Rush and the Canadians

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 06:54

shame on me, I forgot about Guess Who. Embarrassed

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 06:03

Let's not forget April Wine.

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 05:57

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Paul, you forgot Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain and Celine Dion. ;)

Out of those bands I listed, you can probably Guess Who my favourite Canadian band are.

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 05:57

SteveG wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

JD wrote:

Born and raised in the Great White North less than an hour from the origins of the band I can say with absolute confidence they are known...and highly thought of. It's a generational thing, but they are probbaly the most popular Canadian rock band after The Guess Who.

I don't see how The Guess Who could be considered more popular than Rush in Canada especially if we are going by album sales. Maybe among people who are a bit older but over all I seriously doubt it.

I believe that Gordon Lightfoot is more popular than both The Guess Who and Rush in Canada.

And Celine above him. But I was thinking more of the rock genre than music in general. Gordon, Buffy, Anne, Celine, David, Leonard are all great but not in the same category as Rush with respect to genre. There are tons of very popular Canadian rock musicians: Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morisette, Corey Hart, Tom Cochrane, Alannah Myles, Robbie Robertson etc. etc. etc. Without specific criteria to use as a measurement (ie: record sales or concert attendance or awards) it becomes more of an opinion thing, that's all.

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 05:43

Up until last year I was working with some Canadians from Montreal. I wanted to ask this very question as I've loved Rush for a long, long time. Thought I'd come across as a bit of a knob if I did though haha. Maybe if I'd socialised with them, I might have brought it up.

Good post and nice to hear of their deserved popularity.

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 03:34

Cristi wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

Cristi wrote:

Canadian bands I know, besides Rush obviously are Saga, Annihilator, Devin Townsend, Mystery, Bolus, Borealis, GY!BE, Harmonium, Third Ion, Triumph, Universe Effects, Voivod. Big smile

The only two bands I know in your list are Saga and Triumph. I thought Harmonium were a French band though, so I'm guessing they must be French-Canadian.

how very predictable. Big smile

have you ever listened to Harmonium?

No, but I've heard they're very harmonious.

And yes, it was predictable, proving once again that you know far more about prog than I do.

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 03:31

Some Canadians rock bands were much more popular abroad than at home. Montreal's Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush and Ottawa's Pat Travers (an English back-up band, because that's where he broke out first) could play in stadiums sout of the 49th Parallel, though not necessarily as headliners.

TCat wrote:

After living in Canada for almost 10 years, I can easily say that Rush is quite popular here. I'm an avid vinyl collector/trader/etc. and Rush is always an easy sell and you can fetch a lot of $$$ for excellent copies. All of the reissues are selling quite well also according to my "new vinyl" sources.

That's always better than in Belgium, where the two greater prog bands (cousins, really) Univers Zero and Présent, most Belgians don't even know of , leaving the awful Machiavel as the best-known.

verslibre wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Paul, you forgot Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain and Celine Dion. ;)

That was just a list of Canadian bands - not solo artists.

What, no Crash Test Dummies, Platinum Blonde or Toronto? LOL

Don't know about CTD's internal popularity, but Platimnum Blonde only had a local success (they started out as a The Police cover band) and Toronto's best-known moments was disputing Pat Benetar's You Better Run hit for authorship of the song. Interesting to see the links between them and Rose and Honeymoon Suite (the latter had a long career)

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 03:13

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

The only two bands I know in your list are Saga and Triumph. I thought Harmonium were a French band though, so I'm guessing they must be French-Canadian.

how very predictable. Big smile

have you ever listened to Harmonium?

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 02:59

The only two bands I know in your list are Saga and Triumph. I thought Harmonium were a French band though, so I'm guessing they must be French-Canadian.

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 02:55

Canadian bands I know, besides Rush obviously are Saga, Annihilator, Devin Townsend, Mystery, Bolus, Borealis, GY!BE, Harmonium, Third Ion, Triumph, Universe Effects, Voivod. Big smile

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 02:29

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

verslibre wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Paul, you forgot Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain and Celine Dion. ;)

That was just a list of Canadian bands - not solo artists.

What, no Crash Test Dummies, Platinum Blonde or Toronto? LOL

No Chiliwack, Max Webster or Klattu either. LOL

I've heard of Chilliwack, but I didn't think anyone else outside of Canada would have heard of them.

I do. Their second album, a 1971 double, is even in my collection. Some highly experimental stuff and hardly any connection with the music of The Collectors, whose debut is a proto-prog masterpiece.

By the way, no Hamadryad or Druckfarben either Wink

Edited by someone_else - December 07 2020 at 02:30

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Posted: December 07 2020 at 00:51

Platinum Blonde was a pop rock band that made a few albums. Their third album was called (wait for it) Alien Shores (1985), and Alex Lifeson even played two guitar solos on it. Dalbello, who later sang "Start Today" on Alex's Victor album (and did a terrifyingly great impression of Caress-era Geddy), contributed backing vocals to some songs, too.

Remember "Wait for an Answer" from Heart's Bad Animals album? Originally recorded by Dalbello.

Familiar with Heart's huge hit "What About Love"? It was intended for Toronto's third album, but 4/6 of the band didn't want to use it! Like Wilson, Annie "Holly" Woods has an incredible set of pipes.

The 2002 remaster of Get It on Credit includes the original recording.

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Posted: December 06 2020 at 21:28

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

verslibre wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Paul, you forgot Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain and Celine Dion. ;)

That was just a list of Canadian bands - not solo artists.

What, no Crash Test Dummies, Platinum Blonde or Toronto? LOL

No Chiliwack, Max Webster or Klattu either. LOL

I've heard of Chilliwack, but I didn't think anyone else outside of Canada would have heard of them.

They had a top forty single in late 1981 or so called "my girl (gone, gone, gone). I bought the 45 but it was warped so I couldn't play it. I went back to the record store and bought another copy but that too was warped. I returned it and got something else(possibly). I never bought it again. Oh well. No, I don't live in Canada though. Chiliwack actually evolved out of a band that is on progarchives under proto-prog(I think) called the Collectors.

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Posted: December 06 2020 at 20:10

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

verslibre wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Paul, you forgot Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain and Celine Dion. ;)

That was just a list of Canadian bands - not solo artists.

What, no Crash Test Dummies, Platinum Blonde or Toronto? LOL

No Chiliwack, Max Webster or Klattu either. LOL

I've heard of Chilliwack, but I didn't think anyone else outside of Canada would have heard of them.

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Posted: December 06 2020 at 19:05

The Tragically Hip is another Canadian band that is a lot bigger up here than most places. The lead singer passed away not too long ago.

Rush is so big in Canada that I've heard them played even in supermarkets. In fact, I heard Jacob's Ladder just the other day in the local Foodland. It was a pretty big deal up here when Peart passed away.

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Posted: December 06 2020 at 17:41

verslibre wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Paul, you forgot Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain and Celine Dion. ;)

That was just a list of Canadian bands - not solo artists.

What, no Crash Test Dummies, Platinum Blonde or Toronto? LOL

I know them! Pretty enjoyable folk group. "Superman Song" is their best song I believe.

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Posted: December 06 2020 at 17:26

I'm Canadian and I don't know how popular Rush is in Canada overall across various demographics. It has been a staple here on rock radio stations (especially classic rock ones) and I would expect that most middle aged men into rock music would be more than passingly familiar with music by Rush in Canada, especially if they also listen to rock radio stations (Tom Sawyer in particular has been a staple of rotation in Canada, and we can find Canadian content guidelines for Canadian media which leads to more Canadian content being played).

Rush is popular in Canada, at least. I don't think it's as iconic as, say, Neil Young (he's as iconic as Molson beer and much tastier), but well-known none-the-less.

I would not say that the Guess Who is bigger than Rush, but I would suspect that many more people would know the song "American Woman" than "Tom Sawyer", even if they didn't know who wrote the song (A.W. is a radio staple and been used in other media quite a lot). Some, I expect, will have confused the Canadian The Guess Who with the British The Who and Doctor Who (as well as Abbot and Costello's Who's on First etc.), and some will have confused the Canadian band Rush with the American conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. My friends got into the band Rush at the same time that they got into Rush, the isobutyl nitrite product that they would sniff (please don't ever try this -- it can lead to even worse headaches than hearing Geddy Lee caterwaul, and is even worse for your health). ;) Half-kidding there. But seriously kids, say no to Rush -- the popper I mean; the band is optional.

I don't want to not mention Canada (aka the Great White North) and Geddy Lee without referring to this:

By the way, when I was a teenager I got into Rush (that was in the 80s), but mostly lost interest in the band subsequently. It did seem to mostly appeal to the stoners and auto mechanics crowd at my school (not that I was into auto mechanics). I mostly appreciate the Quebec (Francophone) Prog scene.

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