Alex Lifeson makes a guest appearance on Triumph guitarist Rik Emmett's upcoming new solo project RESolution9 (Rik Emmett Resolution 9). The band's new album is titled RES9 and will release in multiple formats on November 11th via Mascot Label Group. Lifeson plays the 12-string guitar on the track Human Race and also appears alongside Dream Theater's James LaBrie on End of the Line. The band released the official lyric video for Human Race earlier this week, and you can watch it below or on YouTube at this location. The members of RESolution9 are from Rik's touring quartet and include Dave Dunlop on guitar, Steve Skingley on bass, and Paul DeLong on drums, with Dave and Steve co-producing the project. In addition to guest spots from Lifeson and LaBrie, Emmett's former Triumph bandmates bassist Mike Levine and drummer Gil Moore also appear on the album. Here's what Lifeson had to say about the project:

... [Lifeson] found it quite an honor to play with and for his lifelong friend. "When Rik asked me to play on his new album, I didn't hesitate for a second," Lifeson reports. "He's the consummate musician, a wonderful guitarist, and a terrific person, and it's always my pleasure to work with him any chance I can get. There is a rock purity in his songwriting and performance, and it's just so much fun to get together and throw ideas around. He's always so up and open for anything - even a notoriously uncooperative Rickenbacker 12-string!" Dunlop points out the way RESOLUTION9 meshed with Lifeson "stands as a great example of the collective efforts of the brotherhood." ...

A video trailer for the new album is also available and features several clips of Alex Lifeson in studio with Emmett. You can watch the video trailer on YouTube here, and pre-order RES9 via Amazon or the Mascot Label Group website.

Last week we learned that the 16th annual RushCon Rush fan gathering will take place November 3rd-5th in Toronto. Earlier today the organizers released more details about the event including hotel information and a schedule of events. The schedule will include a mysterious Moving Pictures event on Thursday evening, a Making Memories Mixer at the Monarch Pub in the Eaton Chelsea Hotel on Friday night, a tour of Anthem and the Lee Lifeson Art Park on Saturday, and a Rush tribute band show at the Hard Rock Cafe with Lotus Land on Saturday night. For more information visit the RushCon website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Rush's Moving Pictures is one of the forty Canadian albums from the '60s through the first half of the '00s to have been nominated for the 2nd annual Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize. The list was revealed last week at the Polaris Music Prize gala in Toronto. From Billboard.com:

... Ten albums are honored in four time periods, 1960-1975; 1976-1985; 1986-1995; and 1996-2005. The prize was launched last year to recognize albums that may have made the short-list for the Polaris Music Prize were it in existence then.

Like the Polaris Music Prize, albums are selected based on artistic merit without regards to sales or affiliations. "This award is Polaris' version of the Hall of Fame, intended to recognize classic Canadian albums released before 2006, the year the original Polaris Prize started," said Derrick Ross of Slaight Music onstage at the Carlu.

The list of albums has been increased to 10 titles (from last year's five) for each time period, selected by four separate juries of music critics, journalists, broadcasters and programmers from across Canada. Another change for 2016 is two albums from each era will win, one selected by a jury, the other by public vote.

"I liked the idea of the critics picking one of those records," Polaris Music Prize founder Steve Jordan told Billboard backstage. "We do want to get fan engagement and the public engagement, but we don't want artists who are less popular and don't have that ability to mobilize a fan-base not to get the recognition."

He says it will not be possible for the same album to be picked by the fans and jury. "No, we'll just go down the list." ...

Voting is currently open to the public at the Polaris Music Prize website, so go vote for Rush!. Winners will be announced on October 24th. Moving Pictures was also nominated last year but lost to The Trinity Session by the Cowboy Junkies.

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the release of Rush's first live recording - 1976's All the World's a Stage. All the World's a Stage was recorded on June 11-13th at Massey Hall in Toronto on the 2112 tour. The album peaked at #40 on the Billboard album charts, and was certified Gold by the RIAA on November 16, 1977 and Platinum on March 4, 1981. TeamRock.com posted portions (thanks RushFanForever) of an old interview (it first appeared in a 2003 Classic Rock article) with Geddy and Alex where they talk about the album, and Ultimate Classic Rock posted this article in recognition of the milestone anniversary.

Here's the lyric video for Rik Emmett and RESolution9's new track Human Race featuring Alex Lifeson on the 12-string guitar:

Have a great weekend everyone!