Avid baseball fan Geddy Lee made a trip to Florida last weekend to take in a few Florida Marlins games and add to his autograph collection. Geddy has a number of autographs from players in MLB's 3,000-hit and 500-home run clubs, and added Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and hitting coach Barry Bonds to his collection last Friday afternoon. Ichiro reached the 3,000-hit milestone recently, and Bonds holds the MLB home run mark with 762. While at the game Geddy took some time out for a video interview where he talks about how he became such a big baseball fan and how it's a great distraction from the rigors of the road. Here are some interview snippets from the article, and you can watch the video interview below or at this location.

... "I'm off the road now, and I'm hanging around, digging the summer," Lee said. A friend of the singer asked why not travel to South Florida to take in a few baseball games? Plus, Lee also has a Marlins' contact, having long known, John Silverman, the team's equipment manager. Like Lee, Silverman is Canadian. "He said, why don't we meet in Florida?" Lee said. "We can get Barry to sign a ball, and meet Ichiro, and just hang out for a few days. So it's a fun trip." Before the Marlins faced the White Sox, Lee visited the clubhouse, meeting a number of players. The Marlins responded by blaring on their song system, a number of Rush songs, including "Tom Sawyer" and "Limelight." "You get a little embarrassed, but at the same time it's a little cool that there are fans in the clubhouse," Lee said. "It's a great feeling. I've been a lucky guy in my life. I've had a long career, and I've crossed a few generations now, and I'm able to exploit from my own career to meet guys I respect. It's a great kind of holiday for me." ...

Although Rush is currently on hiatus, Alex Lifeson has been keeping himself busy with various side projects. According to FYI Music News, Alex was recently in the studio with former Rush producer Terry Brown putting guitar tracks down for Jim McCarty's (Yardbirds, Renaissance) next solo project. No further details are available at this time, although judging by this Instagram post, Canadian drummer Ben Riley is also involved. Alex Lifeson will also be making a guest appearance on Triumph guitarist Rik Emmett's new solo project RESolution9 (Rik Emmett Resolution 9). A couple of weeks ago Mascot Label Group announced the signing of RESolution9 to a multi-album deal and revealed some more details including that the album will have a tentative release date of November, 2016, and that Alex Lifeson plays on 2 of the 11 tracks on the album:

... The members of RESolution9 are from Rik's touring quartet: Dave Dunlop on guitar, Steve Skingley on bass, and Paul DeLong on drums, with Dave and Steve co-producing the project. Much of the album was recorded and mixed at Mississauga's famed MetalWorks Studios, where Rik enjoyed a profoundly comfortable re-connectivity to his own roots. In fact, the other two founding members of Triumph (Gil Moore and Mike Levine, from the trio that received 18 gold and 9 platinum awards in Canada and the U.S. in the 70's & 80's) reunite with Rik as special guests on "The Grand Parade", a song that conjures 1979's "Suitcase Blues". Additionally, legendary guitarist Alex Lifeson of Rush performs on two stellar tracks, with James LaBrie of Dream Theater contributing extraordinary guest vocals on two cuts as well. ...

Emmett is currently undertaking a solo acoustic tour across North America and has been regularly playing one of the new tracks that Lifeson appears on. The track is titled Human Race and features Lifeson on a twelve string guitar as Emmett has been describing while introducing the song in concert. You can watch a live video of Emmett introducing and performing the song from a show last week below or on YouTube at this location. Lerxst will also be participating in the Scott Medlock-Robby Krieger Golf Invitational and All-star Jam later this month and he celebrates his 63rd birthday next Saturday, August 27th.

Neil Peart's upcoming book Far and Wide: Bring that Horizon to Me! will be released via ECW Press just a few weeks from now on September 13th. The book will chronicle Neil's travels on Rush's R40 Live tour from last year and you can pre-order your copy at this location.

In the wake of Spirit's unsuccessful attempt to sue Led Zeppelin for plagiarism, Ultimate Classic Rock decided to flip things around and list off some bands that they should consider suing for plagiarism. One of the bands on the list is Rush:

Although they quickly established a style (or several styles) all their own, Rush were card-carrying Led Zeppelin disciples on their eponymous debut from 1974. Tracks like "Finding My Way," "Need Some Love" and "Here Again" feature Plant-ian inflections in Geddy Lee's sharp squawk, and plenty of Page-isms in Alex Lifeson's guitar strangling. It's proof once again that even some of the greatest bands carefully studied Zeppelin's curriculum before "finding their way."

Here's Geddy Lee's video interview from his recent trip to Florida to add Ichiro and Bonds to his autograph collection:

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