It's been yet another quiet week (and a very cold one here in Cleveland ... -9 degrees as I write this!). Rush's Closer to the Heart made the news twice in the past few days. The song is in the running to be one of the CBC Radio's 49 songs that best define Canada to incoming US President Barack Obama. They're running a contest to determine the list and if you haven't voted yet you can do so at this link up until 8PM tonight. Last we heard the song had skyrocketed towards the top of the heap in the standings shortly after I ran the story on Tuesday. American Idol runner-up Bo Bice recently recorded a countrified cover of Closer to the Heart for a recently released Time Life Music compilation album called Gone Country: 70s Rock.
VH1 Classic recently posted several extra bonus videos from season 1 of That Metal Show to their website including four one-minute videos from the Geddy and Alex episode which aired on December 27th. You can find links to view the entire episode plus the bonus videos in this post.
I've received a little more info regarding the rumored Rush tour of South America later this year. Not surprisingly my industry source tells me that it is definitely not going to happen; the band has already turned down the offer from Live Nation for a late 2009 tour. Another indicator is the fact that Neil's drum tech Lorne Wheaton will be touring with Yanni for the better part of the year. Speaking of Lorne, he has several pics from the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert up on his MySpace page that reader Asif alerted me to.
In its seventh week of release the Snakes & Arrows DVD is still bouncing around the top 10 at #4 on the Billboard Top Music Video chart - down from its #2 position last week. Here is yet another stellar review of the Blu-ray version of the DVD from Blu-ray.com (thanks rosmakloma). And Scott_PA let me know that Classic Rock Revisited gave the DVD an A+ rating. Can't get much better than that!
The Snakes & Arrows Live CD made the Perthshire Advertiser's list of the best albums of the year.
Reader bluebuttskunk pointed me to a very cool online biography of Andre Perry - the founder of Le Studio. It has a nice little write-up on the history of Le Studio and mentions Rush.
Reader timbale let me know that WCBS sportscaster Jared Max made a comment about Rush the other day. His co-anchor asked him if he really expected the Nets to win the other night and he said ... yeah, right, just like I expected Rush to be inducted into to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night!. In case you didn't know, the Rock Hall announced its list of inductees for 2009 on Wednesday (we'd already known for some time that Rush was not one of the nominees). Jared is a big Rush fan; on his bio page he mentions Neil Peart and the guys from Rush as being his role models and lists Rush among his favorite musicians.
American jam band Perpetual Groove performed a cover of Rush's Tom Sawyer at their recent New Years Eve show in Athens, GA. You can read a review of the show at this link and listen to an archive recording of the entire show at this link (FLAC file). Thanks to headache for the info.
Norwegian reader Stale G sent me a very cool picture of his 2112 rug (click thumbnail for a full-size image). I've never seen one of these before. I'm assuming it's custom-made. I want one!
Reader Snoscootr alerted me to a couple of Rush-related satirical motivational posters over at motifake.com. You can check them out here and here.
CNN.com recently ran a feature titled Love at first listen: Albums that shaped your lives where iReporters share stories about how a particular album affected their lives. One of the albums discussed is Rush's Signals:
... For Lulis Leal, one album completely changed her philosophy of life. She had not been exposed to Rush's music before their ninth album, "Signals," was released, but when she heard the song "Subdivisions," Neal Peart's drumming had her hooked.
Leal listened to more of Rush's music and soon learned that the band was influenced by author Ayn Rand. After reading her novels, Leal began to adapt Rand's philosophy into her own life. ...
Thanks to soozm32 for the heads up. Speaking of Signals - due to popular demand, here's Jacob Moon's rooftop cover of Subdivisions which I had first mentioned a couple weeks back:
That's all I've got for this week. Have a great weekend!
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