The big news item of this past week took the form of a NeilPeart.net news update where Neil revealed that he and his bandmates will get together sometime this month to discuss the future of Rush:
... In this autumn of 2009, the three of us are poised on another kind of "reinvention." We have agreed to meet in Los Angeles in November, and discuss our future. ... these are parlous times in the music business, so our time-honored pattern of touring, recording, and touring is no longer the obvious way to do things. ... Because of that reality, record company advances that used to pay for album projects are a thing of the past, so if that was what we wanted to do, we'd be on our own. ... To this point, the three of us haven't even discussed what we might discuss, so to speak-so our ideas and shared enthusiasm for the entity of Rush will be fresh, spontaneous, and quite likely exciting. For myself, I'm open to anything we can all agree on (I've pointed out before that in a three-piece band, we need consensus, not democracy-it's no good having one outvoted and unhappy member). My favorite group activity is always songwriting and recording, and I've got some lyrical ideas and those new drumming frontiers to explore. However, those rhythmic concepts would also be inspiring for a new drum solo, if we decided to do a tour of some kind, maybe with an orchestra. We could write and record just a few songs, and release them some way. Or there were a couple of film-and-music projects we had discussed in the past. In any case, there are enough possibilities for future collaboration, and I am curious to see what we'll come up with. ...
What this all means is anybody's guess. Rush is still under contract with Atlantic to produce one more studio album, so I'm sure that will somehow play into whatever decision they end up making. It'll be very interesting to hear what comes out of this meeting. You can read Neil's entire update at this link.
The film Adventures of Power made its theatrical debut a few weeks ago in New York City. The movie chronicles the adventures of air-drummer extraordinaire Power (played by filmmaker Ari Gold) and contains a cameo from Neil Peart along with a slew of Rush references. This week it gets released in Portland, OR; Santa Fe, NM; and Price, UT. For a complete list of theaters and show times, check out the official site at this link. Back in September we learned that Neil Peart and Ari Gold paid a visit to the Drum Channel studios to film an air drum-off video which was released to YouTube a few weeks ago. While in the studio they also sat down together for a one-on-one interview/discussion and the video was posted to the Drum Channel website last Friday afternoon. The 2 chat for nearly 25 minutes about their involvement with the film, air-drumming, how they were introduced to music and the importance of music education. The interview is then capped off with their Tom Sawyer air drum-off. You can watch the interview at this link.
Early last month we learned that for the 4th year in a row Alex Lifeson is participating in The Kidney Foundation of Canada's A Brush of Hope project. Alex Lifeson along with dozens of other Canadian celebrities have donated paintings to be auctioned off to raise money for the charity. The A Brush of Hope Gala took place yesterday evening at the Delta Hotel in Fredricton, NB. Paintings from over 100 Canadian celebrities were put up for auction on eBay as of yesterday morning. The auction will run through November 15th and you can bid on Alex Lifeson's painting (shown above) at . On a related note, the eBay listing for Alex's painting made Fark.com today thanks to reader Jodeo. Check it out here. The Fark headline reads as follows:
Here's a nice painting of a salad by Rush's Alex Lifeson, for no particular reas- WAIT... it's for charity. And it has croutons
The big news of last week was Alex Lifeson's recent appearance on the Rick Mercer Report. The six and a half minute segment followed Rick and Alex as they went out on a man date. They flew a plane to Niagara Freefall Indoor Skydiving and then hung out at Alex's night club The Orbit Room where Alex taught Rick a little guitar and the two played some Rock Band. You can view the clip at the CBC website or on YouTube. There are also several photos from their outing up on the Rick Mercer Report Facebook Page. Mercer was a guest on Q107's Derringer in the Morning last week the day the show aired and had a lot of great things to say about Alex and his appearance on the show. You can listen to the podcast at this link (thanks RushFanForever).
RushFanForever also let me know that Rush and 2112 came up in a recent discussion of the apocalyptic predictions of the year 2012 on Derringer in the Morning back on October 21st. Derringer mentions Rush and comes to the conclusion that the end of the world will occur in 2112 - not 2012. You can listen to the podcast at this link. :)
A couple weeks ago we learned that Neil Peart's original Slingerland drum kit (which he used from Fly By Night through 2112) will be on display at the upcoming Percussive Arts Society show (PASIC) which takes place next week in Indianapolis from November 11th through the 14th. Fans will even be able to play the kit themselves with a donation of $10 to the American Cancer Society for 1 minute on the kit. For all the details check out this post. Michael posted a couple of sneak peek pics of the restored kit at the Counterparts board. You can check them out by clicking on the thumbnails above. The kit had been put up for auction on eBay a couple of months ago and ended up being sold for over $25,000. Ever since the purchase Michael of NeilPeartDrumsticks.com has been working with the new owner of the kit to help restore it to a playable condition and organize the charity fundraiser.
The Rush Backstage Club is running a new contest where you could win a signed copy of Neil Peart's book The Masked Rider. The contest ends on November 12th and you can sign up to enter at this link.
In last week's Friday Updates post I'd mentioned that Geddy had picked the Yankees to win the World Series by a slim margin and that he expected the series to go 6 games. Geddy was dead on! The series came to a close Wednesday night with the Yankees winning 4 games to 2! The man knows his baseball.
Back in the summer of 2007 Hardradio was reporting that rock lyricist extraordinaire and Rush friend Pye Dubois had gone missing:
Canadian rock lyric legend PYE DUBOIS, writer of a handful of RUSH lyrics along with almost all the lyrics for MAX WEBSTER and much of the KIM MITCHELL catalogue has gone missing. "It's unusual for Pye not to call once in a while, and even more unusual for him not to return my calls, usually within a couple hours," notes a concerned Martin Popoff, Editor In Chief at BW&BK, and friend of Dubois, who lives only a couple blocks from Popoff. "And then recently I've tried to call, and his line has been disconnected." Dubois has been in ill health the last few years, which has added to the concern of his friends in both Rush and Max Webster. Of note, attempt was made to contact Pye for participation in the recent one-off Max Webster reunion show, but he was unresponsive. Dubois enthusiastically took part in the band's reunion shows earlier in the '00s, providing what some called the highlight of the show with his hippie-vibed spoken word skills.
This was over 2 years ago and was the last I'd heard about it until just recently. JAM! gave an update in a recent article discussing the false reports of the death of punk drummer Chuck Biscuits:
... Toronto rocker Kim Mitchell, meanwhile, experienced a situation similar to the Biscuits death hoax several years ago, when reports circulated in the blogosphere and on Facebook and MySpace that Pye Dubois, his longtime collaborator, had died.
At the time, Dubois and Mitchell weren't speaking to one another after having a falling out. Dubois had become reclusive, Mitchell said, and when friends couldn't reach him for days at a time, rumours began to spread that he had died.
When Mitchell heard the news, he was understandably upset.
"I felt horrible," Mitchell recalled in a telephone interview from Edmonton. "I panicked a bit. ... Because I thought: 'Holy crap, I wrote a ton of music with this guy, and he's holding a grudge against me to the point where (he won't) notify me that he's really ill."'
Fortunately, Mitchell still had channels of reaching Dubois and verified that he was OK.
"Funny how before something's checked it can explode into nonsense," he said. "In seconds, it's all over the planet." ...
It good to finally get some confirmation that everything is ok. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.
Reader mattyyz alerted me to a quick Rush reference on this recent episode of PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge. The Rush reference happens at about the 3:55 mark. You can check it out on YouTube at this link.
Metal Tim pointed me to this 1977 interview with AC/DC's former vocalist - the late Bon Scott. Bon mentions opening for Rush. You can watch it on YouTube at this link.
RushFanForever pointed me to this little 10-question Rush quiz at the CBC website.
This past Tuesday was the 15th anniversary of Neil Peart's appearance on Politically Incorrect. If you've never seen it before you can watch it at this link. And today happens to be the 15th anniversary of Neil Peart receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Buddy Rich Scholarship Concert back in 1994. Here's a video of Neil performing Cotton Tail at the 1991 Buddy Rich Memorial Concert:
Have a great weekend everybody!
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