By Dave Good (ha!), San Diego Reader

Published September 19, 2002, San Diego Reader

I haven't met many women who can tolerate Rush. With their earthy aspirations and fearsome chops -- they came back this year with some of the hardest, most Tool-ish material ever -- the group's appeal is primarily to male headbangers. Rush is a Canadian unit that made good by honing rock epics and eventually submerging their junk metal roots under a veneer of musicianship, taking King Crimson's progressive rock to a better level. The high-water mark for Rush may have been 1981's Moving Pictures, a collection of somber themes, complex time signatures, and power chords.

Drummer Neil Peart is the group's primary songwriter. In the past, Peart's lyrics have centered on sci-fi, fantasy, and even literary themes. For a couple of albums, Peart conceptualized novelists like John Dos Passos and Ayn Rand (visit Rush's 20-minute epic "Free Will"). Critics of Rush have said that's what you get for letting your drummer write the music. Peart's written a couple of books as well, the most recent being Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. In the late '90s both Peart's wife and daughter died within ten months of each other. In response, the drummer hit the road and put 55,000 miles on his motorcycle before returning home. To say the least, there was some downtime for the band.

My one complaint with Rush is Geddy Lee's voice. It's a rugged falsetto wail, something between a screech owl and a banshee. Geddy (real name: Gary; Geddy is how his Yiddish-speaking grandmother said the word) is a show all by himself. He sometimes plays bass guitar with one hand while the other hand plays fill chords on a keyboard. He also works a foot pedal, and he sings every song. I have doubts that Rush would work without Lee's voice, though. It's the odd counterpoint to guitarist Alex Lifeson's sudden arpeggios. Then again, Rush used Aimee Mann on a song, and that didn't sound so bad.

(ED NOTE: If you'd like to blast back at our friend David Good and the San Diego Reader,, go there.