Guitar Player 2008 Readers Choice Awards
Alex Lifeson wins for Best Article in 2007: Different Strings
Best Rock Guitarist: Alex Lifeson
Snakes & Arrows wins 2007’s Most Ferociously Brilliant Guitar Album
Way to go!
There's a new interview with Alex over at Billboard.com. He talks about the live album/dvd and the upcoming tour.
Lots of tidbits:
DVD in later summer/early fall. Shot in HD.
"We thought we should maybe revisit some older songs we're not playing currently or haven't been in the last little while. So we changed out a few songs in the set. We're gonna keep it loose and maybe kind of bounce back and forth."
New album news?
"I'm guessing that we're probably going to take a little bit of the break at the end of this tour," says Lifeson, who's been updating his Web site with a number of new features he hopes to roll out soon. "I don't see us really doing much in the way of any new material probably until the spring of next year, and then we'll see where we go."
A 12-year -old Rush fan and guitarist named Zack Tabori comes up to the Hughes & Kettner booth at the NAMM show last month and asks to play the Alex Lifeson Signature TriAmp. They let him go ahead and do so and are impressed by his playing and offer to take his conact info so that Big Al can hook him up with some swag and tickets. Alex decided to give the kid one of his amps as well.
You can see a video of the whole story here. Well worth watching, the kid is blown away.
The Gibson Alex Lifeson ES-355 Guitar is available for pre-order at Musicians Friend right now. Only $3699.
The guitar has a maple body, 3-piece maple neck, '57 Classic pickups with individual volume and tone controls, and a Maestro Long vibrola tailpiece.
From the Winter NAMM 2008 show:
Throughout most of Alex Lifeson's ride to superstardom with the super group Rush, a 1976 Gibson ES-355 had been by his side, both in the studio and on stage. With it, he had created many of Rush's breathtaking layered soundscapes, and the very same ES-355 continues to be an indispensable part of his live arsenal. The Gibson Custom Shop Alex Lifeson Signature ES -355 guitar is a recreation of this iconic instrument and a tribute for a true modern master, and guitar he used to expand the definition of popular music.
No more information at this point.
Nice video from Guitarist magazine detailing Alex's guitar rig and some of his guitars from the Snakes and Arrows tour:
Alex is playing Garrison guitars on Snakes and Arrows, according to the quote on this page (scroll down about two-thirds of the page. More information is available in their News section here. I guess the Epiphones are a thing of the past.
The whole (13 minute!) recent Alex radio interview can be heard online here. Click on Rock Interviews on the right-hand side. Lots of good tidbits here:
I was surprised to get an e-mail about this: There's an interview with Alex at Wine Spectator. I always thought Geddy was the wine guy in the bad.
You'll have to register to see the whole article. Rushisaband.com has also posted the whole thing.
The Rush is a Band Blog has excerpts from a recent interview with Alex about his golfing habits and random bits about the band and touring. Worth a read.
There's a lengthy interview with Alex Lifeson over at Epiphone's site regarding the Masterbuilt model he's been playing. I played one (poorly) recently at a local guitar place and it sure seemed like a pretty good guitar for the price ($649 @ Musician's Friend).