Banger Films Official Blog

Today is starting out with fantastic news as Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage has been nominated for a 2011 Juno Award under the Best Music DVD category! As many of you will remember, Banger Films took this same award last year for the work on Iron Maiden: Flight 666 which marked a new movement in band specific documentaries for the team.
The 2011 Juno nominations were announced this morning live on CTV. There will be a lot of hype around Justin and Drake who have blasted into the music spotlight this year and we wish them all the best.
This is shaping up to be a monumental year for RUSH and the people behind the film at Banger Films HQ. The world can look forward to the next wave of RUSH’s Time Machine Tour featuring the Moving Pictures album in it’s entirety. There is the Grammy Awards in April, preceded by the Juno’s in March.

We will add more to this news story as we get feedback but it is safe to say that the office is pretty excited this morning.

In the meantime, please read up on the other amazing Music DVD’s that were also nominated below.

MUSIC DVD OF THE YEAR

Shadow Shows/Rhombus Media/Arts & Crafts*Alliance
Bruce McDonald Dany M. Chiasson, Niv Fichman, Noah Segal, Amy Paquette BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
This Movie is Broken
Broken Social Scene – DVD
This Movie is Broken

One of Canada’s pre-eminent cult fimmakers, Bruce McDonald is infamous for his comment that he’d buy “a big chunk of hash” with the money he won at the Toronto International Film Festival for his debut feature Roadkill. Anyone who’s seen one of his films knows that he wasn’t joking. Roadkill was followed by the other two films in his Road Trilogy, Hard Core Logo and Highway 61. In between executive producing and directing the television series Twitch City and directing for shows like Queer as Folk, Degrassi: The Next Generation, The Tournament and This is Wonderland, McDonald also directed the films Dance Me Outside, Picture Claire, Claire’s Hat, The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess, The Tracey Fragments, Pontypool and This Movie is Broken. His most recent film, Trigger, premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

WEA*Warner
Christopher Mills Nick Blasko, Geoff McLean, Christopher Mills BUCK 65
The Lost Tapes
Buck 65
The Lost Tapes

Christopher Mills is best known for his video work for Modest Mouse, The Tragically Hip, The Secret Machines, and Interpol–combining live action with animation in a style he describes as, “Rumpled Country Art Doctor Antiques Lover Who Thinks Out Of The Box Yet Imagines Vast Worlds Inside It.” In addition to music videos and commercials, Christopher has created visual work for the Art Gallery of Ontario as well as for The Tragically Hip’s stadium concert tour in 2005. He created and directed, “Macroscopic,” a 47-minute experimental documentary about The Tragically Hip that was included in their 20-year retrospective, Hipeponymous, released in late 2005. Christopher has received many awards for his music video work, including a JUNO Award for 2008 Video of the Year for Blue Rodeo’s “C’mon” and Best Breakthrough Video for Modest Mouses’ “Float On” in 2004. His 2006 mixed-media commercial for Hewlett-Packard, called: Crazy Town,” was his first U.S. commercial. Christopher lives in Toronto.

Columbia*Sony
Jean Lamoureux, Julie Snyder CELINE DION
Céline-Tournée Mondiale Taking Chances Le Spectacle
Celine Dion
Céline-Tournée Mondiale Taking Chances Le Spectacle

Celine -Tournee Mondiale Taking Chances Le Spectacle is the exclusive French version filmed live in Québec. The U.S. edition features only her English language songs, performed throughout all of North America. La Tournee Mondiale Taking Chances Le Spectacle, showcases Céline’s inspiring dedication to creating a stage experience like no other. The DVD/CD offers another chance to experience the magical event, this time from a vantage point unparalleled by any ticket

Naxos
Jeremy Tusz, Tom Beghin, Martha De Francisco, Wieslaw Woszczyk TOM BEGHIN
The Virtual Haydn

Jeremy Tusz is a Montréal-based recording engineer, editor, and video producer specializing in classical music. He splits his time between CD/SACD/BluRay Audio album production, and promotional and educational video production for musicians and record labels. The Virtual Haydn (Playing the Room) is his first full-length documentary on a screenplay by Robert J. Litz. Jeremy works with artists and groups such as Lara St. John, Jens Lindemann, Alain Lefèvre, Angèle Dubeau, Kent Nagano and l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, The National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Les Violons du Roi, l’Ensemble Caprice, and The Knights. His work can be heard on recordings for labels such as Analekta, Ancalagon, Azica, Marquis Classics, Naxos, Sony Classical, Virgin Classics, and XXI. He has credits on 10 JUNO Award-nominated recordings (three wins), a MIDEM-nominated recording, an Echo Klassik-winning recording, and many ADISQ-nominated and winning recordings. Jeremy has a background in violin and viola performance and is a graduate of the McGill University Schulich School of Music Masters of Music in Sound Recording program (2006).

Alliance
Scot McFadyen, Sam Dunn, Pegi Cecconi, Noah Segal, Shelley Nott, John Virant RUSH
Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage

Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage

Rush is one of rock’s most influential bands, ranking third for most gold and platinum albums behind The Beatles and Rolling Stones.  But despite having legions of devoted fans and being revered by generations of musicians, they have been ignored by critics and continually overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Featuring never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with some of today’s most respected rock artists, Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage explores the 40-year career and phenomenon behind what could be the world’s biggest cult band.

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage looking for the 'Double' with a Grammy and a Juno

Well, there you have it. Rush WILL slide through Vancouver on June 30. A collective ‘Yay‘, can be heard across Western Canada with this announcement. This after weeks of speculation and a definite indication of a Vancouver show as we eluded to in the ‘Bakers Dozen’ tour piece with only 12 dates officially announced. Those astute fans may have noticed a few days ‘vacant’ in the vicinity of Portland and Gorge shows…

From Rush.com

01/29/2011
VANCOUVER DATE ADDED!
Rush has confirmed they will play Rogers Arena in Vancouver, BC on June 30th, 2011.
Tickets go on sale Feb 4th with pre-sales for Rush.com members and AMEX front of line starting Tuesday @ 10AM

Remember pre-sale tix are available only for Rush.com members so be prepared and don’t miss out on the first wave.

Yep, the latest batch of dates have been spreading around the web today. 12 new dates have been added to a Spring tour immediately following the early Spring romp through Europe. Oh! But wait! Canadian West Coasters may have noticed the “Itinerary subject to change. Vancouver date to be announced!” (WOW, so that makes a Bakers Dozen of tour dates) on the website and may also be frantically grasping at what will be an incredible event at the Gorge Amphitheater. A true outdoor spectacle that will be.

The new dates are as follows;

The general on-sale will begin January 24th at 10:00 AM Local.

June 10 – New Orleans @ Arena
June 12 – Austin @ Frank Erwin Center
June 14 – El Paso @ Don Haskins Center
June 16 – Phoenix @ US Airways Center
June 20 – Los Angeles @ Gibson Ampitheatre
June 22 – Los Angeles @ Gibson Ampitheatre

There will also be shows for the following dates with tickets going on sale on Jan 28/29/31.

(Jan 29th) June 8 – Greenville @ BI-LO Center
(Jan 28th) June 18 – San Diego @ Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre
(Jan 29th) June 24 – Las Vegas @ MGM Grand
(Jan 29th) June 26 – Concord @ Sleep Train Pavilion
(Jan 31th) June 28 – Portland @ Sleep Country Amphitheater
(Jan 31th) July 2 – Seattle @ The Gorge

Also if you’re into this sort of thing, the Tour Package sounds pretty nifty.

Pick them up here http://www.livenation.com/Rush-tickets/artist/807344.

Rush – Time Machine Package includes:

- One premium, reserved ticket located within the first 15 rows of the stage
- Copy of “Rush – Classic Albums – 2112 and Moving Pictures” DVD (the making of “2112″ and “Moving Pictures”)
- Rush “Caravan/BU2B” CD single
- Specially Designed Tour Shirt (exclusive design, available to ticket packages only)
- Exclusive Tour Poster (numbered, limited)
- Official Time Machine Tour Program
- Set of Official Rush Guitar Picks  (ooooohh.. pick, pickety, pick, picks )

Enjoy! And if you don’t believe me, head over to the Rush tour page.

From everyone at Banger Films headquarters, we want to wish you a safe and happy new year.

2010 was the busiest in Banger Films’ history with well over 150 separate interviews throughout Europe and North America. The production team has grown larger than ever before with a storm of activity as they piece together what will be the biggest effort in the company’s incredible history.

In 2011, Metal Evolution will premiere. An 11 part mini series based on some of the most popular metal and heavy rock genres featured in the first movie, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. Some episodes are wrapping up while others are starting to get pieced together in preparation for editing.

There’s been some confusion regarding Canadian screenings however, no worries, as Much More Music will be premiering the series for Canadian audiences while VH1 Classic will air the series for US viewers.

In the meantime there is an amazing little website out there that does a great job at featuring a killer interactive map of many of the Metal and Rock genres. Check out MapofMetal.com created by Patrick Galbraith of http://www.venusfir.com.au/. This site is very well done so head over and have a look. Thanks Patrick for the link back in the credits! Again check it out here;

Map of Metal

Incredible work from down under.

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

The Rush documentary took everyone by surprise taking the Fans Choice award at Tribeca and recharging Rush’s ‘approval rating’ beyond anyones expectations. The Banger team couldn’t be happier now that the film is up for a Grammy award! Rush has been nominated on 7 other occasions without bringing home the hardware. We feel this is the year. There is a strong Doors documentary on the bill which may just nip it from the ‘Hosers’ but we will keep our outlook positive.

Thanks to you the Rush doc was the 2nd best selling music DVD of 2010. Only Beyonce could dethrone the 3 kids from Canada from the top spot.

So thank you again and hope to hear from you all in 2011!

Keep Raging !!!

It’s a beauty way to go.

Alright, enough of that. There’s been a lot of press recently regarding the current musical prowess of several of our more famous ‘hosers’. Namely a young fellow named Justin, a less younger fellow named Drake and three geezers named Rush. Much of this press is illuminating the fact that this year, the Grammy’s will have a very Canadian feel as we joust for several awards spread out across many different categories. Rush has been nominated on several occasions before but have never brought home the big prize. We certainly expect this to be the breaking point and hope that we can bring home the big prize for Rush and everyone involved in every part of this amazing film.

In the meantime, Rush has a marginally satirical mention in the upcoming Rolling Stone magazine which opens with a particularly noticeable Zeppelin line. Have a read and click for the large version. Don’t forget to comment to let us know what you thing of …

Coo Roo Coo Coo ...