The March 5th issue of Kerrang! magazine contains a short interview with Geddy Lee where he talks about Rush's 2112 in celebration of the album's recent 40th anniversary.
... [2112] became our most popular record. We were just delighted that we were still around and still employable! We honestly thought that this was going to be our last album, it would be the end. But what happened was, 2112 sold like crazy! It sold so well, actually, that we were allowed to do whatever we wanted after that. And that freed us up to really get creative and explore. And now, a lot of bands tell us that it's one of the albums that made them want to play music - Foo Fighters, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, they all say it had a huge impact on them.
You can read the interview online here. Speaking of Geddy, the Teenage Cancer Trust's annual fundraising event is taking place at Royal Albert Hall in London all this week and the festivities kicked off Tuesday night with an Evening of Comedy hosted by John Bishop. Rush's Geddy Lee is a big fan of British comedy and has a residence in London, so it's no surprise that he was at the show as seen in this tweet from the Teenage Cancer Trust's Music Manager Angie Jenkison. The Who's Roger Daltrey is the Patron of the event, which is now in its 16th year. Back in 2014 Geddy Lee performed The Seeker at The Who Hits 50! Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concert. The event runs through this weekend and has already seen performances from The Vaccines, Everything Everything, and Simply Red, with Bring Me The Horizon, New Order and David Gilmour along with some "very special guests" coming up tonight and over the weekend.
Alice Cooper's annual Rock & Roll Golf Classic to benefit Solid Rock and The Rock Teen Center, will take place this coming Sunday and Monday, April 24-5 at the Las Sendas Golf Club in Mesa, AZ. There will also be a Vampire Bash in connection with the golf tournament on Sunday night from 4:30-10PM which includes a Cocktail Reception, Silent Auction, Dinner, Live Auction and Live Entertainment on the PCS Stage with Alice Cooper and friends, including Alex Lifeson, Danny Seraphine (Chicago), Tommy Thayer (KISS), Frank Sidoris (Slash), and Neal Smith (Alice Cooper), and the comic genius of John O'Hurley and Jeff Allen. The golf tournament itself is sold out, but you can get tickets to the Vampire Bash for $250. For all the details and to purchase tickets visit alicecoopersolidrock.com. Alex is no stranger to celebrity charity golf tournaments, having just participated (along with Alice Cooper and many others) in Patrick Warburton's Celebrity Golf Tournament last month.
Speaking of Alex Lifeson, hand-crafted acoustic guitar maker Loucin Guitars of Oakville, ON announced back in late 2014 that they had added Lerxst as their newest client and were crafting him a custom LD model made out of a beautiful Indian Rosewood set with tons of gorgeous sapwood. Last week they posted some beautiful photos of the finished product (named Melanija after Lifeson's mother) to their Facebook and Twitter pages, and earlier this week Alex Lifeson finally got to "meet" Melanija as seen in this tweet.
In addition to golfing and playing with new guitars, Alex Lifeson will be participating as one of the panel members for an evening of discussion on the importance of popular music to the creative life of Canada, and the need to preserve the archival record of its creators and distributors. The event will take place on May 17th at Innis Town Hall, Innis College, at the University of Toronto and will run from 6-8PM with doors opening at 5:30PM, and a wine and cheese reception immediately following at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. The discussion will be moderated by Denise Donlon and also included on the panel are Martin Melhuish, Tom Cochrane, Lorraine Segato, and Rob Bowman. Space is limited and you can reserve tickets by calling 416-978-3600 or sending an e-mail to events.library@utoronto.ca.
And keeping on the subject of Lerxst, the staff at Premier Guitars with some help from The Suffers' Kevin Bernier posted an article this week where they highlight some of their favorite guitar solos. One of Bernier's favorites was Alex Lifeson's La Villa Straniato solo. And Gibson.com posted a gallery of photos from award-winning rock photographer Jerome Brunet including one stunning image of Alex Lifeson as seen here:
This was taken in 2007, at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. I grew up in Canada, so naturally Rush is one of my favorite bands. Lifeson is also one of my favorite guitarists. I've been shooting Rush since 2001, whenever they come anywhere near the San Francisco Bay area.
Speaking of photographs of Rush, the Rush legal team is laying the hammer down on a Calgary photographer named Ian Mark who snapped shots of Rush in the 1970s and has been selling them online (thanks Eric at Power Windows):
... Mark took the photographs on behalf of a magazine that no longer exists. It was right around the time Fly by Night ... came out. Three years ago, Mark began selling them online in an Etsy store. Recently, he was surprised to receive a letter, claiming he was infringing on the band's copyright and could no longer sell the photos. Mark reached out to the band directly for permission to sell the photos. A representative offered to buy them for $5,000, which Mark refused. "When you give these photographs away, you're giving away everything," he said. Mark's never had any issue with the photos he was selling, which included bands like Queen. In three years, he's made about $530 off of the Rush photos. Rush's lawyers said it's about protecting their client's rights. "There are many rights besides copyrights. These include trademark rights, personality rights and merchandising rights," said Bob Farmer, director with SRO/YYZ Entertainment Group Inc. "The owner of the photograph does not own these latter rights and cannot profit by exploiting them." Farmer said he's asked Mark to forward the profits, which will then be donated to charity. ...
Clockwork Angels/Clockwork Lives author Kevin J. Anderson has co-edited an anthology of Rush-themed stories with John McFetridge titled 2113: Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush. The book was made available for purchase as an eBook for Kindle and as an audiobook via Audible back on April 1st, and last week the paperback edition was released. A recent review of the collection from The Globe and Mail's John Semley describes it as being a book very much for Rush fans:
... 2113 is a collection about ... freedoms: about the defiant heroes fighting back against boredom and hemming-in, however futile it may seem. It is, at the risk of sounding duh-duh or redundant, very much a collection of short stories inspired by the music of Rush. It may be easy to laugh off, and even easier to ignore. But it's all very much tailored to a certain kind of fan and a certain kind of reader: The kind who takes solace in the individual triumph over the collective, the kind comforted by fiction that clearly delineates its narrative and thematic agendas, depicting worlds of stark moral clarity that are richly realized, but very much parallel to our own.
Kerrang! magazine recently published their list of The 26 Biggest Cult Bands In Rock and Rush is one of the bands included:
During the Toronto prog trio's 48-year career - yep, that's 48 - Rush have released 20 studio albums despite rarely being on nodding terms with the mainstream. Their frontman, Geddy Lee, may possess the sort of voice that makes dogs look restless, yet they continue to sell out arenas across the world at the drop of a hat. Their bookish drummer, Neil Peart, writes lyrics inspired by science fiction, philosophy and mythology, and even penned The Trees in the late '70s after imagining what would happen if maples and oaks got into an altercation. But for that reason alone, we - alongside the likes of Metallica, Foo Fighters, Biffy Clyro and the South Park team - love them for it, and will gladly take on anyone who disagrees. But only in a game that involves 20-sided dice in a poorly ventilated room.
TeamRock.com recently asked guitarist Ron Bumblefoot Thal to name the 10 Records That Changed My Life, and Rush's Moving Pictures made the cut:
"This was the most recent Rush album to have come out when I was about 12 years old. I was hanging out with my friend Bob at the park near our school. We were drinking beer and hanging out with some girls, although I was really pretending to drink because I didn't like the taste of beer. I remember hearing Moving Pictures and flipping out. From there, I went out and got Permanent Waves and all the other Rush albums. "By the time I was 13 or 14, I had a band and we started playing bars. Half of our set was Rush and the other half was Kiss, Ozzy, Aerosmith and Maiden. The Rush songs we did were things like Beneath, Between & Behind, By-Tor & the Snow Dog - a lot of the early stuff. "But Moving Pictures is the album I really remember as being the soundtrack to that time. The songs are so memorable and hooky, the guitar playing is phenomenal - I mean, all the playing is badass. It's Rush taking you on a new kind of journey."
Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson recently got on Instagram and one of the first things he posted was a short teaser video of his band at soundcheck playing Rush's The Twilight Zone (thanks Leo S). Wilson has Rush's Counterparts included on his current playlist which he posts to his website periodically. Wilson played Massey Hall in Toronto last month and Rush's Alex Lifeson was in attendance. Lifeson is a big fan of Wilson's work and played a solo on the song Anesthetize from Porcupine Tree's 2007 Fear of a Blank Planet album. Lifeson also had high praise for Wilson in a recent Music Aficionado interview.
Back in December the first trailer for the upcoming X-men: Apocalypse film was released and included a scene with the character Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters) wearing a Rush Moving Pictures t-shirt as seen in this animated gif and in this video at about the 1:50 mark. Now UK based broadband service Sky Fibre has teamed up with 20th Century Fox to create a new X-men-themed commercial featuring the speedster superhero prominently sporting his Moving Pictures shirt. You can watch the ad below or online here. X-men: Apocalypse is set to release on May 27th in the US.
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend everyone! RIP Prince.
