Neil Peart updated the news page on his website earlier this week with the sixth installment in his BubbaGram series. If you recall from his first BubbaGram update back in September, Neil indicated that he'd be working on a book to chronicle the R40 Live tour. This book is titled Far and Wide: Bring That Horizon to Me!, and will release in September (you can pre-order it here). So in lieu of his regular news updates he is instead periodically posting a BubbaGram where he features a few photos from his travels along with a few paragraphs describing the photos. In this latest installment, Neil describes his travels in the Northwest right around Rush's Portland and San Jose shows on the R40 Live tour last summer, including some great photos in Crater Lake National Park.

FANTOONS - creators of the Rush Toons book - announced yesterday that they will have a booth at the Phoenix Comicon next weekend, and also shared some exciting news about working with Rush:

I'm very excited to announce that we're working with RUSH! ...and we'll be at PHOENIX COMIC CON! With a full stack of Official RUSH Merch! Our Rushtoons Book and more! We have more surprises coming very soon; I just can't talk about them yet!
But isn't this freaking awesome!?
As always anybody that comes to our booth and say code word ("La Villa Strangiato") will get a free gift! No purchase necessary. Psyched to see you all soon! BOOTH: AA1215!

FANTOONS is an on-going comic strip based on Rush and some other great bands that was created by David Calcano back in 2012. If you follow rushisaband on Facebook and/or Twitter, you've likely run across some of the amazing Rush-themed comic art from FANTOONS that I've shared over the last few years. You can check out some samples of their work on Facebook and at fantoons.tv. Last year they released a 170-page Rush Toons book filled with comics and artwork featuring our favorite band Rush. I had the honor of writing the book's foreword and highly recommend it; it's a definite must have for any Rush fan.

Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart's Clockwork Lives novel was selected as the winner in the the SciFi/Fantasy category at the 25th annual Colorado Book Awards this past weekend. Congrats!

Saturday Night Live's season finale aired last week and one sketch starring Paul Simon and host Fred Armisen visiting the NY Auto Show was bumped from the program and instead posted as a web exclusive. The sketch includes a funny Rush reference which you can see in the video at about the 2:25 mark. The pair are taking questions from the audience, and one young fan asked Paul Simon what he does for a living. Simon answers the question, but fumbles a little on describing exactly what he does, so Armisen steps in and asks the kid what kind of bands he likes. The kid says, "My uncle likes Rush". Armisen then says, "So it's like Rush." Simon chimes in, "Bands like Rush." You can watch the video online here (thanks Jim S).

Loudwire posted their list of the Top 100 Hard Rock and Metal Albums of the 21st Century this past week, and coming in at #67 was Rush's Clockwork Angels album:

Rush's 'Clockwork Angels' was a testament of the band's world-renowned class of musicianship. The power trio muscle through 12 songs spanning over an hour, resulting in one of the most focused and consistent albums of the Canadian progressive act's legendary career. Led by the two singles, the album kicks off with the groovy "Caravan" and surprisingly heavy "BU2B." Complex arrangements still in tact, Rush craft memorable songs with their undying sense for hooks, contributing other standouts like "Seven Cities of Gold" and "Headlong Flight."

Journalist, musician and photographer David Bradley posted the first entry in his Classic Chords series on his blog this past week, and chose Alex Lifeson's Hemispheres chord for the inaugural post (thanks Eric from Power Windows).

... it is the Fmaj shape shifted up a fret to give us the rather weird, dissonant, and suspended F#11 chord (F#,C#,F#,A#,B,E) that powers the opening of the Hemispheres album and was later revisited as the big power chord of "Far Cry" from the Snakes & Arrows album. Apparently it was producer Nick Raskulinecz who had wanted the band to put a modern twist on some of their classic musical motifs and this chord stood out for him. Interestingly, the way Lifeson plays the first position Emaj in the intro with his pinkie adding a B on the third string and there being no G# resembles the modified chords he uses on Moving Pictures track "Limelight". The "Hemispheres Chord" itself features a lot throughout Rush's early albums in various positions up and down the neck, on The Fountain of Lamneth, in Xanadu, Hemispheres (obvs), later on The Spirit of Radio and Natural Science. Other players have used similar chords to thicken their sound and to give the six-string something of a 12-string sound. ...

Music Aficionado recently published an interview with Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine where he recommends some of his favorite bands, albums and gear. Rush's Moving Pictures is one of his selections and here's what he says about it (thanks RushFanForever):

I loved everything about it. I loved the energy on "YYZ"-that sound just always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I loved the solos, the drum fills. I aspired to learn how to play those songs when I got a guitar.

Speaking of Moving Pictures, comedian and talk show host Chelsea Handler has a new talk show on Netflix called Chelsea and in Wednesday's episode she sports a vintage Moving Pictures t-shirt as seen here. Netflix subscribers can watch the show online here. On a related note, the same shirt is worn by the character Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters) in the film X-men Apocalypse which releases today. You can get a glimpse of the shirt in the trailer at around the 1:50 mark, and also in this X-men Themed UK Sky Fibre commercial. Want one of these t-shirts for yourself? You can get one here:

That's all for this week. For all of my US readers, have a great Memorial Day weekend!!