The very first concert I ever saw was Rush, at a coffee house at Mohawk College, in Hamilton, Ontario. I was 14-years-old. It was in 1974 and I’d never heard of them before. Almost nobody had. But a friend of mine had seen them open for Nazareth at the old Hamilton Forum and insisted I check them out. So I went. Admission was two dollars and I’d never heard anything like these guys before. It was IN YOUR FACE rock and roll - loud and fast and what the hell kind of voice was that anyway? They opened the show with Finding My Way, the first cut on side one, and I was hooked from the first “YEAH, OOOOOH YEAH!"
I went to the record store the day after the concert and bought this record. I found it in the delete bin under “Miscellaneous R”. Yes, it was the "Moon" label pressing. To this day I consider it to be one of the best rock debut albums of all time. There isn’t a bum note anywhere and it’s some of the best rock guitar playing of the era.
John Rutsey is drumming on this album, although when I saw them Neil had just joined the band and the music, as a result, was a little more fleshed out. I still enjoy giving this disc a spin from time-to-time. It has no pretensions, and promises nothing. But it’s an incredibly satisfying listen, even after all these years.
As guitar albums go, in 1974 this was - to my young, rock-starved mind anyway - as good as it got. And it came out of nowhere. It's not a really well produced LP, but it was unlike anything out there at the time and it kicked some serious hard rock ass. These guys were opening for Kiss? Seriously? Probably should have been the other way around.
The aforementioned opening track, Finding My Way, is a wallop. It grabbed me by the balls and never let go. The song ends abruptly and there's scarcely enough time to catch a breath before there's a single sharp drum smack and Need Some Love is almost tearing my speakers apart. The entire record rocked harder and better than anything else in 1974. What You're Doing, Working Man, In The Mood, Take A Friend… the starts-out-gentle-and-then-slays-you Here Again … Before And After … you have to remember these were three kids from Willowdale writing and performing this stuff. Where the hell did they get those chops from?
I wore out that copy of the record and bought another one. I wore that one out, too.
Decades later my son, who wouldn’t even be born until 14 years after I first saw the band perform, became a drummer and Peart became his idol. We went to see Rush's R30 tour together, and it was entirely different from that first coffee house concert in 1974. Big screens, gold-plated hardware and tens of thousands of people screaming the band’s name. They may have evolved and gotten much more popular, but the first note they struck that evening was the same first note of the show I’d seen as a kid.
“YEAH OOOOOH YEAH!" It was awesome!
The version I now have is the 2014 200-gram box set reissue. It sounds really good, but I wish I’d have kept the original Moon label pressing I once had.
Over the years I saw Rush perform 21 times. I literally watched them grow up. This record is …
The very first concert I ever saw was Rush, at a coffee house at Mohawk College, in Hamilton, Ontario. I was 14-years-old. It was in 1974 and I’d never heard of them before. Almost nobody had. But a friend of mine had seen them open for Nazareth at the old Hamilton Forum and insisted I check them out. So I went. Admission was two dollars and I’d never heard anything like these guys before. It was IN YOUR FACE rock and roll - loud and fast and what the hell kind of voice was that anyway? They opened the show with Finding My Way, the first cut on side one, and I was hooked from the first “YEAH, OOOOOH YEAH!"
I went to the record store the day after the concert and bought this record. I found it in the delete bin under “Miscellaneous R”. Yes, it was the "Moon" label pressing. To this day I consider it to be one of the best rock debut albums of all time. There isn’t a bum note anywhere and it’s some of the best rock guitar playing of the era.
John Rutsey is drumming on this album, although when I saw them Neil had just joined the band and the music, as a result, was a little more fleshed out. I still enjoy giving this disc a spin from time-to-time. It has no pretensions, and promises nothing. But it’s an incredibly satisfying listen, even after all these years.
As guitar albums go, in 1974 this was - to my young, rock-starved mind anyway - as good as it got. And it came out of nowhere. It's not a really well produced LP, but it was unlike anything out there at the time and it kicked some serious hard rock ass. These guys were opening for Kiss? Seriously? Probably should have been the other way around.
The aforementioned opening track, Finding My Way, is a wallop. It grabbed me by the balls and never let go. The song ends abruptly and there's scarcely enough time to catch a breath before there's a single sharp drum smack and Need Some Love is almost tearing my speakers apart. The entire record rocked harder and better than anything else in 1974. What You're Doing, Working Man, In The Mood, Take A Friend… the starts-out-gentle-and-then-slays-you Here Again … Before And After … you have to remember these were three kids from Willowdale writing and performing this stuff. Where the hell did they get those chops from?
I wore out that copy of the record and bought another one. I wore that one out, too.
Decades later my son, who wouldn’t even be born until 14 years after I first saw the band perform, became a drummer and Peart became his idol. We went to see Rush's R30 tour together, and it was entirely different from that first coffee house concert in 1974. Big screens, gold-plated hardware and tens of thousands of people screaming the band’s name. They may have evolved and gotten much more popular, but the first note they struck that evening was the same first note of the show I’d seen as a kid.
“YEAH OOOOOH YEAH!" It was awesome!
The version I now have is the 2014 200-gram box set reissue. It sounds really good, but I wish I’d have kept the original Moon label pressing I once had.
Over the years I saw Rush perform 21 times. I literally watched them grow up. This record is …
BONUS TRACK
March 1, 1974. A trio of young Canadians released a debut LP and launched what would become one of rock's more distinguished recording careers.
But it wasn't the best time to be a Canadian rock band just staring out. Geddy Lee recalls how record companies wanted to mold new Canadian bands into commercial, hit-making pop music machines. Alex Lifeson wondered what would have happened to Pink Floyd or Uriah Heep had they started out in Canada.
To retain control of their sound the group decided to record their first album on their own dime, and after running through a short late-night session with producer Dave Stock at Toronto's Eastern Sound they packed up their gear and moved to Toronto Sound, where they recorded some more tracks and added overdubs to the existing cuts.
Lifeson remembers that first stab at recording the album being an eight hour session following a gig somewhere.
Total cost of recording the record? $9,000.00.
Rush created their own label - Moon Records - and pressed a few thousand copies of the LP. But the lack of a major-label distribution channel meant getting their music into people's hands would be much harder.
Then came Donna Halper at WMMS in Cleveland, who played Working Man, which lit up the phones lines. Add in some heavy touring and people started to pay attention. This was the tour I saw, at a stop in Hamilton. That show rocked my world.
In an interview with RushTrader, Halper reflected back on that time. "I had a very contentious relationship with most of the upper management at WMMS," she said. "I was a non-smoker, a non-drinker and a non-drug user in a city where the album-rock lifestyle included all three - and where most of the people with whom I worked had a very hard time accepting my being what today would be called clean and sober. But Rush, who I must tell you enjoyed partying (although not to any extremes that I ever saw), totally accepted and respected me and never had a problem with my avoidance of substances. I became their mentor and big sister, and they became my friends."
This is a classic debut album. One of the best.
MORE RUSH
March 1, 1974. A trio of young Canadians released a debut LP and launched what would become one of rock's more distinguished recording careers.
But it wasn't the best time to be a Canadian rock band just staring out. Geddy Lee recalls how record companies wanted to mold new Canadian bands into commercial, hit-making pop music machines. Alex Lifeson wondered what would have happened to Pink Floyd or Uriah Heep had they started out in Canada.
To retain control of their sound the group decided to record their first album on their own dime, and after running through a short late-night session with producer Dave Stock at Toronto's Eastern Sound they packed up their gear and moved to Toronto Sound, where they recorded some more tracks and added overdubs to the existing cuts.
Lifeson remembers that first stab at recording the album being an eight hour session following a gig somewhere.
Total cost of recording the record? $9,000.00.
Rush created their own label - Moon Records - and pressed a few thousand copies of the LP. But the lack of a major-label distribution channel meant getting their music into people's hands would be much harder.
Then came Donna Halper at WMMS in Cleveland, who played Working Man, which lit up the phones lines. Add in some heavy touring and people started to pay attention. This was the tour I saw, at a stop in Hamilton. That show rocked my world.
In an interview with RushTrader, Halper reflected back on that time. "I had a very contentious relationship with most of the upper management at WMMS," she said. "I was a non-smoker, a non-drinker and a non-drug user in a city where the album-rock lifestyle included all three - and where most of the people with whom I worked had a very hard time accepting my being what today would be called clean and sober. But Rush, who I must tell you enjoyed partying (although not to any extremes that I ever saw), totally accepted and respected me and never had a problem with my avoidance of substances. I became their mentor and big sister, and they became my friends."
This is a classic debut album. One of the best.
MORE RUSH
