UPDATE - 5/22@4:06PM: Cygnify informed me that he just received his July issue of Modern Drummer magazine and contained within are their 2007 readers poll results. Neil Peart placed second in the rock drummer category (behind Chad Smith of The Red Hot Chili Peppers). They also mention that Neil's essay The Game of Snakes & Arrows will appear in next month's issue.
It's been fairly quiet on the Rush front lately. The Snakes & Arrows PR machine seems to have slowed down a bit. No doubt the band is busily preparing for the tour which kicks off in 3 weeks.
The album has been in release for 3 weeks now and preliminary reports from HITS Daily Double have it falling from #20 last week to #40 this week. We'll have the final numbers later today and should have the Billboard numbers in the next couple of days. What's interesting is that when the Snakes & Arrows MVI is finally released in 3 weeks (hopefully) the album could potentially shoot back into the top 20.
Far Cry is still charting well in its 9th week of release. It's #3 at Mediabase, #2 at Radio and Records and #5 at MediaGuide. Surprisingly enough, the video also was in the MuchMoreMusic top 10 all of last week. To help keep it there, go vote for the video.
The Snakes & Arrows reviews keep coming in too. John Cruz of SputnikMusic gives the album a rating of 3.5 - which translates to great on their scale. He concludes the review with this:
... The more things change the more they stay the same. A wise old adage that applies squarely to Rush just as it does most things. Nothing is new here, yet everything is new. A rebirth, if you will. Not that Rush ever went away. But in a career of a band with many peaks and valleys as is to be expected from such a long recording history, Snakes And Arrows definitely represents not just a peak, but coming after the shaky ground this band has stood on the last ten odd years, a peak that is an unexpected and welcome surprise. Meet the new Rush, same as the old Rush....and as it turns out after all these years that's a pretty good thing.
Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun Times also gives the album a 3.5 rating and has this to say in his review:
... [Snakes & Arrows] comes as a pleasant surprise, finding Rush recapturing a measure of the power it had in its prime ... Driven by some of the group's strongest melodies, lyrics such as "One day I feel like I'm ahead of the wheel / And the next it's rolling over me" and "Our better natures seek elevation / A refuge from the coming night / No one gets to their heaven without a fight" combines to create some of the smartest and best music the band has ever given us.
St. Petersburg Times pop music critic Sean Daly likes the album and gives it a B-.
Another 3 good reviews. So how would you rate the album? If you haven't done so already, submit your rating in this weeks poll.
In my last update I'd mentioned that there was a full page ad in Entertainment Weekly advertising the Snakes & Arrows album and tour. Reader PhillyMike sent me a scan of the ad which you can check out here.
Go vote for Alex! Reader Shane T let me know that Alex is up the Guitar Player Hall of Fame at Chop Shop radio this month. He's head-to-head with The Edge, Pete Townshend, Ted Nugent and Joe Perry. He's currently in the lead - but just barely. Let's help him out.
Michael P let me know that WWDC out of Washington DC is accepting votes for the Top 500 Modern Rock Songs of All Time. The votes are all write-in and the winners will be played over Memorial Day weekend. So go write in some Rush songs - and include a few from Snakes & Arrows while you're at it. :)
USA Today music critic and blogger, Ken Barnes, put up a blog post a few days ago where the topic was Best Canadian acts. And he had the audacity to not include Rush - intentionally no less! Go drop him a comment and tell him how you feel about this if you get a chance. Thanks to Drodham for the tip.
Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) mentions Rush in a recent interview with ChartAttack.com. When asked about cover songs he had this to say:
... Now you can't just do any old song. If Pearl Jam does a song by The Who, that makes perfect sense for the band to do that song. Soundgarden would do like a medley that included an Alice Cooper song, 'Working Man' by Rush, and it went into a Led Zeppelin song, but it all made perfect sense for Soundgarden to do ...
Reader Stephen D alerted me to an article on Ayn Rand in the June issue of Mental Floss which mentions Neil Peart and lists him as a Randian saying this:
Neil Peart, drummer for the Canadian prog-rock band Rush. An outspoken Randian, Peart acknowledged the "genius of Ayn Rand" in the liner notes to the band's breakthrough 1976 album 2112
He's hardly an outspoken Randian these days (read his books). And the liner notes say the genus of Ayn Rand not the genius of Ayn Rand. At least they spelled Neil's name right. :)
Donal K sent me a scan of an article in the latest issue of The Word by Rob Fitzpatrick called Whatever happened to my heroes? The heroes he refers to are Rush, who he interviews for the article. The author talks about his childhood obsession with Rush and how excited he was to get to finally meet Alex and Geddy. It's a pretty standard interview except for one interesting bit where Geddy hints about a song that may be appearing on the setlist. The scan is cut-off and hard to read, but you can get the gist of it.
Michael at Neil Peart Drumsticks wanted me to remind you about the contest he's running. The deadline for entries is June 15th and you can check out all the details at his website. There will be 6 lucky winners and the prizes will include limited edition drumsticks, old tour sticks, shirts, hats, etc. And if you haven't seen it yet, check out the article on Michael in the June 2007 issue of DRUM! Magazine.
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