The name came from Peter Henderson, who co-produced Grace Under Pressure. “I used a white modified Fender Strat that I called the ‘Hentor Sportscaster’. I loved to be soaked in that kind of effect at the time. But I got a really great sound with the repeats and lots of reverb. There was barely enough room for me to turn my body around when I was playing. We set aside a week for solos, last-minute vocals and mixing. “I remember doing the solo in this studio in England, SARM East, which is in the East End of London. When we started recording the song, it sounded too ordinary, so we tried dropping in those chords during the verses as an experiment. I did a lot of drop-ins where I hit a chord and let it ring, then dropped in the next chord and let it ring and so on. The guitar was tuned up a whole step with the E string at F#, and I played a lot of open chords. “That was a tough one that took a long time to complete. That was the first of many ‘chorus’ albums.” 4. “The Boss Chorus unit had just come out at that time, but I think I used a Roland JC-120 for the chorus sound here. I had the Twin and two Hiwatts, which I was also using live, but the Marshall was my real workhorse. “By that time I had my ES-355, and my acoustics were a Gibson Dove, J-55 and a B-45 12-string. It gave everyone the chance to stretch out. “That was a fun exercise in developing a lot of different sections in an instrumental. If you listen very carefully, you can hear the other solo ghosted in the background. I played a solo while we did the first take and re-recorded it later. My solo in the middle section was overdubbed after we recorded the basic tracks. We had baffles up around the guitar, bass and drums and we would look at each other for the cues. “It was all recorded at the same time with all of us in the same room. We would come off the road, have a few days off and start recording. Because we were writing on the road, we used our soundchecks to run through songs that we were going to record. The Echoplex and wah-wah were staples in those days.” 3. There were a limited number of effects available back then. My effects were a Maestro phase-shifter and a good old Echoplex. I may have had a Hiwatt in the studio at that time, too, but I think it came a little later. I used a Marshall 50-watt and the Fender Twin as well. “I used the ES-335 again, and a Strat which I borrowed for the session. It was about one person standing up against everybody else. There was a lot of passion and anger on that record. Because there was so much negative feeling from the record company and our management was worried, we came back full force with 2112. That was a tough period for Rush because Caress of Steel didn’t do that well commercially, even though we were really happy with it. The Fountain of Lamneth, on Caress of Steel, was really our first full concept song and 2112 was an extension of that. We wrote on the road quite often in those days. (Oct.“We started writing that song on the road. Die-hard Rush fans will devour this fascinating deep-dive into the band’s musically controversial decade. Popoff expertly details the ways Rush expanded its sound, including the use of reggae and electronic music in Permanent Waves, as well as a focus on shorter, tighter compositions on the band’s hugely popular Moving Pictures, and the decade-closing pair Power Windows and Hold Your Fire, which showcased “an astringent, high-strung pop band, trendy keys and synths in excess.” Throughout, Popoff extracts insightful quotes from band members, such as the late Neil Peart’s explaining that he was “a huge fan when I first started to hear Talking Heads, and when I first started to hear the Police and Ultravox and all these new English bands,” and doesn’t shy from being critical of the band (“Pretty objectively, Power Windows and Hold Your Fire sound extremely dated, wholly of the ’80s, where Rush’s ’70s material has become unassailably hip”). Popoff extensively analyzes the LPs made from 1980’s Permanent Waves through 1989’s Presto, when Rush “took to messing about with all the decade had to offer, enthusiastically so,” including an increased use of synthesizers and keyboards. Music critic Popoff delivers an excellent follow-up to his recent Anthem: Rush in the ’70s, the first volume in a three-part history of the progressive rock band Rush.
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