RUSH IS A BAND

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Martin Popoff's Rush: The Illustrated History released

We learned earlier in the year that author and music journalist Martin Popoff is following up his 2004 Rush biography Contents Under Pressure with a new illustrative history of the band titled Rush: The Unauthorized Illustrated History. The book was scheduled for a May 30th release but has already begun shipping from several online retailers including Amazon.com. From the book's description:

... for the first time, Rush is treated to the epic visual celebration they so richly deserve in a beautifully designed and profusely illustrated history following the band's entire career. A chronological overview history written by noted music scribe and Rush authority Martin Popoff spans the band's entire career from 1968 to today. A complete Rush discography chronicles all their albums, from the debut album to 2112, Moving Pictures, and Signals to Grace Under Pressure, Vapor Trails, and more. The authoritative text is complemented by album reviews written by well-known music journalists from around the globe, commentary from fellow musicians, a discography, tour dates, and hundreds of photographs and pieces of memorabilia, including picture sleeves, gig posters, rare vinyl, handbills, ticket stubs, and much more.

For details and to order your copy via Amazon, go to this location. Popoff will be appearing at this year's RushCon to talk about the book and sign copies for fans. Thanks to Steve for the heads up.

Win front row tickets for Rush at Jones Beach from Q104.3

New York City's Q104.3 is running a contest where one lucky Rush fan could win front row tickets to Rush's upcoming show at Jones Beach on June 23rd along with meet and greet passes and a custom Geddy Lee Clockwork Angels bass guitar. To enter you just have to tell them in 140 characters or less why you're Rush's biggest fan. They'll then give you a custom URL to get your friends and family to vote for you for the chance to win. The contest is open to fans in the NYC tri-state area only. You can get all the details and enter the contest at this location.

Alex Lifeson Planet Rock interview now online

As I'd mentioned last week, UK digital radio station Planet Rock recently interviewed Alex Lifeson and asked fans to submit questions. The interview just aired this morning (afternoon in the UK) and is now available online. The five best questions were presented to Alex when he visited the Planet Rock studio, and you can see what questions were asked along with his answers in this video. They also have the audio of Alex's full 12-minute interview with Planet Rock's Darren Redick which you can listen to online here. Alex talks about the current tour, the Rock Hall induction ceremony, explains the infamous blah speech, the band's plans after the tour, and more.

Geddy is also on the UK interview circuit and appeared on the Paul Franks Show on the BBC WM today. You can listen to that interview during today's broadcast at this location beginning at the 1:47 mark (thanks Eric at Power Windows).

Rush 2013 Clockwork Angels tour Manchester open thread

UPDATE - 5/22@8:38PM: They played a Night B set but I'm still trying to verify exactly which version, although it's likely Night B - version 3.

UPDATE - 5/22@3:02PM: The show is underway!

Rush opens up the European leg of the 2013 Clockwork Angels tour tonight in Manchester, England. It's not quite clear which of the many versions of their setlist they'll decide to pull out for the show. They played one of their Night A sets for their last show in Atlantic City earlier this month. So if they continue with the alternating of the A and B sets for this leg, then that would mean they'd play the Night B set. Although they may decide to start fresh with the A set for the European leg. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. As soon as I learn anything I'll be sure to post it here. UK Rush fan Robert Taylor is biking between shows on the UK leg of the tour to help raise money for Cancer research. You can help support his cause by visiting his page at JustGiving and making your donation. For everyone going to tonight's show, have fun, be safe, and make sure to share your photos, videos and reports with us. Rush in the UK!!

Date/Time: Wednesday, May 22nd @ 7:30PM (2:30PM EST)
Show Number: 10
Venue: Manchester MEN Arena
Place: Manchester, England

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reviews: [reviews]

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Geddy Lee talks Sweden Rock Festival in new interview

Rush will kick off their 10 date European leg of the 2013 Clockwork Angels tomorrow in Manchester, England. One of the stops they'll be hitting while in Europe is the Sweden Rock Festival - the band's first appearance at a European festival in 34 years. Geddy Lee was recently interviewed by VH1 Radio Network's Dave Basner and shed some light on why the band has avoided festivals over the years:

"The way festivals used to be, we were always prevented from bringing our full show to them, so things changed in the last couple of years. We've started playing a couple of outdoor venues that allow us to do our full show. We did a few in Canada that are multiple-day festivals, where you have a stage to yourself that can accommodate, so that started to turn us around a little bit about playing festivals."

When asked whether he thinks Rush will play more festivals in the future Geddy had the following to say:

"We'll see how this one goes. This one in Sweden is kind of a test case for the European festivals, and if we like the end result, then I think we might start doing more of those, because we can play to more people and shorten the show a little bit and just hit more countries that way. That's kind of what's at the back of our minds - if this goes well, maybe we can go to some countries we haven't visited yet."

Rush will be headlining the Sweden Rock Festival on June 8th. Thanks to Blabbermouth.net for the info and Scott for the heads up.

The Toronto Star's Rush: An Oral History feature now online

UPDATE - 5/22@1:19PM: Cygnus-X1.net has removed most of the feature from their website at the request of the Toronto Star. The article/e-dispatch is available for purchase online here.

In the lead-up to Rush's Rock Hall induction last month, the Toronto Star published an e-dispatch story on Rush titled Rush: An Oral History. Toronto Star journalist Vinay Menon conducted separate and lengthy interviews with all 3 band members, their parents and wives, record execs, producers, management and more. John at Cygnus-X1.net has transcribed and scanned the entire feature and made it available online at this location. The feature covers the entire history of the band as told by the people who lived it. It's a very interesting and informative feature and a must read for any Rush fan. You can read the whole thing online here. Thanks John!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Part 2 of Chad Smith's In Conversation podcast with Alex Lifeson

MusicRadar.com launched a new podcast series with Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers last Monday called In Conversation, and Alex Lifeson was the first featured guest. You can listen to the first of their three-part conversation at this location, and MusicRadar posted part 2 of the interview this morning here. The interview took place a few days before the band's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction over a leisurely dinner at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, California. In the second installment Alex chats with Chad for over half an hour about the Rock Hall induction ceremony, his painting, his pilot's license, John Rutsey, and more. You can listen to it and read the transcript at this location, or get the podcast on iTunes here. The third and final part of the interview will be posted next Monday.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Rush Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony HBO broadcast preview clips now online

UPDATE - 5/22@3:30PM: Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) HBO has taken down the videos from the broadcast from Facebook. It looks like the camera-phone YouTube videos from the ceremony itself are still up though. You can still check those out in this post. There's also some camera-phone vids of the broadcast still available here as well.

UPDATE - 5/20@11:16AM: Here's video from the HBO broadcast of Rush's introduction, Dave and Taylor's induction speech and Rush's acceptance speeches. Here are the performances and the all-star jam (thanks Jim B).

----- snip -----

UPDATE - 5/19@8:24PM: Reader cakes and sparrows has uploaded some vids from last night's broadcast to their YouTube channel here.

UPDATE - 5/18@11:42PM: Well, I was partially right. They did end up keeping Alex's entire blah speech, but they also kept in The Spirit of Radio. It didn't look like they edited out any of the Rush portion at all except for a few parts of the induction speech by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. I guess HBO knew who'd be watching this thing!

UPDATE - 5/18@11:08PM: HBO ended up editing out Jann Wenner's entire introductory speech, but they did at least make it available on YouTube. They also shifted the order of the performers and inductees around - showing Heart's induction before Public Enemy's, along with a few other shifts. And they edited out a few things, such as dramatically shortening Quincy Jones' acceptance speech, cutting out Heart's performance of Dreamboat Annie, and Jennifer Hudson's performance of Bad Girls. Rush's induction should still close out the show though, and I expect to see all of their acceptance speech (including Alex's) but they will likely cut out The Spirit of Radio (just my guess).

Rush's April 18th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will premiere tomorrow night on HBO at 9PM EST. The ceremony will also be available on HBO On Demand after the premiere broadcast, and HBO Signature will present a 24-hour marathon of the special beginning at midnight. HBO has posted a number of preview clips from the ceremony including Jann Wenner's introductory speech where Rush gets a standing ovation. So it's good to see that they decided not to cut this out. The preview clips also include portions of the Foo Fighter's speech inducting Rush, Geddy Lee's acceptance speech, Rush's performance of Tom Sawyer and the all-star jam. There are also a number of images from the broadcast posted here.

Related Posts:
[Rush Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony to air on HBO this coming Saturday, May 18th]
[Rush inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]
[Rush Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction open thread]
[Founding Rush drummer John Rutsey excluded from Rock Hall induction as a member of Rush]
[2013 Rock Hall inductees exhibit opens April 16th]
[Rock Hall induction ceremony update from RollingStone.com]
[Rush on their fellow 2013 Rock Hall inductees in new Rolling Stone article]
[Foo Fighters to induct Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; induction ceremony pre-sale details released]
[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee announcement open thread]
[It's official! Rush FINALLY nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!!]

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Rush's April 18th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will premiere on HBO tomorrow evening at 9PM EST. The listed running time on the HBO website for the edited, televised version is 168 minutes - nearly 3 hours, while the ceremony itself was at least 4 and a half hours long. So it'll be interesting to see what they decide to edit out. Hopefully they'll keep the opening standing ovation for Rush along with Alex Lifeson's blah speech. Alex's speech was the highlight of the evening according to this Radio.com article (and RIAB readers):

"Blah, blah, blah. Blah blah blah blah blah!" That's not a placeholder that we forgot to replace, that's a (partial) transcription of Alex Lifeson's acceptance speech during Rush's induction. You know how on The Muppets, when Beaker speaks, it's all "Me me me me me me!" Alex's speech was like that. It was a comic masterpiece and not to be missed. ...

The ceremony will also be available on HBO On Demand the day following the broadcast, and HBO Signature will present a 24-hour marathon of the special beginning at midnight Saturday. HBO has been featuring the upcoming broadcast of the ceremony on their home page all week along with this behind-the-scenes promo video.

Rush closed out the first leg of the 2013 Clockwork Angels tour this past Saturday night when they played the Marc Etess Arena at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. They are currently taking a well-deserved break before heading across the Atlantic for a 10-date stint in Europe, beginning this coming Wednesday, May 22nd in Manchester, England. MusicRadar.com will be interviewing Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson when they arrive in the UK this coming Monday, May 20th and are asking fans to submit their questions for them. For all the details on how you can submit your question check out this link. They are also sponsoring a contest for UK residents to win front row tickets to one of the UK dates along with a Squire Geddy Lee bass. Not to be outdone by MusicRadar.com, UK digital radio station Planet Rock will be interviewing Alex Lifeson this coming week and are also asking fans to submit questions. The five best questions will be presented to Alex when he visits the Planet Rock studio. For all the details and to submit your question, go to this location. In the lead-up to Rush's upcoming show at the LG Arena in Birmingham next Sunday, the Coventry Telegraph spoke with Geddy Lee for a short interview in today's edition. When asked about their stage show Geddy says the following:

... "We like to try and put as much magic into the design as we can. A full range of visual enhancements such as intriguing animated backdrops and comedy to make the show a fully-rounded experience." ...

When asked about what the band's plans are for when the tour ends this summer, Geddy quips that the band has No plans except for psychiatric help. For those of you planning on or thinking about taking your kids to a Rush show this summer, reader and KidsOutAndAbout.com contributor Debra Ross recently wrote a great article on the subject titled Why you should take your kids to see the rock band Rush--and how to prepare which you can check out here.

This past Tuesday Rush released 2 new digital-only album colections: Rush The Complete Mercury Years and Rush: The Studio Albums 1989-2007. Rush The Complete Mercury Years contains Rush's complete Mercury catalog (all their albums up through A Show of Hands), including the new 2112 Deluxe Edition and 2008's Working Man vault edition. This Mercury collection was essentially already made available via 2011's Sectors box sets (excluding the 2112 Deluxe Edition and Working Man vault edition), but this marks the first time they've been released for sale digitally. Rush: The Studio Albums 1989-2007 contains the entire Atlantic-era Rush studio catalog (Presto through Snakes & Arrows). The collections were made available via iTunes for $79.99 and $49.99 respectively, and billed as being mastered for iTunes (see this article explaining what that really means). The Atlantic-era Rush: The Studio Albums 1989-2007 along with the Sectors collections were also made available as 96kHz/24bit lossless audio via HDTracks.com for a significantly higher cost, but with much better quality. You can purchase these remastered Rush collections via HDTracks.com at this location and get a 10% discount by using the coupon code rush10 (thanks Mark R). The latest Masterdisk newsletter also reveals that the remastered The Studio Albums 1989-2007 collection will eventually be made available on a physical format as well. Note that the Atlantic-era collection contains a remastered version of Vapor Trails, but not the same re-mixed version that Rush and Rich Chycki have been working on (this project is currently in limbo), and which was partially released (One Little Victory and Earthshine) on the Retrospective 3 compilation.

The latest issue of Prog magazine went on sale last month, and the issue contained a 14-page Rush cover feature titled Men at Work: 45 stories from 45 incredible years together. Along with the Rush cover feature in Prog #35, they released a limited edition hardcover version of the magazine's Rush content which includes an additional 12 pages of Rush coverage. Earlier this week, John over at Cygnus-X1.net transcribed the entire hardcover version and made it available online here. The additional content includes a letter from editor Jerry Ewing, a 1990 Presto-era interview with the band titled Presto Manifesto, a previously unpublished 2012 Prog interview with Geddy Lee called Mechanical Animals, and a new interview with Geddy and Alex where they discuss the future of the band titled Closer to Their Hearts!. Here they are on the subject of a 40th anniversary tour:

... Lifeson is not entirely opposed to the idea of a 40th-anniversary tour. "Maybe we'd consider doing one song from each of our 20 albums," he says. "And we could put in some different songs - not always depend on Tom Sawyer and The Spirit Of Radio. But I always say that before a tour and it never happens. It would be a lot of fun to go through the whole history of the band. But in our minds, it doesn't really matter if it's the 40th or the 41st anniversary."

Lee 'agrees. "I wouldn't say no to a 41st or a 42nd anniversary tour," he says, laughing. "I'm not against the idea of doing an anniversary tour - I just don't know why it has to be the number 40. I think a 42nd anniversary tour is much funnier. Or wait till 2015 and do the 40th anniversary of By-Tor & The Snow Dog!"

He is, of course, joking. But there are many Rush fans who would love to see Rush play a set based on their two albums from 1975 ...

MusicRadar.com launched a new podcast series with Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers this past Monday called In Conversation, and Alex Lifeson was the first featured guest. You can listen to the first of their three-part conversation at this location. MusicRadar will roll out the next two installments over the next couple of weeks. The interview took place a few days before the band's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction over a leisurely dinner at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, California. In this installment Alex chats with Chad for over half an hour about a number of subjects including meeting his wife, their 2 children, his guitars, meeting Jimmy Page and more. You can listen to it and read the transcript at this location, or get the podcast on iTunes here. The article also contains a number of great photos from the interview.

Way back in early 2012 we first learned that Neil Peart had played drums on a couple of tracks for the next Vertical Horizon album, which is now finally completed and should be released soon according to the band's official newsletter. Neil had also made a guest appearance on Vertical Horizon's 2009 album Burning the Days, playing drums on three of the tracks along with penning the lyrics for one. At this point all we know is that Neil played on at least 2 tracks; Instamatic and another unnamed track. Here's some video of Neil in the studio with Vertical Horizon from back in early 2012. Vertical Horizon is set to go on tour this summer as part of the Under the Sun tour. For all the latest information on the album and tour, visit the Vertical Horizon website here.

Speaking of Neil, he is one of several drummers featured in Jay Bulger's documentary on legendary drummer Ginger Baker - Beware of Mr. Baker. The film was released on DVD earlier this week and can be purchased at this location. You can watch a clip from the film featuring Neil Peart in a couple of spots (1:50, 2:15 marks) at this location. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.

Gibson.com recently posted an article titled the Top 10 Awesome Rock Bassists (thanks Sean). Geddy Lee made the cut and here's what they said about him:

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Geddy Lee of Rush is basically the original that many bassists try to imitate. What makes Lee so special is the fact that aside from playing some of the most intricate bass lines ever heard, he does it while singing. Sometimes he even adds keyboards to the mix, while playing bass notes with foot pedals.

Here's HBO's behind-the-scenes promo video for their upcoming broadcast of the 2013 induction ceremony tomorrow:

That's all for this week. Have a great weekend everybody!

Planet Rock taking questions from fans for upcoming interview with Alex Lifeson

Not to be outdone by MusicRadar.com, UK digital radio station Planet Rock will be interviewing Alex Lifeson this coming week and are asking fans to submit questions. The five best questions will be presented to Alex when he visits the Planet Rock studio. For all the details and to submit your question, go to this location. Rush will begin a 10-date stint in Europe next week beginning with a May 22nd show in Manchester, England. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.