Canadian rock trio Rush are set to release a 40th anniversary edition of their self-titled debut album this year, according to The Globe And Mail. The band is said to be “an example of active partners in the [reissuing] process,” according to the article, who cites Ivar Hamilton, VP of catalogue marketing for Universal Music Canada. No other details about the release were revealed.

The eponymous LP, released on March 1, 1974 through Moon Records, is best known not for what’s on it, but rather what’s not on it — the masterful drumming and philosophical lyrics of the great Neil Peart, who didn’t join the band until Rush’s second album, 1975’s Fly By Night. Instead, the 8-song Rush features original member John Rutsey on drums and blues-rock tunes with sex and rock-n-roll-themed lyrics by singer/bassist Geddy Lee.

Vapor Trails, the 2002 record by long-standing Canadian prog rock trio Rush, has been given a facelift treatment, as a remixed version gets released this week on CD* and MP3, and is streaming online for free for a limited time.

The record, the band’s first in six years at that point, sported “mixes that were loud and brash, according to bass player/singer Geddy Lee, and a mastering job that was “harsh and distorted,” detriments that Lee had realized not too long after the album was originally released. He summed up his feelings about the record when he stated that although he felt Vapor Trails was an “imperfect piece of work that got out there,” he still believes that the songs were very strong and a huge catalyst to a welcoming audience that made the album and the following tour become rousing successes for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band.

As part of Amazon’s monthly $5 MP3 album deals for September 2013, the MP3 version of Rush’s Spirit Of Radio: Greatest Hits (1974-1987) is on sale for only $5.

This hits album contains 16 classic songs from Rush, which is my favorite band in the world, so I can go on and on about how every song in this collection is amazing and worth having, but allow me to name just a few: there’s the hits – “Tom Sawyer,” “The Spirit Of Radio,” and “Limelight,” as well as “Working Man,” “Subdivisions,” and “Fly By Night.”

If you’d like a physical copy of Spirit Of Radio: Greatest Hits, the CD is available for $8.49 and is an “AutoRip,” which means it includes a free MP3 version of the album that you can access immediately.

Browse the main sale page to see all 100 albums on sale for only $5 each in MP3 format through the end of September 2013.

Big birthday greetings today to Alex Lifeson, one-third of the Canadian legendary power trio Rush, whose guitar work and his approach to it puts him firmly square in legendary territory. Lifeson, who also celebrates the milestone of the 40th anniversary of the release of the band’s debut album this year, turns 60 years old today.

Alex Lifeson is a sort of lone wolf of Rush via the perception of him by most of the band’s listeners, and even though he and frontman/bassist Geddy Lee were cultivated by childhood friendship and are always linked as such, it’s still the titanium attack of Neil Peart on the backbreaking backbeat that gets more attention. Ultimately, there remains that Peart/Lee kind of familiarity that gets tread upon long before one gets to Lifeson, even after all these years of the band’s existence. But the guitarist is a concrete explosive anchor for this band. Many people think it’s Peart, but Lifeson always seems to be the vibrant weigh station when the rest of the band takes off into its sonic oddities and delectables in its medicine chest. Lifeson has those too of course and also goes to those areas indeed, with a guitar style that is like a jumbly aural cornucopia of sound, at once fast, loose, intense, dynamic; a Lifeson solo is brimming with buoyancy, with life, technical and soulful, and there aren’t many guitarists, even those “all-time ones” (a list that Lifeson is also a part of), that can do that.

Back in December, it was announced that this year my favorite band of all time, Rush, was finally (finally!) and deservedly going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Well, it’s official, Rush is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

The ceremony, which also saw Heart, Public Enemy, and several other artists added to the Hall, was held on Thursday, April 19, 2013 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, with Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters doing the induction honors for Rush. And not only did the Foo boys give the speech about the Canadian trio, but they also teamed up with producer Nick Raskulinecz to perform the “Overture” from Rush’s 2112 live on stage while sporting the Rush 2112-era look, complete with white satin robes and wigs!

Watch the video here below of the performance capture by fan video – be sure to watch til the end for some cool shit!!!