The fact that I liked Journey was an example of my varied musical interests in the early ’80s. My appreciation of music styles went far beyond New Wave, punk, rock, and “classic rock.” I was also becoming increasingly aware of jazz music and the legendary drummer Buddy Rich. And I loved musicals and was still getting regular doses of The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof from my parents on the family stereo. Musicals were like theatre mixed with music, and that wasn’t too far from what Bowie did. But perhaps most of all, outside of Bowie and the New Wave revolution, I developed a rabid interest in the Toronto band Rush. My real devotion to Rush would begin at Tom Rivington’s house in 1981.
I have this theory that the first time you really listen to an artist or band, you can intuitively sense what your relationship will be to their music for the rest of your life. Usually. You will know deep inside whether you like them or whether their music is not for you. You will even know in that moment if you’re going to become a real devotee. Your gut will know this, no matter how many friends give you their opinion. You will know it, no matter how many times you say things like, “I wasn’t so sure about Madonna … but she’s really grown on me … now I really like her.” It’s not true. You always knew. And eventually the chickens come home to roost, and you will hate or love or be indifferent to Madonna. But you’ll usually know how you feel from the first minute you really listen. That is, if you learn to trust your gut.
It’s like the way mothers know about girlfriends. The first time your mother meets your new girlfriend, she may have no information about this person, but somehow she always knows if the girl is right or not. Mothers are natural arbiters of people you want to date. Or people you think you want to date. Or people you want to take on a date but are trying to do it in a way that won’t be considered a date so they won’t say no. Mothers are arbiters of those people. My mother was always able to do this. She probably knew that Dana Verner was going to break up with me when she met her for the first time at my birthday party in Grade 5. She knew it wasn’t right. She knew this, even though she said, “Dana seems like a very nice blond girl.” I could tell by the way my mother said things. Your mother has the antenna with girlfriends. And, in the same way, we all have that with music.
But the antenna will only work when you’re actively listening. You have to really experience the artist for an inaugural time. So, I’m not talking about a song you might hear when you’re walking through a mall. You’re not really listening then. Or when your father says, “I don’t understand thees punk music, why you are playing thees so loud?” He’s not listening. Or when you’re tapping along to a catchy melody that comes on with an ad on TV. That doesn’t count, either. I’m talking about actually sitting and listening in a focused way and giving something a chance. Like when you’re alone in your car and a new artist comes on the radio and you somehow opt not to turn the channel but to listen to this new song and decide what you think. Like that. After that first time, you know.
I knew I would become a devotee of Rush the first time I heard them at Tom Rivington’s house in the fall of ’81. I mean, I’d heard Rush songs in passing on the radio before that. But I first really heard Rush at Tom Rivington’s house. It was after school in the beginning of Grade 9, and we were upstairs in his bedroom with Pete Hickey. Tom Rivington handed me a pair of large headphones plugged into his stereo and said, “I’ve got something you’re going to want to hear.” Tom Rivington was often right. This time, he was very right. And that moment would lead me to a Rush-related pilgrimage in the summer of 1982.
Tom Rivington had good headphones. They were large. In 1981, people only really wore headphones that were attached to their stereos. The Sony Walkman with portable headphones was invented in 1979. It would catch on very quickly over the course of 1982, but it wasn’t really commonplace yet in ’81. Things are very different now. Everyone wears headphones these days. Always. Have you noticed that? Well, maybe you haven’t noticed that, because it’s so obvious. Saying everyone wears headphones is like saying everyone has a mouth. Obvious. People wear headphones nowadays walking down the street, or driving a cab, or while they’re working out, or when they’re in bed, or when they’re on the subway. People wear headphones attached to their iPads and their BlackBerrys and their video games. Much of the time these days, people wear “earbud” headphones that go right inside their ears, so you can’t even tell that they’re wearing headphones. You’ve probably been in the back seat of a taxi and thought the driver was speaking to you, but he was really speaking to a person that existed inside his headphones.
Now imagine there was a time before everyone wore headphones. Imagine a time when headphones were only attached to stereos. And if they were big headphones, they were considered better. And if the stereo was also big, it was the best. Then imagine yourself putting on those headphones for the first time, and they’re pretty loud and it’s a live Rush album and you hear Neil Peart’s remarkable and protracted drum solo from “YYZ” recorded at the Montreal Forum in the spring of 1981. Well, here’s the thing: in that moment you will freak out (in the good way) and stand a good chance of becoming a lifelong fan. For me, it was both.
Rush came from Toronto, and in the ’80s they were the kings of Canadian rock. They could play their instruments better than anyone else in the business. Well, actually, they could play their instruments faster than anyone else in the business. But many people agreed that this meant better than anyone else in the business. Rush had started out in the early ’70s as three guys with long, stringy hair and moustaches and strange, flowing outfits that looked like wizard robes. Back then they played heavy rock songs that weren’t really very popular, and the wizard robes didn’t seem to help. But by the early ’80s, Rush had become three guys with long, stringy hair and no moustaches and no wizard robes. And by 1982, they had hit songs and they could fill arenas with their fans. Rush were loved for their musical precision and impressive solos. Later, they would become known as purveyors of “math rock.” In the ’80s, everyone in Canada was aware of Rush. Even my Persian-Canadian father knew Rush. He would call them “The Rush,” just like he said “The Dan Hill.” By the time I was in my mid-teens, I had become very interested in Rush, and my father would tell people this: “Yes. My son. He ees a big fan of The Rush!”
But I didn’t know all this about my Rush fandom in 1981. And I didn’t know I would become a devoted Rush follower in the midst of my adoration for Bowie and New Wave. I didn’t have a sense of this until one afternoon at Tom Rivington’s house.
Tom Rivington was tall and had longish, straight hair that parted in the middle. He was only a few months older than me, but he was one of those guys who always seemed wiser than the rest of us. Imagine Deepak Chopra when he was twelve years old. Deepak Chopra is a prolific book-writing spiritual guru who has published more than fifty volumes. Now, imagine him at twelve. He was probably disproportionately wiser than kids who were a few months younger than him, right? He would probably declare things like, “Grape Crush drink … I do not think that is a good idea,” and everyone would agree that Grape Crush was not a good soda-pop idea because young Deepak Chopra said so. Then, after that, no one would drink Grape Crush. Well, Tom Rivington was like Deepak Chopra, except tall and white and with long, straight hair that parted in the middle.
Tom Rivington’s dad, Mr. Rivington, was a Scout leader with our 2nd Thornhill troop and wore a Scout uniform, even though he was an adult. Mr. Rivington wore the shorts of the Scout uniform too. He was a large round man, and his adult Scout shorts needed to be extra-extra-large. Mr. Rivington was a very good man. Everyone knew that the adults who wore Scout uniforms cared the most about scouting. They were also probably the best at using the Coleman stoves on camping trips. My father was the treasurer of our Scout troop for a while, but he only wore suits. My father was a professional engineer. In Iran, professional engineers wore suits, just like my father. On rare occasions, my father would dress more casual and put on a dress shirt wi
th a sweater. But my father would never wear the Scout uniform with the shorts—even if he didn’t require the extra-extra-large size like Tom’s dad. People could probably tell that my dad was not as good with a Coleman stove.
Tom Rivington had a really big JVC home stereo in his bedroom. It took up a whole section of the wall next to his bed. It was the best stereo of any of the Thornhill kids I knew. It was even better than something Davey Franklin would have had. In the early ’80s, if your stereo was big, it was good. If it was really big, it was even better. Tom Rivington’s JVC stereo featured a number of rectangular metal units stacked on top of each other. Each unit had a series of flashing lights next to the knobs. Sometimes, when Toke or Pete Hickey and I were at Tom Rivington’s house, we would close his bedroom door and turn off his bedside lamp, and we would watch the flashing lights while the music played. We would all be very impressed. And we knew it was an excellent stereo because it was the size of half a fridge. And the speakers came up to our waists.
You see, in 1982 things were better if they were bigger. Now, things are better if they are smaller. For example, in the early ’80s, large cars were considered better than small ones. Everyone agreed this was true, except the Europeans. At least, that’s what my father said. The Europeans liked smaller cars, but no one else did. My father had a very large Buick. When he first got the Buick, he proudly commented on how big it was. “It ees one of the biggest cars! It ees very long! It ees longer than the Cadillac car!”
My father was sure he had a very good car because it was so big. And bigger things were better.
The same was true of muffins and doughnuts. In the ’70s and ’80s, everyone preferred to eat large muffins. And if you got a big doughnut, you were lucky and you were happy. We knew about doughnuts in Canada, because Canada is the country with the highest doughnut consumption rate in the world. That is a fact. Canada also has the most doughnut shops in the world. Another fact. And Canada invented treats called butter tarts. Fact. They were also large in the 1980s. By large, I don’t just mean popular, but actually significant in size. But even our biggest doughnut chain, Tim Hortons, started making smaller doughnuts called Timbits, and by the 1990s they were all the rage, because they were smaller. Now, coffee shops sell mini-muffins as well, because they are better, because people want smaller things and people will get less fat with smaller things.
I have made a short list (or shortlist) of items that were once considered better if they were bigger but are now considered better if they are smaller:
stereos
cars
computers
phones
doughnuts
As you can see, there were many items that were considered better if they were bigger in 1982. Before everyone had personal computers, the bigger they were, the more impressive they were. The first computers were the size of a bungalow. Those were really good computers. Now, everyone wants a tiny computer that they can put in their pocket.
All this attraction to big was also true when it came to Rush. Rush were bigger than most bands. And the fact that Rush were bigger meant that they were better. It’s not that they had more members than other groups. They didn’t. But they had big amps and big stage shows, and Neil Peart had the biggest drum kit on any stage. Rush had songs that were longer than other bands’ songs, just like my father’s Buick was longer than most other cars. Rush were only three guys, but they had a BIG sound. Nineteen eighties big. So, when Tom Rivington gave me his large headphones and cued up the music on his giant stereo to the big drum solo in “YYZ,” he knew I would be impressed. And what I heard blew my mind. I mean, it was actually blowing my mind with the volume, the drum riffs, and the impressive sonic array of noises being piped into my ears.
Soon after my experience at Tom Rivington’s house, I became a true Rush fan. I started by buying the new live album at the time, Exit … Stage Left. I continued collecting Rush records with Moving Pictures (1981) and then Permanent Waves (1980) and then 2112 (1976). I worked my way through Rush’s back catalogue the same way I’d done with Bowie, and with the Beatles in Grades 7 and 8, and with the Clash in ’82. I took regular trips to Sam’s or A&A on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto to buy these albums. In the early 1980s, the act of buying music was itself a testament to how much you appreciated and wanted the records. It was no simple task. These days, you might hear a song you like, and so you click a button on your computer and it ends up in your collection. You click this button on your tiny computer, because smaller is better. The item you buy is now so small it’s only a few words on your screen. It’s not even plastic or vinyl or anything. But in 1982, you had to want the music badly enough to put in the time.
Let me explain for those of you who weren’t around what it was like to buy music back in the day—back in the ’80s. (I’m qualifying this as “back in the ’80s” because I realize that “back in the day” can also refer to the 1970s, the 1990s, or the 2000s, depending on whether you’re really old or not really old.) For each Rush album I ended up buying—not to mention my increasingly bulging Bowie back catalogue—I had to make significant plans in advance. First, I would need to earn the money for an album by working at SAVCO Pet Food and Supplies. I would greet people at SAVCO by saying, “Welcome to the largest retail pet food outlet in North America. Can I help you?” That was what I was expected to say. My job at SAVCO was to shovel mounds of dog kibble from twentykilogram bags into two-kilogram bags and then seal them and label them. I did this for hours. Initially. This was before I graduated to the more glamorous role of dog-food sales clerk when I was fifteen. That was a big promotion. Not everyone got elevated to dog-food sales clerk. That really became my job. And I counselled people that if they fed their dog too much of a cereal-based product he could grow up to have a less shiny coat and a dark attitude. But anyway, with the money I earned from shovelling dog food, I would have enough to buy a record album. Singles had fallen out of favour in the 1980s, and it was all about buying the full record. It was all about having the full album experience, man.
Once I earned enough money, I would go “record shopping” with Toke or Murray. This involved actually leaving the house. Nowadays, you might just press that button on your tiny computer at home to get the music you want. You might buy music while you’re actually doing something else. For instance, you might choose to press the button and buy the music while you’re taking a bath. That way, you are buying music and getting clean at the same time. But in the ’80s, we had to leave the house with specific intent to get an album. We would take a Thornhill Transit bus to Finch subway station and then a thirty-minute subway ride to Dundas station on the Yonge line. Then we would walk to Sam the Record Man and into the magical den of new vinyl and cassettes.
Sam the Record Man was massive. It was three floors of musical bliss in the heart of downtown Toronto. Walking into Sam the Record Man in the early ’80s was like witnessing one of the wonders of the world. It was a drug emporium for a pothead. It was a candy factory for a kid with a sweet tooth. It was filled with every kind of record and cassette from every genre and era you could imagine. For me, it was like Niagara Falls.
Niagara Falls is a tourist site about ninety minutes from Toronto that adults consider very impressive. My parents would take us on a family trip to Niagara Falls each summer, and sometimes, when relatives from other countries like Iran or England visited us, we would take an obligatory trip there. We went to Niagara Falls because the falls were a natural wonder and were really big and had hosted many daredevils who went over them in barrels. But I never totally understood what we were doing at Niagara Falls. My parents and relatives would all look at the falls and say things that suggested they were awestruck.
“Wow. I could just stand and witness this for hours,” my mother would say. “Don’t you love this, honey? It is just so breathtaking.”
“Yeah. It’s good. We saw this last year,” I would reply.
“The water, it ees never stopping! It ees creating energy!
” My father was also very impressed with Niagara Falls. Always. He was an engineer. So my father would explain that the falls were a source of atomic energy. Or something like that.
But I never totally understood the magic of Niagara Falls. It sure was big, but I usually felt like we were just standing and looking at water. That was because we were just standing and looking at water. It’s as if you stood and watched your tap. Now, imagine the tap was really big and no one turned it off. That was Niagara Falls. Was that really interesting to look at after thirty seconds? I never understood it. But Sam the Record Man was wondrous. I could stare at the offerings in Sam the Record Man for hours and hours. I imagined what it would be like to own everything in Sam the Record Man— even those Bowie rarities on vinyl from Europe. I could not get tired of seeing these things. If I’d had lots of money, I would have bought Sam the Record Man before I bought Niagara Falls. For young teens who were into rock music in 1982, Sam the Record Man was our Niagara Falls.
Of course, there was also a purpose to every visit to Sam the Record Man. Once I was inside the glorious emporium, I would need to find, say, the Rush album I was looking for and bring it to the counter. This involved rifling through all kinds of other vinyl records until you identified the one you were seeking. It was probably easier to ask a clerk to help, but that would not be cool. Rifling through vinyl was cool. Then, assuming I found the Rush album I wanted, I would bring it to the counter and pay for it. I would almost always have the exact change counted out in bills and coins, including tax. I knew what I was getting into here. And after I’d paid for the Rush album, the person at the counter would put it in a plastic bag to confirm I was not stealing it as I left the store. Then came the hardest part, another thirty-minute subway ride and trip on the bus before I could get home and put the record on the stereo. On the subway, we would always peel off the plastic shrink wrap and look at the artwork and read the liner notes. Then at last, after a round trip of a few hours, I got to put the new album on the turntable in my room. It was all a lot of work, but there was nothing more gratifying than the journey to buy a new record, and then actually—finally—getting to spin it.
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