It’s September of 1983 and I’ve just moved High school (not town, just school – it’s a long and DEEPLY dull tale of catchment areas and school administrators!!).
So as I deal with the general hell of settling in, finding my way round, and starting all my school relationships from scratch.... we are joined in our form room by an ex student – I’m completely oblivious as to why, but he’s clearly a cult hero to many of my new classmates. Sporting the sort of cool swagger, and easy outgoing demeanour that impresses a 13 year old (even If they are not prepared to admit it) and sporting a well worn denim jacket....something stuck in my mind.
Along with the rest of the decorations on his jacket, embroidered logos from the likes of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC was a patch taking pride of place across the back of his shoulders. If I was familiar with the other bands – classic heavy rock bands, all of whom I liked or was at least familiar, then this was a band I should know all about. I don’t know why, but I distinctly remember thinking that they must be “heavier” than all the rest of them – heavy rock, and liked by the cool kids – I had to find out more.
The band was Rush and I quickly established that I had heard them – albeit without ever knowing – “Closer to the Heart”, “The Spirit of Radio” and “Tom Sawyer” were all songs I heard on the radio and despite the fact that I liked them, they had passed me by to a certain extent.
So I did what any self respecting and law abiding 13 year old does – found a friend with a Rush album and made a taped copy! In those days this was a very detailed process – the best bands deserved the best tapes, with favourite bands earning the right to be immortalised on the hallowed TDK-SA, many others on the more ordinary TDK-AD and the cheep and cheerful TDK-D being reserved for recordings from the radio or bands I was simply giving a try out.
The whole process was completely ritualised. First the cassette was wound back and forth a couple of times to pre-tension the spools of tape. TDK were good enough to mark the leader tape with lines indicating each second of tape and so you would remove the tape from the cassette deck and wind the spool forward with your finger until the recording tape was visible, and then wind it back a couple of seconds before replacing in the deck and pressing pause / record buttons at the same time. The record was then carefully cleaned (in some cases even being washed), the record then laid on the anti-static turntable mat and the dusting arm and roller placed in the grooves for a while. You would then carefully place the arm in the groove, in the middle of the loudest track and the VU meters on the cassette deck were watched as you carefully adjusted the recording level until the needle peeked just into the “red zone”. Levels adjusted and all ready to go, the arm was then lifted into the run in groove and then, in a carefully timed precision operation the pause button was released just a couple of seconds before the music kicked in. As the side of the record drew to a close, you would closely supervise and as the music finished, the recording level was faded down to avoid the harsh jump from crackle to silence on the recording.
This ritual was not reserved just for your favourite bands, it was a matter of personal pride that you never heard the needle touching down, you never heard the needle lifting off the turntable and the music was always loud enough (though not so loud as to distort). People with the skill and equipment to record LPs well were in high demand, friends would bring round LPs to have them recorded to use with their walkmans. It was never a “geek” thing either (not that we’d have used that word then) – music spanned boundaries of the cool and uncool kids and the ability to do a good recording was a prized skill – whatever social group you were part of. I think I could probably pinpoint this as the start of people asking me for any sort of technical help (which continues to this day – I’m happy to say)
I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say in due course about the whole issue of music piracy – but to pass brief comment at this point that home taping for US did the exact opposite of killing music – it was one of two things. The way to get your LP purchases on to tape to use in your cheap Matsui Walkman rip-off or the best way to let your direct friends hear the music you were into. The bands you liked – you bought the next LP! I recently helped my friend go through his huge tape collection and more than 95% of what was there, he’d bought on CD since that point (the remaining 5% was music he listened to at the time, but had no desire to listen to again)
And so Rush’s “Moving Pictures” were immortalised on TDK-D – a fate seemingly inconceivable given my opinion of it now It should have been honoured with the ultimate accolade of the TDK-MA-X.
My friend Andy solidified my love of Rush at the time of the release of Signals and Grace Under Pressure, albums that rarely seemed to be off the record deck of his Bush music centre! I worked my way back through the older recordings and every listen confirmed my thought that here were a band of geniuses.
That said...
Rush really are something of a love or hate band – for one very good reason. Geddy Lee’s falsetto voice really just is not for everyone. I’ve introduced many people to Rush’s music but once I’ve given them the opportunity to hear the band, know there is nothing more to be done other than to let them draw their own conclusions.
That said, I can think of no better example of a band who have carved their own musical niche. Musicianship is at the core of what they do – every member of the band (especially Neil Peart and Geddy Lee – as bassist) can be considered as amongst the very best in their fields. That said, the band clearly work their craft in song writing terms, playing with structure and form, melody and rhythm in ways that many others don’t even attempt. And lyrically there are only a few (John Lennon, Fish, Steve Hogarth) that can quite equal Neil Peart. “Time Stand Still”, “Losing It” and “Afterimage” stand as some of the most incredible lyrics in rock music, they resonate with me at a tangible almost painful level. Far less successful are the tales of mythical gods doing battle and other such nonsense that plagued their early albums, but we were all young once!
Unfortunately the powers that be in Rush’s record company have blocked embedding most of their You-Tube videos – seriously guys... just grow up – embed a link to the official site on the video and let people like me encourage people to take a listen – so the the videos here (most latter period will have to do....give em a try, and see which side of the divide you fall, and remember to treasure your TDK-Ds!!!
More soon....
