Billboard.com: Rush Hour

Original article/Billboard.com

Thirty-three years into its recording career, Canadian hard-rock trio Rush is finding it easier to make music together. "You can argue that we don't have much to prove at this point," guitarist Alex Lifeson says. "We're in our 50s now. Geddy [Lee] and I have been doing it 40 years, as a band with Neil [Peart] for 33 years.

"But this was maybe the most fun record I think we've ever made. It just feels different somehow. It's very positive, very forward, all fresh and new to us for some reason." He's referring to "Snakes & Arrows," which comes out May 1 on Anthem/Atlantic and as an expanded set with a 43-minute video on June 5. It's Rush's first set of all-new material since 2002's "Vapor Trails." But unlike the six-year hiatus before that album, the trio has been busy in the intervening years. It has toured twice, released a covers EP, "Feedback," a live album and two concert DVDs.

Rush started work on "Snakes & Arrows" in early 2006, when Lee and Lifeson, who reside two blocks away from each other in Toronto, began working on new music at Lee's house, with lyrics supplied by Peart from California. The spirit of the project, Lee says, was inspired by "Feedback," which "put us in touch with being kids again. I think we came into ["Snakes & Arrows"] with a real nice mental attitude."


"There's a lot of playing on this record," Lifeson says. "To me it's got our whole history in it, somehow. It's got little bits of the way we wrote songs in the past, the kind of chords we might have used, but not in a nostalgic kind of way."
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This Day In Music: January 19 (Billboard.com)

http://billboard.com/bbcom/thisday/index.jsp

2006 - Soul/R&B legend Wilson Pickett dies of a heart attack at a Reston, Va., hospital near his home. He is 64. Born in Pratville, Ala., Pickett moved to Detroit as a teen and joined the Falcons, singing on their 1962 hit "I Found a Love."

2004 - Dancehall rapper Beenie Man suffers broken ribs and a broken nose in a car accident in Kingston, Jamaica. The 30-year-old artist, whose real name is Moses Davis, is alone in his vehicle when it flips over after running off a highway.

2003 - "Chicago," the splashy Broadway musical adapted for the silver screen, takes home three of the eight trophies for which it is nominated at the Golden Globe Awards, while Irish rock act U2 wins the best original song honor. "Chicago" wins the best motion picture _ musical or comedy honor at the event, held in Beverly Hills, Calif. Stars Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere win the best actress and best actor in a musical or comedy, respectively.

2003 - U.S.-born, Taiwan-based singer Wang Lee Hom wins three honors at the ninth annual Channel V Chinese Music Awards in Shanghai.

2001 - Travis Tritt performs at the Republican Texas Senators Ball in Washington, D.C., part of the festivities surrounding the inauguration of President-elect George W. Bush. Tritt supported Bush during his campaign, appearing at multiple rallies.

2000 - Josh Clayton-Felt, former vocalist for Los Angeles-based band School Of Fish, dies of testicular cancer. He is 33.

1999 - Buckwheat Zydeco leader Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural undergoes surgery in Nashville to remove vocal-cord lesions.

1999 - Jean-Michel Jarre, the French rock composer and performer, delivers a petition to the European Parliament signed by hundreds of leading European recording artists calling for better legal protection against music piracy on the internet.

1999 - Bizzy Bone of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, a Grammy Award-winning rapper goes on trial in Columbus, Ohio, on charges that he dragged a student barber down a flight of stairs.

1999 - The U.S. Supreme Court without comment refuses to hear a 1998 lawsuit brought by ticket buyers against Ticketmaster. The suit charges that the firm engaged in anticompetitive behavior and price-fixing with promoters.

1998 - Carl Perkins, the rockabilly pioneer whose song "Blue Suede Shoes" and lightning-quick guitar-playing influenced Elvis Presley, the Beatles and a slew of other performers, dies at the age of 65, from complications following a recent series of strokes.

1998 - The National Assn. of Chiefs of Police present Pat Boone with its first annual Michael the Archangel Award. The award recognizes the artist's efforts in support of families of officers killed in the line of duty.

1993 - A pre-inaugural gala in Landover, Md., toasting incoming president Bill Clinton features a reunion of Fleetwood Mac performing "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow),'' the unofficial campaign song for Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore. Other performers included Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Little Richard and Chuck Berry.

1993 - The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a $2.5 million award to gravel-voiced singer Tom Waits over use of a "sound alike'' artist to mimic his voice in a 1988 television commercial. The court rejects arguments by Frito-Lay and its advertising firm that federal copyright law bars such awards of damages.

1977 - Aretha Franklin performs "God Bless America'' at Jimmy Carter's inaugural eve presidential gala in Washington.

1957 - Johnny Cash makes his first network TV appearance, on CBS' "Jackie Gleason Show.''

1949 - Singer Robert Palmer is born in Batley, England. He hits No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1986 with the gold record ``Addicted to Love,'' for which he earns his first Grammy Award.

1946 - Dolly Parton is born in Locust Ridge, Tenn. She becomes one of the biggest stars in country music, winning her first Grammy Award for her self-titled 1978 album. Two of her songs top Billboard's pop singles chart: the title song to the film "9 to 5'' and "Islands in the Stream,'' a duet with Kenny Rogers.

1943 - Janis Joplin is born in Port Arthur, Texas. She dies of a heroin overdose on Oct. 4, 1970. Her biggest hit is "Me and Bobby McGee,'' which is a posthumous No. 1 hit for two weeks in 1971.

1939 - Phil Everly is born in Chicago. He is the younger half of the duo the Everly Brothers. The two score five No. 1 hits, the biggest of which is "All I Have to Do Is Dream.''

This Day In Music - December 27 (Billboard.com)

http://billboard.com/bbcom/thisday/index.jsp

2003 - Vestal Goodman, the "Queen of Gospel Music," dies in Celebration, Fla., of the flu. She is 74. Goodman rose to fame in the '50s, performing with husband Howard "Happy" Goodman and his brothers as the Happy Goodman Family. The group, which recorded three indie albums before starting a 25-year relationship with Word's Canaan Records, was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1998

1999 - Sean "Puffy" Combs is arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon when a gun is found in his vehicle after he leaves a chaotic scene at a New York club where three people are shot. Jennifer Lopez, who is with him at the time of the arrest, is questioned and released. The following day, Combs (and his lawyer) meet with the press to deny any involvement in the shooting.

1999 - Diva Zappa, the late Frank Zappa's 20-year-old daughter, releases her first record to radio. The single, titled "When the Ball Drops," is "basically... about my hunt for someone to make out with for the millennium," Zappa explains.

1998 - Busta Rhymes - a.k.a. Trevor Smith - is arrested and charged with criminal possession after police find a loaded unregistered pistol in his car. Police originally pull Rhymes over for changing lanes three times without signaling.

1997 - Music industry veteran Ewart G. Abner dies at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles after a bout with respiratory illness. He is 74. Abner began his career in Chicago in 1948, pressing 78s. He founded Chance Records the following year. His diverse tour of the music industry at large brought him to Vee Jay Records, as well as Motown. He was instrumental in the careers of Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & The Supremes, the Temptations and others.

1997 - U.K. artist Mark Morrison is arrested outside the Pink Coconut nightclub in central Derby. The singer is convicted of threatening an off-duty police officer with an electric stun gun.

1992 - Grammy-winning singer and pianist Harry Connick Jr. is arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport after guards discover a 9mm pistol in his carry-on luggage.

1981 - Songwriter Hoagy Carmichael dies of a heart attack at the age of 82.

1973 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "Time in a Bottle," Jim Croce. The song is released as a single after Croce dies in a plane crash.

1964 - The Supremes make their first appearance on TV's "Ed Sullivan Show."

1963 - The Animals perform on their first radio broadcast, the BBC show "Saturday Club."

1947 - Drummer Peter Criss (Peter Crisscoula) of Kiss is born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

1944 - Mick Jones of Foreigner is born in London.

1914 - Concert promoter Ivan Sutton is born.