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, Mar 4, 2011@12:16PM | comments removed/disabled

Rehearsal preparations are currently underway for the 2011 leg of the Time Machine Tour which kicks off on March 30th in Florida. Neil Peart drum tech Lorne Wheaton posted that he was in drum rehearsals in SoCal to his MySpace page on Saturday, and Sabian posted this grainy photo of Neil behind his kit to their Facebook page on Tuesday with the caption Guess who's rehearsing to hit the road!? (thanks rosmakloma). So it looks like this week the guys are all separately rehearsing to rehearse and that the whole band will be getting together next week in some undisclosed location to begin full rehearsals. They'll need to be in top form come April 15th when they will be recording their Cleveland show at Quicken Loans Arena for a live DVD. Not surprisingly, Rush sound engineer Richard Chycki looks like he'll be involved with this in some capacity as demonstrated by this post on his Twitter feed from over the weekend:

Planning in the works for Cleveland recording of #Rush for a live DVD of the upcoming continuation of the #TimeMachine tour. Off we go!
27 Feb

Chycki could almost be called the fourth member of Rush considering all the work he's been doing on behalf of the band lately. He's also been working on the remix of Vapor Trails and did most of the heavy lifting on the Moving Pictures 5.1 surround sound remix which is due for release on April 5th in both CD plus DVD and CD plus Blu-ray formats. Rush.com posted several details regarding the 5.1 mix last Friday including the following:

... Both DVD & Blu-ray formats will boast the 5.1 surround sound and stereo audio in 96kHz/24-bit high-resolution audiophile playback which offers 256 times more resolution than CD audio, providing the listener with the closest experience you can have to what the artists hear in the studio. The DVD is playable on both DVD-Audio and DVD-Video players, the latter players will include Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and PCM stereo playback. Blu-ray discs will also feature DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound in addition to 96kHz/24-bit PCM 5.1 surround sound and stereo. ... Also included in the package is an extensive gallery with previously unreleased photos from the original recording sessions, new liner notes by renowned music journalist David Fricke and 30th anniversary artwork by original album designer Hugh Syme.

You can read all the details from Rush.com at this link and pre-order your copy of the remix at Amazon (CD+DVD, CD+Blu-ray)

One of the many side projects that Alex Lifeson has been working on recently is a score for a film starring Martin Sheen and Richard Gere titled The Double. The movie features original music by film composer John Debney and Alex first mentioned his involvement with the film in his VH1 Classic Rock Nights interview a few weeks ago. Over the course of the last few weeks we've also learned that Skinny Puppy founding member cEvin Key and former Scarlet Sins vocalist Sylvya NuVynska were also collaborating on the score. Key posted the following to his Facebook page last week:

collaboration is cool, who would ever guess John Debney, cEvin Key
w Alex Lifeson from Rush and Martin Sheen.

And NuVynska tweeted the following on Sunday:

Sang and wrote lyrics for the outro song for the new Richard Gere movie #TheDouble coming out soon...

And - of course - Richard Chycki is doing the mixing. He posted this to his Twitter feed last Friday:

Soundtrack for Richard Gere movie 'Double' done and in the can, including the groovy out credit piece. Well, our part any way ...
25 Feb via web

The film is written and directed by Michael Brandt and centers around a retired CIA operative who is paired with a young FBI agent to unravel the mystery of a senator's murder. It's due out later this year but no specific release date has been given yet.

During Apple's public unveiling of the iPad 2 Wednesday, Apple's Director of Music Marketing - Xander Soren - briefly but unmistakably played the cymbal pattern intro to Rush's YYZ while introducing GarageBand for the iPad. You can watch the video of the event at this link. The YYZ part occurs around the 53:30 mark. GarageBand is a software application for Mac OS X and iPad that allows users to create music or podcasts as a part of Apples's iLife software package.

Sabian has made available a Limited Edition Paragon cymbal pack with a splash autographed by Neil Peart. It comes with an 8" and two 10" splashes (one autographed by Neil Peart), two 16" crashes, 18" crash, 20" crash, 22" ride, 19" and 20" Chinese, 20" Diamondback Chinese, and 13" and 14" hi-hat sets, each featuring a brilliant finish. The cymbal pack is shipped in a free flight case featuring custom Time Machine tour artwork and a portion of the proceeds from the sale will benefit Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that transforms children's lives by restoring and revitalizing music education in our public schools. The Paragon series was designed in collaboration with Neil Peart and blends 2 styles of lathing for a very balanced cymbal tone. Pinpoint lathing creates a narrower groove for a fast, lively response on the top, while the traditional AA lathing creates a wider groove for a fuller, richer tone on the bottom side. The pack can be purchased through Musician's Friend for $3,199.99 at this link. You can read a recent interview in The Daily Gleaner with Wendy Cosman - the designer of Neil Peart's Time Machine tour cymbals - at this link, and read Neil Peart's story of the creation of these cymbals at the Sabian website here.

Back in January I'd mentioned that Alex Lifeson had lent his studio and production expertise to the David Barrett Trio. Late last year after the Time Machine tour the Trio went into Alex's home studio and recorded three tunes: Hollowbody, Sonar, and Disappearance with Alex producing and Rich Chycki handling the engineering duties. David wanted me to let everyone know that there will be a concert and cd release party on Thursday, March 31st at 8PM (doors open at 7PM), at the Gibson Guitar Artist Showroom (1205 King West, Toronto, ON). They'll have a special EP available for sale which will have the three aforementioned tunes on it. They'll be recording some more tunes after the 2011 leg of the Time Machine tour, and they'll be releasing the 3 Lerxst-produced tunes as singles one at a time on iTunes starting later this month with Hollowbody.

Bass player extraordinaire Billy Sheehan was recently interviewed for Examiner.com to talk about the new Mr. Big album What If along with other subjects. When asked about what groups he'd like to tour with he said the following:

Well, we did a lot of touring with Rush in the old days; a tour with Rush would be great, because they are such wonderful people. I didn’t really know them that well before we toured with them, but getting to know the guys from Rush, they are just wonderful, wonderful people. We also toured with Bryan Adams; that was pretty cool, too, because he’s got a zillion hits, and that was a lot of fun, too; a great tour.

Mr. Big opened for Rush on both the Presto and Roll The Bones tours.

We learned earlier this week that Vancouver-based heavy metal band 3 Inches of Blood have recorded a cover version of Rush's Anthem for their as-yet-unnamed forthcoming album. Guitarist Shane Clark spoke about Rush and their upcoming album in a RockStarWeekly.com interview which you can check out at this link. Canadian thrash metal band Sacrifice also recorded a cover of Anthem on the Canadian release of their 2009 album The Ones I Condemn. The track was included on a recent limited release 7" vinyl split with Canadian thrash punk band Propagandhi who covers Corrosion of Conformity's Technocracy on the flip side. The first pressing of the 7" vinyl had sold out quickly but due to overwhelming demand, War On Music Records announced a second and final pressing last month and copies are still available. You can listen to the Sacrifice cover on YouTube at this link.

This past September, Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Singles was released. The book compiles a list of the best Canadian songs as chosen by around 800 musicians, broadcasters, members of the music industry and fans. A few Rush songs made the cut including Tom Sawyer at #12, The Spirit of Radio at #25, and Closer to the Heart at #35. Reader RushFanForever picked up the book recently and scanned the relative Rush excerpts for us. You can check them out in this post and purchase a copy of the book at this link.

RushFanForever also made some scans from Mersereau's 2007 book The Top 100 Canadian Albums which featured 3 Rush albums: Moving Pictures, 2112 and A Farewell to Kings. You can check out the parts of the book that discuss these three albums by clicking on the thumbnails above. The book also features a sidebar with Randy Bachman's favorite Canadian artists which include Alex Lifeson; a sidebar with Andy Curran's favorite Canadian hard rock albums featuring 2112 at #1; a page discussing the top Canadian drummers that features Neil Peart; and a page with Bubbles's top Canadian albums featuring A Farewell to Kings at #1. You can purchase a copy of this book at this link.

Last week Chris Lindsay of the Michigan Skeptics Association posted a podcast interview he conducted with Dr. Robert M. Price, author of the 1999 book Mystic Rhythms: The Philosophical Vision of Rush. You can listen to the podcast at this link.

Stone Temple Pilots drummer Eric Kretz was recently interviewed for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and spoke a little about his favorite drummers:

... Kretz says it's hard not to pick one of three obvious choices as the best of all time, especially Neil Peart of Rush; but also John Bonham of Led Zeppelin; and Bill Bruford of Yes, King Crimson and Genesis. "Neil -- he's so great and precise. What is he, 60? He's still doing a huge drum solo toward the end of (a Rush) set, after two hours. ...

Not quite 60 yet, but close!

Eric at Power Windows let me know about a recent commercial for the Czech automaker Skoda Auto featuring a street drummer and advertising the fact that their Skoda Fabia car is offered in 2112 color combinations. You can watch the commercial at this link.

Reader PaulTheRushGeek noticed a feature at literary site McSweeney's titled What Your Favorite Classic Rock Band Says About You and here's what they say about Rush fans:

You carry a small flashlight everywhere, and use it at least three times a day.

I don't get it.

Brazilian reader and English teacher Marco André Rodrigues has created a website which aims to translate all of Rush's lyrics into Brazilian Portuguese. You can check out his site at this link. And reader Rob F has created a new rush site at RushVault.com which aims to organize in a systematic way as much information as possible for each and every Rush song. You can check it out at this link.

Reader The Clansman 2112 wanted me to let you all know that there are 7 spots open in his 4th annual rushisaband Fantasy Baseball League. It's free to join but only serious managers need apply! To join up go to this link and use the League ID 66957 with Password atmsite.

To get us geared up for the upcoming tour, here's a nice quality live bootleg video of Rush performing The Camera Eye in San Antonio, TX last September 23rd (thanks ted1001001):

That's all for this week. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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