Dear Friends,
They say you can’t go home again, but you can. You just have to know the way. Even if it is far.
Thanksgiving was definitely a day for gratitude.
We had a lovely time with Rhondi’s cousins and aunt. It was really good to see them and to meet some of the family, at least for me, for the first time.
After a nice day seeing lots of things pertaining to Rhondi, we hit Pueblo to sleep away from our own bed for the last time for a while.
*****
As we drove through Colorado Springs, I couldn’t help but think how much I miss my grandfather, Tom. I have written about him a lot, especially in the first year of the blog, but even just passing through the town where he lived from 1983 to 1995, it made me think about being up there for at least four Thanksgivings.
The first one was 1983. It was my first time in Colorado Springs and I remember asking Ben a lot of questions about the place since he had been there when his other grandparents lived there. I also remember really liking the place.
Not only was it the place where my grandparents, who I loved as much as anybody could love two grandparents, lived, it was (and still is) beautiful. The mountains are no joke and they are very cool to look at.
The house was cool, too. It had a nice big living area that wrapped around to the dining room. Granny was an excellent cook her day, so the meal was always amazing. It was cold and usually snowed for Thanksgiving, too. Blizzads, even.
I really relished those visits, even though I thought I was missing out on some cool stuff at home with friends or new girlfriends. It was time with my grandpa and that was always a plus, too. He was the best.
*****
It will be great to be home tonight. I am looking forward to hitting the No Volcano farewell show, too. I’ll need some coffee and a place to sit.
*****
As I’ve previously expressed, I was a reluctant Rush fan, but here I am writing about my third album of theirs this year. For a band that I used to proclaim a fair amount of hate for as a teenager, I certainly did learn to love them as an adult. I think I owe it all to Columbia House.
When I was growing up, there were companies like Columbia House where you could join their record club and get ten records for a penny (then, later, a dollar.) If you were into mainstream music, it was a great deal. All the bigger record labels were distributed with them so you had a good selection for your cheap records. For me, it wasn’t always easy.
This is how I got all my first copies of Rush records, though.
I got Moving Pictures for the first time somewhere between 1989 and early 1991. I know where I was living at the time, which was a studio apartment on 7th Avenue and Earll in Phoenix. This is also around the time where I was embracing how dumb I had been when it came to Rush.
I was very familiar, of course, with songs like “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight” because I was a teenager in America in the 80s, and little familiar with “YYZ” and “Red Barchetta” because of having good friends who were Rush fiends, but I hadn’t realized how good the whole record was.
It’s only seven songs but Moving Pictures packs a pretty big punch. I grew to appreciate all those songs I mentioned even more after listening to the CD while playing Nerf basketball in my studio apartment. That was a big pastime for me in those days. I wasn’t huge on doing homework just yet.
Why study for class when you could smoke weed, shoot Nerf baskets, and listen to records and CDs all night?
“The Camera Eye” became a favorite of mine. This one was not all over the radio and felt like something brand new to me even though it was eight years old by the time I paid attention. One of the things I have grown to love about Rush is that they truly did their own thing. They weren’t trying to be part of any specific genre, for example. They just rocked.
“The Camera Eye,” is a great example of this approach. The song totally rocks but it also has plenty of pretty parts. Geddy Lee sings it, in equal parts, with tenderness and ferocity. Alex Lifeson is a master of this on the guitar, as well. Neil Peart just holds it all down, too. Best drummer of all time, hands down.
I say this because you could have inserted Neil Peart into all the bands with other rad drummers and they wouldn’t have missed a beat. I bet Peart could have been fucking great in Slayer. Imagine it.
As I think about it even further, the main riff for “The Camera Eye” is just so good. I like to imagine what it was like in the jam room when they introduced it to each other. I think I remember reading that “The Camera Eye” was something that Lee and Peart were jamming on during soundchecks as some point, but I could be making that up. I believe that is also the case with “Tom Sawyer.”
My appreciation grew for “Tom Sawyer” when I got Liam this game for his PlayStation a few years back where you could plug an actual guitar or bass into it and learn classic songs. I spent a fair amount of time learning “Tom Sawyer” and it is an asskicker.
It’s really fun to try and play, too. I got to where I could play a reasonably mediocre version of the bass and rhythm guitar parts. I saw that as a victory. Small, but still a victory.
“Witch Hunt” is another one that I have grown tolove as much as “YYZ” or “Red Barchetta.” I mention those two because they are great. “Witch Hunt” is pretty unheralded, though, and even though it is mellow, it is still pretty cool when you listen closely to what the guys in Rush were doing.
Man, those fuckers can/could play.
“Vital Signs” is another rad song, too. Moving Pictures is just so damn solid all the way through. I wonder how many keyboard and synth lines were inspired by Lee’s work on “Vital Signs.” A ton, I’m sure. That guy is such a rippin’ bass player and then he’s doing the keyboard parts, too.
Totally. Fucking. Unfair.
But I love it.
*****
See you tomorrow.
W(ai)tch Hunt
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