Red Blogchetta

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."

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The first single off of the new Snakes & Arrows Live CD will be Workin' Them Angels. It is currently available at the iTunes store, if you're into that sort of thing. It can also be found online in mp3 format if you poke around long enough in the right places.

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The new two-CD live set, Snakes & Arrows Live">Snakes & Arrows Live, is due to be released on April 8, 2008.

Track list:

Disc One:

1. Limelight
2. Digital Man
3. Entre Nous
4. Mission
5. Freewill
6. Monkey Business
7. Larger Bowl
8. Secret Touch
9. Circumstances
10. Between the Wheels
11. Dreamline
12. Far Cry
13. Workin' Them Angels
14. Armor and Sword

Disc Two

1. Spindrift
2. The Way the Wind Blows
3. Subdivisions
4. Natural Science
5. Witch Hunt
6. Malignant Narcissism - Drum Solo
7. Hope
8. Distant Early Warning
9. The Spirit of Radio
10. Tom Sawyer
11. Encore
12. One Little Victory
13. A Passage to Bangkok
14. YYZ

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The wait is over....except for the DVD version.

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Yeah, it has been leaked. If you know where this sort of stuff turns up, you'll probably be able to find a copy. In a way, I'm surprised it took so long to appear.

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There's a tiny clip of Spindrift up on Rush.com. Give it a listen!

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Seem on Amazon: the DVD Audio version of Snakes & Arrows. According to the news:

The Rush Snakes & Arrows DVD-album comes in a deluxe box, and includes these 13 new songs in hi-resolution audio, the entire album in 5.1 surround sound, a video documentary on the making of the album, and more.

Sweet!

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The latest version, with track times, making its way way around the internet:

1. Far Cry 05.21
2. Armor and Sword 06.36
3. Workin' them Angels 04.47
4. The Larger Bowl….04.07
5. Spindrift 05.24
6. The Main Monkey Business (instrumental) 06.01
7. The Way the Wind Blows 06.28
8. Hope (instrumental) 02.02
9. Faithless 05.31
10. Bravest Face 05.12
11. Good News First 04.51
12. Malignant Narcissism (instrumental) 02.17
13. We Hold On 04.13

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Neil's posted a huge update at his site: The Count of Words

Some tidbits:
The essay for Sankes and Arrows is too big for the booklet, so it'll end up online--3300 words or so.

He's working on a Modern Drummer article and another article will be published in an upcoming issue of Motorcyclist.

Oh, and he's having a new drum set made: "As for the finish and hardware, that’s going to be a surprise. I’ll only say, “Black is the new gold,” and “Red is the new black.”"

Worth a read, as usual.

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Far Cry's now availabile for your listening pleasure over that the redesigned Rush.com.

You can also download the mp3 directly from here.

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According to the PDF of the sales sheet going around (assuming it is official), here's the Snakes & Arrows track list:

1. Far Cry
2. Armor and Sword
3. Workin’ Them Angels
4. The Larger Bowl
5. Spindrift
6. The Main Monkey Business
7. The Way The Wind Blows
8. Hope
9. Faithless
10. Bravest Face
11. Good News First
12. Malignant Narcissism
13. We Hold On

No word on if the artwork is the image on the sheet, which is the same image up at HMV.

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Snakes and Arrows is now available for preorder at Amazon.com

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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.

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Geddy spoke recently to Revolver magazine about Snakes and Arrows:

"It's hard to describe," said Lee. "It's big, it's bold, and I think it's some of the best work we've done in years. I'm really pleased with the quality of the songs, and there's lots of playing on it."

Turns out the making of Feedback changed their recording process a bit:

"...we played all together in the studio for a lot of the 'Feedback' stuff. That's something that a lot of producers had been pushing us to do for a while but which we hadn't done in years. It was great to turn off the click and just play — you know, not worry so much about being so, quote, metronomic — and that definitely carried over into this record."

More online here.

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Not much new news in it, but there's an article at Billboard.com about the new album. Pretty much sums up all that's been going on online in the last couple of weeks. Impending tour, radio release of single, and so forth.

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Well, the rumors were correct: The new Rush Album, Snakes & Arrows, will be in stores May 1. There's even a small instrumental snippet of the first single, Far Cry, available at Rush.com.

I had avoided posting too rumourish, but this time the rumors turned out to be correct for a change.

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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:

• New album took a month to record (which is pretty unusual for Rush)


• Videotaped parts of the project, hope to incorporate everything into a full package


• Album release in late April-early May, tour beginning in June


• No interest in being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

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Been meaning to post on this for a several days now.

According to a recent interview with the producer, Nick Raskulinecz, the new album's supposed to be quite good. The interesting quote: “the sound and vibe of an old Rush record”.

There's a rumor of a title, which I'm highly skeptical about.The new album is rumored to be called either Snakes and Arrows or Snakes and Ladders. I don't recall when a new Rush album title was ever correct. Long-time fans will recall Critical Mass as the rumored title for Counterparts, if I remember things right.

New album is said to be released in April/May at this point, with a probable tour. Also rumored is studio footage was shot for a DVD, which doesn't sounds like them at all. Oh well, time will tell.

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