Congratulations to Alex Lifeson, winner of this year's "Spirit Of Prog" award at last night's Classic Rock Awards held in London. "Anyone who doesn't know Rush is Canadian can probably figure it out about four seconds into their 1981 video for "Limelight." It begins with a wolf running in front of a hopelessly remote house, practically lost in a mountain of snow. There don't appear to be any neighbors around for at least one hundred miles and inside, the Canadian trio is playing in front of a large window that looks out into the vast Canadian wilderness.
"Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson grew up near Toronto and they cut their teeth on the local club circuit. They live there to this day, though drummer Neil Peart now spends much of his time in Los Angeles with his wife and young daughter" - RollingStone.com, November 13, 2013
"Live albums are very important for Rush and they became sort of a closing chapter for us. And the way things used to work was we would do three or four studio albums and then we would do a live album and in that way kind of make it a historical document as to where the band was at in that period of time. We never expected that we would just keep going, you know, the lifespan of a band is unpredictable, and so it appeared for quite a while that every four records would be followed up with a live record and it’s a way for us to look back at that last period and see how our sound has changed and take a different approach to recording live every time. But now the record industry has changed so much and DVDs have become such a fantastic souvenir of any one tour. And because it takes so much effort to design and put on one of our tours we feel it’s appropriate to record every new tour that we do, that has a new stage show, and a DVD seems to be the perfect outlet for that. It’s great for us as a historical document and it’s great for our fans as a souvenir of that tour that they came to." - Geddy Lee, VH1.com, October 17, 2013
Rush is bringing a film version of its extensive Clockwork Angels Tour to more than 350 movie theaters on Nov. 18.Update: here's a brief teaser trailer by Fathom Events:
NCM Fathom Events and Rounder Records are presenting RUSH: Clockwork Angels Tour, a one-night concert event and preview of the band's upcoming tour DVD and CD, starting at 7 p.m. Nov. 18 local time.
Tickets go on sale online at 21:12 (9:12 p.m. ET) Thursday at www.FathomEvents.com and at participating theater box offices. Find a list of theater locations and prices here.
"The indefatigable Toronto trio performed “2112″ as the final song of its encore in Dallas, Texas, last November. The Clockwork Angels tour, in support of the band’s 19th studio album, incorporated many songs from the 1980s that hadn’t performed in years. The shows also featured a live string section, a first for the band. The 11-month tour coincided with another unusual occurrence for Rush: accolades from the rock establishment. Last spring, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." - WSJ.com, October 28, 2013The live concert, filmed in Dallas last year, is available for preorder on all formats here. Check out 2112 sample below.
"When Rush hit the road last year to support their new album, Clockwork Angels, they decided to do something they'd never done before: invite additional musicians onto their stage. The new material had been recorded with a string section, and they wanted to do the album justice by bringing an eight-piece string ensemble on the road. The tour – which featured a ton of 1980s tunes the band hadn't played in ages – was a huge success, and they recorded a show in Dallas for a DVD and CD that hits shelves on November 19th. (Click here to pre-order the DVD.) Here, you can watch an exclusive preview clip of the band playing "The Garden," the grand finale of Clockwork Angels." - RollingStone.com, October 17, 2013
NEIL PEART & KARL SLOMAN
Saturday October 12th - 10:00 p.m - Global TV
Karl Sloman is a drummer and music teacher who is innovative and giving. He broke the world record for continuous drumming by playing for 60 hours to benefit a Children’s Care Centre. Karl is passionate about teaching special needs students and leads a band of disabled musicians called Train Wreck. He invents and builds specialized electronic instruments for his students to play.
Neil Peart, drummer with the band Rush, is one of Karl’s biggest influences and heroes. Neil is widely recognized as one of the world’s most proficient players and both his drumming and drum kit are legendary among rock fans. One of the most successful and long-lasting rock bands, Rush has been inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, the Canadian Walk of Fame in 1999 and has 24 gold and 14 platinum records.
Although Neil Peart is famously private, when he hears about Karl’s work with Train Wreck, he decides to surprise Karl with a special meeting and a once-in-a-lifetime experience at one of Rush’s concerts." - Walk The Walk Facebook page, August 29, 2013
"It was an absolute blast to record. Neil's drum performance is simply stellar. Lyrically, it's just your average spy thriller/espionage/blackmail/love song.” - Matt Scannell, Billboard.com, October 2, 2013
"'Instamatic' is one of my absolute favorite drum tracks of all time and it's on my new record… I hear elements of all the different stages of (Peart's) career from 'Clockwork Angels,' all the way back to 'Hemisphere' and beyond," Scannell said. "It's an incredible moment for Neil as a performer. It is shocking. He is on fire on this song …"
Peart also contributes to the somber and introspective "South for the Winter," despite some initial reservations. "Are you sure you want me to play on 'South for the Winter'? It's so not what I normally do. I don't know what I'll bring to that song." Scannell recalled Peart saying. "And I said, 'Well, that's exactly why I want you to play on it, because I don't know where it will go but we'll go somewhere beautiful.'"
It was originally written for the troops overseas, but Scannell shifted the focus on "Song for Someone" to include everyone, including soldiers' respective wives, husbands, families, friends and neighbors back home.
"There's a Plato quote that actually Neil Peart told me about, 'Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,' and it sort of shook me because it's so true," Scannell explained. "We do need more compassion and more kindness towards each other. So that song really was written with that in mind."
“I got a call from Rush’s management in 2004 when they were doing a charity event in Canada. I was asked to do the recording and mixing for the TV broadcast. We had a lot of chemistry. They’re all really funny guys. We spent the time just laughing our faces off.
"A few months later, Al Lifeson asked me to mix their new R30 DVD. In the nine years since then, we’ve had 26 platinum and gold sales awards for all of the DVDs and albums we’ve done. Their main mantra at this point is to continue putting out music for their fans – they have done everything.
“The first time I really got to know Neil [Peart] was on Snakes And Arrows. He was warming up on his kit and I was setting up microphones. When the kit is so large I measure the distance of microphones to drums with a tape measure so that we have the best phase coherence that we can have, because we have so many open mics around the kit. Neil was doing these press rolls on his snare, and I was literally putting the tape measure down on his snare as he was playing. He was looking at me like, ‘What are you doing?!’
“With those guys, if they hear something they like, they say, ‘That’s great – let's go.’ They can be hands on, but a lot of the time it is hands off because they will hear what they want and say, ‘Let's just record.’”
"When I approach any mix, I will reference any rough or previous mix lightly, to find balance or tones that the client might like. But in this case, I was aware that the band weren’t happy with the final mixes they had, so I just approached it fresh with little referencing to the originals. My philosophy was that they didn’t like what they had, so I would just work with the material they gave me and do what I thought would work best for each song. The first mix took the longest to complete, but that was only a couple of days. Once we were into the groove, the band usually only had little tweaks or suggestions and went mostly with what I presented them with. There was very little direction prior to starting. I did a test mix for them as did some other engineers and producers. They liked most of them, but I think that they had wanted to try to work with me for some time, so perhaps that swayed their opinion towards my mix as opposed to others. Andy Curran, who works with the band, is also a friend of mine and I think he was pulling for me to do the remix as well — and this may have had an influence. Nothing new was added. The band weren’t present for the mixes as they were mostly on tour, so there would have been no opportunity to do any further recording."Regarding the "new" guitar solo heard in Ceiling Unlimited:
"It sounded good to me. As I said, I just worked with the material they gave me. I didn’t really check the originals to see what they used or didn’t use. I liked that solo and put it in. I don’t think many people have complained about that one so far. When a record is made, often times there are things that are recorded that are left out of the final mix. I had no attachment to the older mixes or what was left in or out. I just put in all the mixes what I thought worked the best. I don’t think I left much out from the tracks they gave me. There was no really grand plan for the mixes. I just tried to make the songs all shine as much as I could. There was some talk in the fan press that the tracks were distorted in the recording process or that there have been new recordings done. Neither is true. The source recordings are top quality and we didn’t add anything new from those early recordings."- Thanks to RushFanForever for the headsup!
Today TheMasterdiskRecord.com posted a short Q&A with remastering engineer Andy VanDette. Andy discusses remastering the Atlantic catalog, as well as his thoughts on the original Vapor Trails mixes.“Vapor Trails. I remember hearing it before it came out, and thinking 'Wow, I guess this is why I will never work with Rush.' The snare and vocal were so overshadowed by low end....I see why they had a hard time remastering the original mixes. So much of their energy is in the bottom octave 20-40Hz. You can roll it off, but so much of the mixes’ punch came from that. It was just mixed that way. The David Bottrill remixes are very well balanced and musical."You can read the entire Q&A here. - Thanks to RushFanForever for the headsup!
"The original mastering was the problem. It was poorly done. At the time we should have remastered. It bothered us forever – particularly Geddy, who had the task of remastering of the original album and feels responsible for it. It irked him for many years. The original version is hard on your ears, because the mastering was pushed so hard, there’s distortion and so much compression – I found it very difficult to listen to it...There was so much invested in that record and it just didn’t sit with us that we had this blemish on our recording history. We wanted to rectify that. I’d like to remix every record we did – maybe update some parts. But that’s crazy, you know? You don’t do that – records are moments in time, markers of these different periods of progression and growth. But this one was a very important record – our return after a horrible nightmare. And it deserved better...To me [Vapor Trails Remixed] sounds so good. It’s blossomed. It’s a really great Rush record – some great playing and great ideas. And now that it all knits together in a much more complete way, it feels right. It’s much more pleasurable to listen to. Now, everything’s open, you can hear everything, and everything has its place. It’s so well-balanced. There’s a sort of creaminess and a smoothness to the sound of it. It’s so much more dynamic. Before, everything was just balls to the wall. Now it breathes." - Alex Lifeson, ClassicRockMagazine.com, September 18, 2013
Also released today is Rush: The Studio Albums 1989-2007. This 7-disc boxed set features every studio album Rush recorded for Atlantic Records presented in a wallet sleeve that faithfully reproduces the original artwork (except for Vapor Trails Remixed, which features a reinterpreted version of the original cover). Those that passed on the Atlantic Remasters when they were released in 2004 may be interested in knowing that The Studio Albums 1989-2007 box contains new CD versions of the six Atlantic albums newly remastered by Masterdisk's Chief Mastering Engineer, Andy VanDette, released last May digitally only on iTunes and HDTracks. This boxed set is Atlantic's complement to the Sectors boxed sets, which were also remastered by VanDette in 2011."It's a terrible feeling that, due to lack of objectivity, you let an imperfect piece of work get out there. But the songs are very strong and people really responded to the record and people were welcoming us back. The sonic defects of it got lost in the excitement of the band's return to functionality. It's always been a bee in my bonnet."
"This story was written during our Clockwork Angels European tour in May, 2013, for a British motorcycling weekly. They asked for about 700 words and a photo or two, and I gave them 1,700 words, and eight photos. They said they would run it like that, but took a few liberties...So I decided to present it here in its original form, which would also fill a gap in the tour’s documentation, before the 'Shunpikers in the Shadowlands' story about Continental Europe."Another great read from the Professor, you can check it out here!
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| Skip Gildersleeve (Slider) and Tony Geranios (Jack Secret) in 2012 |
“The news of Russell ‘Skip’ Gildersleeve's passing is shocking and very, very sad. He was one of our original crew members from the mid-70s and we all have many great memories of his friendship, his sense of humour and his association with us over all those years. Our hearts and thoughts go out to his family and close friends. He will be missed.” - Geddy, Alex and Neil, Rush.com, September 19, 2013Robert Scovill, who served as Rush's sound engineer in the 90's and served on the road crew Skip, posted a touching eulogy for his friend which you can read here.
"Skip was also a very caring and giving guy and his way of showing it was often times seen through his sense of humor and his willingness to play practical jokes and “punk” his tour mates, friends and family. He was Ashton Kutcher way before it was fashionable to be such. I’ve bore witness to many samples of his work and they will remain hidden away with me as cherished possessions, available to be pulled out to make me giggle and smile upon reflection, until my time comes to exit this planet. Skip had a devious but infectious laugh that was perfectly coupled with his diminutive stature, always framed with a witty cool tee shirt and transported around by feet that displayed the largest and most varied collection of Converse tennis shoes one could ever imagine...Skip Gildersleeve, my touring brother, the man with the huge name and the small frame passed away quietly on September 17th 2013." Robert Scovill, splnetwork.com, September 19, 2013
"The original mastering was the problem. It was poorly done. At the time we should have remastered. It bothered us forever – particularly Geddy, who had the task of remastering of the original album and feels responsible for it. It irked him for many years. The original version is hard on your ears, because the mastering was pushed so hard, there’s distortion and so much compression – I found it very difficult to listen to it...There was so much invested in that record and it just didn’t sit with us that we had this blemish on our recording history. We wanted to rectify that. I’d like to remix every record we did – maybe update some parts. But that’s crazy, you know? You don’t do that – records are moments in time, markers of these different periods of progression and growth. But this one was a very important record – our return after a horrible nightmare. And it deserved better...To me [Vapor Trails Remixed] sounds so good. It’s blossomed. It’s a really great Rush record – some great playing and great ideas. And now that it all knits together in a much more complete way, it feels right. It’s much more pleasurable to listen to. Now, everything’s open, you can hear everything, and everything has its place. It’s so well-balanced. There’s a sort of creaminess and a smoothness to the sound of it. It’s so much more dynamic. Before, everything was just balls to the wall. Now it breathes." - Alex Lifeson, ClassicRockMagazine.com, September 18, 2013Previously announced for an October 1st release date, Vapor Trails Remixed will be released September 30th on CD, Vinyl, iTunes, and as part of Rush: The Studio Albums 1989-2007 (which contained remastered versions of the rest of the Atlantic Rush catalog). For more on the back history of the original Vapor Trails mix, click here.
"While Don George is known as Neil Peart's first drum teacher - and proudly says, 'Neil didn't need another lesson for 30 years,' referring to Neil getting with the late Freddie Gruber later in life - Don has remained an exceptional one-on-one drum instructor for over 45 years and is also somewhat of a historian on Drumming Education.- Thanks to Greg Nosek for the headsup!
"In his first Drum Talk TV interview, filmed with an in-studio audience by the way, Don discusses some of his collection of materials dating back to 1923, as well as demonstrates and talks about his magic formula for teaching drums to all ages - a must see for all players and instructors. Don also demonstrates how to develop limb independence and explains why it is so important to drumming. Oh - Dan of course asked Don about teaching a young Neil Peart and Don talks about their continuing relationship as well."
"Neville’s vocals have never lacked swagger, but here they have an arena-rock power that he’s seldom reached for in the past. So it makes sense that the track 'Working Man' isn’t the one Mike Bloomfield wrote and Otis Rush recorded (as the cover credits have it), but the one by those venerable bluesmen, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. And the sound of New Orleans funkateers doing a Rush song—and doing it damn well—is about as colorblind as music gets." - Offbeat.com
Rush consists of classmates from Canada.- Thanks to David Wholihan for the headsup!
Rush's Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee first started playing together in 1968, when they were high school classmates in Ontario, Canada.
Drummer Neil Peart joined the band six years later, finalizing the lineup.
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