The big news of the past week was Alex Lifeson's Tuesday appearance on the Rick Mercer Report. The six and a half minute segment followed Rick and Alex as they went out on a man date. They flew a plane to Niagara Freefall Indoor Skydiving and then hung out at Alex's night club The Orbit Room where Alex taught Rick a little guitar and the two played some Rock Band. You can view the clip at the CBC website or on YouTube. There are also several photos from their outing up on the Rick Mercer Report Facebook Page.

Speaking of Alex Lifeson, for the 4th year in a row Alex is participating in The Kidney Foundation of Canada's A Brush of Hope project. Alex Lifeson along with dozens of other Canadian celebrities have donated paintings to be auctioned off to raise money for the charity. The A Brush of Hope Gala will take place this coming Thursday, November 5th at the Delta Hotel in Fredricton, NB. Paintings from over 100 Canadian celebrities will be put up for auction on eBay from November 5th through the 15th. You can view Alex Lifeson's contributed painting by clicking on the thumbnail above.

Earlier this week we learned that Neil Peart's original Slingerland drum kit (which he used from Fly By Night through 2112) will be on display at the upcoming Percussive Arts Society show (PASIC) in Indianapolis the week of November 11-14. Fans will even be able to play the kit themselves with a donation of $10 to the American Cancer Society for 1 minute on the kit. For all the details check out this post. The kit had been put up for auction on eBay a couple of months ago and ended up being sold for over $25,000. Ever since the purchase Michael of NeilPeartDrumsticks.com has been working with the new owner of the kit to help restore it to a playable condition and organized the charity fundraiser.

Rush's upcoming Working Men compilation will be releaseed on November 17th in the US and is now available for pre-order on both CD and DVD. In last week's Friday Updates I listed the source DVDs for the audio of each track although the information was unconfirmed at the time. We now have separate confirmation of the source recordings along with a UK release date of Monday, November 16th via Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles. From Rush in Rio: 2112, Closer to the Heart and YYZ. From R30: The Spirit of Radio, Dreamline, Subdivisions, One Little Victory (previously unreleased) and Working Men. From Snakes & Arrows Live: Limelight, Freewill, Far Cry and Tom Sawyer.

I let you know yesterday that Matthew McGlynn recently interviewed former Rush engineer Paul Northfield for RecordingHacks.com and spoke at length with him about his experiences recording with Rush. Northfield is a prolific sound engineer and record producer who has worked on a number of Rush albums from Permanent Waves on through Vapor Trails. You can check out the interview at this link.

Graham Whieldon is a UK based digital artist who creates limited edition fine art prints inspired by the songs of Rush. He recently launched a website at macrographs.com where you can learn all about his paintings and purchase his prints. So far he has one completed painting for sale; a print inspired by Rush's epic song The Fountain of Lamneth from their Caress of Steel album. Also in the works is a painting inspired by the Rush song Red Barchetta with more to come in the future. You can see previews of his work by visiting the Macrographs website. I've also included some images from the Fountain of Lamneth print which you can view by clicking on the thumbnails above.

Humor site Cracked.com recently put up a Cracked Topics article on Progressive Rock which prominently features Rush. It's a satirical look at the genre of progressive rock including a number of hilarious images, graphs and pictograms. Funny stuff. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the release of 3 Rush albums. On October 29th in 1978 Hemispheres was released; Exit ... Stage Left was released in 1981; and Power Windows in 1985.

Neil Peart came in at #4 on Gigwise.com's list of the Greatest Drummers of All Time. Here's what they had to say:

One of Peart's perks is to use the bottom end of his drumsticks, apparently relating to when, many years back, his sticks broke and he couldn't afford new ones. Epic solos and his 360degree kit have marked Rush's lyricist out as one of the most respected percussionists in rock history. Peart has made use of a plethora of instruments to create as eclectic a sound as possible, including tubular bells, temple blocks triangles, timpani and drum machines.

Thanks to AnalogKid at Counterparts for the link.

I'd mentioned in a Friday Updates post earlier this month that Alex Lifeson was in attendance at Porcupine Tree's September 30th show in Toronto. RushFanForever pointed me to this photo of guitarist John Wesley and Alex Lifeson from backstage at the show that was posted on Wesley's MySpace page.

Female Rush fans were a topic of discussion on Derringer in the Morning on Toronto's Q107 this past Monday. You can listen to the clip at this link (thanks RushFanForever).

The film Adventures of Power - which features many a Rush reference along with an appearance from Neil himself - made its theatrical debut a few weeks ago in New York City. This week it gets released in Phoenix, AZ. For a complete list of theaters and show times, check out the official site at this link.

John at Cygnus-X1.net reports that he heard Jim Monaghan of WDHA-FM 105.5 in New Jersey mention that Geddy has picked the Yankees to win the World Series by a slim margin and that he expects the series to go 6 games. Monagham didn't mention how he heard this, but Geddy has been known to stop by the radio station in the past and he's done a lot of voice-over promos for the station.

Geddy Lee gets a mention in this recent LA Times interview with Dave Thomas:

... Your biggest hits on "SCTV" were the "Great White North" sketches you did with Rick Moranis, about two beer-swilling, regular-guy Canadians, launching catchphrases like "Take off, you hoser!" You even had a movie ["Strange Brew"] and a radio hit with "Rush" frontman Geddy Lee. Do people still come up to you humming that song?

Oh God, yeah. That became kind of a college, beer-drinking movie. So it stayed popular for way longer than Moranis and I ever thought it would.

Any idea why?

The list of Canadian icons is a short list. Bob and Doug became Canadian icons.

What's Geddy like?

He's a really nice guy. Very thoughtful and introspective. Rick went to school with him, which is why he appeared on that album. It was like, "We don't sing. So we need a singer for our song. So why don't we ask Geddy?" ...

Thanks to RushFanForever for the link.

There was a brief Rush reference in a recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. On the Friday, October 23rd show they had a skit involving guest Perry Caravello where one character in the skit is wearing a Rush starman t-shirt. You can watch the clip at this link and check out the screenshot by clicking on the thumbnail. Thanks to John at Cygnus-X1.net for the heads up.

EmotionDetector over at The Rush Forum saw Metallica in Toronto earlier this week and mentioned in a post that they kicked off their encore by playing about a minute of Rush's Working Man. Reader YtseRob2112 located a bootleg clip of this on YouTube which you can check out at this link and I've also included it below. There's also this audio file sent in by maxdistortion

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend and a happy Halloween!

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