RUSH IS A BAND

Friday, March 5, 2010

Updates and other random Rush stuff

UPDATE - 3/6@11:36AM: It looks like the Snakes & Arrows concert on Direct TV will actually begin airing this evening at 9PM and re-air periodically over the next week. Just check you local guide for times. Thanks to Im a Rushfan and afansince74 for the heads up.

We're a week into March and still no official tour announcement from Rush. Despite this, I continue to hear from multiple reliable sources that the tour is happening, and have not heard any news to the contrary. The general consensus is that the North American portion of the tour will kick off in early-mid June and run through September - much like the 2007 leg of the Snakes & Arrows tour. Dates are still being finalized which is why we haven't had an announcement yet, although it'd be nice to at least get a tour details coming soon. Throw us a bone Rush! There are also several side rumors that I'm less sure of including whether South America and/or Atlantic Canada will be included, whether the rumored European leg in 2011 will happen, whether the tour will contain some kind of nod/celebration to the 30th anniversary of Permanent Waves and whether the tour will kick off in the Southeast US. Those are all rumors I've heard but have not been able to corroborate. Remember, these rumors did not materialize out of nowhere; Alex Lifeson kicked off the tour rumors back in September when he said hopefully by next summer, [Rush would] be ready to tour in this NoiseCreep.com interview. Since then, both Geddy Lee and Neil Peart have chimed in with similar statements. And let's not forget that back in December several major radio stations across the country ran contests to promote the release of the Working Men live compilation and gave away chances to win tickets to Rush's next tour. And at the end of January 105.7 WAPL out of Appleton, WI announced on the air that Rush would be playing Summerfest in Milwaukee on July 3rd. They even had a page up on their website promoting the event that has since been taken down. Radio stations do not do this kind of thing unless they have been given some kind of assurance that a band will be touring. I know and understand that everyone is getting a little antsy for an announcement, but to put things in perspective - the dates for the 2007 Snakes & Arrows tour were not announced until March 26th with tickets going on sale the following day. The only official mention of a tour prior to that occurred on February 14, 2007 with the official announcement of the Snakes & Arrows album - and all they said at that time was on tour this summer. details coming soon. So we still may be waiting a couple weeks before we get any official tour dates, although I'm hoping to get some leaked dates prior to that. If anyone has any industry connections or contacts at the various concert venues, find out what you can and let us know. Hang in there everyone! :)

VH1 periodically run a series of Classic Albums documentary specials put out by Eagle Rock Entertainment where they celebrate important albums in rock -n- roll history. I'd first heard a rumor in December of 2008 that Moving Pictures and possibly one or more Rush albums would be getting the Classic Albums treatment. Then a few months ago the Drum Channel posted the following to their Twitter page:

Neil Peart was in the DC Studios again yesterday filming a special on Classic Rush albums for VH1... look for it soon!

Since then I've also confirmed that a few other folks in the Rush camp have been interviewed for this series and - better yet - that specials covering both Moving Pictures and 2112 are currently in production. Hopefully this means they'll be released sometime this year.

On Wednesday the list of 2010 Juno Award nominees was announced and Rush's Snakes & Arrows Live DVD (also on Blu-ray) was nominated for Music DVD of the Year. Rush won a Juno award in this category for Rush in Rio back in 2004. Winners will be announced at the Juno Gala Dinner & Awards on Saturday, April 17 at the St. John's Convention Centre, as well as at The 2010 Juno Awards broadcast on CTV on Sunday, April 18 at Mile One Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Speaking of the Snakes & Arrows Live DVD, DirectTV satellite television channel 101 will be broadcasting the Snakes & Arrows Live concert on March 13th at 9PM with an encore on March 22nd (thanks Snowdog2112).

Earlier today the Rock Band website announced that Neil Peart's version of The Hockey Theme will be made available for download next week. For all the details check out this post.

John at Cygnus-X1.net recently posted the fourth installment of his Rush: A Brief History of Time series where he compiles scans of old Rush articles. You can check this latest batch out at this link. He has also combined all the items from the 4 installments and presented them on one page here. This batch contains a bunch of great articles - mostly from 1978 - including an article from the March 22, 1978 edition of Dutch magazine Muziekkrant OOR titled Rush Met Voetversnelling which features a very interesting photo of Geddy (click on thumbnail above). In total there are 16 articles from 1978, a couple from both 1977 and 1979, and 7 or so from the '80s/'90s/'00s. This is fascinating stuff; I highly suggest you check it out when you get a chance.

Axe Heaven now has a 1:4-scale miniature replica of Geddy Lee's Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar available for purchase. They sell for $24.99 and you can purchase yours at this link. For details on a getting a discount via the Power Windows site, click here.

Andrew Olson has added three new kits to his Replicas and drum kits inspired by Neil Peart page. They are Chainsaw's Thunderdrums, Sander Viller's Premier Cabria kit and Jamie's Mapex Voyager kit.

This article in The Mark discusses how Google and The Author's Guild recently reached a settlement on digital books. The author is not happy about the settlement and uses some Rush lyrics to make his point, comparing Google to the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx:

... As for me, I'm going to continue contemplating this while I listen to the Rush album 2112. Perhaps you're familiar with it. Lyricist Neil Peart acknowledged Ayn Rand (author of Anthem) in the liner notes to the album, a futuristic tale about a single ruling power that controls "all the gifts of life" - in other words, all literature, music, and art.

Reader Thomas P located this website where you can browse and purchase laminated backstage passes from concerts including several from Rush shows.

Technology consultant, author, Rush fan and RIAB reader Phil Simon recently put up a post to his blog featuring a comic strip starring Geddy Lee. And if you are interested, check out Phil's book Why New Systems Fail: Theory and Practice Collide. While the subject matter is not directly Rush-related (obviously), Phil intersperses Rush references throughout the book.

A few weeks ago I let you know that the UK's Planet Rock digital radio station was conducting a poll to determine the Greatest Live Album of All Time. The results are in and Rush had 3 albums in the top 40; All the World's a Stage at #19, Exit ... Stage Left at #20 and Rush in Rio at #35. You can check out the complete top 40 list at this link. Thanks to camvek for the heads up. Planet Rock's poll this month is asking for the Most Classic Classic Rock Song. Vote for Rush!.

Geddy Lee is featured in this Fender.com article titled Singing While You're Playing. Thanks to RushFanForever for the link.

Geddy Lee saves the day in issue #23 of web comic Procrastination. You can check it out at this link. Thanks to cschnebe for the heads up.

Reader Dave S located this really interesting article at the Performing Musician website on Alex Lifeson's former guitar tech Jimmy Johnson. On working with Alex:

... "Alex is the funniest man I've ever met and he's also a mad professor!" says Jimmy. "When it was time to go on tour, he would start talking and he had very specific ideas on what he wanted. And it would be nothing like the last time we went out. He'd say, 'This is what I'd like to make happen. What do you think?' When I had something that was close, I'd give him a call and he would come by and play through it, and we'd polish it a little bit. And he'd say, 'That's close, but maybe if we can do this' So over the course of anything from a week to a month, we'd get a guitar rig together that was suitable for him.

"Working with Rush was fabulous and I was very fortunate also to be asked to join them for their studio sessions, whether it was at the pre-production stage or the recordings. I was always there doing anything from making lunches to rewiring things or coming up with goofy new ways to make things happen!"...

Reader and blogger Jaybird put up a series of blog posts over the past couple weeks covering Rush's many tours over the years with the help of the Power Windows tour archive. Jay includes the tour details, pictures of some of his own Rush memorabilia, the number of shows per tour, a total shows running tally and a ticket price range for each tour. It looks like Rush has played at least 1,790 shows! Here's the first post and here's the last one.

Reader The Clansman 2112 wanted me to let you all know that there are 10 spots open in his 3rd annual rushisaband Fantasy Baseball League. It's free to join and he's offering up prizes again for the top 3 spots. It's a 20 team Roto league that will be using an Auto-Draft to get the teams. Only serious managers need apply! To join up go to this link and use the League ID 297025 with Password atmsite.

Rush did not end up performing at the Olympics closing ceremony this past Sunday. The initial rumors surrounding their involvement with the opening/closing ceremonies seem to have been rooted in the fact that they were invited to perform in some capacity by VANOC - Anthem confirmed this much to me. They even went so far as to sign a non-disclosure agreement which tells me that they didn't immediately shut the door on VANOC, but likely seriously considered performing. At some point after being asked and prior to the start of dress rehearsals, Rush decided against participating although it's not known exactly why. It's now clear that they were never bumped from the opening ceremony and never participated in any rehearsals - these were simply rumors. Because of the non-disclosure agreement and the absurd amount of secrecy surrounding the ceremonies on VANOC's part, it was impossible to prove/disprove any of the rumors until after the fact - which made for a very frustrating situation. Ultimately it looks like Rush's non-participation in the ceremonies was their decision and VANOC can't really be held accountable. Seattle Times reporter Bob Condotta liveblogged the closing ceremony and complained a couple of times about Rush not being involved (thanks Doug from Seattle):

7:23 Bob Condotta: Sadly, no mention of Rush so far.
...
7:29 Bob Condotta: I'll have to say it again, where's Rush?
...

And Entertainment Weekly's Annie Barrett posted a closing ceremony wrap-up and said the following (thanks Dave R):

... Simple Plan and Hedley, really? Where's Celine? Arcade Fire? Metric? Stars? Where is Rush? Be cool or be cast out, Canada...

Maybe the band will have something to say regarding the details of why they opted out of participation in the ceremonies in coming interviews, but until then we can only speculate.

Since many of us have had to dig out of snowstorms in the past few weeks, here's some celebrity winter advice from our own Geddy Lee. This humorous video piece is from the CBC's Rick Mercer report and aired in January of 2004. In it Geddy Lee gives some togogganing safety tips including the following ... small children and people worried about their brain should always wear a helmet.... Good advice Geddy.

Have a great weekend everybody!