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Showing posts from July, 2012

Classic Rush Track to be Featured in Anthrax Covers Album

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Update (08/01/2012): According to this Gibson Guitars , the track Anthrax will be covering is Anthem from Fly By Night . Thanks Robert Volkers for the news. Anthrax, the American thrash metal band from New York City, is currently working on a covers album which will reportedly include a "classic" Rush track. The band's bassist, Frank Bello, recently told BW&BN about the project: “Actually, what we are planning on doing is doing some covers. We’re doing some cover versions of songs and [releasing] the record in the fall with some special cover songs such as a RUSH track and a BOSTON song. It’s gonna be great. Some really cool stuff which I think people are really going to dig...” To read the entire article, click HERE . Thanks to Eric from Power Windows for the news.

Happy Birthday Geddy Lee

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Geddy Lee (born Gary Lee Weinrib) turns 59 today! Happy Birthday, Geddy -- and many happy returns! "Gary" was born in the small Toronto village of Willowdale. As many fans know, his given first name "Gary" transformed into "Geddy" during his high school days thanks to his mother's heavily-accented pronunciation of his name. July 29th is also an important date in Rush history as it marks the date, back in 1974, when Neil Peart joined the group.

Rolling Stone's Readers' Poll of Favorite Prog Rock Albums Nets 3 Rush Classics

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Last week, Rolling Stone Magazine held a reader's poll where everyone was asked to select their favorite Prog Rock album. Today, the magazine posted the results which ended up including not one, but three classic Rush albums. Rush's seminal classic Moving Pictures took the #10 spot while Hemispheres (which garnered my vote) came in at the #8 spot. Missing the top spot was Rush's prog masterpiece 2112 which came in at #2. Since my vote did go for Hemispheres , here's what RS had to say about the album: 8. Rush - 'Hemispheres' In many ways, Hemispheres was the final album in a major chapter of Rush's career. It was their last release of the Seventies, and their last LP that's unambiguously prog. Amazingly brilliant and complex works like "La Villa Strangiato" showed they had really mastered their craft, and they felt it was time to move on. The band made a big stylistic shift on their next LP, 1980's Permanent Waves, which made

Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #6

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Six weeks after its release, Rush's 20th studio album Clockwork Angels continues to chart well across several Billboard Album Charts . On the Top 200 Albums list, the album dropped 10 spots to land at #61 this week. Unfortunately, it has dropped out of the Billboard Canadian Album Charts but is still holding on in these other charts: Top 200 Albums: #61 - down 10 spots from last week. Top Rock Albums: #19 -- down 4 spots from last week. Top Hard Rock Albums: #8 -- down 3 spot from last week. Top Taste Maker Albums: #25 -- down 12 spots from last week. Comparitively speaking, Clockwork Angels is still outpacing the charting activity of the band's 2007 Snakes & Arrows . In its sixth week, Snakes & Arrows was sitting at the #77 spot. Snakes & Arrows also remained in the Top 200 list for a total of fifteen consecutive weeks, so it'll be interesting to see how long Clockwork Angels charts. Haven't purchased your copy of Clockwork Angels yet? If

Rush Select "The Wreckers" As The Next Single From Clockwork Angels

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Update (07/25/2012): Check out Ultimate Classic Rock's review of The Wreckers -- Scored 9 out of 10! Rush and Roadrunner Records have announced that The Wreckers , the eighth track on Clockwork Angels will be released as the next single off of the album. According to tweets from representatives at Roadrunner Records, the single will hit the airwaves tomorrow, July 25th. Headlong Flight , the first (okay, third) single released from the album back in mid-April, is still charting well on the Mainstream Rock Charts . It's currently sitting at the #6 spot. Expect the single to be for sale some time next week. In the mean time, you can listen to "The Wreckers" via the player below or at this LINK . Thanks to Ed from RushIsABand for passing along the news. Related News Stories [ Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #5 - July 19th, 2012] [ Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #4 - July 12th, 2012] [ Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #3

Clockwork Angels: The Novel Special Autographed / Numbered Editions

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Kevin J. Anderson, the author of the upcoming novelization of Rush's Clockwork Angels album has just posted some exciting news about special autographed editions of the novel. Limited to a total run of just 600 copies, Clockwork Angels: The Novel will be offered up in unique Gold and Silver Special Editions. From the press release : ECW Press is thrilled to unveil two exciting special editions of CLOCKWORK ANGELS: The Novel (ECW Press, September 2012), the landmark literary collaboration between Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart and bestselling SF author Kevin J. Anderson. These two numbered special editions of CLOCKWORK ANGELS: The Novel will be available for preorder on Friday, July 27. The Silver Edition , slipcased and autographed by both Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart, will be a beautiful addition to any collection. This limited edition of 300 copies is available from both ecwpress.com/clockworksilver and rushbackstage.com , for $74.95. The Gold Edition is a m

Full Steam: M Music & Musicians Magazine Interview with Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

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M Music & Musicians Online Magazine has just published a joint interview with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. Titled Full Steam , the interview touches upon subjects such as the writing and concept development process of Clockwork Angels , working with producer Nick Raskulinecz, recording at Revolution Recording in Toronto and looking ahead to the tour -- and the future: What does the future hold? LIFESON: It seems that with every tour we feel like we’re playing better and better. The show is getting tighter, and we sense greater confidence in our playing abilities. And in a production sense, the show has also developed with every new album and every new tour. So there are always ways to move forward. We’ve always set a high standard for ourselves in terms of our playing, and the fact that we’re getting a lot of younger people in the audience indicates that they’re looking for players. The show is over three hours, and there are not too many bands that do that these days. LEE:

Sonic Element's Moving Signals & Waves: A Tribute To Rush Album Coming Soon

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Earlier this year, Sonic Elements , a "Sonic Reality Progressive Rock Project" consisting of several progressive rock stars including Rik Emmett (Triumph), Billy Sherwood and Neil Peart via Sonic Reality's Neil Pearts Drum Software released a Rush tribute EP titled XYZ: A Tribute to Rush . Included in the EP were Rush classics Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ and Limelight . Through their Facebook Page , Sonic Elements has announced that a full-length tribute album titled Moving Signals & Waves will now be released "later this summer". Given the title of the album, we can expect tracks from Permanent Waves and Signals . More information on the full-length tribute album was revealed during an interview with Sonic Reality's Dave Kerzner and Andrew Olson of the AndyO Experience : I'm producing, engineering and playing keys on a full album of Rush covers featuring Neil Peart of Rush on drums via his Sonic Reality sample library "Neil Pear

Geddy Lee Talks Clockwork Angels Track by Track

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Back in May , MusicRadar posted an in-depth interview with Alex Lifeson where the Rush guitarist discusses Clockwork Angels on a track-by-track basis. Later in June, after the release of the album, MusicRadar conducted an interview with Rush producer Nick Raskulinecz where he, too, discussed the album in length, and on a track-by-track basis. Today, it's Geddy Lee's turn. MusicRadar has just posted an interview with Geddy where he goes over Clockwork Angels , track by track. Here's what he had to say about the album's title track: “This was written at the same time as the first two songs and originally Clockwork Angels began as the soundscape that Alex had written on his own. He’d put together this really kind of wonderful synthesized/guitar/bass instrumental and sent it to each of us just for fun. It was something he was fiddling around and playing with on his computer and I really loved it. “Once I’d heard it I said, 'Well can I play around with this a

Geddy Lee: The Grapes Of Rush

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Samaritan Magazine, an online publication covering "The Good Deeds of Individuals, Charities and Businesses" has posted a article on one of Geddy Lee's other passions: wine. The article, titled Geddy Lee: The Grapes Of Rush not only discusses Lee's affection for wine, but his involvement with the charitable organization The Grapes For Humanity Global Foundation . Geddy, who sits on the board for the organization, takes great pride in the fact that the charity has raised over $4 million through numerous wine-related fundraisers. From the article: “I was very drawn to it because we did small projects. If we raised $50,000, we’d go to Honduras, build a clinic, and you saw the direct result of that money in action. And that’s something, to me, that makes you feel really good because you know there’s no waste there.” Along with Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, Lee has hosted two “Excellent Adventure” events on behalf of Grapes For Humanity Canada. “We organized the

Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #5

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We're now at week #5 since the release of Rush's 20th studio album Clockwork Angels and there's some good news to announce. The critically acclaimed album has experienced the smallest week-over-week drop yet in the Billboard Charts. Last week, the album was at position #48 on Billboard's Top 200 Album List . This week, it's down only three spots to #51. In other Billboard Charts, Clockwork Angels is still holding on fairly well: Top 200 Albums: #51 Top Rock Albums: #15 -- Up 3 spots from last week. Top Hard Rock Albums: #5 -- Down 1 spot from last week. Top Canadian Albums: #22 -- Down 7 spots from last week. Top Taste Maker Albums: #13 -- Down 7 spots from last week. Though released last week in the United Kingdom, Clockwork Angels failed to chart within the Top 10. Looking back, Clockwork Angels is still doing better than Snakes & Arrows which was at #61 in its fifth week. It's also charting better than Vapor Trails which was at #77 i

Four-Part Geddy Lee Video Interview Now Available at MusicRadar

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Update: A fifth video interview installment has just been posted. Available HERE , this piece features Geddy discussing the recording process of the drumming parts on Clockwork Angels . Thanks RushFanForever for the new link. MusicRadar.Com has just posted a four-part video interview with Geddy Lee focusing on different aspects of the recording of Clockwork Angels . Part 1 of the interview, titled Recording Straight After a World Tour , features Geddy discussing the popularity of the Time Machine World Tour and how its success ultimately delayed the final recording of Clockwork Angels . In Part 2 of the interview, titled How Recording Processes Change , Geddy talks about the advancement of technology and how that has fundamentally changed the aspect of recording an album (both positive and negative) and the band's attempt of embracing the new technology while still holding on to tried and true recording methods of years past. In Part 3, which is called Recording Clock

Rush: A Brief History of Time Part IX

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It's been six months since the last update to Cygnus-X1.Net's Rush: A Brief History of Time ; an on-going collection of articles, interviews, reviews and advertisements about Rush that spans every decade from the 70's onward and collected from the world over. Part IX of this segment includes 118 new articles; 73 from the 80's, 17 from the 90's, 7 from the 2000's and 21 from the current 2010 decade. The majority of the earlier articles focus around the release of Signals and Grace Under Pressure while the latest articles focus on Snakes & Arrows and, of course, Clockwork Angels . Below is a sample of Part IX. To check out the entire segment, click HERE . Once again, huge thanks go out to long-time reader and site contributor Heiko Klages of Germany for providing the bulk of the articles that appear in this installment. Additional thanks go out to Eric Hansen from Power Windows , Ed Stenger from RushIsABand , Rush Fan/Collector extraordinaire Joe

Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #4

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Four weeks since being released, Rush's Clockwork Angels has fallen another twenty-two spots to position #48 on Billboard's Top 200 Album List . In other Billboard Charts, Clockwork Angels is still holding on fairly well: Top 200 Albums: #48 Top Rock Albums: #18 Top Hard Rock Albums: #4 Top Canadian Albums: #15 Top Taste Maker Albums: #3 By comparison, Clockwork Angels is still doing better than Snakes & Arrows which was at #51 in its fourth week. It's also charting better than Vapor Trails which was at #66 in its fourth week. The album was also just officially released in the United Kingdom earlier this week, however charting information for the UK won't be available until next week. Related News Stories [ Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #3 - July 5th, 2012] [ Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #2 - June 27th, 2012] [ Rush's Clockwork Angels Debuts at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart - June 20th, 2012] [ Rush

Clockwork Angels Authentic Guitar Tab Book Now Available for Pre-Order

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The new Clockwork Angels: Authentic Guitar TAB book from Alfred Publishing is scheduled to be released on July 29th and is now available for preorder at Amazon.Com. From the publisher: "Rush's 20th studio album features all the classic elements that have endeared the band to several generations of fans and made them the most successful progressive rock group of all time! The book contains all the songs faithfully transcribed in authentic guitar TAB, beautiful full-color artwork, and a complete lyrics section." Thanks to Eric from Power Windows for the news.

Rush's Clockwork Angels Named Best Album of 2012 -- So Far

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As we enter into the second-half of 2012, Jeremy Thomas' The 8-Ball feature from 411mania.com has posted his list of the top 8 albums of 2012 thus far. Coming in at the top spot is Rush's Clockwork Angels : #1: Rush - Clockwork Angels Honestly, at this point in the year there wasn't much of a choice. Rush had not released an album in over five years and while the band has never been bad or even remotely mediocre, I felt that Snakes & Arrows was a little bit uninspired compared to the rest of the band's work. As such, I was looking for the venerable Canadian rock gods to deliver and to say they did so is an understatement. To me Clockwork Angels is, without any exaggeration, the band's best album in at least a couple decades. The group delivered a more focused and impressive effort here, loosely written around the idea of a man on a quest to follow his dreams. Neil Peart's lyrics are some of my favorites of his pretty much ever and the band's sou

Geddy Lee Bass Guitar Magazine Interview: Like Clockwork - Now Online

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The July 2012 issue of the UK's Bass Guitar Magazine features Geddy Lee on the cover and an accompanying article titled Like Clockwork . The article, which is now online and can be read HERE , has Geddy discussing numerous topics including "...tone, touring and tricky bass parts..." Geddy also talks in length about his bass technician John McIntosh: Although Rush have spent decades pioneering new ways of making cutting-edge rock music, Geddy is not always keen to abandon his tried and trusted bass sounds in favour of new and untested possibilities. He explains, "As a player, when I find a sound I like, I tend to stick with it, and just leave it. I don't want to mess with it, once I've got to a place I like - but John is really good, he's always throwing different options at me, which is stimulating. It's good for me. During our downtime, John got the sound of these different pickups, made me a CD of each of them and sent it to me. I wasn't t

Geddy Lee Interview on My Planet Rocks Program This Sunday (July 8th)

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Geddy Lee is scheduled to appear on the UK's Planet Rock's new radio series My Planet Rocks with Rob Birnie this Sunday, July 8th at 7pm UK time. Now in its seventh series, My Planet Rocks has seen some of the world's greatest rock stars take to the airwaves. Since the series first began, the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, Lemmy from Motorhead, The Who's Pete Townshend, Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper, blues legend Gary Moore and the late, great Ronnie James Dio have all taken control of the radio station for an hour to play their favourite songs and talk about their greatest influences. During the hour-long interview, Geddy Lee will talk about the music he loves, his influences and he'll also choose and play the songs that have helped define his career. You can tune-in to listen live at www.planetrock.com . Thanks to Jon Norman of Planet Rock and Ed from RushIsABand for passing along the news.

Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #3

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Three weeks since its release, Rush's Clockwork Angels has fallen sixteen spots to position #26 on Billboard's Top 200 Album List . In other Billboard Charts, Clockwork Angels is holding on fairly well: Top 200 Albums: #26 Top Rock Albums: #9 Top Hard Rock Albums: #5 Top Canadian Albums: #11 Top Taste Maker Albums: #7 Last week, the album did rank on the Top Digital Albums chart, but it's no longer listed there this week. It is, however, ranked at #60 on the iTunes Charts . Comparatively speaking, 2007's Snakes & Arrows , which debuted in the #3 spot dropped down to #20 in its second week and then in its third week, it fell to #35. 2002's Vapor Trails , which started its run on the charts at the #6 spot, fell to #29 in week 2 and then #43 in its third week. That said, Clockwork Angels is clearly fairing better than Rush's last two studio offers. Related News Stories [ Clockwork Angels Charting Update - Week #2 - June 27th, 2012] [

Interview with Brian Gardner on Mastering Clockwork Angels

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Audio Times has just posted an interview with Brian “Big Bass” Gardner, the engineer who mastered both Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels for Rush. From the article: The overall sound on Clockwork Angels is very clean compared to the dense sound of Snakes & Arrows. Was that a deliberate move? And how did it affect how you mastered Clockwork Angels? The one inch 2 track approach is interesting and can lend that ‘thickness’ to mix in a different manor than 1/2 inch. I basically work with what I have at hand and make the best of it. The digital domain is getting better and better. Still a ways to go yet to match that analog sound the die hards love. Currently I’m fooled often in the world of digital in that I swear it’s an analog production, which goes to show you that we are ascending and analog as we know it is fading away... The new album mixes were digital and Nick had it pretty well laid out requiring less to do in mastering. As to my approach in masterin

Geddy Lee Interviews on BBC Radio

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In connection with the release of Clockwork Angels and the celebration of Canada Day where Rush's homeland turns 145 today, Geddy Lee was interviewed by the BBC Radio 5 "Up All Night" program. The program focused on Canadian music as a whole and the section with Geddy Lee, which begins around the 51 minute mark, includes a discussion on the history of Rush, the growth of Canadian music and, of course, the new album. You can listen to the interview HERE . Geddy also appeared on Bob Harris' show on BBC Radio 2 for a Canada Day discussion. That interview is available HERE . Finally, Geddy is scheduled to appear on Ken Bruce's radio show on BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday, July 3rd during his 'Tracks of My Years' segment. Click HERE to listen in live. Thanks to Mike Sword and Eric from Power Windows for the news.

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