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Hi everyone, I've been encouraged by fans here to start a more public thread about my new book, The Rush Chronology. Some of what's below comes from my earlier thread buried in the Grand Designs sub-forum. I'm reiterating them here for those who may not have read it. I'm a Canadian artist and writer. This is my fourth Chronology book, the others being about Queen (co-written with a friend of mine), Mike Oldfield and Barenaked Ladies. That probably looks like an odd mix of artists to write about, and all I can say is that I have eclectic tastes. Rush would've been the second book I wrote (after Queen), but given the books out there, some I'd read, some I hadn't, I wasn't sure what new I could offer fans. I really hope this doesn't sound like a commercial for the book, because I don't mean it as such, I just want you to know where I was coming from and what changed my mind. And what did that was the Fly By Night album, believe it or not. I became fascinated by just how much it represented the period of transition between the John Rutsey era and the Neil Peart era. It wasn't a single great revelation, it was more a gradual unearthing of pieces of information about the album. The 'Beyond The Lighted Stage' DVD/BR had "Best I Can" from the Laura Secord Secondary School concert, a song with John that later appeared on Fly By Night, Neil's first Rush album. I hadn't heard a pre-Neil version at the time, so this was fascinating to me. Another piece was the August 26, 1975, Cleveland concert at the Agora Ballroom (as heard on the Rush ABC release). You have the completed "Best I Can," of course, but there's also the snippets of the "7/4 War Furor" from "By-Tor" appearing in "Working Man." When the complete Laura Secord show was put out on R40, you can see that portion hasn't yet emerged, despite being only months apart. I started to speculate about when "Best I Can" was written, as Neil's not on the writing credits. Jumping ahead to the December 16th Agora Ballroom bootleg, "Fly By Night" (not yet complete) and "Anthem" (mostly complete) had surfaced and the "7/4 War Furor" was firmly embedded in "Working Man," seemingly awaiting a home in a future composition. Then I read that "Anthem"'s riff pre-dated Neil, that Geddy and Alex wrote it whie John was still in the band, that John didn't like playing it, so it never went further until Neil arrived. They even played it, the three of them, at Neil's audition. All this is by way of saying I was listening to these tracks and mentally putting the chronology of Fly By Night together, slowly coming to the realization that maybe there was something to offer in a direct, detailed-as-I-could-be look at Rush's recording history without resorting to being anecdotal (I did not want to repeat other people's stories, unless they directly or closely-indirectly affected writing, recording or releasing material, if that makes sense). In writing each of the other books, while using the same chronological and stylistic approach, I found they took on their own personality (naturally, because each career is different). I started digging deeper into the other albums, reviewing what I already knew from various sources, but reading more, scouring interviews, re-reading Neil's books, things like that. And of course listening to the albums again with all this in mind. Each album had a story and grew out of specific influences, many of which could be fitted together date by date. Not to sound dramatic, but that's kind of when I committed to writing the book, wanting to show other fans how it all fit together, more so than they might have realized (more so than *I* realized before I started seriously research it). The same proved true of the solo albums and many of the guest appearances, that very little Rush has worked on was created in a vacuum. One project would influence another, tours impacted the albums which followed, real life affected all of it. So, I wrote the book. In a few other threads we've been discussing release dates and where I found some what were not widely known. I'm happy to answer any questions as best I can. I tried to be a transparent as I could be in it, naming sources for the information and being clear in my thoughts and opinions throughout. As I say in the introduction, if there's a mistake, it crept in despite my best effort, which is my way of asking not to be too harsh if you find something incorrect. The feedback I'm getting about the book is positive, people seem to be enjoying it and getting good information from it, which I think is great. I'm all for hearing any thoughts about the book, including constructive criticism. I hope it's cool I'm also including a list of locations where the book is available: http://www.lulu.com/...t-22362187.html http://www.amazon.ca.../dp/1926462033/ http://www.amazon.co.../dp/1926462033/ http://www.barnesand...n=9781926462035 Cheers, everyone! Patrick Lemieux

Hi everyone, Just wanted to pass on that a new book has been released, The Rush Chronology! It's available here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/patrick-lemieux/the-rush-chronology/paperback/product-22362187.html Cheers!