Rush Archives

Here’s an email I recently received from a reader regarding the passing of John Rutsey.

I knew John personally from 80 to 89 and then lost all contact.

We were all regulars at Mack’s Gym. He was extremely friendly and always had a hello for everyone. He had no use for material possessions, wore an old grey sweat suit, had a bad haircut, took the streetcar to the gym, and had the same gym bag for years. He often wore a wool cap for training before it was fashionable.

He never ever dissed the band or anyone else. He ended up becoming close friends with 2 gym members who were decent well rounded fellows completely unlike the rock scene. He ended up tearing his knee up bad some time in 86 or 87 at a drunken pre wedding stag for one of these friends (whose name was also John). Can you believe they were doing piggy back fights while drunk. I guess this says a little about the boy inside the man that he was. This injury ended his aspirations in bodybuilding which he didn’t know at the time.

He was starting to get a decent physique on a medium frame. This was a hardcore gym so we were all serious about training and little else. When we were first introduced he was more amazed that my dad’s name was Gene Krupa like the drummer (perhaps I should research my family tree).

A few months before his death, he came to mind and I posted a comment similar to this on You Tube for Working Man (posted by Axeman). He just came to mind for no reason as if a premonition.

The last time I saw him was at a gym he was managing in the Yonge Davisville area in Toronto. He introduced me to his girlfriend and this was back in 88 or 89 and he appeared happy despite having a noticeable limp.

I hope he remained happy those final 20 years because he was a truly kind gentle soul. I was sad reading his obituary because there was no mention of wife or kids. He truly would have been a great dad and hopefully the WOULD’VE, COULD’VE AND SHOULD’VE syndrome didn’t keep him from finding happiness.

R.I.P. John !

Yours Truly,

Richard

The information posted on the Digital Arts site states that some greenscreen video was shot of Geddy Lee and that “the video will be generally released in August.”

Not sure if this is old or not… It was posted today but one can’t be too sure about things sometimes.

Don’t forget to use PantFlap to keep up with the latest Rush news and info around the web.

I was tooling around with a concept I’ve had — combining various RSS feeds with a Rush specific search engine — and have launched PantFlap. The site aggregates news feeds for Rush, Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, as well as giving you a snapshot of what’s been posted online in various discussion forums/ boards and blogs.

If you have any sites that you think I should add, please let me know.

Wow. Like the debut album or not… John Rutsey is a part of Rush history and his passing at 55 has thrown me for a loop. Here’s a guy who was a founding member who has basically become a footnote in the band’s history. Compound that by the skill set that Neil Peart brought to the band and their subsequent rise… it must have been hard to live in that constant shadow.

Having not heard anything from or about John over the years makes you wonder what kind of life he had: Was he happy? What was he doing? What does he think about Rush?

Regardless. Gone at 55 — that’s young. Let’s hope he didn’t have any regrets.