at the Brighton Centre

Setlist: 

2112 Part I: Overture

2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx

Freewill

Limelight

Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres Part I: Prelude

Beneath, Between & Behind

Subdivisions

The Camera Eye

YYZ

Drum Solo

Broon's Bane

The Trees

Xanadu

The Spirit of Radio

Red Barchetta

Closer to the Heart

Tom Sawyer

Vital Signs

Working Man

Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres Part IV: Armageddon

By-Tor & The Snow Dog

In the End

In the Mood

2112 Part VII: Grand Finale

Encore:

La Villa Strangiato

That is some set list pretty much covering everything I would have wanted to hear at the time! The gig must have been near 3 hours. There are 25 tracks here and some aren't short. I expect in keeping with the overblown nature of the albums from such bands (although Rush to be fair, were just starting to become a more trimmed down version of themselves by 1981), they also went over the top live too.

So on to the clean sweep of 6 out of 6 for Canadian progsters Rush this week! Congratulations Neil, Geddy and Alex:

Rush - Fly By Night

Rush - Hemispheres

Rush - Vapor Trails

Rush - Power Windows

Rush - Permanent Waves

Rush - Signals

Rush are such a recognisable band. Obviously there's the singing, but also the other instruments are very recognisable - the bouncy bass, the flangey guitar, and the complicated drums and percussion.  I purposely add "percussion" here as drummer Neil Peart is a particularly complex drummer who uses a massive kit fully equipped with (literally) all the bells and whistles (a musician who has never betrayed his prog leanings and has always eschewed the move to a scaled down kit). Check out his credentials as listed on the sleeve notes: drums, orchestra bells, bell tree, tympani, gong, cowbells, temple blocks, wind chimes, crotales. What is a crotale?

With these characteristics I'd venture that even without Geddy Lee's unique vocals you'd still recognise most Rush instrumental tracks.

And it all comes together in perfection. The overall production is amazing - every sound is crystal clear and separated, topped off by the vocals that (probably due to Geddy's particular high register) are literally elevated above the music such that every lyric is clear and decipherable.

1. Fly By Night

First track Anthem on Fly By Night (the band's second album from 1975) and the first thing that strikes you is the high pitched singing, but I mean super high! Much higher than mid or latter period Geddy. It's quite disconcerting. But it's a great single that pretty much encapsulates Rush in 4 minutes.

Rivendell is a beautiful slow solo acoustic track and, take note, has a lovely normally pitched vocal. Best I Can is boogie rock and Making Memories is a lovely jaunty acoustic strummer.

The meat of the album is In The End with it's stringent riff all the more devastating after Rivendell, and the epic By-Tor and the Snow Dog which has a lovely John Martyn Small Hours like phased guitar solo. I've always been intrigued by the sudden start of the track where the vocals and guitar burst in simultaneously. The drums on this track are amazing and you can really sense the battle raging between "By-Tor" and the growling "Snow Dog" as the bass grinds. A masterpiece.

One of Rush's best albums and one I used to enjoy on LP as part of the Archives box set containing the first three albums.

2. Hemispheres

Hemispheres - the titles, for goodness sake. They had had a good go at some pretension with the full on concept album 2112 (1976) but this 1978 album takes the biscuit with the side long Cygnus X-1 Book II (following on from Book I from the previous album A Farewell To Kings).

The 18 minute track has 6 (or to give them their proper nomenclature VI) parts each with a title, and sub-title, so we have III Dionysus (Bringer of Love) and IV Armegeddon (The Battle of Heart and Mind) for instance. The CD only recognises it as one long track.

On Side 2 we have La Villa Strangiato which is a relatively modestly lengthy 9 1/2 minute instrumental with... wait for it... 12 parts!

For completeness I should list the parts of the track (which is superb, by the way, and one of my all time favourite Rush tracks, and that's not just because it lacks Geddy Lee's vocals).

I: Buenas Noches, Mein Froinds! 
II: To sleep, perchance to dream... 
III: Strangiato theme 
IV: A Lerxst in Wonderland 
V: Monsters! 
VI: The Ghost of the Aragon 
VII: Danforth and Pape 
VIII: The Waltz of the Shreves 
IX: Never turn your back on a Monster!
X: Monsters! (Reprise) 
XI: Strangiato theme (Reprise)
XII: A Farewell to Things 

To be fair to the band they may have realised this was a final fling for pretension as La Villa Strangiato is subtitled An Exercise In Self-Indulgence (Hemispheres was the last of their concept albums and was followed by the much more manageable Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures).

Probably the best track on Hemispheres and one of Rush's mini masterpieces - they play so fast they fit an awful lot into 5 minutes - is The Trees:

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

3. Vapor Trails

I was mightily impressed when I first heard Rush's 2002 album Vapor Trials - their first for 6 years *. Gone are the synthesizer led pop songs, replaced by a powerful heavy rock/metal sound where the guitars are back and the drumming epic. Also toned down is Geddy Lee's high pitched vocal, replaced by a markedly more mid-register range. Representing a further shift back to basics Vapor Trails really sounds like a band revitalised and even reminds me of Black Sabbath or Metallica in places.

There is an anger in these tracks and also fight and resilience in some of Neil Peart's inevitably personal lyrics such as on Ghost Rider:

Shadows on the road behind
Shadows on the road ahead
Nothing can stop you now

People who think they know Rush, from either their prog heyday of the 70s or the 80s synth pop rock, should hear this and be surprised.

4. Power Windows

Power Windows (1985) for me really represents the wilderness years for Rush. The musicianship of course is super tight but there isn't much soul in this uninspired set. I'd venture there isn't a lot of  difference between any of the mid 80s period albums as Rush suffered the general plague of over production and an ill conceived emphasis on the synthesizers, electronically enhanced snare crashes and treated guitar, which seemed to affect nearly all artists (particularly rock bands) at the time. Some of the songs sound like pale imitations of more successfully rendered pop/synth/rock from the previous 80s albums Signals and Moving Pictures even seemingly repeating some of the same music - a clear case of treading water. Naff cover too.

5. Permanent Waves

Unbelievably Permanent Waves with it's six efficiently honed tracks was received as a bit of a disappointment on it's release in 1980, following the epic concept album Hemispheres.

However the band's new direction represented by a slick amalgamation of rock, pop and prog has aged well and the album is now rightly judged one of the band's best. Key track is the single The Spirit of Radio which was the band's biggest hit in the UK. Then there are tracks like Freewill which tick all the "best of both types of Rush" boxes. Plenty for both new and old fans to like.

6. Signals

Signals further developed the Rush sound of the early 80s and together with Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures represents a triumphant triumvirate which many fans (even including the die-hard prog fans) now consider Rush's peak.

Despite leaving behind the extensiveness of the concept tracks of the 70s the overall quality of the songwriting meant the band were able to pack just as much into tracks of 5 minutes instead, and the synthesizers, which are very prominent right from the opening bars of the first track Subdivisions, are at home and actually add to the music without detracting from Alex Lifeson's guitar.

Two of the best tracks are the oppositely titled Analog Kid and Digital Man. Both super efficient tracks of dazzling musicianship and mind bending changes like The Trees or Spirit of Radio.

The moving Losing It is another standout:

Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
With passion and precision
But now his mind is dark and dulled
By sickness and indecision
And he stares out the kitchen door
Where the sun will rise no more

Signals was the band's last great album prior to sleep walking into unfashionable irrelevancy in the late 80s until their reinvention as a grunge/heavy rock band in the 90s and 00s.

* In the late 90s Rush drummer Neil Peart experienced personal family tragedy. This was recounted in his book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road written while taking a sabbatical from Rush. This was closely followed by Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times.

Please Join Eddy's mailing list for weekly blog updates