Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

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Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, Jan 27, 2012@10:45AM | comments removed/disabled

UPDATE - 1/28@10:42AM: Here's a CBC video news story on Andrew MacNaughtan's death (thanks RushFanForever). And photographer John Vinson sent me a couple of photographs he took of Andrew at work at the Red Rocks show in 2010 which you can check out by clicking on the thumbnails.

It was a very sad week for the Rush community, as longtime Rush friend and photographer Andrew MacNaughtan passed away Wednesday of a heart attack in Los Angeles at age 47 where he was shooting photos of the band for their upcoming Clockwork Angels album. The news was confirmed yesterday afternoon via the Rush Facebook page:

We're deeply shocked and heartbroken to learn of the sudden passing of our close friend and long-time photographer, Andrew MacNaughtan. He was a sweet person and a very talented artist. Words cannot describe how much he will be missed. - Geddy, Alex & Neil

There was also this report in yesterday's Toronto Star:

Toronto photographer Andrew MacNaughtan, longtime documenter of Rush's exploits and the man behind dozens of iconic portraits of Canadian celebrities, passed away suddenly in Los Angeles on Wednesday. MacNaughtan, in his mid-40s, reportedly suffered a heart attack while in California shooting his old friends, Rush. A member of the band's local management staff told the Star the office was "heartbroken over here," ...

Andrew had worked with Rush as a photographer and videographer for several of the band's projects since the 1980s. The Power Windows website has a great 1991 interview with Andrew from The Spirit of Rush newsletter where he talks at length about how he became involved with the band. It all started in 1980 when a 16-year-old Andrew started the Rush Backstage Club of Toronto:

... I tried to do something like you guys, I was your typical Rush fan, fanatic, but I always tried to apply a positive thing. Instead of just being a fan that would hang out at hotel doors. It is fine to be fanatical about a band believe me, everyone wants an idol, everyone wants things to look up to and follow but, I put it to a more practical use, ... I had these photo's of Rush, I called up Howard (Ungerleider), I knew him through the fan club and met him occasionally, he got me tickets and things. I gave him a whole bunch of my photo's, just to take down to Anthem to give to the person in charge of photo's and stuff. I said that I hadn't a use of them can you use them? It was at this point that they were doing their tour book for Power Windows. The band loved the photos and they had nothing for the tour book, as they had used them up, they bought about 12 shots of mine, and used them in the Power Windows tour book. Which was really great. a great honor. That led me to shoot on the Power Windows tour. They sent me down to Binghampton, Troy and Syracuse in New York, I shot all that and then onto Buffalo and some in Toronto. They used a lot of those photos as well, they were used for magazine articles as well as the Hold Your Fire tour book, which was great. I started to get my way in there, working with Rush in a different way, other than the now folded fan club. It was getting too large. So, I passed it all onto the Las Vegas fan club. ...

His latest endeavor was a unique art book showcasing the beauty of Africa through a series of stunning black and white photographs called GRACE: Africa in Photographs. Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee contributed captions for two of the photos in the book, and Andrew had been selling copies via his website along with prints of the photographs to help support his charity ArtGivesHope. Andrew spoke about the project in this November interview with Global News which you can view at here. Andrew was an integral part of the Rush family and will be sorely missed. Our heartfelt condolences go out to all of Andrew's friends and family.

On Wednesday I'd reported the rumor that Rush had abruptly changed their 2012 tour plans and now plan on touring in the Fall rather than the Spring. Since then I've had these rumors corroborated by a few other reliable sources so I definitely believe it to be true, although it has yet to be officially announced. Note that these plans had been made sometime last month and can in no way be related to Andrew MacNaughtan's untimely death on Wednesday as has been inferred by some. The reasoning behind the change in plans remains unclear as of now. It's also not clear if or how Andrew's passing will affect progress on the upcoming album. Knowing Rush, there's no doubt that their priority right now is to support eachother and Andrew's family/friends through this difficult time; completing the album is likely the furthest thing from their minds at the moment - just as it should be. That said, the latest rumors had placed the Clockwork Angels release at the end of April, with the possibility of seeing a single by later next month. More information as I learn it.

Speaking of the new album, Eric over at Power Windows dug up this article at about.com from around the time of the release of Caravan which discusses the obvious occult symbols in the Caravan artwork:

The band Rush is releasing a new single today called Caravan, and the album cover consists of a clock face with 12 blatant occult symbols. My question is... were they being clever in their choice, or are they random selections (or at least selections based on appearance rather than meaning)?

We learned earlier this week that the folks at RushCon are teaming up with the Rush Radio website to sponsor a 2112 listening party this coming Wednesday, February 1st at 9:12PM - 2/1/12 21:12. From the RushCon newsletter:

SYNC UP. ROCK OUT. THE 2112 LISTENING PARTY.

Tune into RushRadio.org on Wednesday February 1, 2012, at 9:12pm (in your time zone) for the world's largest streaming Rush listening party! Simultaneously, join fans across the world in an online chat (tinychat.com/rushcon) as we crank this epic album and fill the world with our music. This is the closest we will get to the year 2112 in our lifetime, so celebrate and assume control!

The party will repeat 4 times, starting at 9:12pm EST, then at 9:12pm Central, Mountain, and Pacific timezones. So everyone will have a chance to join! Or heck, come for all 4 hours! The more Rush fans the better!

The Rush Backstage Club is running a new contest where you could win an autographed Snakes & Arrows Tourbook:

Here is another chance to win autographed RUSH swag from Rush Backstage. This time we are giving away this pristine autographed RUSH Snakes and Arrows tourbook. Enter today for your chance to win!

For all the details and to enter just go to this link.

For this past week's RollingStone.com's reader's poll they posed the question of what singer has the most unique voice. Geddy Lee made the final cut at #10:

Stephen Malkmus said it best: "What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?" I'll answer the last question first: Yes, Geddy speaks with an ordinary voice. In fact, his speaking voice is, if anything, a little on the deep side. You'd never know from talking to him that he's capable of hitting such amazing high notes. Lee's unconventional voice sometimes makes it tougher for Rush to appeal to a first-time listener, but it's hard to imagine the group with any other singer at the helm.

Gregorian is a German band headed by Frank Peterson that performs Gregorian chant-inspired versions of modern pop and rock songs. The band features both vocal harmony and instrumental accompaniment. Their most recent album in their Masters of Chant series - Masters of Chant Chapter VIII - was released this past September 30th and contains a cover of Rush's Bravado which you can listen to on YouTube at this link. The album can be purchased as an import at this link.

The Canadian Music blog recently compiled a list of which Canadian artists had the most Facebook likes and Twitter followers. As of December 31st of last month Rush was #13 on their list with 43,962 Twitter followers and 1,320,909 Facebook likes.

The winners of the Sabian Player's Choice contest were announced at the Winter NAMM show earlier this month. Back in October Sabian launched a website at www.cymbalvote.com and invited people to pick from 12 new cymbal models. The site featured videos of Neil Peart, Terry Bozzio, Mike Portnoy and several other well-known drummers playing the cymbals and giving their opinions on what they liked about them. One cymbal was then eliminated each week until only four remained.

Members of Swedish heavy metal band Meshuggah were recently interviewed for the Nuclear Blast Records website to discuss their upcoming album KOLOSS. At one point drummer Tomas Haake was asked about his favorite prog drummers and went on to talk about Neil Peart and Rush. You can listen to what he had to say in this YouTube video at about the 1:45 mark. Thanks to Marco V for the heads up.

Here's Andrew MacNaughtan's November interview with Global News where he discusses his GRACE: Africa in Photographs book and charity project.

Rest in peace Andrew.

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