SONIC WAVES……RUSH/Signals

1982…Rush leaves By Tor The Snow Dog at home and unleashes Signals to the masses and whoah can you say musical direction change?! Well back than I couldn’t because my Rush collection at the time was Exit Stage Left, Moving Pictures and All The Worlds A Stage!

So here’s my thoughts on the three Rush albums I had as a young buck back in the year of 1982 before i explain my Rush N Roll diagnosis of Signals.

Moving Pictures- every one in 1981 in Tbay that listened to rock n prog had Moving Pictures. TBone was the first to buy it on 8 Track hahaha….and we could not handle  it when the  8 track would skip during the Camera Eye so TBone rebought it on Vinyl! I couldn’t handle TBone hogging all the Canuck prog by himself so I bought Moving Pictures rather quickly!

Exit Stage Left – I got for Xmas 81 from my parents and man every Xmas still to this day i get right back into listening to it at around the time of jolly ol Saint Nick! People trip out over Buble’s Xmas album but for me I trip over myself listening to Xanadu!

ALL The Worlds A Stage-I got this double live wail fest shortly into 1982 as since I loved Exit Stage what the hell let’s make it a double double thru the Rush drive thru!  Rush rips apart the first three albums in a live setting. The first time I heard Bastille Day I was like ….what?!  Ha!

So Signals was released in Sept 1982 and it wasn’t until a month later in Oct as I got Signals as a birthday gift from once again my fantastic parents!

Geddy,Neil and Alex are already Rolling The Bones back in 1982….let’s check it out!

SUBDIVISIONS-wow Geddy cranks up the keys and were off and Neil and Alex rock along and for a while I remember we would cruise the hallways at our Highschool saying Suuuuuubdivisions! I remember reading in Circus magazine as people were freaking out at the use of more keyboards on Signals but why the freak out peeps! Here comes Alex with one of my favourite Rush solos of all time! What a opener even after all these years !

ANALOG KID- bam Geddy/Neil/Alex rip it right out of the gate in synch and man this song just smokes and shows their musical chops and holy hell this is a classic. Drums,bass,geetar are locked and loaded! Man these dudes musical chops are just sick!

CHEMISTRY- wow Mr Peart is teaching class and ya better listen cause this is best Science lesson  sandwiched in under 4 minutes I ever had in my life. Case in point “H2O,no flow with out the other!” Man Neil is a chemist .  The song itself rolls along nicely. Cool use of keyboards in this tune.

DIGITAL MAN- wow Rush goes reggae on our asses and makes it cool I mean this is Rush in one vehicle slamming into another vehicle playing the Police and boom Digital Man…love the ending on this track!

THE WEAPON- cool beginning with Neil kicking things off and steering the ship with Geddy and Alex. The guitars and especially the bass are rocking on this track . “We got nothing to fear but fear itself”, Man Peart just continues to school me with his lyrics.  People complain about the Rush keyboards overtaking the guitars but when Lifeson launches into  solos throughout the 80s I loved the fact that they could,still strip back the sound to that of a three-piece!

NEW WORLD MAN- hey man ….the single good on em first top 40 in the US back ye yonder! Cool song catchy Chrous ….love the bass riffing…..and drums and guitar. It’s Rush! What’s not to like!

LOSING IT- a slower paced tune. I ain’t saying the word associated with slower paced material cause  Rush doesn’t do em but this is a great tune esp with the use of violins! I remember years ago being in an online fantasy hockey pool,and they had a smack board where you could post messages and guys would trash other guys teams and some one took a shot at my squad and all I responded with was Quote” for you the blind who once could see,bell tolls for thee” end Quote..right from Losing It! Dude was dumbfounded!..haha

COUNTDOWN-Me,Geddy,Alex and Neil strap in the shuttle and launch into space and man when I think of Signals it’s  a history lesson. I learned about space travel,chemistry,isolation,  weapons geez a ton of life expierences!

IN CONCLUSION- Rush was a fantastic band and still is for that matter! They where and still are excellent and were always a good release from all the other party rock guys. So when I needed to be tuned up mentally Rush always came through. There musicianship and lyrical prowess was undeniable out of this world. I’m still glad that being a Rush listener all these years later they still as Aaron would say just”GIVIN ER!!”