FLY BY NIGHT

I haven't listened to Rush in awhile, but had started playing the drums again, and Neil Peart, Bill Bruford, Steve Gadd and (Don't laugh) Ringo Starr were the people I learned from, other than my teachers.

I saw Rush at the Belleville Area College (Illinois) gym, when they still had Steve Rutsey.

I liked them alot.

I also started into the professional music business at the time, having producing and engineering credits for many bands from Capital, WEA, RCA, etc.

And ended up with a Platinum record from Duran Duran, altho I liked producing and recording Hip Hop bands from NYC.

But I digress.

I liked the 1st Rush album. I'd give it maybe a 3 out of 5, and left it at that.

Then I received the "Fly By Night" LP. (Wasn't this a Polydor or Mercury release?)

I loved it. I've seen some posts that it was a Led Zepplin rip off, and I have to disagree. And I'd already seen Zepplin more than once at this point.

Page is a great guitar player, but usually sloppy live. Bonham had the "Purdy" feel, but I always thought of seeing him flailing his arms around. Great drummer, but a different style. Robert Plant, same thing, great studio, but all over the board live.

I heard "Fly By Night" learned all the songs on drums, and I was hooked.

Then I saw them play live on the "Fly by Night " tour, and I was really impressed.

Aerosmith always sounded like crap live. I couldn't even tell what song they were playing one time it was such noise, till they got to the drum break, and I figured out it was Sweet emotion. Zep was hit or miss. Queen could actualy pull off their studio cuts live, but an entirely different style (Brian had those 3 Vox AC30 stacks, with each one running a Echoplex between them. One gig I got to actually give his guitar a strum during a sound check.)

Rush sounded crisp and clear. They had a very tightly assembled stage.

Basically, they rocked, and I was hooked.

I quit the music business in about 1990, and had not seen Rush since about 1980. And up till that time, I maybe had seen them 12 to 15 times.

Fly By Night opened many players to a new kind of band. They rocked, and were technically brilliant. Yes was also technically brilliant, but more like classical chamber music. (Nothing wrong with that.)

These were songs you really had to learn. Every time and signature change. Every tempo change. This really pushed my percussion from the normal pop and Rock BS, to making me learn paradiddles and the rudaments.

Then came 2112 (We actually played almost all of this album at gigs, along with out yes, ELP, Steely dan and other eclectic playlist.), and I was reminded of other concept albums, especially my fave, Sgt. Pepper.

If you don't want to call this a progressive Rock classic, then what is? Maybe it received les airplay than 2112. But it was a powerful statement of what was to come.

I slowly lost my touch with Rush about 1980-81, when the punk movement came about, and then the advention of drum computers in the studio took all my time. (Remember those Oberheim DX's that we all thought were the greatest thing ever made?)

Now, many years later, I back to playing a real kit, and wanting to play my roots.

Except for YYZ, that I've been writing out signature patterns, and I'm going to ace over the next 2 weeks.