Author Martin Popoff is no stranger to Rush. Back in 2004, the prolific author published the very well received Contents Under Pressure: 30 Years of Rush at Home and Away . Back in 2013, Popoff released the first edition of Rush: The Unofficial Illustrated History . Now word comes that a fully revised and updated version of his Illustrated History book will be released on June 1st. From the Amazon Listing : Rush: The Illustrated History is a fully updated, richly illustrated history from prolific rock journalist and noted Rush authority Martin Popoff. The book follows the world-conquering exploits of Rush band members Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson from the band's formation in Toronto to their fortieth anniversary celebration and tour. Popoff's stellar history is complemented by LP reviews from a slate of highly regarded music writers, a thorough discography compiled by the author himself, and more than 400 photographs and articles of memorabilia, from candid ba

On Friday, Canada's FYI Music News published an article featuring the Andy Curran who, as many Rush fans may know, was Anthem Entertainment's former A&R executive. After Anthem was acquired by Canadian-headquartered music rights management firm ole , Curran was named the new Label Services general manager/A&R. In the article, Curran hints at some upcoming Rush related releases for 2016: "Aside from prepping the 40th anniversary deluxe edition of 2112 and a documentary of Rush’s R40 tour that is looking to be released in 2016’s fourth quarter, Curran is pouring over the catalogue to prep long-unavailable titles for reissue, digitally, on CD and on vinyl." The R40 tour documentary was developed by the band in conjunction with Fadoo Productions. During the R40 tour, Fadoo had documentary crews on hand during most of the shows, as well as at last year's RushCon. The documentary focuses primarily on the fans. The comment about the 40th Anniversary Delux

Neil Peart has posted a new update to the News, Weather, and Sports section of his website. In this 6th installment of the ongoing BubbaGram series, Neil continues to talk about some of the sites he and his riding mates visited during the R40 tour. One place in particular was Crater Lake National Park in Oregon: Perhaps my major ambition for that day was to get riding photos of Crater Lake. After five or six visits over the years, I had never managed to capture the “sense of place” in a single image—and if I could do that with a motorcycle passing through, that would be the ultimate. (We have ridden through and photographed some impressive walls of snow around there, towering above the plowed road even in early summer. The area gets forty-five feet of snow, so it takes a while to melt—but was all gone by July 22.) The larger and more spectacular a place is, the harder it is to convey to others—in words or in photographs. I believe the opening image does a pretty good job (thank y

Pearl Jam was performing in Toronto on Thursday night and none other than Geddy Lee happened to be in attendance. Pearl Jam's lead singer Eddie Vedder took notice of their special guest and gave Geddy a shout out during the concert. The band proceeded to play a few notes from Fly By Night as well as Cygnus X-1 before Vedder addressed the crowd: "...we have been a band for twenty five years but if we wanted to play a Rush song we would probably have to play for another twenty five..." Geddy took some backstage photos with Vedder and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron who, coincidentally, played drums on Geddy's solo album My Favorite Headache . For more information on the event, click HERE . Thanks to everyone who alerted me to this event.

Back in March we first announced that a new feature interview with Alex Lifeson was published in Guitar Connoisseur Magazine . At that time, the interview was only available via the magazine's Apple News Feed. Now, the entire interview is available directly on the magazine's website . The interview touches upon several topics, including Alex's solo project Victor , the R40 tour set up, and his emotive solo from The Garden : GC: We talked a while ago about the guitar solo in The Garden from Clockwork Angels and how you recorded it direct, using Logic on your home computer. So often musicians talk about creating a vibe in the studio, and in this case your most memorable solo in recent years was created in a fairly ordinary way? AL: That solo was recorded one afternoon in Geddy’s studio. He had taken a day off, so I came in and updated a few of the songs, getting caught up cleaning tracks and recording newer versions of guitar, keys, and drum parts. I wanted to fill i

Billboard magazine has just released their annual list of the Top Money Makers in the Music Industry for 2015. The list of 40 acts includes such notable entries as The Rolling Stones (#3), Billy Joel (#4), U2 (#8), AC/DC (#24), and Paul McCartney (#33). Coming in at the very respectable #16 spot is Rush, with revenues totaling $12 million for the year. Of the $12 million haul for the band, the vast majority ($10.7M) was related to their R40 Live Anniversary tour - an impressive showing given the relatively short length of the tour. In fact as the Billboard article states, "...touring is once again the determining factor for the 40 genre-spanning acts that topped Billboard's ranking of music’s highest-paid musicians of the past year..." You can check out the entire list via this LINK . Thanks to Ed from RushIsABand for passing along the news.

Road Trip Alert: Now is your chance to get up close and personal with not one, but both drum kits that were featured during Rush's R40 Live 40th Anniversary North American tour. Both kits will be on display during this year's GearFest . GearFest 2016, which takes place on June 17th and 18th in Fort Wayne, Indiana, features "... two full days of hands-on gear demonstrations, workshops held by top engineers and musicians, amazing musical performances, and chances for you to win over $88,000 of free gear. Learn from and interact with hundreds of instrument and equipment designers and the industry's leading artists..." According to the event page, Neil's drum tech, Lorne "Gump" Wheaton, will be on hand to answer questions and give tours of the kits. There will be photo opportunities. For more information about GearFest 2016, please click HERE . Thanks to reader Joe Pesch for passing along the news.

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, Alex Lifeson shares his memories about the making of Rush's classic ground-breaking album 2112 in a new feature interview posted at NPR : "I remember thinking," Lifeson says candidly, "'I had eight years of playing rock in a band, and it's awesome, I love it, and I don't want to compromise. If this will be the end, I dunno, I'll go back to working with my dad plumbing, or go back to school, or something else.' To me it was impossible to take a step backwards and do something we'd already done just to please a record company." The story is the stuff of legend. Rush stubbornly stuck to their plan, following up an album that had an ambitious 20-minute conceptual piece with an album with an even more ambitious 20-minute conceptual piece. Structurally 2112 was very much similar to Caress of Steel, only the band's vision was clearer, their musical chops were stronger, the songwriting was more advan