Things were quiet this last week as we wound down 2009. Happy New Year everyone! 2009 was a break year for Rush; a year of awards, side projects, guest appearances, compilations and re-releases. I'll begin this first Friday update of 2010 with a 2009 Rush year-in-review.

In January Rush's Closer to the Heart won a CBC contest to determine songs that best define Canada and Tom Sawyer made VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs coming in at #19. In February Rush's Hope: Live for the Art of Peace off of Songs For Tibet: The Art of Peace was nominated but did not win in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category. It was their 6th nomination and 6th loss in that category. However, later that month as a consolation they were inducted into the Playboy Hall of Fame. In March Rush's Atlantic-era greatest hits compilation Retrospective 3 was released, longtime Rush manager Ray Danniels was the recipient of the 3rd annual MMF Canada Honour Roll Award, and the film I Love You Man featuring a cameo from Rush was released.

In April Rush was given mention in Metallica's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction acceptance speech by James Hetfield. In May Alex Lifeson made a guest appearance at a Tragically Hip show in Toronto, the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert DVD was released, and Geddy and Alex made appearances on both the CBC Radio's Q and CBC News: Sunday. In June the first RatCon Rush fan gathering took place in Baltimore, Neil Peart participated in a live video chat on the Drum Channel, much of Rush's catalog was re-released on mini-lp shm-cds, and we learned that Neil was going to be a father again.

In July Neil Peart won DRUM! Magazine's Drummer of the Year award and also launched the Bubba's Bar -n- Grill cooking section of NeilPeart.net. Also that month the 9th annual RushCon was held in Toronto with special guest Michael Mosbach. In August Rush was featured in Prog magazine including an extensive Alex Lifeson interview, Neil Peart's original Slingerland drum kit was sold on eBay for $25,100, the Grace Under Pressure Tour live CD was released as a standalone product, Dream Theater covered Rush's The Camera Eye at their Toronto show and Neil Peart's daughter Olivia Louise was born on August 12th.

In September Guitar Hero 5 featuring a previously unreleased live 1980 version of The Spirit of Radio was released, the Geddy Lee at Massey Hall short documentary premiered at TIFF, the Grapes Under Pressure Grapes for Humanity charity auction was held, Alex Lifeson made a cameo in the vampire movie Suck, Vertical Horizon's Burning the Days featuring Neil Peart was released, Alex Lifeson instructional videos for GarageBand became available, and the Trailer Park Boys movie Countdown to Liquor Day featuring Alex Lifeson was released. In October the film Adventures of Power featuring Neil Peart made its theatrical debut and Neil Peart participated in a Drum Channel air drum-off with star Ari Gold. Alex Lifeson also appeared on the Rick Mercer Report on October 27th.

In November Rush met in Los Angeles for a band meeting to map out their 2010 plans, Alex Lifeson participated in The Kidney Foundation of Canada's A Brush of Hope project, Neil Peart's Slingerland and Snakes & Arrows kits appeared at PASIC, the Backstage Secrets Rush documentary was released to DVD, Alex Lifeson was a presenter at the 24th annual Gemini Awards, a sneak peek of some Rush documentary footage was shown at the Windsor film festival, the Working Men live compilation was released, Rush won the SOCAN International Achievement Award, and Geddy Lee appeared as a guest judge at Gold Medal Plates.

This past month Rush's Show Don't Tell was included on Atlantic Records' Time Capsule box set, Geddy Lee participated in the CIBC's Miracle Day 25th anniversary, a reissue of Alex Lifeson's Victor project became available, a full-concert version of R30 on blu-ray was released, and Neil Peart recorded a new version of The Hockey Theme for TSN.

We can now look forward to a very busy 2010 with a new studio release from Rush, a summer tour, and a documentary film as the highlights. It's a great time to be a Rush fan!

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Rush's 7th studio album - 1980's Permanent Waves. The album was recorded in the Fall of 1979 at Le Studio in Morin Heights, Quebec and was produced by Terry Brown. Permanent Waves was Rush's first top 5 album, reaching as high as #4 on the Billboard album charts. It was certified Gold by the RIAA on March 17, 1980 and Platinum on November 9, 1987. Its first single was The Spirit of Radio which hit #51 on the Hot 100 charts and is a regular staple of rock radio to this day. One of the rumors regarding Rush's upcoming 2010 tour is that they will be playing the album in its entirety to celebrate the 30th anniversary. The band's official 2010 wall calendar has a Permanent Waves theme in celebration of the anniversary. Here's the 4.5 star Allmusic review:

Since Neil Peart joined the band in time for 1975's Fly by Night, Rush had been experimenting and growing musically with each successive release. By 1980's Permanent Waves, the modern sounds of new wave (the Police, Peter Gabriel, etc.) began to creep into Rush's sound, but the trio still kept their hard rock roots intact. The new approach paid off - two of their most popular songs, the "make a difference" anthem "Freewill," and a tribute to the Toronto radio station CFNY, "The Spirit of Radio" (the latter a U.K. Top 15 hit), are spectacular highlights. Also included were two "epics," the stormy "Jacob's Ladder" and the album-closing "Natural Science," which contains a middle section that contains elements of reggae. Geddy Lee also began singing in a slightly lower register around this time, which made their music more accessible to fans outside of the heavy prog rock circle. The album proved to be the final breakthrough Rush needed to become an arena headliner throughout the world, beginning a string of albums that would reach inside the Top Five of the U.S. Billboard album charts. Permanent Waves is an undisputed hard rock classic, but Rush would outdo themselves with their next release.

As I'd mentioned about a month ago, Permanent Waves will be the subject of an hour-long In The Studio with Redbeard rockumentary radio show the week of January 11th. The show will feature interview segments with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson presumably from past In The Studio interviews where they discuss the album. Here's a preview excerpt (thanks RushFanForever):

REDBEARD: I asked Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart how the breakthrough success of their January 1980 release Permanent Waves affected their approach to playing live.

Neil Peart: Each stage of our development has been a real struggle on our part where we have been holding tenaciously onto the last level, and when we graduated to headlining the small theaters, the 3000-4000 seat theaters, the vaudeville leftovers, we clung to that so tenaciously. We were starting to get so big that we were doing three or four nights in most place, five nights in some of those theaters, and it just wasn't practical because there were so many people who weren't getting to see us! (laughs) Because we were spending five days in one city! And it wasn't fair, really, when you came down to it, that people wanted to see Rush and couldn't. So we couldn't justify it anymore. We couldn't say it (playing arenas) was a compromise. It was a limitation that we faced, that too many people wanted to see us. It's not something that we're able to control. So we were pushed into the arenas basically by the laws of supply and demand.

In his Classic Rock presents ... Prog interview this past Summer one of the things Alex Lifeson mentions being involved with during Rush's break from recording/touring was Apple's GarageBand software. GarageBand is a software application that allows users to create music or podcasts, and is included in all shipments of iLife. The most recent version of the software (iLife '09) includes music instruction, allowing users to buy instructional videos by several popular artists such as Sting, Norah Jones and Ben Folds. In the interview Alex describes how he recorded some instructional videos for the software. Alex's GarageBand Learn To Play Artist Lessons for Tom Sawyer and Limelight were made available for purchase back in September. His lessons for Working Man and The Spirit of Radio are also now available. For more information about GarageBand, visit Apple's website at this link. You can watch a short preview video of Alex's Tom Sawyer lesson at the Apple GarageBand site or at this link.

Most Rush fans are already aware that Alex Lifeson and his son Justin were arrested in Naples, FL nearly 6 years ago on New Year's eve 2004 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Naples, Florida. The incident ended up making #62 on VH1's list of the 100 Most Shocking Music Moments which was the subject of a special that aired on the channel Monday night.

Neil Peart friend and sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson recently posted a photo to his blog which was taken for a Prog magazine photo shoot. The photo depicts Anderson in his writing office surrounded by part of his music collection. Among the albums pictured are Rush's Vapor Trails, Replay X3, R30, and Rush's debut album. Thanks to Power Windows for the heads up.

The popular iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge 3 (similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band) recently released and several Rush songs are available to play with the game. For more information check out the iTunes store. Thanks to amoderndaywarrior2112 for the heads up.

Reader Ami W located this page of Geddy Lee quotes at jittery.com.

Former baseball player Warren Cromartie was recently profiled in Sporting News Today and when asked what was in his iPod one of the bands he listed was Rush. Thanks to Michael P for the heads up.

Neil Peart gets a mention in this Gizmodo Worst Gadgets Gallery when describing the Finger Drum Mousepad:

Just think: At some point there was a meeting where someone pitched this idea, and lots of other people agreed with it, and then they all spent actual human money to manufacture and market it. Either that meeting was run by Neil Peart, or mousepad executives ain't what they used to be.

Thanks to rushman1987 for the link.

Reader John H pointed me to this wtf Rush reference at UltimateGuitar.com. They featured a list of the Top 20 Unholy Songs and Rush's Roll the Bones made the cut. Here's what they said:

In the second verse to this 1991 song, Neil Peart's lyrics show off a narrator whose spiritual faith is "cold as ice." He goes on to ask, "Who would hold a price over the head of innocent children if there's some immortal power?" Peart has covered a wide range of subjects through his lyrical work in Rush but none of it carries the weight of that one line in "Roll The Bones.

Reader exit...stage left came across this video interview from Guitar.com with Daron Malakian from System of a Down. At about the 1:05 mark he mentions Neil Peart.

RushFanForever let me know that Metallica's Robert Trujillo was recently interviewed for an episode of Hard on Aux.tv and mentions Rush as being one of his favorite bands and deserving to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Trujillo recently said essentially the same thing in a Mercury News interview. You can watch the video at this link. The Rush part begins at around the 9-minute mark.

In celebration of the Permanent Waves 30th anniversary, here's a live performance of The Spirit of Radio from the Grace Under Pressure video:

Have a great weekend and a great New Year everybody!

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