Friday, February 3, 2012

Updates and other random Rush stuff

The Rush community suffered a terrible blow last week with the untimely passing of longtime Rush friend and photographer Andrew MacNaughtan, so it was very timely that we all were able to come together to celebrate a spontaneous National Rush Holiday this past Wednesday, February 1st - 2.1.12 - to lift our spirits a bit. The Interwebs were all abuzz on Wednesday with fans proclaiming their love of Rush and wishing everyone a Happy 2.1.12 Day, and several rock news sites covered the event. UltimateClassicRock.com acknowledged the day with this article; metal Historian Jeff Wagner penned an article for NoiseCreep.com in celebration of Rush Day; the Cleveland Plain Dealer declared It's 2-1-12, or National Rush Day: Some of your friends and family will shortly lose their minds; the OC Weekly posted a story titled Rush Fans, Rejoice: Today is 2112; GeeksOfDoom.com declared that It's 2-1-12 So Crank Up '2112' For Rush Day!; the Cards That Never Were blog created a set of 2.1.12 baseball cards; Reverb Music compiled a list of the 11 best songs for 2.1.12 in an article titled These Go To Eleven: The 11 best Rush songs for 2.1.12; and MediaPost's Cory Treffiletti wrote an article where he talked Rush, '2112,' And My Missed Mobile Interaction. To help facilitate the celebration, the folks at RushCon teamed up with the Rush Radio website to sponsor a 2112 listening party Wednesday evening at 9:12PM - 2/1/12 21:12. In a weird but completely unplanned (I assume) coincidence, on Wednesday evening's episode of American Idol contestant David Weed attempted to sing Rush's Tom Sawyer for his audition. David gave it his best effort but the judges weren't impressed and he was dismissed. They also played Tom Sawyer as he walked out of the audition. It was the first (and likely the last) time any Rush had ever been heard or even mentioned on American Idol. You can watch David's audition on YouTube at this link. The theme of this week's updates is definitely 2112 since that album (and number) seemed to be popping up everywhere over the past week, and not only in relation to 2.1.12 Day.

There was a 2112 reference on the latest episode (season 1, episode 4 - Cal Sweeney) of the new Fox TV series Alcatraz which aired Monday night. The focus of the episode is a bank robber named Calvin Sweeney who has a prison id number of 2112. You can check out a couple of screenshots by clicking on the thumbnails.

Here's a satirical article from The Awl which took a recent prediction from New York Times columnist Gail Collins regarding the year 2112 and contrasted it with Neil Peart's vision of that year:

New York Times columnist Gail Collins was, as always, highly enjoyable yesterday as she predicted that, come the year 2112, history students would be reading "on their vaporphones" about the precedent set when known philander and serial husband New Gingrich won the Republican primary in super-conservative South Carolina. But her ideas run counter to the conventional thinking about what the world will be like a hundred years from now. The definitive source of future-casting for the year 2112 is, of course, Neil Peart, the (totally sick!) drummer and (philosophically ambitious!) lyricist for the great Canadian prog-metal band, Rush. ...

Reader Brian K let me know that in Saturday night's NHL All Star Skills competition, Team Alfredson defeated Team Chara 21-12. Coincidence? I think not. :)

Reader RushFanForever recently pointed me to the website for the Northumberland Rock and Roll Experience - a multi-faceted music facility based in Port Hope, Ontario Canada. The facility contains areas for guitar instruction, a retail shop, a rehearsal space and an extensive collection of rock and roll memorabilia including several Rush items as pictured here.

Neil Peart penned a touching tribute to his late friend Andrew MacNaughtan at NeilPeart.net earlier this week. As I'd mentioned above, MacNaughtan passed away suddenly last week of a heart attack in Los Angeles.

... apart from the personal memories, it is his own art that will endure. Not long before his untimely passing, Andrew published a book of fine-art photographs titled Grace, based on his travels in East Africa. (Like a fair portion of his work in recent years, it was done to benefit others-Andrew contributed generously to worthy causes like the Casey House hospice and Art Gives Hope.)

In addition, his portraits and live shots of nearly every major Canadian performer of the past twenty-five years will be viewed forever-a rich national archive of our arts and entertainment history.

Many will feel fortunate to have known Andrew, and perhaps myself more than most-introducing me to Carrie was a life-changing gift. But even long after all of us who knew Andrew are gone, his name, his unique creative "eye," and his beautiful and perceptive images will live on.

You can read the entire thing at this location. Andrew's obituary was posted online earlier this week, and the funeral took place yesterday.

On a happier note, sit-skier Sam Danniels - son of Rush manager Ray Danniels - won a Gold Medal in Mono Skiing at the X Games earlier this week. The 25-year-old Danniels has been a paraplegic since he was 19 when he broke his back in a mountain bike accident. You can watch the race on YouTube at this link. Thanks to Toronto Writer for the heads up.

411 Mania posted their list of the Top Ten Songs About Guys (thanks Power Windows) and Rush's Tom Sawyer made the list at #3:

... Released on Mercury Records and PolyGram in 1981 on the Moving Pictures album, "Tom Sawyer" was written about the Mark Twain character of the same name. The song was written by Lee, Peart, and guitarist Alex Lifeson in collaboration with Canadian lyricist Pye Dubois (the lyricist of Max Webster), who also co-wrote other Rush songs such as "Force Ten," "Between Sun and Moon," and "Test For Echo." According to the US radio show In the Studio with Redbeard (which devoted an entire episode to the making of Moving Pictures), "Tom Sawyer" came about during a summer rehearsal holiday that Rush spent at Ronnie Hawkins' farm outside Toronto. Peart was presented with a poem by Dubois named "Louis the Lawyer" (often cited as "Louis the Warrior") that he modified and expanded. Lee and Lifeson then helped set the poem to music. The unique growling sound heard in the song came from Lee's fiddling with his Oberheim OB-X synthesizer.In the December 1985 Rush Backstage Club newsletter, drummer and lyricist Neil Peart said:

Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be - namely me I guess.

Geddy Lee has referred to the track as the band's "defining piece of music...from the early '80s". It is one of Rush's best-known songs and is a staple of classic rock radio. It reached 25 in the UK singles chart in October 1981, and in the US peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at 8 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. In 2009 it was named the 19th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1. "Tom Sawyer" was one of five Rush songs inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame on March 28, 2010. ...

The 11th and final episode of the heavy metal documentary show Metal Evolution aired last weekend in Canada on MuchMoreMusic and will air this weekend on VH1 Classic in the US. The episode focuses on the Progressive Metal genre of heavy metal and heavily features Rush, including an entire 10-minute segment on the band's contribution to the genre with interview segments with all 3 members along with former producer Terry Brown. The show is the brainchild of Rush documentary and Time Machine video filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen and builds on the mission first put forth in their groundbreaking Metal: A Headbanger's Journey documentary - in which Geddy Lee had appeared. Geddy Lee had previously made an appearance in episode 2 of Metal Evolution to discuss the contributions of American garage rock band Blue Cheer to the origins of heavy metal. Geddy's brother Allan Weinrib is the production manager for the show and has been the Executive Producer and Head of Production and Development at Banger Films (Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen's film production company) since December of last year. The entire Progressive Metal episode was posted to YouTube earlier this week in five parts posted to the VH1 website. The second segment is the one completely dedicated to Rush and the band also is heavily featured in the last segment.

That's all for this week. Thanks to everyone for making 2.1.12 Day a huge success. The enthusiasm of Rush fans never ceases to amaze me. :)