At one time in my life I wanted to be Alex Lifeson. I would crank my mother’s Pioneer sound system when she was away. When she was home I would burn up the headphones. I think I got caught a couple of times laying down a monster Lifeson solo on a broom stick. Others had Eddie Van Halen. It was Alex Lifeson for me.
Then I thought the bass would be better so I memorized every Geddy Lee riff. Only problem with Geddy Lee is how in the heck does he play bass pedals, keyboards, and then back to bass while maintaining an insane octave in his vocals?
Then it was drums. How could you not be transfixed on the drumming of Neal Peart? I broke lots of air drum sticks in my bedroom, car, and still today with Hale as we cruise around town. She’s thinking of being a drummer but like me she’s gone from guitar, keyboards, and now to drums. Thankfully because she can’t make up her mind we don’t own a recording studio, but it would be fun.
A couple of days ago we threw up our 18 favorites from the most recent Rush studio albums of the closest 20 years. Now it’s time to go deeper into the first 20 years. Here we feature a mix of tunes well remembered from our teens and college years… the tunes that got us busted by our parents, drank our first beers to, asked our friends to crowd around the turntable to listen in awe, and rejected by girls in college for listening too much to…
Truth be told, this would be the “Fly By Night/Grace Under Pressure/ 2112/ Signals Mix” as I could listen to those albums back-to-back any day of the week but as this mix needs some diversity…
We give you the “Rush To BE” mix:
- Finding My Way, Rush
- Best I Can, Fly By Night
- New World Man, Signals
- Something for Nothing, 2112
- La Villa Strangiato, Hemispheres
- Mission, Hold Your Fire
- Red Barchetta, Moving Pictures
- Making Memories, Fly By Night
- Middletown Dreams, Power Windows
- Presto, Presto
- The Analog Kid, Signals
- Afterimage, Grace Under Pressure
- Time Stand Still, Hold Your Fire
- Entre Nous, Permanent Waves
- The Trees, Hemispheres
- Lessons, 2112
- In the End, Fly By Night
- Resist, R30
- Heart Full of Soul, R30
