This past Saturday Rush's Geddy Lee made an appearance at Toronto record store Dine Alone Store for Record Store Day to promote the vinyl release of his Lost Demos. Geddy was in store from 12PM to 1PM to sign copies of the release, and from all reports it was a great event. Several fans posted photos with Geddy from the event, and you can see some of those on Instagram where Geddy was tagged. Dine Alone Store posted a photo and thank you message to Geddy after the event:

A HUGE thank you to Geddy Lee (@geddyimages) for stopping by the store today to celebrate his RSD release "The Lost Demos" 🤩 Always fun having Canadian royalty in the house 👑

Although Geddy's Lost Demos had already been made available for streaming back in 2023, The Record Store Day release was the first physical version of The Lost Demos to be released. Back in late 2023 in the lead up to his My Effin' Life book tour, Geddy Lee released 2 tracks from the My Favorite Headache sessions for streaming. The release was dubbed The Lost Demos and included the previously unreleased tracks Gone and I Am ... You Are. If you missed getting a copy this time around, don't fret - it will likely be made available for wide release at some point in the next few years, as demonstrated by today's release of the 2022 South Park 25th Anniversary Concert, originally an RSD exclusive release.

As mentioned above, back in August of 2022, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone hosted a pair of concerts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. The setlist included a number of South Park songs mixed in with Ween and Primus tunes, along with a surprise performance from Rush's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Closer to the Heart with Primus and Matt Stone on drums (video here). The concert was televised and the audio can be found on streaming services, with the only physical release being a special blue vinyl release made available for Record Store Day 2022. That vinyl edition is now available in wide release via Mercury Studios, and is now available to order. You can check out all the details, including the full 22-track setlist in the original Record Store Day listing, and order your copy here.

Alex Lifeson's Envy of None project with Andy Curran, guitarist Alfio Annibalini and vocalist Maiah Wynne officially released their second album Stygian Wavz last month. The album is available in many formats, including the LE Deluxe box set, colored vinyl, standard black vinyl, CD, Blu-ray, and digitally. For more details on the various album formats and what they include, visit the official Envy of None store and watch the video trailer. The entire tracklist is as follows:

Envy Of None - Stygian Wavz

1. Not Dead Yet [03:29]
2. The Story [04:41]
3. Under The Stars [04:32]
4. Thrill Of The Chase [03:40]
5. Handle With Care [04:14]
6. That Was Then [03:46]
7. Raindrops [03:33]
8. New Trip [03:55]
9. Clouds [04:02]
10. The End [03:58]
11. Stygian Waves [03:37]

Alex Lifeson wrapped up most of his interviews promoting the release last week, but another one dropped over the weekend - this one with the Celebrity Jobber podcast. Here's Alex talking about his first job with Rush ending and how retirement didn't suit him:

... my first job was an awesome job and I so enjoyed it. And it came to an end when it did and I was maybe a little forced into retirement. But there was no way I could do that. I played golf for a bit and I realized that that'svmaybe the worst thing you could do in your retirement. Really, that drives you insane. But when this opportunity came up to start working on some new music with different people I thought, "Oh that'd be be kind of cool." ...

You can listen to the entire interview on YouTube.

Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy was recently interviewed for CBC's Q with Tom Power, to discuss rejoining Dream Theater, their new album, and more. But a good bulk of the discussion revolved around Portnoy's drum hero Neil Peart, and Rush's massive influence on Dream Theater:

... Dream Theater was built and born out of our love for Rush. ... We were at Berkeley College of Music - it was 85 and myself John Petrucci and John Myung. We met out of a mutual love for Rush. That's the type of band we wanted to be like. Those two [John and John] went up [to Berkley College of Music] together from Long Island and then I went up on my own from Long Island and we met within the first couple weeks of school. They saw me jamming in a practice room wearing a Rush T-shirt and stuff like that. So we knew that was a common ground for us ...

You can check out the entire interview on YouTube.

Back in August, a double vinyl reissue of Alex Lifeson's 1996 solo album Victor was released, nearly 30 years after the album's original January, 1996 release. That album's first single, Promise, featured I Mother Earth's Edwin on vocals and a music video for the track was also released. In celebration of that re-issue, Rhino Records has released an upscaled, 4K version of the music video which you can check out below or on YouTube. The reissue was also made available on CD and includes 4 bonus instrumental tracks. The 4 bonus tracks are instrumentals that have been available for listening on AlexLifeson.com since late 2021; Kroove, Banjo Bob and Serbs were released together as the Lerxst Demo Archives in August, 2021, and Cherry Lopez Lullaby was added later that year in October. This was the first vinyl edition of the album to be released, and the reissue features the original album, completely remixed by Alex personally, offering significantly enhanced audio quality specially prepared for this release. You can order the album on Amazon at this location (or on CD here) or other online retailers.

Grapes for Humanity is an organization that helps to raise funds to benefit humanitarian causes around the world with the assistance of the international wine community, and Geddy Lee is a member of the board of directors. This past week they launched their 5th annual Fine Wine Auction with proceeds going to benefit the Nature Conservancy Canada, Tree Canada and local charities. The auction kicked off this past Saturday via Waddington's, and will run through this coming Tuesday, April 22nd. The auction includes several items of interest for Rush fans including almost 50 autographed bottles of wine from Geddy Lee's personal cellar, a very unique Gibson prototype guitar signed by all 3 members of Rush in 2010, and a Booze, Bubbles and the Boys from Rush dinner for 8 at Barberian's Steak House. Geddy Lee posted some more details about the specific lot numbers and other signed items that will be available in this Instagram post. For all the details and registration information, visit Waddington's at this location.

Rush's Alex Lifeson is one of the many artists included on an upcoming star-studded tribute to Canadian rockers Triumph. Magic Power: All Star Tribute to Triumph is due out on June 6th with pre-orders available here. In addition to Alex Lifeson, some other artists performing on the album are Heart's Nancy Wilson, Slash, Sebastian Bach, Twisted Sister's Dee Snider, Anthrax's Joey Belladonna, Mickey Thomas of Starship, Styx keyboardist/singer Lawrence Gowan, Journey drummer/vocalist Deen Castronovo, Tesla's Jeff Keith, former Chicago bassist/singer Jason Scheff, Night Ranger's Jack Blades, and Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X. Alex Lifeson along with Envy of None's Andy Curran and Maiah Wynne contribute a rendition of Triumph's Blinding Light Show off Triumph's self-titled 1976 debut album. Triumph drummer Gil Moore was recently interviewed for the Toronto Mike'D podcast this past week and credited Rush for opening doors for other Canadian bands like Triumph (thanks RushFanForever):

"... I have tremendous respect for Rush - for Geddy and Al and Neil - one of the greatest of all time on drums - and they actually opened doors for us in a way and the reason was the timing of their emergence in America, which was just literally - it must been 6 months - before Triumph [emerged], maybe nine months. And so their managers helped us - Ray and Vic at the time - with some advice ... I think if anything it helped us ..."

The album will be available June 6th on CD, Double vinyl and on digital streaming.

Rush's Fly By Night was included on Rolling Stone's list of the 75 Best Albums of 1975, coming in at #53 (thanks RushFanForever):

On their 1974 debut, Rush was one more promising post-Led Zeppelin hard-rock band. On their second album, they were Rush. It's their first with drummer-lyricist Neil Peart, who authoritatively announces his presence with the relentless precision and Ayn Rand-referencing title and lyrics of album opener "Anthem." The title track was their first classic-rock radio staple, driven by Alex Lifeson's clean, clarion guitar; they get funky on "Beneath, Between & Behind," kick some gallows-pole folk rock on "Making Memories," and take a soft detour into the Tolkien-esque on "Rivendell." The greatest leap forward is the eight-minute "By-Tor and the Snow Dog," where power-trio rock ascends into the mythic multi-partite prog complexity that'd make Rush legends. -J.D.

Rush's other 1975 album, Caress of Steel was left off the list. But Martin Popoff included it on his list of The top Hard Rock albums from 1975 that he wrote for Goldmine magazine this past week (thanks RushFanForever):

"I Think I'm Going Bald" is actually a cool Rush song, but I suppose it deserves some level of maligning because everything else on Caress of Steel is pretty serious and even grim. As well, the record has suffered from the band themselves putting it down, which has, through their influence, affected public opinion. But it's pretty much on par with the much-celebrated 2112 follow-up, providing two deep-dive prog metal epics, the aforementioned lark, the poignant "Lakeside Park," and the band's thrashiest song ever, "Bastille Day." As for the production, that's good too, if a little bright, like Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak.

American Songwriter posted an article this past week which asked the question, What Was the First US Top 40 Hit by Rush? Many might guess that it was Tom Sawyer, but that's not the case - it's New World Man off of Signals - which peaked at #21 on the Billboard singles chart in the fall of 1982:

Not many bands can boast the hallowed reputation that Rush has amassed among its fans during its illustrious career. The Canadian trio's catalog again and again provided songs that have become part of the classic rock firmament. Still, it took Rush almost a decade of recording before they finally made it to the US Top 40 with "New World Man". And once they did, they never made it back there again. ...

On this past week's episode of Rush Roundtable on the Rushfans YouTube channel (episode #271), the panel continues with their Rush 50 theme, and examine what they think are the best versions of Rush's live tracks.

Today marks the 12th anniversary of Rush's 2013 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here's some video of all the highlights:

That's all for this week. Have a great weekend and Happy Easter to those who celebrate!