Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, Oct 3, 2008@2:57PM | comments removed/disabled

The big news this past week was VH1 Classic's airing of their 24-hour Rush Hashanah special where they gave us a sneak peak of the upcoming Snakes & Arrows DVD. They played both The Spirit of Radio and Far Cry from the DVD which will be released November 25th and is now available for pre-order on both DVD and Blu-ray. Both videos are now up on YouTube; you can check out The Spirit of Radio here (also included below) and Far Cry here.

Speaking of Rush Hashanah, the Jewish weekly magazine Forward had a short article titled Holy Prog Rock! discussing the special in their latest edition. What's most notable about the article is that they mention rushisaband.com!

... Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed the broadcast "a victory for both Canadian prog rock and awesomely clever puns," while fans on rushisaband.com, a blog devoted to the group, greeted the tribute with "mazel tovs" and a suggestion that the band's next concert DVD be named "Lechaim."

You can check out a scan of the article here (thanks PhillyMike).

In my last poll I asked you all which feature of the Snakes & Arrows DVD you are most anticipating. The results are in and - not surprisingly - most of you are anticipating the Rotterdam (37%) and Atlanta (24%) concert footage (duh...). I probably should have just assumed that and left those options out but it is what it is. Other than the concert footage 16% of you are most anticipating the 2007 tour outtakes, 11% the What's That Smell video and outtakes, and 8% are most anticipating the Blu-ray version. For this week's poll I thought I'd ask you about the Rush Hashanah special and what you thought it could have used more of. Take the poll and let us know.

Reader Chris H let me know that in this week's Cavalcade of Whimsy article on CollegeFootballNews.com the author describes his top five underrated/overrated aspects of the world. Number four was the following:

4: Overrated: Rosh Hashana. Underrated: Rush Hashana marathon on VH1 Classic.

I agree. :)

We also learned earlier this week that Neil Peart's tour bus driver Dave and his tour bus - aka Camp Brutus - has been hired out by ABC News to hit the 2008 campaign trail. The bus was given a makeover and will be used for interviews with various candidates around the country over the next few weeks. Dave wrote all about it on his mySpace page.

Yesterday we learned that KnuckleBonz - an online manufacturer of realistic hi-end sculptures of rock stars - have expanded their line to include statues based on album art. The first of these will be a limited edition Rush Starman statue. Sorry ladies, the statue is not anatomically correct. :) They retail for $115 and can be ordered via their website at this link.

The Buddy Rich Memorial Concert is only 2 weeks away. Rehearsals are underway and Cathy Rich recently posted this photo of Neil Peart and her son Nick at rehearsals on her mySpace page. Cathy is Buddy Rich's daughter and Nick Rich will be making his debut at the concert playing with his grandfather's big band. Thanks to Andrew Olson for the heads up.

Speaking of Andy Olson, he recently made a few notable updates to his Neil Peart fansite. He added three new postcards to his Postcards from Neil page and some more drumkits to the Replicas and drum kits inspired by Neil Peart page. He's also trying out some comment features on the main Replicas page, as well as each drumkit page. Now you can vote for your favorite Neil Peart replica kit, and leave comments at the bottom of the page. Cool. Thanks Andy!

Several readers emailed to let me know that Weezer recently played a show in Toronto and paid a little tribute to Rush. At one point in the show drummer Pat Wilson came out front to sing and play guitar and mentioned paying a tribute to the city. He then played the opening riff of Limelight and a bit of The Spirit of the Radio. At that point the bass player started in on Tom Sawyer and they played a bit of that. They finally played some of the opening of Red Barchetta and then broke into the Weezer song Automatic. Here's a YouTube video of part of it (thanks julio).

Triumph - the second best power trio from Canada - recently reunited after a 20-year breakup to play a few dates and are planning on embarking on a full tour next year. They played Rocklahoma over the summer and singer/guitarist Rik Emmett sat down with Glam-metal.com for a video interview which you can check out here. Rik mentions Rush at about the 11-minute mark saying:

... I mean - we love Rush. We all love Rush. Everyone loves Rush. But there's a lot of canoodling and fiddiddling that goes on in that band. It's a part of what they do. And they have to leave the space for that virtuosity of the drummer and the bass player and all that stuff. And Triumph doesn't really have that ...

Canoodling and fiddidling... heh hee. Thanks to Out of the Shock... at Counterparts for the heads up.

Tiles is a progressive rock band out of Detroit whose most recent album Fly Paper has a number of Rush connections. Alex Lifeson plays on the track Sacred and Mundane, the album was produced by Terry Brown, and Hugh Syme did the album art in addition to playing keyboards on 2 tracks. I interviewed guitarist Chris Herin and Terry Brown regarding the album back in February. Tiles will be embarking on a mini-tour of the Great Lakes region in a few weeks. So far they'll be hitting The Ritz in Warren, MI on October 24th and my neck of the woods at the Phantasy Concert Club in Lakewood, OH on November 8th (I'll be there).

Marshall Carlson of NWMissourinews.com lays out his Top 5 Albums Of All Time and Rush's Moving Pictures makes his list. Here's what he had to say:

Simply put, Rush's "Moving Pictures" album is an easy number three. This album is a brilliant display of the fundamental ideas of progressive rock innovation. As an example of their creativity, the instrumental song, "YYZ," was written as a tribute to a Canadian airport? In this album, Geddy Lee, Neil Pert and Alex Lifeson show the world just how good they can be.

Well said.

John at Cygnus-x1.net sent me this chock-full-of-Rush-references article from the Montgomery Advertiser called AUBURN FOOTBALL: Tigers in a rush to post one little victory. The author examines the week in Auburn Football using Rush references galore just because he's been listening to a lot of Rush lately. My kind of guy. I love it.

Toronto-based record store Sam the Record Man closed its doors last year. The store is a Toronto icon and was featured in the video for Subdivisions. It's now owned by Ryerson University. For several decades the store's two giant neon spinning record signs served as a beacon to music lovers shopping on Yonge Street. The iconic sign will be turned on one last time for the city's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche festival before being taken down and remounted in a new home on the Ryerson campus. Thanks to Sean for the heads up.

Reader JayBird had an interesting Rush experience recently while listening to a Washington DC radio show hosted by Kojo Nnamdi. Kojo sat down with Brian Greene, a professor of physics and author of a new book titled Icarus at the Edge of Time which is about a spaceship’s encounter with a black hole. Jay knew right there that he had to call into the show. He has a complete write-up at his blog here.

And I'll leave you with this video of Neil Peart's drum tech Lorne Wheaton setting up Neil's kit prior to the show in Red Rocks this summer (thanks Agent Rush.v2).

Have a great weekend everyone!

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