Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, May 1, 2009@11:36AM | comments removed/disabled

This past week was a relatively quiet one for Rush news. We learned of a couple of new contests; one at the Rush Backstage Club and one at the Rush Mobile store. The Rush 35th anniversary interview special on In The Studio with Redbeard was posted online late Sunday. You can listen to it here. Seattle-based rockers Candlebox were guests on the syndicated radio talk show Bubba the Love Sponge last week and declared Rush the coolest band to tour with. You can listen to the interview snippet in this post. On Wednesday I posted an extended video clip of Rush's I Love You Man cameo. This clip includes the entire performance of Limelight and runs over 4 minutes. Watch it here.

A couple of months ago I let you know that the first episode of the Rush road crew documentary Backstage Secrets had been uploaded to YouTube in 6 parts. I'd first mentioned that Whistlestop Productions was putting this 5-part documentary together back in December of 2007. The series follows various members of the Rush road crew during a typical day out on the road with the band. It was shot in High Definition and Dolby 5.1 surround audio during the 2007 Canadian leg of the Snakes & Arrows tour and first aired on RUSH HD in Canada last May. Reader RushFanForever recently alerted me to this news item related to the documentary that was posted on Classic Rock Revisited last week.

GEDDY LEE GAVE CREW CARTE BLANCHE FOR DOC

From VH1 Radio's Dave Basner:

When Rush was out on their 2007 Snakes & Arrows tour, some members of their crew decided to film aspects of the trek. That footage has since been edited together into a documentary called Backstage Secrets. Singer Geddy Lee told us once the band approved the film, it was all in the hands of their techs to do as they wanted with the project.

"I left it totally up to the crew. When they approached us about it, I said, 'It's not about me, it's about my guys.' So I said to the guys, 'Look, these guys want to do this kind of show, here's what they've done in the past, totally, 100 percent your decision, yes or no.' And I just left them to it and they decided to go ahead with it. I look at it like their movie, not mine, it had nothing to do with me."

You can see clips from the five-part, five-hour long film on YouTube by searching for "Rush Concert Tech Documentary."

I mentioned a couple weeks ago the sad news that Geddy's father-in-law John McCowan Young passed away recently at the age of 90. Mr. Young was the father of both Geddy's wife Nancy and former Rush member Lindy Young. You can now read the obituary online at this link. Thanks to RushFanForever for the link.

In another bit of sad news, Southern California Deputy Sheriff Robert "Bobby" Corrales died Thursday, April 23 at UCLA Medical Center following a long battle with acute myloid leukemia at the age of 57. You may recall that several weeks ago Neil Peart had donated a signed DW drum head to a charity auction to benefit Corrales. Our condolences to Mr. Corrales's family and friends.

Broken Social Scene are a Canadian indie rock band that are the subject of the biography This Book is Broken which releases today. A few years ago the band released a video for their song Fire Eye'd Boy which featured a cameo from Geddy Lee. The book contains a behind-the-scenes photo of Geddy with the band.

The Philadelphia Spectrum has been a major concert stadium since the late 60's and has played host to Rush a total of 17 times. The venue is being torn down next month and they have just released a commemorative book detailing its history titled God Bless the Spectrum: America's Showplace in Philadelphia, 1967-2009. On page 125 of the book is a picture of Geddy Lee with the caption, Geddy Lee of the band Rush who has played the Spectrum 17 times. Thanks to Doug B - who has seen every one of those 17 shows - for the heads up.

Reader Scott G recently uncovered an interview with Rush producer (Power Windows, Hold Your Fire) Peter Collins from Sound on Sound magazine, March 2002 where he discusses working with Rush. Here's an excerpt:

... Although he's had considerable success with singer-songwriters such as [Marti] Pellow, [Nanci] Griffith and Jewel, Peter Collins' track record is such that he is perhaps most in demand as a producer of rock music. His American career was built on the highly technical, sophisticated prog-rock nouveau of Rush and Queensryche, and despite his enthusiasm for working with 'real musicians', it was for his expertise in the technological side of production that Rush picked him: "When I first worked with them, they wanted to be involved with the technological breakthroughs that were happening in England at the time, the Trevor Horn sound that he'd achieved with Yes and Frankie and those sort of bands. So I was able to help them move into that area, and be a foil, a sounding-board for Neil Peart on the drums and push him into different areas. When I first got involved, Alex Lifeson had this horrible mismatched guitar pedalboard, which needed a lot of work -- or, rather, lot of work had been done to it, and that was the problem. It was just a question of coming in fresh, and getting them to change some things they'd always done. If there's somebody to say to them 'Guys, I think that section could be better, it could be more exciting, or it could be more laid-back,' or whatever, they like that. They like to be challenged.

"In the case of Rush, they strive to be better with every record, they strive to progress with every record. AC/DC strive to sound exactly as they did on their first record on their 14th record, and that's their strength, but Rush want to be different on every record and to progress. As human beings, that's the way they are, they're very interesting people, and they need continual intellectual and musical stimulation." ...

One of the guitarists for the metal band Into Eternity wears a Snakes & Arrows tour t-shirt in their new Time Immemorial music video. Thanks to Power Windows for the heads up and the screengrab.

Power Windows also reported on a Rush reference from Rifftrax.com, a website produced by the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which creates downloadable audio commentaries to play over movies. During the Rifftrax for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, released April 14th, when Luke crash lands on Daghobah and R2D2 is navigating his way out of the swamp, Mike remarks that's more stage fog than a rush concert.

Reader afansince74 let me know of a Rush reference on a recent episode of The Bob and Tom show on WGN America. They had comedian Jimmy Pardo on as a guest and he was doing some "air bass" - a bit he often does for the show. He usually plays along to the 70s band Redbone, but this time they played the opening to Bastille Day to trip him up. He of course had trouble playing along, citing that it was to complex. :)

The Grand is an improvisational comedy film released in 2007 that used a handful of actors playing characters competing in an actual poker tournament. In one scene Chris Parnell's character goes into a deep philosophical speech about his intellectual approach to playing poker and the guy next to him (played by David Cross) simply says, Is that Rush?. You can check out a video clip of this scene at this link (thanks Sean A).

In the old Rush article department I have a July 1984 interview with Alex Lifeson from Guitar for the Practicing Musician. You can check it out by clicking on the thumbnails. Thanks to Kevin B for the scans.

I also have a scan of a 1980 Rush article from Circus magazine. The scans are a bit small and hard to read so you might need your magnifying glass. Thanks to MCM at The Rush Forum for the scans and RushFanForever for the heads up. Just click on the thumbnails to view the scans.

I've known about virtual Rush tribute band Virtually Rush for a while now but had kept forgetting to mention them until reader Liverpool 78 gave me a nudge recently. The band consists of 4 musicians from different countries who come together virtually to play Rush songs and post the videos to YouTube. Here's their very impressive version of Between the Wheels. You can check out all their vids at this link.

Happy May Day and have a great weekend!

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