The highlight of the past week was last night's live chat with Neil Peart, Doane Perry (Jethro Tull) and Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa) on the Drum Channel. The trio chatted about drumming and answered some fan questions for about an hour and a half and then performed an unbelievable half-hour drum jam session. If you missed the show it will be rebroadcast as an on-demand event this coming Tuesday, June 23rd. You can also now purchase a Neil Peart Master Class from the Drum Channel for $14.95 which features a series of 10 lessons from The Professor himself. And if you missed the 13-minute drum jam video that was posted to the Drum Channel site Wednesday featuring Neil Peart, Terry Bozzio and Joey Herredia you can watch that here.
RatCon 2009 took place this past weekend at Club Xanadu in Severna Park, MD (outside Baltimore) and was a huge success. Yours truly attended the Saturday festivities and had a blast. You can check out all the details and see a few pics in this post. Rush discoverer Donna Halper was in attendance and shared her Rush discovery story with everyone, chatted about her experiences with Rush (and other subjects) and graciously answered all of our questions. She gave us an update on the ceremony for Rush's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame which many readers have asked me about recently. It looks like the ceremony will not happen this year but likely will occur sometime next year. They are still working out the details.
Now that RatCon 2009 is in the books, we have RushCon 9 to look forward to. The event will take place the weekend of July 24-26th in Toronto, ON. In addition to all the usual RushCon events, this year there will be 2 exciting guest speakers; Michael Mosbach and Martin Popoff. Michael (aka Praetorian) has been Rush's head of security for 11 years and is the close friend and riding partner of Neil Peart. Martin is a rock journalist, critic and author who has written numerous books documenting various heavy metal and hard rock bands including the Rush biography Contents Under Pressure. He is also the co-founder of Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles magazine. The theme of this year's convention is Elevate From The Norm and the tribute band will be RushCon veterans Limelight. So how many RushCons have you been too? Take the Poll and let us know. Here are the results of the last poll where I asked everyone what instrument(s) do you play?
Activision released the latest addition to their Guitar Hero video game series this past Tuesday. Guitar Hero Smash Hits features 48 songs taken from five previous Guitar Hero releases, expanding them to be based on master track recordings and including support for full band play (first introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour). Rush's YYZ (first included on Guitar Hero 2) is one of the 48 featured tracks. For more information on the game you can visit the website at this link, and to order your copy go here.
Longtime reader Spindrifter has a baby cousin named Livia Hope Fortner who has Cystic Fibrosis. Livia's parents set up a website dedicated to Livia with the goal to raise awareness about Cystic Fibrosis and Spindrifter wanted me to ask everyone to check out the website if you have a spare moment and consider donating if you are able.
American alt-rockers Better Than Ezra were guests on Elliot in the Morning this past Tuesday. Apparently they like to crank up Rush on the tour bus ... at 7AM in the morning! You can listen to the podcast at this link. The Rush part begins at around the 6:30 mark. Thanks to Gabby for the heads up.
Reader Jess let me know that comedian Artie Lange was recently on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show and made a humorous Rush reference which you can check out in this vid at about the 8-minute mark.
In this recent Sporting News article golfer and Alex Lifeson's buddy Rocco Mediate gives a profile of himself which include 2 Rush mentions:
... What's in my iPod: Rush, Dire Straits, Metallica, AC/DC, Megadeth
...
Love to trade places for a day with ... Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson-just for one day-to see what it feels like to play music that always sounds that good. ...
Reader scottc let me know that 411mania's Dan Haggerty breaks down Rush's catalog with this album-by-album analysis of Rush's first 10 albums.
Here's one from the Rush Archives courtesy reader RushFanForever. You all may be aware of the fact that Geddy Lee produced the album No Static back in 1980 for a band called Wireless that was signed to Anthem. Here's YouTube audio of their song Pay to Ride that featured Geddy on backing vocals.
Apparently Rush played at Leaside High School in Toronto back in the early 70s. In the February, 2008 issue of the Leaside Alumni Newsletter they discuss the question as to whether this appearance by Rush was a myth or not and determined that Rush did indeed play there. They even introduced this photograph of John Rutsey and Geddy Lee onstage from the the school's 1974 yearbook as evidence along with several testimonials from alumni. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.
Reader Richard P let me know about a new book from author J. Maarten Troost called Lost on Planet China. Troost is a half-Dutch/half-Czech, Holland-born Canadian citizen who currently lives in California but is thinking of uprooting his family to China. He travels to strange places, takes root for years and writes about them. Being Canadian-born he was a Rush fan as a kid but was one of those fans who lost touch with the band after the release of Signals. In this latest book he visits Tai Shan which is the most climbed mountain in the world and the inspiration for the Rush song Tai Shan, and talks a bit about Rush in this excerpt (PDF file).
Reader RushFanForever pointed me to a recent interview with current Smashing Pumpkins bassist Ginger Pooley where Ginger talks about how Geddy Lee was her biggest influence. You can watch the interview at this link. The Geddy Lee bit occurs at the 1:45 mark.
Dave Aronberg is currently a state Senator from Florida and is also running for Attorney General. In a blog post on tambabay.com he is asked 5 questions, the last of which is who is the greatest rock and roll band in history. His anwer is an emphatic Rush! And you know he's a serious fan because he pronounces Neil Peart's name correctly. :) Good for him. Thanks to earthshined for the heads up.
Documentary filmmaker Allan King passed away earlier this week at the age of 79. Rush fans may remember King from his 1972 film Come on Children which featured a young Alex Lifeson as shown in this clip:
This film and other Allan King documentaries can be purchased online at this link.
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend and a big Happy Father's Day to all the Rush Daddies out there.
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