No. 181: Why not Geddy Lee?

GEDDY LEE By Tom Wills, December 2112 ...

Rush will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame April 18 in Los Angeles. My timing is pretty good on this one. 

 

My neighbor Joe, another newspaper type, asked me once or twice, "When are you going to draw Geddy?"
At first it was kind of a running joke. Geddy Lee of Rush. The nerd band.
Well, Joe and I really, really like Rush. Maybe we are geeks. Or maybe -- well, probably -- we're smart enough to understand the band.
Yeah, that's it.
Plus, Geddy Lee is a badass, ranking high among the greatest bass players ever.

 Hate on this.

Sadly, my daughters hate Rush. It's Geddy's voice, they say, although the youngest daughter admits it's better since he's brought the voice down a few octaves.
Women, generally, hate Rush.
Wives especially despise Rush.
People who like New Wave music hate Rush.
Many Americans hate Rush.
People who read and write like Rush.
People who like science fiction and fantasy like Rush.
Musicians respect Rush even if they hate the band.
You are on one side of the fence or the other. There is no "on the fence."

 

 
My fascination with Rush started, appropriately, in Canada.
My dad had a military pal that we'd visit as kids in Burlington, Ontario. That was not a terrible drive from Ohio and it was always a good week's stay.
But then they moved to Calgary, Alberta.  One long ass drive.

Dad took it upon himself to fly the family out to Billings, Montana and then drove north to Alberta.
I will never forget that ride. Miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of nothingness. Occasional grain silos. Canadian Pacific tracks. No rest stops.  Occasional picnic tables.  Family togetherness put to the test.

Calgary was great. Beautiful.  We saw a glacier lake, all kinds of Indian artifacts, fossils and bones, streams and rivers, blue skies. It was beautiful. It was cold, and it got dark really, really early and stayed that way for a long, long time.  People plugged in their cars to keep them from freezing.
The oldest of the three Canadian kids we visited, Murray, had a car. That was cool -- he could drive my brother and I to the store and other places.

Also cool was that this particular car had a cassette player he'd installed.
And, installed in the player was Rush. The "2112" album, to be exact.
It was 1976. America's bicentennial.  And I was in Canada discovering Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart.

This was music unlike anything I had heard before. Loud. Heavy. Melodic. Shrieking. Like Led Zeppelin but not at all like Led Zeppelin. I had him play the shit out of that cassette and bought the record when we got back to Ohio.  I still have it.
Joe and I are still listening to Rush. He loaned me the new one, "Clockwork Angels," which has been in regular play at home, car and work for several months.
Even the haters concede it's probably the band's best: A cohesive work by one tight-but-aging band that rocks harder than ever.

The geeks go hard and win.