Dates look to be about firmed up for the 2nd North American leg of Rush's 2011 Time Machine Tour although there has been no official announcement yet. The only official news we've received regarding this leg was back in late November when Rush revealed that they'd be hitting New Orleans, Austin, Los Angeles, Vancouver and several other cities in the West/Southwest, but did not give any specific dates/venues. My sources are now telling me that this leg of the tour will kick off at the New Orleans Arena on June 10th with ticket sales beginning on Monday, January 24th. Not sure if that means regular ticket sales or pre-sales though. If regular sales, then that means pre-sales will be next week and an official announcement would need to come out this weekend, otherwise sometime next week seems the likely timing for an announcement. Reader JohnnyTRacer sent me some additional news that lends some weight to the notion that an official announcement is looming. 92.3 KGON in Portland sent out an email to members yesterday declaring that they had 2 major concert announcements coming up this Monday, January 17th and next Monday, January 24th. Stay tuned for more details and keep an eye on your inbox for some official news from Rush. In other tour-related news, reader Steve T let me know that Quicken Loans Arena started a ticket auction yesterday for floor seats (section 1,2,3) for the April 15the Cleveland show which will be filmed for a DVD release. The auction runs through Wednesday, January 19th, 9PM CST. To bid on tickets just go to this link. And reader july141789 let me know that he received a notification yesterday to arrange for delivery of the swag from the Rush VIP ticket package he purchased for the April 19th show in Hamilton. They seem to be much more on the ball regarding the VIP ticket packages this go-around.

The big news this past week was a new Guitarist magazine interview with Alex Lifeson where Alex discusses a wide range of subjects including the Time Machine Tour, his gear, the Rush documentary and the Moving Pictures album. There's not much in the way of new information but he did say the following when asked about the band's plans for the upcoming year.

... "Originally the plan was to get back into writing and then recording this year but this tour was so successful with the demand for us to carry on and play a little bit longer. So we played with the ideas and as we got closer to the end of the tour we realised we were going to get a lot of push to continue it. And we wanted to, we didn't think we were going to have quite as much fun as we've had with it.

"The whole idea of doing Moving Pictures and not sharing it, particularly in the UK, was a real concern of ours. So Ged and I will get back to writing in the new year. We'll get through the Christmas holidays and start writing through January and February. We only have two or three more songs that we feel we need for the album. So we can start reworking the material and get it in great shape. Then we'll prepare for the tour in March, finish in July, take the summer off then start work in earnest in September." ...

So if Alex and Geddy are carrying through with their plan, the pair may be in the process of writing new material as we speak! It's unlikely they can get the new album released by end-of-year if they don't start recording until September, so we're probably looking at an early 2012 release. You can read the entire article at this link.

Alex is also keeping busy on various side projects. We learned earlier this week that he is working as a producer for the Dave Barrett Trio, and last week we found out that he has a role in the new indie film Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy. Alex will be playing the role of Dr. Fig; a character made specifically for the film who does not appear in the book. Dr. Fig works in a mental hospital where Billy Boyd's character Woodsy is committed for a breakdown after consuming too much Ecstasy.

Attendance numbers for both Brazilian dates from the 2010 Time Machine Tour finally came in. The October 8th show at the Estadio do Morumbi in Sao Paulo, Brazil had an attendance of 26,015 (out of a possible 50,600) and grossed a whopping $3,337,130. The October 10th show at the Praca da Apoteose in Rio de Janeiro was attended by 10,308 fans (out of a possible 32,400) and grossed $1,049,950. I've also updated the the tour section with the numbers.

We learned last week that the 2008 indie film Adventures of Power will be released to DVD on January 25th and is now available for pre-order. The movie chronicles the adventures of air-drummer extraordinaire Power (played by filmmaker Ari Gold) and contains a cameo from Neil Peart along with a slew of Rush references including a Tom Sawyer air drum-off. It first hit the film festival circuit back in early 2008 and made its theatrical debut last fall. Back in 2009 Neil Peart and Ari Gold paid a visit to the Drum Channel studios to film an air drum-off video which you can check out here. To celebrate the DVD release, Ari Gold will be running a fundraiser/auction to support music education via VH1 Save the Music which he recently wrote about in this blog post at ModernDrummer.com (thanks ou812112). For more info visit adventuresofpower.com. Here's the film's official trailer.

The Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage will be one of 12 musically themed films to be shown at the Juno Awards Film Festival taking place March 21-27 in Toronto. The film was also recently nominated for a Grammy Award. The Grammy Awards ceremony takes place on Febraury 13th, which coincidentally is one day after the 30th anniversary of Moving Pictures.

Vertical Horizon frontman and friend of Neil Peart - Matt Scannell - was a guest on internet talk show Used Bin Radio this past Tuesday. I wasn't able to listen in to the show but from what I hear Matt talked a good bit about his friendship with Neil and collaboration with him on Vertical Horizon's 2009 album Burning The Days on which Neil plays drums on 3 songs along with writing the lyrics for one. Neil and Scannell had become friends when Neil moved to Los Angeles as Neil describes in his two most recent books Roadshow and Travelling Music. A podcast of Matt's interview should be posted online soon at this link.

Canadian thrash metal band Sacrifice included a cover of Rush's Anthem on the Canadian release of their 2009 album The Ones I Condemn. The track was also 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 has announced a second and final pressing. You can listen to the track on YouTube at this link. Thanks to BW&BK for the heads up.

Q Magazine has compiled their list of the top 10 drummers in the February edition of the magazine. Neil Peart came it at #3 behind Keith Moon and Stewart Copeland. Here's what they had to say:

3. Neil Peart: Rush's professor of paradiddle

A drummer joke: What's the last thing a band wants their drummer to say? "Want to try one of my songs?" Unless it's Neil Peart, of course, the rhythmic brain behind Canadian "power trio" Rush, and the group's primary lyricist and songwriter. Equally renowned for his roiling tom-tom breaks and improbably gigantic kits - for a time he boasted back-to-back electronic and acoustic rigs - Peart also introduced future generations of math-rock nerds to the mysteries of 5/4 time signatures and the paradiddle-diddle.

Reader Chip H let me know that Sevendust guitarist John Connolly was recently interviewed for Skope magazine and talked a bit about Rush:

... RE: What was the first concert you went to?

JC: There were so many, it's hard to remember. The one that I was the most impressed with was Van Halen. Rush and Kiss were great live, and I love AC/DC, but Eddie Van Halen focused on technique and dedication to actually playing. Van Halen delivered technically, what Rush delivered intellectually. Eddie just knocked me on my ass! When Eddie appeared, nobody knew what that was. One moment he would be doing something, and the next moment he'd be doing something else!

RE: If you could invite anyone to play at your birthday party, who would it be?

JC: I want to say Van Halen, but I'll pick Rush for two reasons. First, the rest of Sevendust would get the chance to participate, and second, I've had the chance to meet Eddie and Wolfie, but I've never had the chance to meet Neil Peart, and I'm a big fan! ...

Official RushCon Rush tribute band Limelight will be performing a show at the Wolf's Den at the Mohegan Sun on Thursday, February 3rd. For more information go to this link.

The BBC Radio's 7 Day Sunday show used Rush's I Think I'm Going Bald as intro/outro music for a story they covered last week about a scientific breakthrough on the study of baldness. You can listen to it on line at this link at about the 40:48 mark. Thanks to Jon P for the heads up.

Reader squeaky wheel informed me of the sad news that producer/engineer Pat Moran has died. Moran was an engineer on Rush's A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres. You can read the story at this link.

At last weekend's halftime show for the NFL playoff game between the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints, Michael Wilton and Chris DeGarmo from Queensryche along with bass player Mike Inez (Alice In Chains, Heart) and drummer Ben Smith performed a medley of rock songs including Rush's The Spirit of Radio (thanks Andrew). You can check out some video of the performance below or at this link.

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

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