This past week we got a glimpse of some Rush articles past, present and future. The premier issue of Classic Rock's new quarterly magazine Prog featured an article on Neil Peart where the author Tim Ponting recalls an interview he conducted with Neil back in April of 1988 the morning after a gig at Wembley Arena. You can check out the article scans here. You can also see scans of a new Geddy Lee article in the April 2009 issue of Classic Rock in this post. Yesterday Rush.com posted a sneak peak of the June 2009 cover of DRUM! magazine which will feature Neil Peart answering questions from fans. DRUM! has also opened up online voting for their 2009 Drummie Awards.

Last week the Chicago Tribune ran a big feature on Rush fans on the front page of their Wednesday LIVE! section. The article was well-received by fans and was the subject of several letters to the editor, a few of which they published in Tuesday's edition including this one from RIAB reader malterb:

Thanks for the great story on Rush. My inbox has been flooded all morning from friends sharing the article. I went three times on the last tour—I went with two lawyers, a doctor, a CIO, my friend who owns the restaurant chain Biaggi's (22 locations), an actuary and myself, into computer forensics.
—Bruce Malter, Hawthorn Woods

Details regarding the Rush tribute band concert at RushCon have been released. The concert will be held at C'est What, a new venue located at 67 Front Street E. at Church Street. The show is free for paid RushCon Attendees and $10CND for everyone else. Doors open at 8PM with some musical fun and giveaways and the band (band TBA) hits the stage at 10PM.

Actor Tim Daly was on the Craig Ferguson Show last month and Ferguson brought up Rush in a bizarre context while interviewing him. Daly plays a doctor of alternative medicine on ABC's Private Practice and he mentioned that on the set there is an acupuncture chart for which they have to cover up a certain male acupressure point when filming the show. Craig then suggested they cover up the chart with a Rush poster and kept needling the confused Daly about whether he'd heard of Rush, seen them live, etc. Blue Oyster Cult was mentioned too. You can watch the video on YouTube at this link. Thanks to GhostWorks at Counterparts for the info.

Fans have finally started receiving their signed Retrospective 3 lithographs that came with their Deluxe Fan Pack versions of the CD/DVD set ordered via Rush.com. The lithographs that came with the first 150 of the packs were signed by all 3 members of Rush and reader Jason S scanned his for us. You can check it out here or by clicking the thumbnail.

Paranormal State is a docu-drama reality show on A&E which follows a group of college students who investigate paranormal activity. In a recent episode (season 3, episode 46, The Soul Collector) a Snakes & Arrows poster is seen hanging on a 10-year-old girl 's bedroom wall. :) You can see a screenshot here. Thanks to GhostWorks at Counterparts for the info and the screenshot, and reader RushFanForever for the heads up.

I know that many site readers are Facebook users (me included) and I've mentioned before that there's a Rush Is A Band Facebook group which I set up earlier this year. I've also just started using Twitter as another way to connect with people. You can find me at twitter.com/rushisaband. If you're also a Twitter user, let us know your handle in the comments so we can follow each other. Thanks to between2wheels for the suggestion.

Reader Mitch Ruibal has a weekly radio show called Wealth Wise Radio on San Diego 1700AM Saturday mornings from 11M–Noon. Mitch is a big Rush fan and uses Limelight to introduce their show as well as other Rush songs as their lead-in music. There's also a hidden Rush star-man on their website. Just go to wealthwiseradio.com, click on any of the state links and look in the lower left.

Counterparts member GhostWorks has a MySpace page where he has posted two Rush audio interviews conducted by Visions author Bill Banasiewicz from the Grace Under Pressure period. In the first interview Geddy discusses his keyboards and the second is a short Neil Peart interview. They are listed in the page's player as AAF01 and AAF02. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.

Reader and photographer Syrinxenator just published his new website which includes a gallery of recent Rush photos. You can check them out here.

Reader Mark W (aka AFarCryfromFBN) wanted me to take a moment to thank all the RIAB members who have supported his effort to raise money for the March of Dimes, March for Babies. The event takes place this Sunday, so please take a moment to check out Mark's site and give if you are able.

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

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