Earlier this week we learned that Rush would be reissuing their Atlantic-era albums (except for Vapor Trails) on vinyl. The band has already been releasing all of its Mercury-era albums on vinyl throughout 2015 as part of their 12 Months of Rush reissue campaign. The Rush Backstage Club has listings for vinyl reissues of Presto and Roll the Bones to be released on September 11th, Counterparts and Test for Echo for release on October 10th, and Feedback and Snakes & Arrows to be released on November 13th. No further details are available at this time, although its assumed that these will be the same versions that were offered in the band's Rush: The Studio Albums 1989-2007 box set back in 2013. A 180-gram vinyl edition of Vapor Trails was already made available when the Remixed version of the album was released 2 years ago, which is likely why it isn't being included this time around.
Rush's official merchandise store at the Rush Backstage Club has added five new R40-themed commemorative frames to their collection including a couple of customizable frames. There's a customizable meet-n-greet photo frame, a customizable R40 concert photo frame, an R40 framed Gold LP and Platinum LP, and an R40 framed photo and pass. Prices fall in the $160-$300 range and you can check them all out at the Rush Backstage Club here.
Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart's follow-up to their best-selling Clockwork Angels novel is titled Clockwork Lives and is due to release via ECW Press on September 15th. It is described as a steampunk Canterbury Tales and will further explore some of the people and places from the Clockwork Angels universe. Anderson was recently interviewed by SFFWorld to discuss the novel, his friendship with Peart and some of his other projects. Here's what Anderson said regarding what Rush fans can expect from the novel:
... CLOCKWORK ANGELS had the direct story from the album, and Rush fans were eager to see the real background of how the songs fit together (although, to be clear, you can enjoy the novel greatly even if you've never heard the album). I sprinkled countless Rush Easter eggs throughout the prose. CLOCKWORK LIVES is more standalone, without an accompanying album, but I still wove a great many Rush lyric references throughout, and fans will see nods to the Necromancer, the Rocinante, Cygnus. But you don't have to know anything about the music beforehand; these are just great stories, wonderful adventures, some amazing, some tragic, some uplifting. ...
Anderson will be at Worldcon this weekend and will be reading The Sea Captain's Tale chapter from the book for the first time ever later this afternoon. You can pre-order Clockwork Lives at this location. The complete graphic novel version of Clockwork Angels is also due to release on September 15th and can be pre-ordered here.
Neil Peart's Commemorative Hockey Drum Kit was on display at all 5 Canadian dates on Rush's R40 Live tour, and fans were given the opportunity to sit behind the kit with a $10 donation to the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. In addition to the hockey kit fundraiser, there was an associated eBay auction where fans were able to bid on some autographed Rush memorabilia including a Sabian Paragon Cymbal and a limited edition, DW R40 Icon Snare. Drum Workshop announced via a tweet a couple of weeks ago that donations from the hockey kit photo ops along with the money raised from the online auction raised a total of $25,547.28 CDN. The director of public relations for The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, Kevin Shea, released the following statement via Brave Words last week:
These fundraising efforts - which included the creativity and hard work of several companies in order to bring to fruition - were very important to The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. Not only did they bring a substantial amount of funding for cancer research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, but it took our vision of conquering cancer in our lifetime to thousands of Rush fans. Sincere thanks to all those involved with the creation and execution of this promotion, and to all the Rush fans who contributed to our work by getting a great souvenir photo, or by bidding on the Rush items. Special thanks to Neil Peart and his bandmates for their extreme generosity.
The iconic custom DW hockey kit was created in 2009 and features graphics of all 30 NHL logos and custom ice blue hardware. The kit was used in Peart's recording of The Hockey Theme written by Dolores Clamen which was made available on iTunes with a portion of proceeds benefitting Hockey Fights Cancer. The kit has been on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame since 2010 and will now permanently reside at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, and join over 2,000 other Canadian music artifacts in NMC's collection.
Rush lighting director Howard Ungerleider was recently interviewed for a piece in Entertainment Technology News on the Web (ETnow) to discuss Rush's R40 Live tour light show, and specifically their use of Philips Vari-Lite Series 4000 Luminaires. You can read that interview online here.
Paste Magazine posted their list of 15 Songs about Science this past week and Rush's Natural Science made the cut at #5:
"Natural Science" from Rush's 1980 album Permanent Waves is broken up into three guitar wielding, typical Rush sounding sections: I. Tide Pools, II. Hyperspace, and III. Permanent Waves. In section I. lyricist Neil Peart starts at earth's beginnings where eventually "all the busy little creatures chasing out their destinies, living in their pools, they soon forget about the sea." Section II, "a quantum leap forward," is a look at contemporary life, "a mechanized world, out of hand," and section III looks to the future and Peart warns how powerful nature can be. Rush's compact summary of life leaves a lot of room to fear the future.
Our own Lance "The Shred" Kasten was featured in an article for the Capital Gazette this past week to discuss his recent 2nd place finish at the U.S. Air Guitar Championship. The article features some video of Shred air-jamming to Rush's 2112 and a great mid-air action shot of Lance in his house with a backdrop including a multitude of Rush and RatCon posters. Congrats Lance!
It's back-to-school time once again, so I thought I'd highlight a few nifty Rush-themed items that you can buy for your favorite Rush-fan student (or yourself!). First up is this pair of canvas hightop sneakers featuring the Rush starman logo. You can purchase these via Amazon at this location. Then there are a couple of old-school tin lunchboxes; one featuring the Rush explosion logo and another with a 2112 theme. And last but not least is this 16-month Rush wall calendar.
The folks at RushCon sent out a newsletter earlier this week thanking everyone who attended RushCon and once again made it a huge success. For the final show in LA, RushCon handed out 350 hand-made Starman wands that everyone held up during Closer to the Heart as seen in this photo. They have a few of these left and are selling them along with a bunch of other RushCon merchandise here. The RushCon charity auction was also a huge success, raising $12,842 for charity. That amount brought RushCon's 15 year total donated to charity over the years to over $103,000! Here's a video news story on RushCon from the Toronto Globe and Mail:
This coming Thursday, August 27th Alex Lifeson will celebrate his 62nd birthday. Happy early birthday Lerxst! That's all for this week. Have a great weekend everyone!
