(PODCAST) Deep Cut Deep Dive: Rush

The first in my new series...

Rush circa 1980. (credit: Redferns)

I’ve decided to start a podcast series. I have a bunch more of these already in the planning stages. A color-coded spreadsheet has been created. This is my first episode. I’d love to hear your suggestions/requests for bands you’d like to see in the series. Or, if you like a band enough, I could have you on as a guest.

Rush is an interesting band for me to start with because their most popular/iconic song ”Tom Sawyer” happens to be the song that got me into them. I also still love the song with no hangups whatsoever about how “overplayed” it is. Still, like any band with an extensive catalog, the residue of The Collective Gaze tends to collect in certain places and not others. I don’t get that at all.

I’ve been banging the drum for deep cuts basically since the day I started listening to music. That’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much. It didn’t take me long to become aware of the distinction between songs that the general public chooses to emphasize and, well, all the other ones. This dynamic creates an odd—and, in my view, completely unnecessary—internal tension where the individual listener’s psychic space is invaded by a false consensus that nonetheless takes on real weight.

It’s like: the more people agree to the same lie, the lie is unavoidable, so it ends up becoming “real” by default. And, try as we might to resist, we can’t help but hear certain songs differently (often as if they’ve been tarnished) because they’ve become popular.

I wrote about it here:

In any case, I’ve had Rush on the brain since May, when I reviewed the 40th-anniversary “superdeluxe” reissue of my favorite album of theirs for Paste magazine.

I also recently posted this “emergency” video, LOL:

Even more recently, I listened to the audiobook of Rush bassist Geddy Lee’s autobiography, My Effin’ Life. (Review in the works.)

Shout-out to all my fellow deep-cut justice warriors out there. Or people with the conviction to stick to their own musical path.

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