RUSH IS A BAND

Friday, November 20, 2009

Updates and other random Rush stuff

It was a busy week for Rush news so I'll get right to it. Rush's Working Men live compilation was released earlier this week on both CD and DVD. The compilation is Rush's first live compilation and includes cuts from their 3 most recent live DVDs. 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. Here's the official UK press release from Noble PR which includes all the details regarding the release along with some great pics.

Rush documentary filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen gave a talk at the Windsor International Film Festival this past weekend and showed a 5-minute sneak peek clip from their upcoming Rush documentary. The clip was titled Rush - The Early Years and included some rare old footage including a scene from the 1973 Allan King documentary Come On Children which Alex Lifeson was involved with. But the highlight of the clip was 20 or seconds of never-released pro-shot footage taken from what is presumably a Canadian Bandstand gig the band played at Laura Secord High School in St. Catharines, ON in 1974 with John Rutsey on drums. This would be the first publicly released footage of the band playing with Rutsey on drums, so this is a pretty big deal. As for the release date for the film, that still sounds dependent on many factors including what comes out of Rush's band meeting this month. The filmmakers seem to really want to include some footage of the guys in the studio; hopefully Rush will oblige them.

The 24th annual Gemini Awards took place last Saturday evening at the Stampede Corral in Alberta, Canada and was broadcast live on Global and Showcase. As we learned last week, Alex Lifeson was in attendance to present an award to the Trailer Park Boys and was photographed with them on the red carpet preceding the ceremony as shown in the above photos (click on the thumbnails). Several Sunday news articles covered the event and made mention of Alex including this Sun Media story.

The Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) took place last week at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, IN. Both Neil Peart's original Slingerland drum kit and his Snakes & Arrows kit were on display at the show. The Slingerland kit was recently purchased on eBay and restored to a playable condition by the new owner with the help of Michael of NeilPeartDrumsticks.com. They put the kit on display and allowed attendees to play it themselves for one minute with a donation of $10 to the American Cancer Society. They ended up raising over $1200! Andrew Olson has created a special page on his Neil Peart site completely dedicated to the PASIC show and has collected a bunch of great photos of fans behind the kits at this link.

Geddy Lee appeared as a guest judge at the great Canadian chef cook-off Gold Medal Plates which took place last night at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

In last week's poll I asked you what was the coolest - Alex presenting at the Gemini Awards, Geddy being a guest judge at Gold Medal Plates or Neil's Slingerland and Snakes & Arrows kits at PASIC. Neil Peart's kits at PASIC won fairly decisively with over half of the votes. The rest of the votes were split between the other two choices. Since tomorrow will mark the 20th anniversary of the release of Rush's 13th studio album Presto, for my next poll I thought I'd ask everyone what their favorite song off that album is. Take the Poll and let us know.

A couple of months ago two new documentaries exploring the Canadian music scene in the '70s and '80s were shown on the CBC over a series of 4 weeks. The documentaries were titled This Beat Goes On and Rise Up respectively. Rush along with several other Canadian artists were featured and the documentaries included new interview segments with Geddy Lee. Reader RushFanForever gave some great reports on the Rush content of each documentary in this post. Both documentaries will be available for purchase on DVD on Tuesday, December 8th and can be pre-ordered at the following links: This Beat Goes On, Rise Up. According to BW&BK a portion of the proceeds from the sales of the DVDs will go to support MusiCounts, Canada's music education charity associated with the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which helps to keep music alive in schools across the country.

Backstage Secrets is a 5-part documentary from WhistleStop Productions which aired on HD TV in Canada last year. The documentary follows various members of the Rush road crew during a typical day out on the road with the band. It was shot in High Definition and Dolby 5.1 surround audio during the Canadian leg of the 2007 Snakes and Arrows tour. We learned last week that the series is finally available for purchase through a few online distributors including Amazon. You can purchase the documentary as a home-use 2-disc set for $24.95 at this link.

Alex Lifeson's painting for The Kidney Foundation of Canada's A Brush of Hope project sold for $2125 in the charity's eBay auction which ended this past Sunday.

In the latest issue of Edge Magazine - the official Drum Workshop newsletter - Neil Peart discusses the finer points of drum shell construction with DW's John Good. You can download a PDF of the issue at this link (PDF 5MB). The article is on pages 14-15.

The Rush Backstage Club is running a new contest where you could win an 11" x 17" Feedback promo poster. The contest ends on November 29th and you can sign up to enter at this link.

The film Adventures of Power made its theatrical debut several weeks ago in New York City. 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. This coming week it gets released in Denver, CO. For a complete list of theaters and show times, check out the official site at this link.

Andrew Olson has made a few updates to his Neil Peart page. He's added the following kit replicas: Mark Gausel's "S.S. Imitation" kit, Ryan Feeney's Tama Swingstar "Beast" kit, and an update to Nereu's RMV kit. He's also added a new Neil Peart postcard from Brian Andonian. Also be sure to check out Andy's PASIC page to see pictures of Neil's kits from the show.

RushFanForever pointed me to this article at Straight announcing that Canadian celebrity interviewer and musician Nardwuar the Human Serviette has joined the team at WFMU in New Jersey. Station manager Ken Freedman hired him partly because he was impressed by Narduar's bizarre 1998 interview with Geddy Lee which you can listen to at this link.

Rush once again gets used as an example and is prominently featured in the accompanying graphics in this iLounge article on album tagging, art and playlists in iTunes. Check it out at this link.

Here's something I thought was really cool. Reader acellofawareness let me know of a friend of his who spent 5 years tracking down the exact models of the 3 vintage television sets depicted on the cover of the Power Windows album. I included a photo of the 3 sets along with a high-res image of the album cover (click on the thumbnails). Very cool.

Speaking of Power Windows, Becca James of Consequence of Sound recently wrote a witty little review of the album titled Dusting 'Em Off: Rush - Power Windows. Thanks to sairaanhoitaja for the link.

Also on the subject of Rush album covers, see if you can recognize the woman who graces the cover of this 1982 fashion magazine. Yes indeed, it is none other than model Paula Turnbull who is the woman depicted on the Permanent Waves album cover. Thanks to Power Windows for digging this one up.

John at Cygnus-X1.net located this PopMatters article titled Letting the Freaks and Geeks Into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The article discusses the many bands and musical genres that deserve consideration for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Progressive rock and Rush are mentioned:

... The nomination of Genesis is a decent start for progressive rock, but King Crimson, Yes, and Rush are still patiently waiting for nomination. One problem for progressive rock is that, in general, it's not a genre adored by rock critics. But regardless of whether you think 2112 or Relayer is a masterpiece, progressive rock's most notable characteristics (the odd time signature shifts, full albums broken into "acts" or "suites") are everywhere in rock. If a song by a rock band exceeds eight minutes, chances are high that there's going to be a Yes comparison. Even a band as critically adored as the Decemberists has garnered plenty of prog rock comparisons. ...

Power Windows located this Straight article where Die Mannequin's Care Failure is interviewed. She discusses her struggles with addiction and how music helped her through it, which are the subject of a 45-minute Bruce McDonald (who directed the recent Geddy Lee at Massey Hall short documentary) documentary DVD which is included with Die Mannequin's recently released debut CD Fino + Bleed. Care Failure was involved with Alex Lifeson's Big Dirty Band who played a cover of I Fought the Law for the soundtrack of the first Trailer Park Boys movie. The article talks about how Alex Lifeson helped her out:

... Another dedicated non-wanker who's had a big effect on Failure is Alex Lifeson. In one of those "Here ya go, kid" moments, the legendary Rush guitarist presented her with one of his Paul Reed Smith guitars, just when she needed it most.

"There was like a six-month period where if I didn't have that guitar I don't know what I would have been doing," she says. "He gave me that guitar and a bag of pedals, and more importantly some real nice messages that trip through your head."

The helpful advice and colossal freebies from good samaritans like Lifeson, her "musical sugar daddy", have helped Failure turn her once-troubled life around to the point where you question the validity of her stage name. But she has no regrets about choosing that moniker-or anything else. ...

Crawdaddy! magazine posted an article earlier this week by columnist and Rush fan Max Mobley about his first time seeing Rush back when UFO opened for them. You can check it out at this link.

Reader misterjdbig sent me this courant.com article from William Weir which discusses the effects of modern recording technology on reducing mistakes in recording, and how this is not necessarily a good thing. He uses Rush as an example and references a discussion he found online at the Counterparts board. You can check it out at this link.

Back in 1987 shortly after the release of Hold Your Fire two British journalists performed a 30-minute interview with Alex Lifeson and released it as an interview CD in 1992 titled The Story of Kings. Reader Kevin noticed that the entire interview has been posted to YouTube at this link. It's a great interview so check it out if you get a chance.

Reader tcshan2112 let me know that on Monday's Howard Stern radio show, they played The Spirit of Radio as the bumper music after commercials. When they returned, Howard and Fred discussed the meaning of the song, and in particular how it takes a jab at radio salesmen.

Chicago-based Rush tribute band Chronicles will be playing their 1-year anniversary show tomorrow night at the Maple Avenue Pub located in Lisle, Illinois. They'll also be participating in the Caring For Carly benefit concert the following weekend at Drenas in Hobart, IN.

Reader Andew W recently uploaded some live video that RedSectorA had filmed of Alex Lifeson playing with the Orbit Room house band The Dexters at the Capitol Event Theatre in Toronto on Nov 9, 2001. It's in 2 parts: part 1, part 2.

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend everybody!