Nice piece on Neil Peart on NPR this morning.

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/06/375171736/mystic-rhythms-rushs-neil-peart-on-the-first-rock-drummer

“Walls that no man thought would fall,
The altars of the just… crushed…
Dust in the wind”

Oh, yes. “Dust in the Wind.”

It started out this time as two thoughts. They didn’t seem to have to anything to do with each other. Thought one was “Dust in the Wind,” apropos of I-don’t-know-what. Thought two was “concept,” in relation to The Lamb. (It’s supposed to be a concept album, right? And I really do need to start posting again, right?)

I think about associations a lot, because I’ve been reading Freud. That theme has come up here before. But it’s not just some technical psychological thing. I’ll bet you’ve experienced this a lot, if you think about it. Things that aren’t associated, that you’re sure are proximate only as a matter of coincidence, end up being associated after all. Your experience is not just a big container with a lot of things in it. It’s a web that gathers things together. For Freud, this is why your dreams are so weird, as well as why you used that specific word when you misspoke, or why you forgot that particular thing. But even if you don’t know Freud, you know that feeling you get sometimes when things in your field of concern keep “hooking up” with each other, and your mind feels kind of like a cheap motel.

Thinking about “Dust in the Wind” led me back to Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Karn Evil 9” (all three impressions) from Brain Salad Surgery (1973). It was when I actually began listening that I remembered how mysterious and scary the concept of the piece had seemed back then, and went “Oh yeah, concept.” Sure, it’s a bit dated now in some ways, as almost always happens with “futuristic” stuff, but it’s still easy to see why a lot of folks point to it as the pinnacle of ELP’s glory years, and why its dystopian vision might still resonate.

“Dust in the Wind” was used as a song title the year before the release of Brain Salad Surgery by Todd Rundgren on Something/Anything?, and then most famously by Kansas on 1977’s Point of Know Return. But ELP was THE band during my high school years, and the lyrical transition marked by the phrase in the Third Impression is the one that continues to echo most frequently.

But here comes the surprise connection, back through the piece to the First Impression. What jumped out this time was “THERE BEHIND THE GLASS.” BANG!! I was back in The Lamb, where we find out near the end that Rael’s New York City is behind a “window.” Though there’s no specific reference to glass, “behind the glass” took me to that window, and to the disconcerting idea that a window has two sides. In the case of “Karn Evil 9,” what is behind the glass is “a real blade of grass.” The “behind” is what is on display, the content of the exhibit. That means, of course, that we (the spectators) are in front of the glass.

In Rael’s case, what is “in front” and what is “behind” is precisely what is in question. This is foreshadowed, perhaps, even when the screen (the “wall of death”) bears down upon him, and the suggestion of glass lurks in the comparison to a windshield. What was real, in being absorbed, is now “on screen.” As the online Annotated LLDOB asks, “If what once was thought real is now a movie, is what was a movie now real?”

The window in “The Light Dies Down on Broadway” is one that Rael could presumably step through to return (again) to New York City. But think about where he stands at this point. New York is behind the glass, is it not? It’s on display, exhibited like the evils of “Karn Evil 9.” One might think that to put something on display is to glorify it, to recommend it. Many people seem to think this is what happens when something is put on the screen. We debate about the extent to which life imitates art. Are we more violent because of violence onscreen? But we might wonder also whether putting something on display might remove it from the realm of real options. How likely is it that Rael would choose to return to the world from which he has now twice departed, however strong the gravity of John’s failures as a brother?

I don’t mean to suggest that this is an “all or nothing” question, that we must decide yea or nay as if deciding on determinism or free will. I mean it, rather, as a suggestion that we reflect on the distance between screens and windows, when it comes to where “front” is. It’s a distance for which there’s not a scale or an instrument of measurement, but I hope that won’t stop us from considering it, from listening in light of it.

And it won’t gel, or congeal.  It won’t finalize.  It will keep the indeterminacy and ambiguity that first allowed the associations to pull me in its direction.  It’s still dust in the wind.  But let’s try to feel its sting on our skin a bit when it’s blowing past.

<—- Previous Look     Prologue     Next Look —->

Whether it comes down to talent, musical choices, or the genius of their management, Rush continues to pull off an inspired feat:  embedding themselves in the rock mainstream while maintaining a reputation as music biz outsiders and, deceptively, cultural dark horses.  It’s a trick most rock and punk bands would kill for and it actually does come down to a question of honesty.  Rush never cared about being one of the cool kids and guess what, turns out the world’s not made up of cool kids after all.  And those un-cool kids want to see their band live.

Based on the evidence of Rush’s officially released live catalog, you’d be hard pressed to find a better, or better-documented, live “stadium” rock band.  For its consistent onstage delivery the band itself credits its grind in the clubs of Toronto in the early 1970s.  As that decade wore on and they began writing increasingly complex studio material, their live shows became acrobatic technical workouts showcasing tremendous talent (and perhaps some excess too).  But when they first started touring in support of studio albums, their music and their onstage act fit somewhere between Humble Pie, Led Zeppelin, and Ted Nugent.

Rush: ABC 1974 captures the band in Cleveland on its first American tour, with a few bonus tracks, also from Cleveland, the following year.  The shows are notable because they were recorded by WMMS, famously instrumental in builiding Rush’s career, and also because the show in August 1974 was the first U.S. broadcast of the band.  More importantly, though, the ’74 show includes new drummer Neil Peart.  It’s something of an awkward moment:  Rush’s first album is a riff metal powerhouse, anchored by drummer John Rutsey’s straight ahead hard rock pounding and suggesting as much Black Sabbath as Led Zeppelin.  Peart’s still finding his feet on this set, busy-ing up songs that maybe can’t sustain his presence.  Still, given they’re from the band’s early days as professionals, the performances are outstanding, with early album hit “Working Man” the obvious crowd pleaser and “What You’re Doing” as mind-bendingly great a piece of stoner rock live as on record.  The duds are all songs Rush wisely never put on an album and a cover of “Bad Boy” that doesn’t really go anywhere.  The three bonus tracks from 1975 suffer from poor audio quality while offering a glimpse of Fly By Night.  That title track, the first real success of Rush mach II, bristles with their new sound, and is genuinely exciting to hear despite the muddy recording.  The other songs from Fly By Night (including Anthem and Beneath, Between, and Behind) also distinguish themselves by containing an energy of a sort entirely different, as well as a lyrical focus stretching beyond the rock tropes that characterize Rush’s first.  It’s pretty clear that the band has re-set its course.

I can’t tell you what the deal is with this record, if Rush actually has any say over its release or not, but there’s nothing here that doesn’t speak well of the band in its formative days; and, if you’re a fan of that era, then the heaviosity on display in Cleveland in ‘74 is pretty much guaranteed to take you to church.