Why Rush is Awesome

As many of you know, Rush is my all time favorite band.  And many of you may have heard my long winded rants about why they are.  Love em or hate em, I hope this will convince you why they should be considered one of the all time greatest bands.  I believe this blog entry is an appropriate precursor to the upcoming Rush concert in Edmonton on the 30^th of September, which as you can tell I am very excited for.

I probably had heard many rush songs on the radio before, but I guess the first Rush song I could identify as Rush was Tom Sawyer.  Believe it or not, it was from an episode of Futurama.  Fry is fighting off an invading alien fleet through the video game, Space Invaders and the famous Tom Sawyer synth riff is played.

“All right. It's Saturday night, I have no date, a two-liter bottle of Shasta and my all-Rush mix-tape... Let's rock.”

-Fry-

The song was very catchy to me, so shortly after I asked my friend Sarah if I could borrow a Rush CD.  She lent me their debut album, Rush and a compilation album, Retrospective 1 and I’ve been a fan ever since.  But I didn’t become a super-fan until band until 3 years after. 

In the years of 2010 and 2011, Rush was on their Time Machine world tour.  They were playing the entire Moving Pictures album.  This was very cool for me because it was my favorite Rush album at the time.  Unfortunately for me there were no Alberta gigs on the tour.  The closest concert to me was in Vancouver.  But I decided that it would be worth it to fly out to, see one of my favorite bands.  They are getting old and I had no idea when I would have the chance to see them again.  I didn’t know all of the songs being played at the concert but I knew that their live show was phenomenal and I could check one more off my concert bucket list.  So in late June of 2011, I had a whirlwind 24 hour experience of the city of Vancouver.  Luckily by chance I met up with a guy in downtown Vancouver who I had chatted with earlier in line at Tim Hortons at the Calgary airport, who was also going to the Rush show.  We ended up hanging out for most of the day and he taught me in the ways of the Rush.  He graciously let me crash on the floor of his hotel room as I had drank too much beer to make it to the airport after the show as I was previously planning on.

My seat to see Rush in the Rogers Arena, Vancouver

The show itself was incredible and It is the best live music show I have experienced.  It was a full 3 hours with an intermission midway through.  Ever since then I have become obsessed with the great Canadian trio’s music and here’s why:

Musical skill

I don’t think anyone who takes music seriously can overlook the musical skill of Rush. You don’t have to like their music to appreciate the talent of all three musicians.   Because one of the most amazing things about Rush is their ability to make a 3 piece rock band sound like a huge prog-rock production with five or six members.  As individual musicians (bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart), Rush represents the best of the best in their respective feilds.  Neil Peart is usually listed as the greatest living drummer in the world.  Geddy Lee is often listed in the top 5 bassists of all time.  Alex Lifeson is often left off the list of greatest guitarists but I think it’s because he is overshadowed by the genius of Lee and Peart.  But in my opinion Lifeson has the greatest solo of any instrument of any rush song in their instrumental masterpiece La Villa Strangiato

Rush’s fearlessness to experiment with different types of music is also one of their best qualities.  Their career has ranged from early heavy metal in their debut album to strange psychedelic progressive rock in Caress of Steel.  They have become new wave-ish when they experimented with heavy use of synth keyboards in the mid 80s.  They have never really cared for making music to top the charts.  The only thing that has mattered to them is their love of making their music no matter how weird it may be.

Lyrics

“His mind is not for rent to any god or government.  Always hopeful, yet discontent. He knows changes aren’t permanent but change is.”

From Tom Sawyer, Moving Pictures 1981

Another thing that I really like about Rush is their lyrical themes.  The ideology that is expressed in the music, especially in their later albums speaks to me in ways other bands never have.  Although Neil’s writing isn’t especially poetic, his intellect is expressed beautifully.  These themes range from science fiction & fantasy, politics, religion, love & sex.  Their songs are observations about the world around us and songs that ask what it means to be a human.  Their latest album, Clockwork Angels is a science fictional concept album but most of the songs seem like life lessons written mostly from Neil’s perspective.  There are many atheist themed songs throughout their catalogue of music:  BU2B, Freewill, Roll the Bones, Ghost Of A Chance, Faithless, Sweet Miracle.

A screen capture from the Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage.  Alex Lifeson  is reading  God is Not Great by the famed atheist, Christopher Hitchens.

Neil Peart also includes some libertarian ideas in his earlier works.  The band’s unofficial logo is the image that appears on the flipside of the 2112 album cover.  The image has become to be known as the “Starman”.  It is supposed to represent the individual against the collective.

The star representing the star of Communism

 The song Anthem is based off the Ayn Rand novel of the same name.  Also the album 2112 is dedicated to “the genius of Ayn Rand”.  Rand was probably the most influential thinker in the libertarian movement. 

Live show

Rush is renowned for their amazing live show performances.  I consider the ability to put on a great live show to be a huge factor for the music I listen to.  I find that I get into a band’s music much more if I think I can eventually see them concert.  The Rush show in Vancouver was certainly the best show I’ve ever seen and I expect no less from them next week in Edmonton.

Canadian

Let’s face it there is a lot of crappy Canadian music out there.  Ok that’s a little unfair but at least most the stuff that is popular and Canadian is crap.  Nickelback, Justin Beiber, Celine Dion, ect.  But the fact that Rush is Canadian makes up for all of that.  I admit I have lost a lot of my nationalism since finding my libertarian and humanist ideologies, but it does feel good to have such a great band from my homeland.

Longevity

Rush was formed in 1968.  The very same year that Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Yes and Deep purple were formed.  These are all great and influential bands and they are all probably more popular and better known than Rush.  But none have been as continuously prolific as Rush has been for as long as they have.    Rush continues to innovate, improve and create new music into their 60s.  In fact their newest albums(Clockwork Angels and Snakes & Arrows) is in my opinion some of their best work.    

                  Their single, "Headlong Flight" from their 2012 album Clockwork Angels

Genuine friends

Probably the reason for their legendary longevity is their genuine friendship with each other.  Unlike many popular bands that break up because of infighting, drinking, drugs and whatnot, Rush seems to be in a rare situation for a rock band where they are legitimate friends outside of the band.

Here is an out-take from the Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage where Rush is having dinner with each other.  its an example of their goofy & genuine friendship that still lasts even after 40+ years as a band.

Printing Wikipedia

I have been thinking a lot about what kind of a legacy of our civilization will leave.  I’m not a cynical person but even I have to admit that this big party can’t last forever.  I like to think that one of the greatest qualities of human beings is our ambition to discover and know as much as we can.  And as destructive as some of our technologies and discoveries have been, I think science and technology is our greatest achievement and our most important legacy.    

I came up with an idea several months ago about what I would do with a shitload of money.  As far as we know, Wikipedia is the single largest collection of knowledge on the planet.  Sure, it’s not what to use when researching for academic papers but it has a good general overview of pretty much anything we need to know about.  And the amazing thing about Wikipedia is that it can be edited by anyone so it’s a good anonymous representation of our collective knowledge.

It is very much the modern day Library of Alexandria.  But the only catch about it is that it is all digital.  And just as the Library of Alexandria was written on flammable paper, Wikipedia could be just as easily be wiped out.  Say in some civilization ending disaster all the servers that Wikipedia is hosted crash.  Aside from all the people that die in this disaster, I think losing a thing like Wikipedia would be a great tragedy.  Yes, believe it or not this is what concerns me when I think of the end of the world.  

So if I were a billionaire I would look to find a way to preserve all this information so that future civilizations or possible alien civilizations are able to inherit as much of our knowledge of the universe and history of life on Earth.  Essentially this is passing on our civilization’s legacy.  I’m thinking of something similar to the Svalbard global seed vault in Norway.  This is a vault which holds and preserves over 750,000 different types of seeds from around the world in case of a global catastrophe.

entrance to the Svalbard global seed vault

My idea would be to print every single page on Wikipedia in every single language on some sort of permanent medium such as stone or concrete.  Then store these documents in an abandoned mine or inside of a mountain.  As a person who values knowledge over many things in the world, I think this would be a worthwhile investment.  

Justifying my obsession with professional sports

To stop and think about it for a little while, it’s a little embarrassing how much time, money and thought we as a society spend on following professional sports.  Billions of dollars are taken in by professional sports organizations globally and we willingly and gladly give it to them.  Professional athletes are rewarded with multimillion dollar contracts that make the paycheques of doctors and lawyers look like the sum of my weekly allowance as a child.  But why do these facts make it seem like something is wrong with civilization? Perhaps it is the fact that sports seem so tribal and an expression of our primitive ape within us.  But this is the precise reason I will give for my justification for enjoying it so much.

As a species by nature we are drawn together to belong to a group.  We are a tribal species who, for the majority of the time that the human species have existed, have lived their entire lives in small hunter gatherer bands (usually 10-50 people).  By necessity, we developed an extremely co-operative and benevolent relationship with the people we lived with.  We created unique identities for our bands and tribes by way of cultural practices to signify the difference.  We marked ourselves with tattoos and wore different colours.  We began circumcising our young boys, (occasionally girls) stretched our lips, ears and other gruesome body modifications. We were proud of our tribe to the extent that we physically fought other human tribes over territory, resources, religion and probably just bragging rights as well.  

As humans began living in larger groups and the global population began rapidly increasing.  This attitude would always lead to violence throughout human history.  It becomes incredibly more tragic when our tribal attitudes create racist identities that lead to genocide and slavery.  And our religious sects that have caused crusades, terrorism and holy wars.  And our nationalistic pride that has sent countless of millions of young people to their death in pointless international and world wars. 

Now compared to the damage that our primitive collective, tribal attitudes have done to the progress of human beings, sports seem rather harmless.  In fact I believe it’s a healthy expression of what it means to be a human being.  Yes we are tribal, but it can be expressed in non-violent ways that bring more people together than divide them.  Sure there are exceptions when sporting events end in violent acts.

....cough...cough... I’m looking at you Vancouver!

 But for the most part people get a great amount of peaceful enjoyment out of watching their home city team beat their rival team.  So you shouldn’t feel guilty about coughing up money for a ticket to a Calgary Flames game or enjoying a drink or five at your buddies’ house while watching the Superbowl.  And those meatheads who make 27 million a year to smack a ball with a bat?  Well they are providing an essential service to society.  Sure sports are silly when viewed objectively but so is most other things we enjoy.   

Scott

An introduction to my blog

For months I have wanted to start writing a blog.  Mostly because I always have crazy ideas bouncing around in my head that I want to write down or express in some way.  Otherwise I will probably forget about them.  And with school beginning again, I think this will be a great platform to get the ideas flowing for the many philosophy papers I will have to write this semester.

As the title implies, the blog may mostly be regarding my passion for the study political ideologies and religion.  But I have only written one entry so far so the focus of the blog may change as time goes by.  Anyway if you have read this far, thank you for your interest and I hope you enjoy it.  Also, if I'm just wrong or if you disagree with something, feedback is greatly appreciated.