What can I say? Wavelength was, unapolgetically, a Rush cover band that I was in during high school. I don't discount the prominent part the trio from Canada played in my formative drumming years, but at the end of the day, it would have been nice for me to have been a bit more open-minded. Anthony Allen provided the guitar, while Don Francis handled the Geddy Lee role on keyboards, bass and vocals.

As part of the "Senior Class Talent Show," we had the opportunity to play one of Rush's signature instrumentals, "La Villa Strangiato," in front of half of my high school. The other half got "Distant Early Warning." This went even further to solidify my position as a well-respected drummer with no friends among my high school peers.

On the down side, we lost every single Battle of the Bands we entered. Early on, this pissed me off immeasurably, but the last incarnation of the band, which was when we changed the name to Speed of Light, gave me a bit of an epiphany after we came in dead last with 4 votes. Winning these things didn't matter at all. Playing them mattered, and the upshot was, again, that I was able to demonstrate what I could do in front of classmates and other musicians. Call it having something to prove if you will, but it doesn't seem quite so desperate with the benefit of fifteen-plus years for perspective, although it probably was.

I used to pride myself on being able to play any Rush song ever recorded, up through maybe Grace Under Pressure. What amuses me now is how utterly approximate I was about it. Some of this can be chalked up to the difference between the cassettes and LPs I used to learn these songs, but a lot of it is just the maturity of my playing nowadays. I can "hear" the parts much better than I could then, and they're not nearly as daunting as they seemed when I was a kid. Stickings and voicings are much, much clearer. I remember playing a Vinnie Colaiuta track for my friend Steve, and during a solo break, he nodded in recognition of what Vinnie was doing. To me, it didn't sound like it had any kind of structure at all, but to someone who had a deeper understanding of the instrument, it made a lot more sense.

No mysteries here. Anthony and Don graduated two years ahead of me, although I did corral them into one last showing during my senior year, which resulted in the absolutely hilarious last-place Battle of the Bands finish alluded to earlier.