1982

by Jian Ghomeshi

  Why am I giving you this detailed account of purchasing a Rush album? I’m doing so because it really felt like an investment to get music in 1982. Not just an investment of money, but of time and energy. Listening to the music became a reward for all the work you had put in. It’s like we appreciated music more in the 1980s when it wasn’t available to us at the push of a button. And then we would play it on our big stereos with large headphones.

  Throughout Grade 9, I solidified my interest in playing drums and becoming good on the basic four-piece drum kit by spending countless hours practising after school in our music room, Room 273. Amongst drummers in our high school, the standard to shoot for was very clearly Neil Peart of Rush. He set the bar high. Learning to replicate every riff by Neil Peart was the goal of any aspiring drummer worth his salt. All the drummers in the music room learned to play the song “Tom Sawyer,” which had been released the previous year. If you wanted to be a real drummer, you learned “Tom Sawyer.”

  Everyone was judged by how well they could play “Tom Sawyer.” I had gotten my job playing drums in the Thornhill Community Band because Don Margison had seen me playing “Tom Sawyer” in the music room after school and told his dad, Mr. Margison, that I was a good drummer. I wasn’t as good a drummer as Don had suggested. But I knew how to play “Tom Sawyer.”

  In Grade 9, we had a battle of the bands called Rock Nite at the Thornlea gymnasium. The bimonthly Rock Nite was organized by an intimidating Grade 12 student named Hussein. Hussein was quite gruff. And he wielded a lot of power. He was tall and burly and he wore a leather jacket the way Toke’s brother, Mitch, did. Hussein would select from the best high school bands and, if selected, they got to play at Rock Nite. Almost all of the bands that took the stage at Rock Nite played cover songs. You always knew who the drummers in the audience were at Rock Nite, because they would stand right in front of the stage with their arms folded and stare intently at whatever drummer was playing. The stare would become even more pointed when each band inevitably attempted to play “Tom Sawyer.” I wasn’t good enough to play Rock Nite for most of Grade 9, and I didn’t even think I was good enough to stand in front of the stage with the other drummers with my arms crossed. But I practised “Tom Sawyer” in the music room. Don Margison thought I was good. I aspired to play “Tom Sawyer” by Rush onstage one day.

  I was having some trouble in this period reconciling my growing New Wave status with my appreciation for Rush. Rush fans were not very New Wave, even though the band had started to integrate synthesizers and were trying to move in a more progressive, keyboard-based direction. My friend Shael Risman, who was also a drummer and played in our Grade 9 band Urban Transit for a while, saw Rush live at Maple Leaf Gardens in November of 1982. He told us the next day that a Canadian New Wave band called the Payolas had opened for Rush and had been booed by the Rush fans. Shael said everyone gave the Payolas the finger and started screaming, “Fuck off, Payolas! Rush!” I had liked the Payolas before this. They were New Wave, and I had seen a simulcast of their concert at the Masonic Temple on Citytv. A simulcast meant that you could watch the concert on TV at the same time as it was being played on CHUM FM. That way, you could hear the music in stereo—which was especially good if you had a big stereo.

  The Payolas had a song called “Eyes of a Stranger.” It was a bit of a hit, and it would be on the soundtrack for the film Valley Girl the next year. That was more of a preppy film. But in ’82, the song was really New Wave. And it featured “eyes” in the title. There were lots of songs about eyes in the early ’80s. I’m not sure why.

  I have made a short list of songs about eyes that were released in the beginning of the 1980s:

  “Bette Davis Eyes”

  “Eyes Without a Face”

  “Private Eyes”

  “Eyes of a Stranger”

  “Eye of the Tiger”

  “She Blinded Me with Science”

  As you can see, there were many songs about eyes in the early ’80s. But the Payolas’ “Eyes of a Stranger” was definitely one of the best. I had decided I liked the Payolas. But I wondered if I’d have said so if I were there when they opened for Rush. Shael Risman had been pretty clear that everyone had screamed, “Fuck off, Payolas! Rush!” It didn’t sound like the Rush fans would have appreciated me very much if I’d cheered for the Payolas. There were still clear divisions between rockers and New Wavers in 1982. Rush may have been gravitating towards New Wave, but their fans were not. And New Wavers still didn’t really understand Rush. I was stuck in the middle.

  For some of the aforementioned reasons, I had a keen sense that Wendy was not really very impressed with Rush. I had this sense because I had seen Wendy making a face when her brother mentioned Rush once in the hallway at Thornlea. I’d remembered this and made a mental note not to talk about liking Rush in front of Wendy. Wendy was a fan of the Beat, and the Human League, and the Clash. Rush were not cool to her. But it also made sense that Wendy didn’t like Rush because she was a girl. Girls didn’t like Rush. You might think I’m making a generalization. But I’m not. No girls liked Rush. Well, maybe there were some oddball girls who had decided to follow Rush, but for the most part Rush was a guy thing. Just like wrestling in gym class or playing Dungeons & Dragons, Rush was the domain of young men and boys.

  Here is a short list of things boys liked in 1982 that were not as appreciated by girls:

  Coleco tabletop hockey

  Dungeons & Dragons

  wrestling in gym class

  Gobstoppers candy

  Rush

  As you can see from this list, being a devout follower of Rush was not a way to win Wendy’s heart. But even Wendy couldn’t deter me from my appreciation for Rush. They were musical heroes of mine, and to worship them I would have done whatever was required of me. I was also fourteen. When people get older, they have less patience for worshipping their musical heroes. It’s not that they don’t appreciate them or love them anymore. It’s just that increasingly they have things to do like getting a new filter for the furnace because a couple of times a year the furnace doesn’t work very well and they don’t know why and then they realize it’s because the furnace needs a new filter and so then they have to get a new filter so that the furnace will work well again. They have things to do like that.

  But when you’re fourteen, you might camp out overnight to get tickets to see your favourite band. Or when you’re young, you might drive or take a bus for hours to get a glimpse of your performing idol. When you get older, you start saying things that demonstrate that you no longer have the patience for such epic worship. Trust me. Listen to what older people say at concerts. They get frustrated when they have to wait. Even if they’ve paid a lot of money to see a band they think they love. “This is ridiculous. Weren’t the Eagles supposed to be on right at 9 p.m.?” Or: “We’ve been here for at least thirty-five minutes now! I need to get up early and get a new filter for the furnace. This really isn’t worth it.”

  See?

  You might hear adults say things like that. These same people may have been willing to line up overnight for the Eagles when they were fourteen. An extra thirty-five minutes at the show would make no difference. But now they’re tired. And they may need to change the furnace filter. Of course, if you’ve never been a fan of the Eagles, it would never be worth it to wait for them. But when you’re fourteen and a fan, it makes a lot more sense. And that’s what led to the great Rush pilgrimage of 1982.

  By the end of June, I had little in the way of an agenda for the summer months except to work at SAVCO and perform a small role in the Thornlea Theatre Troupe’s outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I also needed to call Wendy and confirm that she was coming to the Police Picnic, and then, assuming the phone call went well, go to the Police Picnic with Wendy in August. Still, my calendar for July was relatively free. Open season. That was about to change.

  One afternoon as the school year was ending and summer was finally about to begin, I
heard the doorbell ring. It was Toke. He was standing on the front porch, huffing and puffing, totally out of breath. He’d obviously rushed over with some urgency. Something was up. Toke had been running. Toke was a bit chubby. Toke didn’t really run.

  “Mitch just told me! ... It’s … they’re coming!” It was near impossible to figure out what he was going on about. “… They’re recording. Dat studio …” More panting. “On Doncaster. Alex Lifeson … dat guy … ee’s great!”

  Toke was really out of sorts. But I could tell he was very excited.

  “What? Who’s coming?” I was trying to keep up. “What is it, Toke?”

  “Rush! Rush!”

  “Toke, slow down.” I had to help Toke get a hold of himself. But with his mention of Rush, I was also feeling some excitement. “What is it you’re trying to say? What’s going on with Rush?”

  Toke began to catch his breath and compose himself. He explained that Mitch had got word from an insider source that Rush was recording up the street at a place called New Media Studios (at least, that’s how I remember the name) on Doncaster Avenue. I assumed this was a joke. But Toke looked quite serious. And he was panting.

  It seemed inconceivable. Rush? Near us? The news was unlike anything we’d encountered in our quiet suburban hamlet. How were we to process the idea that one of our favourite bands was scheduled to record only a ten-minute walk away? But Mitch was pretty reliable. And Mitch had an insider source. So it must’ve been a reliable insider source. This must’ve been true.

  When Toke had fully caught his breath, he explained that he thought we should keep the info about Rush to ourselves. He didn’t even want me to tell Tom Rivington. Toke was very specific about who he thought deserved to hear certain choice headlines.

  In the days that followed, Toke and I did some digging around and learned that the members of Rush were in fact going to be cocooning themselves at New Media Studios on Doncaster Avenue, just up the street from where we lived. By “digging around,” I basically mean we asked Mitch about twenty times for more details. It turned out that Rush were not recording but were practising for their imminent world tour to support their forthcoming album, Signals. The word was that Rush would be at New Media Studios for most of July. Toke and I agreed we would not let this opportunity pass. Other than our shifts at SAVCO Pet Food and Supplies, we had found our sole mission for the first half of the summer of 1982.

  We mapped out a plan that was admirably consistent. Starting at the end of the first week of July, and for every single day over the following three weeks, Toke and I would get up early and make the trip to New Media Studios in the hopes of meeting Rush. Toke would meet me at my place and we’d make our way there. I put gel in my hair and wore my black boots in the hope that, if I met the Rush guys, they’d know I was cool. And maybe New Wave.

  To be clear, we couldn’t get particularly close to the main doors of the building where Rush were practising. The entrance to New Media Studios was on a closed-off driveway where kids couldn’t be hanging around. But the building backed onto a large field and baseball diamond that was at the far end of our old Henderson Avenue Public School. There was a fourfoot wire fence between the parking area behind the studio and the field, where we could walk with impunity. Toke and I would go and sit by the fence each morning and peer through it from around 9 a.m. until dusk. We took shifts, always making sure one of us was present in case the other needed to go to the bathroom or run to get supplies. Our supplies included peanut butter sandwiches, Lolas, bags of nuts, and, on one special afternoon, some takeout burgers from the Golden Star bought with extra money my mother had given us for a healthy lunch.

  Maybe the strangest part about our daily pilgrimage to meet Rush was our unwavering commitment. We didn’t get discouraged when for the first week we barely even caught a glimpse of them. We saw sports cars coming in and out of the lot, but our view was obscured and we couldn’t tell who was in them. But nothing deterred us. Nothing. In our Adidas bags, as well as supplies, we had vinyl copies of Rush albums. We wanted to be prepared if they agreed to sign our Rush records.

  We never saw them. Not for the first week or two. And it didn’t faze us. This was the devotion of two young guys sitting in a field, unconcerned with how long this wait might take. Impatience was for adults. This was about Rush. We were in it for the long haul.

  By the second day we knew Rush were inside because we could hear them practising. This was very exciting. They seemed to play songs in twenty-minute stretches. They would practise one song and then stop. We would hear nothing for a while and wonder if they were still there. And then we would hear a loud bass, or Neil Peart’s drums, or some heavy synth sounds, and we’d know that Rush were still inside. We were getting a free daily concert, if a bit muffled and disjointed. When they started playing, Toke would put his finger in the air and scream “Rush!” He never tired of this. Toke was consistent.

  Most often of all, Toke and I heard Rush practising the song “Subdivisions.” It would start with this heavy bass synth riff, and Toke and I would pump our fists in the air from outside the fence. “Subdivisions” had been released as a single in May. It was from the Signals album. We had heard it on the radio, but we hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the lyrical content. In the middle of the song, Neil Peart’s lyrics went,

  Any escape might help to smooth

  The unattractive truth

  But the suburbs have no charms to soothe

  The restless dreams of youth

  Later, it would occur to me that Rush had been singing about us—kids trying to make sense of life in the suburbs. In some ways we were deep in the middle of that struggle to “conform or be cast out,” as another line in the song says. But Toke and I didn’t realize this at the time. It might have helped if someone had explained it to us. But no one did. And we really didn’t know much about the song’s meaning. And it sounded a bit muffled from outside the fence. We just knew it was the heavy new Rush song. And that we were getting an exclusive preview of the tour. Toke kept screaming “Rush!” with his finger in the air.

  At times, during our days behind New Media Studios, other kids would come along and ask what we were doing. It was always at moments when Rush had fallen silent. We’d say we were just hanging out. Mitchell Toker’s inside source was someone who worked at the studio, but other than Toke and me, it seemed very few people were aware that Rush were practising right there in Thornhill. This was our secret. The only unrealized part of our mission was actually meeting our rock heroes.

  In the third week of our daily routine of listening to Rush from outside of New Media Studios, Toke and I saw what looked like a new two-door sports car parked close to the fence where we’d been sitting each day. This parking spot hadn’t been used before. We stared at the car and wondered if it belonged to any of the members of Rush. We debated throughout the day who the car might belong to. Sure enough, at the end of that afternoon, a skinny guy with long black hair, dark jeans, and a black shirt came out from behind the studios and walked towards the car. Toke and I looked at each other and nodded. It was Rush singer and bass player Geddy Lee. Geddy opened the car door, jumped in, and drove away. Geddy had walked near the fence to get to the car. We’d witnessed this. Now we’d not only heard Rush, we’d seen Geddy Lee. Our patience was starting to pay off.

  For the rest of the third and final week that Rush were practising, we saw Geddy’s car consistently parked at the fence. On the third day, he came out and very clearly spotted us before he got into his car. Geddy looked at Toke and me and then smiled and waved. He waved the way people familiar with each other wave. Like the way you wave to your neighbour across the street, someone you’d say hello to, and if you’re not going to stop to speak to them, you still want to acknowledge them. He waved like that. And when you wave like that, it’s usually a reciprocal exercise. You expect the other person to wave back. But we must’ve been a bit stunned. Neither Toke nor I waved back. Geddy got in his car and drove away. Toke wa
s very upset that we hadn’t reciprocated the wave with Geddy Lee.

  “Ee waved at us and we didn’t wave. Geddy Lee! And we didn’t wave.”

  I wondered that night if we would ever forgive ourselves for not waving back at Geddy Lee—bassist extraordinaire and man with high-pitched vocals. Rock god. What if he thought we didn’t care? What if he concluded we didn’t know who he was? Or what if he thought we were not Rush fans and we’d been waiting for REO Speedwagon or Air Supply or some other preppy band? All of these possibilities were humiliating. But the following day, we had our chance to compensate. This time, we saw Geddy as he arrived. Once again he acknowledged us, sitting there at the fence, as he got out of his car. But this time he decided to speak.

  “Hey, guys!” Geddy Lee said.

  “Hey, Geddy,” I replied.

  “Hey, Geddy,” said Toke.

  Then Geddy Lee locked his car and walked into the studios. It wasn’t much. But it was a conversation. We had talked to Geddy Lee. It seemed a little uncreative that both Toke and I had said the exact same thing to Geddy Lee. “Hey, Geddy.” You might think one of us would’ve gone out on a limb and said, “Good morning.” Or, “Have a nice day.” Or, “Have a killer day of rehearsal!” Or, “You rock!” But no such luck. And yet, we had spoken. This was progress. Just like when I first spoke to Wendy at the lockers and asked her to go to the Police Picnic. And that had turned out rather well. Or, I hoped it would. We heard Rush practising “Subdivisions” for the rest of the day, and Toke and I couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces. We had spoken to Geddy Lee. It felt totally unreal.