Introduction

I am a writer. I wrote a column for my local newspaper and was a staff writer for a political blog. Writing is more than a hobby or a job to me, it's my passion. It is as integral to who I am as my eye color or my opposable thumbs are. It's part of my basic nature.
Neither my tenure as a columnist nor my political writings ever netted me a financial windfall nor am I in any imminent danger of winning a Pulitzer prize for my ramblings but I write regardless of those realities. I write because I have to. Writing is a form of catharsis for me. It forces me to slow down and order my thoughts and it allows me to shut out the din of the outside world long enough to think clearly which can be a difficult task in today's modern, digital world. The incessant demands on my time that stem from my reliance on my cell phone and my computer tend to wreak havoc on my sanity and writing is a safe haven from the pressures and demands of the outside world.
There is one basic rule for writers that states, "Write what you know and if you don't know it, research it until you do."
It is with that maxim in mind that I chose to write about the music and influence of the band Rush. I know Rush. I've been a fan and devotee' for more years that I can count. In fact, I can't remember a time when I didn't love this band.
I was hooked from my first hearing of 2112 and I followed them closely from that day to this.
This blog is about how I viewed the band growing up as an outsider, the weird kid who got good grades without really trying too hard and how they impacted the rest of my life.
It is because of this band that I became a somewhat accomplished musician. I was inspired by their technical excellence and the simple fact that they were outsiders like I was. They walked their own path apart from the rest of the music industry at the time. They were my ideal companion during the formative, questioning years of my life. I gained a sense of belonging in a world where I didn't always belong. None of my friends liked the band and I wound up a fan club of one.
Over the years, I sang the praises of Rush and it fell on increasingly deaf ears. I forced the guys in my small circle of friends to listen to 2112 while we played D&D and eventually they came to accept that my musical tastes were a bit skewed from theirs. Years later, one of them would tell me that it wasn't a D&D game unless Perdicho started blaring some Rush. The summer before my senior year in high school I worked at our local mall and towards the end of the night when closing loomed ahead, I would put "Moving Pictures" into the boom box I had in the back of the store I worked in and turn the volume loud as I cleaned and closed out the night. The girls who worked across the way from me began to look forward to my nightly musical interludes. I had bought the back catalog of Rush and would choose a different cassette tape every night. In the waning hours of the evening when the mall was devoid of foot traffic, my fellow mall rats and I would meet in the middle aisle and talk about our jobs, school and the myriad of mindless teenage topics we were interested in as Rush blasted out of the back of my store. One of them, a lovely young woman named Janice would admit later that her love of Rush today was based primarily on being forced to listen to it at my insistence nearly every night. She and I remain close friends to this day and we still laugh about the music I chose to play every night.
Just as the band's belief that if you kept doing what you love would bring the audience to you, so too did my incessant proselytizing about the band eventually win many of my friends over and they became fans as well.
I am also a professional musician and it is without any hesitation that I can say with absolute certainty that I would not be one today if not for Rush. I began my musical journey as a drummer in marching band and then to a full kit years later eventually in possession of an enormous double bass 11 piece Rogers kit that required a truck to move around. I was a pretty good drummer. That is, until I discovered Rush and realized that in comparison to Neil Peart, what I did could not strictly be called drumming. I hacked at the drums, pounded on them like a 5 year old on a sugar high compared to Neil. I used this lack of self esteem for my instrument to get better but finding uninterrupted practice time with a kit that big was hard, to say the least. I was playing in a band and drumming my little heart out when I mentioned my love of Rush to the guitarist and said I'd love to learn to play guitar the way Alex did. The guitarist smiled a dismissive little smile and told me to, "Stick to hitting things, that's all you're really good for." Well, that was the sound of the gauntlet being thrown down as far as I was concerned and I borrowed a beat up acoustic guitar from my girlfriend and began hacking my way along the neck, learning little melodies and working on my callouses. Fast forward a few years and I found myself growing closer to my guitar and leaving the drums behind to the point that the year I was thrown out of college for drinking, I sold my drums and bought a used guitar and small amp from a pawn shop.
The rest is history.
Having been politely asked to leave the campus of UT Arlington, that's the way I tell it to my children at least, I wandered aimlessly for a few months and found myself in the United States Army in Germany with more free time than someone with my propensity for imbibing alcohol should really have.
As it turned out, all that free time gave me an excuse to get better at guitar and within a few short years, I was actually quite good. I'd learned quite a few Rush songs not to mention the other hits of the day and I felt a kinship with my guitar that seemed more satisfying than drumming ever had.
Now, I spend as much time playing guitar as my sometimes hectic life will allow and a lot of that time is spent playing Rush songs.
I will spend time scouring the internet for backing tracks to my favorite songs and record myself playing along with them. It's a bit like being in the band with Geddy and Neil and it's quite a thrill to hear myself doing what Alex does, at least in some small way. In the intervening years, I also learned to play keyboards and began learning some of the keyboard parts to many of the Rush songs I loved so much. I even bought a bass guitar and attempted to learn some of the bass parts but reality finally kicked in and I hit the wall of Geddy's amazing playing ability so hard it gave me a bloody nose.
All this time I had not only been learning the songs but studying them from a critical perspective and learning why they were so good. Playing as many instruments as I do gives me a somewhat unique view into the music that I think many casual listeners never get to experience. They know they like the music but I know why they like it. I've been able to 
pull the mask off of the music and see it in it's pure form because of my knowledge and love of music theory. It's not a necessity to know theory to appreciate Rush. All that's required is a brain and a heart.