Despite Rush being on summer break there was plenty of Rush news to keep us occupied this past week including a Time Machine DVD update, some more tour attendance figures, a couple of updates at NeilPeart.net, a Roll the Bones Gold CD release, yet another Rush compilation release, and much more. Yesterday the Rush Time Machine live DVD of the band's April 15th performance at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland was made available for pre-order through Amazon.com. The Blu-ray is not yet available for pre-order through Amazon but should be soon, and can currently be pre-ordered through other outlets such as Barnes & Noble. Both the DVD and Blu-ray will be released via Concord Records 2 months from now on September 27th. Time Machine was directed by Rush documentary filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen and engineered by Rich Chycki. No other details have been released as of yet. You can pre-order your copy of the DVD here.

Last Friday Neil Peart updated the News page on his website with a story titled The Frying Pan and the Freezer where he discusses his motorcycle travels throughout the Southern US, Southwestern US, California and the Pacific Northwest on the last leg of the 2011 Time Machine Tour. Neil also posted a video to his home page which features an April jam session at Police drummer Steward Copeland's home studio in Los Angeles. Neil, Copeland, Tool drummer Danny Carey and Les Claypool of Primus put together a zany, jazzy track they call Count Drumula! which features all four guys trading off on drum duties along with Claypool on a stand-up bass and Carey playing a trombone. You can view the vid by going to the home page of Neil Peart's website here.

This past Tuesday Audio Fidelity released a limited edition 24 Karat Gold CD version of Rush's Roll the Bones. This was the first Rush release from Audio Fidelity although another company - Mobile Fidelity - had previously released limited edition Gold CD versions of 4 other Rush albums; 2112, Moving Pictures, Signals and most recently Permanent Waves. Audio Fidelity has also indicated that there would be more Rush releases coming in the future. You can order your copy of the Roll the Bones Gold CD at this link.

Universal released an enhanced 2-CD version of last year's Rush ICON compilation this past Tuesday that they are calling ICON 2. The first disc in the set contains the 12 tracks on the original release, and the second disc includes a selection of 11 live tracks taken from Rush's first 4 live albums; All The World's A Stage, Exit Stage Left, Grace Under Pressure Live and A Show of Hands. For all the details including the tracklist check out this post, and John at Cygnus-X1.net has transcribed and scanned the packaging and liner notes over at his site. You can order your copy here.

Last Friday Billboard released sales and attendance figures for both the Portland and Seattle shows - which means we now have the figures for 24 of the 38 shows from the 2011 Time Machine Tour. Although the Seattle show at The Gorge was very well-attended (11,911 seats - about 97.5% capacity) it wasn't quite a sellout. The Portland show was a sellout however, although it wasn't as well-attended with just 9,356 seats sold. That makes a total of 11 sellouts out of the 24 shows reporting attendance figures so far. The most-attended date thus far remains the April 15th show at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland which sold out all 14,970 seats. And the New York MSG show remains the highest grossing with $1,276,798 in ticket sales. You can check out all the details in the tour section.

Speaking of the tour, earlier this month Paul at The Canadian Music Scene website posted a series of interviews he conducted with different members of Rush's road crew over the course of the Time Machine Tour along with a bunch of great photographs. MusicRadar.com picked up Paul's story and photographs for a photo gallery feature of their own that they posted yesterday called Access All Areas: On the road with Rush. There's nothing here that wasn't already posted over at Paul's site, but they organize things into an easy-to-navigate photo gallery format. You can check it out at this link. Rush sound man Brad Madix was one of the Rush road crew members featured for the Canadian Music Scene article mentioned above. Brad also recently posted an article to the Avid Technologies website blog titled Final Rush Rehearsals-Geddy Helps Fine-Tune His Own Sound where he describes utilizing some Avid Technologies audio equipment to help Geddy finalize his sound during Rush rehearsals earlier this year. You can read the entire post at this link.

RollingStone.com's Weekend Rock Question this past weekend was What is the Best Prog Rock Band of All Time? Rush ended up the overwhelming winner of the poll. Duh.

We learned earlier this week that Boston-based heavy metal band Steel Assassin will include a cover of Rush's Red Sector A on their forthcoming album WWII: Metal Of Honor.

The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour is a new Canadian television comedy series from the creators of the Trailer Park Boys which debuts on Showcase in Canada tonight. According to this CBC article from last month Alex Lifeson will make a guest appearance on the show at some point although it's not clear exactly what Alex's guest role will consist of or which episode he would appear in. At one time in the show's development Alex had been cast as a mad scientist character. He ultimately had to turn down the role which was then given to Maury Chaykin who then passed away last summer, leaving some question as to whether this role was re-cast or just dropped from the show.

We learned earlier this year of Alex Lifeson's involvement with the score for a film due out later this year starring Martin Sheen and Richard Gere titled The Double. The movie features original music by film composer John Debney. Alex collaborated with Scarlet Sins vocalist Sylvya NuVynska and Skinny Puppy founding member cEvin Key on the film's outro music. Rush sound engineer Richard Chycki handled the mixing duties. The film is written and directed by Michael Brandt and centers around a retired CIA operative who is paired with a young FBI agent to unravel the mystery of a senator's murder. The film is anticipated to have a Fall theatrical release through Image Entertainment (thanks RushFanForever).

Here's a great review of the Blu-ray version (thanks Jim) of Rush's 5.1 remix of Moving Pictures from HomeTheaterReview.com.

Entertainment Weekly used a Geddy Lee reference in their recap of the latest episode of TNT's Falling Skies (thanks bk8718):

... Clayton talks with his prisoner and the source of the information that led him to the school with its ripe supply of kids. It's difficult to make out his face. There are tattoos! He's got long hair! Could it be Geddy Lee, lead singer and bassist of the legendary Canadian rock group Rush? No! It's Pope! Pope is back! And it's about damn time. ...

Reader Robert T pointed me to this early photo of Rush posing with KISS-FM's Joe Anthony at Anthony's restaurant, Mr. Pizza, after the band's San Antonio debut in 1975. Nice shorts Neil! :)

This past Tuesday I made my 5th appearance on internet radio show Used Bin Radio to talk all things Rush with hosts Brad and Joe. The podcast of the show is now online at this link and you can also listen to it using the player below.

The last of the three David Barrett Trio tracks that Alex Lifeson produced - Disappearance - was made available to purchase as a download at Amazon.com and at Itunes this past Tuesday. Both Hollowbody and Sonar were already available for download on Amazon (Hollowbody, Sonar) and iTunes (Hollowbody, Sonar) and all three tracks can be heard on SoundCloud at this link. David talks about the songs and how his collaboration with Lifeson came about in this January post on his blog. The Trio is asking for assistance to fund their project via RocketHub at this link. Please help them out if you can. Here's a video of the Trio performing Disappearance at Alex Lifeson's club The Orbit Room:

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

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