Alex Lifeson Interview with "Modern Guitars"

Long time Rush fan Skip Daly recently interviewed Alex Lifeson for Modern Guitars magazine regarding the latest DVD release, Snakes And Arrows - Live. The interview was posted today on the Modern Guitars website. As Skip has been a diehard Rush fan for over 20 years, the interview goes beyond the typical interviews we have seen in recent years. The whole interview is recommended reading, but one key point of the interview include this discussion of the long awaited for Vapor Trails "remix". Another key topic is a discussion of Alex's recent discovery of long lost tapes from his vault! - Thanks to Skip Daly for the headsup up!

Drummer Bill Bruford on "Burning For Buddy"

Bill Bruford: The Autobiography is coming this spring. The drumming great recently posted an excerpt from the book on his blog, where he discusses the trials of the Burning For Buddy sessions, produced by fellow drummer Neil Peart in 1994:

"An altogether grander 1994 project centred on Neil Peart, the charming and successful drummer with Canadian rockers Rush, who had taken it upon himself to make a series of recordings of Buddy Rich’s music...The idea was for an A-list of the most celebrated drummers of the day to do a couple of tunes each from the standard Rich Orchestra repertoire. The resulting CDs were to be called Burning For Buddy, and time was duly booked at the Power Station recording studio in Manhattan.

'For reasons best known to himself, Neil thought I’d be suitable for this project and got in touch to explain the plan. He suggested a couple of tunes, and I, with what must have seemed like arrogance but in fact was that old insecurity, said fine, but how about one of his and one of mine? Neil asked for a demo of my proposed tune, which was duly approved, and I went off to see English trumpeter and arranger Chris Batchelor to have the composition transcribed." - click here for more. - Thanks to Pat McCallister for the headsup!

Rush on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hard Rock

On Monday December 29th VH1 premiered their "100 Greatest Songs of Hard Rock" special. Coming in at #19 was "Tom Sawyer", with remarks from Judas Priest, Sebastian Bach, & others. Bach jokingly remarks people would need a separate I-pod just to fit the entire rush catalog on it!