RUSH

RUSH - Thirtieth Anniversary Drum Kit And Drum Sticks To Be Produced



RUSH fansite Power Windows has learned that DW Drums is producing thirty limited edition R30 tourkits, replicas of the kit RUSH drummer Neil Peart used during the R30 tour complete with gold plated hardware and custom album logos. Although the kit will include all three snares, it will not include the Roland V drums. Only 30 will be made, and although the suggested retail price will be $53,000, they will be availalbe to order from Guitar Center for $30,000. The kits will not be available for order until on October 30th at 8am, and there will be no pre-orders. The R30 Drum Kit will be in Guitar Center's October catalog, and will also be available on NeilPeart.net.

In addition, Pro-Mark has announced it will be producing limited edition R30 Neil Peart drum sticks to be available at Guitar Center and Musician's Friend stores on October 1st. Two sets will be available: one will include sticks for Test For Echo, Grace Under Pressure, and Counterparts, while another will include sticks for Presto, Roll The Bones, and 2112. Each set will include a chance to win a copy of Roadshow or Anatomy of a Drum Solo. For more information, visit www.neilpeartdrumsticks.com.

(Thanks Power Windows)

RUSH - 'A Passage To Bangkok' Riff Featured On Xbox 360 Game Dead Rising; R30 Picks Up Two DVD Awards

RUSH fansite Power Windows has issued the following updates:

Although just released August 8th, Rush fans have already discovered that the main guitar riff from 'A Passage To Bangkok' can be heard in the Xbox 360 video game Dead Rising. While fighting with prisoners on the jeep in the leisure park, the song 'Gone Guru' by the band LIFESEEKER plays. From their self titled debut album, the song includes a sample of the main guitar riff from 'A Passage To Bangkok'. Click http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/lifeseeker-04.m3u for a sample. The 'Bangkok' riff begins at 1:07."

"Rush R30 won two awards for authoring design and video presentation in the "Independent Release" catagory at The 9th Annual DVD Awards, held August 8th in Los Angeles."

RUSH Drummer Thanks Modern Drummer Fans

The October issue of Modern Drummer includes the following letter of thanks by RUSH drummer Neil Peart: "When I first heard that the Modern Drummer Readers Poll had awarded me with triple honors for rock drummer, recorded performance, and educational DVD, I felt a heady mix of emotions. Pleasure, foremost, and certainly surprise, mixed with a little unworthiness. In time, that combination of reactions added up to a pure sense of gratitude at having my work be so appreciated by people, especially other drummers. 'The praise of the praiseworthy,' I call it. If anyone thinks a person ever gets 'used to' being honored, or winning awards, and doesn't really care too much, I'm here to tell you that it's not so. There are few feelings in life that equal being appreciated, and you can never get enough of it. Plus, genuine appreciation has the quality to endure, and I still feel a warm glow when I think about those three honors.
To all those who voted for me, thank you most sincerely. Neil Peart" - Modern Drummer, Oct. 2006 Issue

In other news, the Orlando Weekly Newspaper has printed a parody in the wake of the of the recently denied civil action by Peart and Lee against the Ritz-Carlton Naples. In the parody, a Rush fan sues the band for damages caused by his being a Rush fanatic. Head http://www.orlandoweekly.com/columns/story.asp?id=10923 to view.

(Thanks 2112.net)

RUSH - Producer, Engineer, Release Date Confirmed For New Record?

RUSH fansite Power Windows has posted the following exciting news update at their website: http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/News.htm

"A few days ago rumors began to spread on the internet that producer Nick Raskulinecz (FOO FIGHTERS, STONE SOUR, VELVET REVOLVER) had been hired for the next Rush album, along with engineer Rick Chycki (Rush R30 DVD, Closer To The Heart Tsunami benefit track, etc.). Power Windows has confirmed off the record that these rumors are true, and that the band hopes to release the new album "hopefully early next spring" (fans can expect an official press release shortly). Ironically, in a June 2006 interview with EQ Magazine, when asked "are there any artists out there that you’d like a shot at producing?", Raskulinecz answered "Rush. That would be my dream album to make. Nobody plays like those guys anymore."

Billboard.com signale que RUSH a enregistré 8 morceaux pour son prochain album studio , sortie prévue début 2007 d'après le batteur Neil Peart. Les textes sont d'après lui très inspirés de son périple en moto a travers les States, périple décrit dans un nouveau bouquin : "Roadshow: Landscape With Drums".

RUSH - Eight Songs Written For New Studio Album

The following report is courtesy of Jonathan Cohen from Billboard.com:

RUSH has penned eight songs for its next studio album, which should be out in early 2007, according to drummer Neil Peart. The artist tells Billboard.com his lyrics for the as-yet-untitled set were greatly influenced by his motorcycle journeys throughout the United States, chronicled in the new book Roadshow: Landscape With Drums.

Peart says he was struck by the ubiquity of religious billboards that have sprung up on America's highways, which got him thinking about some weighty topics. "Just seeing the power of evangelical Christianity and contrasting that with the power of fundamentalist religion all over the world in its different forms had a big effect on me," he says.

"You try to put your own way of seeing the world into some kind of congruence with other peoples, and that's difficult for me," he admits. "I mean, I see the world in what I think to be a perfectly obvious and rational way, but when you go out into it and see the way other people think and behave, and express themselves on church signs, you realize, 'Well, I'm not really part of this club.'"

"I looked for the good side of faith," Peart says. "To me it ought to be your armor, something to protect you and something to console you in dark times. But it's more often being turned into a sword, and that's one big theme I'm messing with."

Musically, the new album is continuing in much the same vein as 2002's "Vapor Trails," which returned Rush to a more guitar/bass/drums-driven sound. But Peart is quick to add that the music is "remarkably organic in a way that I haven't heard [from Rush] before. We spent a month together in May working on those songs and developing our individual instrument parts for them. It's early to characterize it, but it's definitely fresh and different and that's certainly satisfying."

Peart, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson will regroup next month to finish pre-production and will begin recording in November. However, as Peart writes at the conclusion of Roadshow, he is ambivalent about putting himself through yet another massive world tour.

"It is true that in 1989 I announced that I wasn't going to tour anymore, and have said that every time since and have gone back and decided [to do it] for all good reasons," he says. "One of the main ones to me is that a band plays live, so if I want to consider our band as a living, working thing then that's the case. I haven't in my own mind committed to [another tour] yet, but of course I haven't ruled it out, either."

RUSH Drummer's New Book - Roadshow: Landscape With Drums, A Concert Tour By Motorcycle - Is Out Now


RUSH drummer Neil Peart's new book (photo left) written about the R30 Tour called Roadshow: Landscape With Drums, A Concert Tour By Motorcycle is now available. A description of the book is as follows: "In 2004, the veteran rock band Rush launched their Thirtieth-Anniversary Tour, performing fifty-seven shows in nine countries, in front of 544,525 people. Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart launched his own parallel tour, riding between those fifty-seven shows on his BMW motorcycle. From Los Angeles to Nashville, Salt Lake City to Key West, Prague to Berlin, Peart covered 21,000 miles, through nineteen countries. Along the way he kept a journal of his impressions, writing about those countries, and those fifty-seven shows, with the aim of documenting the tour as 'the biggest journey of all in my restless existence: the life of a touring musician.'"

As previously reported, Peart was interviewed on Sirius radio in support of the book, and also discussed the dryers, multi-show fans, intrusive fans, his motorcycle, touring, writing lyrics and drummer jokes. The interview is available online here. http://www.filelodge.com/files/room20/519803/Neil_Peart_Sirius_Interview.mp3

(Thanks Power Windows)

RUSH Drummer Releases New Book This Week

The following report is courtesy of Bruce Simon from Launch:
RUSH drummer Neil Peart is back this week with a new book titled Roadshow: Landscape With Drums: A Concert Tour By Motorcycle. It's a chronicle of his time on the band's 30th anniversary tour across North America in 2004, when he rode his motorcycle between gigs, instead of getting on the tour bus with singer-bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson.

Peart told Launch that traveling the country on his bike and interacting with people off the beaten path has affected his work as an author and as the main lyricist for Rush: "I'm writing through watching, you know, farm workers working in the fields, and watching people working in gas stations and in, in small-town restaurants, and all that. And those people become part of the world, and part of the human nature that I'm writing about. And I think that has to help, and definitely does help into giving me a much more real perspective on life as it is lived, you know, on an everyday basis for more people."

Roadshow is Peart's fourth book, following 2002's Ghost Rider: Travels On The Healing Road, and two from 2004 - Traveling Music: The Soundtrack To My Life, and The Masked Rider: Cycling In West Africa.

Rush has been working on a new studio album that should be out next year.

RUSH' Alex Lifeson On Band's Next Album: "We're Not Spending A Lot Of Time On Sound Or Getting Too Involved In The Recording"

Jam! Showbiz ( jam.canoe.ca ) has issued the following report from Karen Bliss:

Canadian rock legends RUSH will be co-producing their new studio album for Anthem Records with Nick Raskulinecz (FOO FIGHTERS). The American producer will be flying up to Toronto next week to meet with the band, which is in the demo phase right now.

"It's early stages. We have nine songs written so far," says guitarist Alex Lifeson. "We're going to continue until we have about 12 songs and finish up preproduction at the end of October, so we'll be really well prepared and then go in the studio in November and start recording."

That way of working is a little different for Lifeson, singer/bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, who usually write in the studio and record at the same time.

"This time around, we wanted to write, we wanted to rehearse the material, we wanted to get really inside it before we actually recorded it," explains Lifeson. "We're not spending a lot of time on sound or getting too involved in the recording."

Lifeson and Lee started working "very casually" together through the early part of this year, and Peart sent some lyrics to them. In May, they spent a month in a downtown studio "building things, doing some more writing, doing some pre-production, getting Neil involved, drumming, and then we just went back in about a week and a half ago."

This will be Rush's 18th original album since the trio formed in 1968 and released its self-titled debut in 1974. The band has since sold more than 36 million albums worldwide and continues to be one of the top-grossing international touring acts.

The last time Rush was in the studio to record original material was for 2002's Vapor Trails, which scanned just under 40,000 units in Canada, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Rush's last studio album was 2004's Feedback, a fun recording for which they covered songs by THE YARDBIRDS, THE WHO, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD, and others. R30, a live 30th Anniversary World Tour DVD and CD set, was released last November. Both releases scanned 33,000 units each in Canada.

Asked how the new songs are developing and Lifeson enthuses, "It's awesome, but I say that about all our records at this point. With every new record, it's the most exciting thing you've ever done.

"But there's a quality about this record that's very expansive and musically lyrical. It's very melodic. I've written almost exclusively on acoustic guitar. When Geddy and I write, I'm playing acoustic and he's playing bass, so there's a different character to the way the writing is developing.

"To me, it seems so apparent immediately whether a piece of music works or not when it's written on acoustic. You're not fooled by some distorted sound or some effect you put on guitar or something like that. This is pure in its essence and you know right away whether this chorus works or whether this verse works.

"So I'm really excited about the way this is going to develop once we start recording it."

RUSH Guitarist Paints For Brush Of Hope Project

According to RUSH fansite Power Windows, guitarist Alex Lifeson, along with about 90 other Canadian celebrities, has created a painting for A Brush Of Hope, a project of The Kidney Foundation of Canada, which will be sold on www.ebay.ca between November 2 and 12. Besides the Ebay auction, the paintings will be on display at Kitchener City Hall between Oct 11 and 13, and again at the Kidney Foundation's Funny Fall Gala on November 10th. For more information, contact the Western Ontario Chapter of The Kidney Foundation of Canada at (519) 742-2023, or visit www.kidney.on.ca for info on the Funny Fall Gala.

RUSH Fans PRIMUS Issue New Releases

RUSH tribute site Power Windows ( www.2112.net/powerwindows/ ) has been updated with the following:

PRIMUS "Best Of" and Mockumentary...

The group Primus are well known fans of Rush, having included the 'YYZ' intro in two of their tracks, 'John The Fisherman' and 'To Defy The Laws Of Tradition'; released on separate albums in 1990, they are both included on their new best of collection, They Can't All Be Zingers, released October 17th. Also released yesterday (in Region 2 format) is a their third DVD, Blame It On The Fish. The DVD includes a 30 minute mockumentary of the band set in 2065, where a 102 year-old Les Claypool reminisces about the band, and mentions Rush and/or Geddy Lee on three separate occasions.

Primus toured with Rush on the Roll The Bones and Counterparts tours, and bass player Les Claypool also performed on one track of Alex Lifeson's solo project, Victor.

For their 2000 Antipop tour they sold a concert t-shirt with artwork similar to the 2112 cover. Alex Lifeson appeared on their Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People DVD, interviewing the band as "Big Al", wearing black rimmed glasses and fake crooked teeth (the DVD also includes a photo of Les Claypool and Geddy Lee fishing, and a scene backstage where Les shows the camera his Geddy Lee autographed bass).

New RUSH Album To Reflect On "Faith" Says Drummer Neil Peart


The following report is courtesy of Cassandra Szklarski from 570news.com:

Canadian rock icons RUSH are working on a collection of new songs based on Neil Peart's reflections on faith, the drummer said Thursday from his home in Los Angeles.

Peart said he, high-pitched singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson spent much of this year crafting the power trio's first slate of new material since 2004's Vapor Trails and expect to begin recording in November for an album release early next year.

Peart revealed few details about the record, except to say that reflections on faith emerged as a clear theme from the very beginning.

"I tried hard to look at it as a subject - what's good about it - and tried to balance that against what I saw as not being a good thing," said Peart, noting his experience as a Canadian living in the United States for the past six years has given him a unique perspective on world events.

"All we're seeing, especially in the world today, is a very malevolent kind of faith, in fundamentalism of all kinds, on both sides. One of the lines I use in the new songs equates Middle East and Middle West, because this stuff is going on in both localities, although both would probably be insulted by the comparison."

Peart said much of the new material was hashed out long distance, with him exchanging lyrics from Los Angeles for the song sketches of Lee and Lifeson, who both live in Toronto.

His musings on religion emerged during a motorcycle road trip he took across the United States in 2004, the year the band celebrated their 30th anniversary with a tour.

He turned the experience into a book of anecdotes and stories, Roadshow: Landscape With Drums: A Concert Tour By Motorcycle. "I don't need it in my life, is the way I would put it," Peart said of faith. "But I see other people who do and other people for whom it's definitely a positive sort of reinforcement of a kind of solace and those are all good things."

Still, he says he's not shy about tackling an issue that is often considered taboo.

Peart said a teacher once told him to never judge people by things they can't change. Therefore, religion is fair game, he says.

"To me, those are things they can change, so I feel entitled to look at them in that light," he says.

The band's last album was Feedback, including eight cover songs released in 2004 to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Rush album, Rush.

RUSH - 2112 Chosen For Canadian Masterworks Preservation


"The prog-rock experiments of the band RUSH are among works that should be preserved for future generations," says a committee tasked with saving the best in Canadian television, radio, film and music. The band's 1976 album 2112, a unique blend of classic rock and synthesizers that made Rush a sensation both in Canada and the United States, is one of 12 cultural pieces named Thursday as MasterWorks by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust. The public-sector group promotes the protection of classic Canadian works and selects a dozen every year for preservation, offering funds for those in danger of being lost. "The safeguarding of these selections is so important to the foundation of Canadian culture." added president David Novek.

RUSH Drummer Has Mixed Feelings About 2112 Being Singled Out For Canada's Audio-Visual Preservation Trust


The following report is courtesy of Vit Wagner from TheStar.com:

RUSH drummer and lyricist Neil Peart has mixed feelings about the Toronto trio's 1976 prog-rock masterpiece, 2112, being singled out for conservation. On the one hand, Peart is flattered that the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust, an organization dedicated to safeguarding Canada's film, TV, radio and musical legacy, is adding the 2112 masters to its archive. The album will be officially inducted during the organization's annual MasterWorks ceremony to be attended by Governor General Michaëlle Jean Thursday at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. It will be honoured alongside 11 other works, including the NFB documentary The Champions and the classic Quebec film Les bons debarras.

"It seems a worthy thing," says Peart on the line from Los Angeles, where Rush is working on a new album to be released next year. "We've been slowly trying to rescue our old master tapes and transfer them to digital because they do degrade horribly over time. So I understand the necessity of what they're doing."

Whether Peart would have chosen that album — or any other by Rush — for preservation is another matter.
"I accept the transitory nature of music in general and especially popular music," he says. "As a listener I move on and very rarely go back and listen to anything I listened to 30 years ago. I'm always about moving forward. When an artist I like puts out a new record, I don't listen to the old one any more.

"I see it the same way with Rush. When we tour, we play those songs. They're still great to play and I'm still proud of many of them. But I would definitely fear the realization that the best record we made was 10 or 20 years ago. That would be hard to live with."

Peart might be reluctant to flag 2112 as Rush's best album, but has no reservations about identifying it as the band's breakthrough. Recorded in a month by Peart, singer/bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson, it was a calculated act of creative defiance.

"Our first three albums had all done so-so in Canada and the U.S.," Peart recalls. "We were under a lot of pressure from our record company and management to be more commercial, to toe the line as it were, and write some singles. We were made to understand that this was our last chance.

"We could cave under that kind of pressure, of course, or we could rebel against it. We were mad at people daring to tell us how to make music. For me, growing up in the '60s, that was simply evil. It was very much us against the suits. That kind of energy was present big-time during the recording."

Far from delivering radio-friendly singles, Rush devoted the entire first side of 2112 to the title track, a 20-minute composition on the theme of rebellious individuality loosely inspired by the Ayn Rand novel Anthem.

"Suddenly, our sales multiplied five or six times and we were headlining small theatres," Peart says. "It was absolutely the hinge in our whole career. It could so easily have gone the other way. If that record had fallen between the cracks, it would have been the end of us I'm sure."

RUSH - Neil Peart Gives Rick Mercer Drum Lesson, Video Online; New Holiday Goodies Available; Photos From THE BIG DIRTY BAND Video Shoot Revealed

BW&BK has received the following RUSH news:

In The Studio...

Yes, you have all most likely heard about it by now - the band is back in the studio! They will be hard at work over the next few months, and while no release date is confirmed, a spring of 2007 date is anticipated.

The Mercer Report...

Recently, Neil (Peart) talked with CBC Television's Rick Mercer. Click here to see Rick's entertaining drum lesson from Neil. You will need either Window's Media Player or QuickTime to view this video.

Holiday Goodies From The Backstage Club...

The Rush Backstage Club has great holiday gift ideas for Rush fans. The Complete Tourbooks set is the ultimate gift and is now on sale for a limited time. This 400-page book is beautifully bound in black cloth and features all 15 of Rush’s tourbooks going back to 1977! Other great gift ideas are the 2007 Wall Calendar, Rush Replay X3 DVD, and an all new limited edition poster. Check it out at this location.

The Big Dirty Screensaver...

As you know Geddy (Lee) and Alex (Lifeson) recently joined forces with ex-THE TEA PARTY drummer Jeff Burrows, Adam Gontier of THREE DAYS GRACE, THORNLEY's Ian Thornley, and singer Care Failure of Toronto band DIE MANNEQUIN to form THE BIG DIRY BAND, to release a cover of 'I Fought The Law', as well as a music video.

The Rush Mailing List and Contest Page has also created an exclusive behind the scenes screensaver featuring around 200 photos from the video shoot and it is currently available for download at this location.

Un nouveau RUSH en 2007
RUSH termine actuellement l'enregistrement de son nouvel album. Selon son batteur Neil Peart, le cd devrait être dispo durant le premier semestre 2007. A suivre...
http://www.neilpeart.net/