Let's figure out Dream Theater.

I've always been cautious of these type of dismissals because I've heard so many great bands described like this by people who probably never gave them a fair shot

Believe me, I tried. THAT was a mistake.

As I mentioned upthread, I worked for their label for three years, so I was forced to listen to their music in marketing meetings and nod appreciatively and talk about what I would do to promote it online. The self-titled album from a couple of years ago is the closest thing they've ever come to something I could listen to all the way through, and even that has a 20-minute multi-part song that'll just sap your will to live. (And they had to be argued out of opening the album with it.)

Dream Theater may not have sold many records, but everyone who bought one started to shred.

Karl's post with "Modern Goatee Keyboardist" is my favorite thing on the internet right now.

Like if there were a magazine called "Modern ILX Post0r" and there was an issue with Karl on the cover, I would buy that issue and carefully study the tablature.

I remember in the mid '90s there was an issue of one of the guitar magazines (forgot which one) that had a cover-mounted CD with Guthrie Govan talking through a Dream Theater solo... if I recall it went a bit like this:

"So, here's the first four bars at half-tempo..."

*incomprehensible widdling for a few seconds*

"Now at full speed..."

*incomprehensible widdling for a second or so*

FWIW: I interviewed Petrucci and Portnoy for the bio for …was it Systematic chaos? yeah that one, with such a deep title, maaannn. Don't like the band, but I had a lot of experience and interest in guys immersed in that kind of mindset…like "in the 1980s, rock music at its baseline was played like sports: elite ability was the name of the game, and that's the way it should be. I work hard to be as good a player as I am, and it is an indignity and injustice that hiphop and Nirvana ruined everything." To be fair, Portnoy felt at the time that Petrucci and Myung were inflexible in that regard. He said he thought My Chemical Romance was good and that those guys would be dismissive of anything past 1991 that was not from Chops-ville. That isn't to say that Portnoy would say "oh yeah, I really like Usher too." But he seemed to think that he was more open-minded than the rest of the band.

On that one, the singer insisted that they do his anti-Iraq war song, which the fairly conservative Petrucci disagreed with (a few years before, they recorded JP's song re: Bush suppressing stem cell research). that record also included installments of Portnoy's 12 steps epic which stretches across a few albums, a la Rush's Fear trilogy.

also, if you want to figure out Dream Theatre, understanding that those two come from deep Long Island is relevant.

conservatives in progressive rock, doesn't surprise me I guess

i remember being disappointed as a kid cos the artwork on Awake made me think it would be some kind of trippy, dream-like trance metal or futuristic sounding shit and I took it to the listening station and was like wtf IS this

yet as far as proggy type stuff goes, there IS much worse

If I had to change one thing about Close to the Edge, I might get slightly better singers to do the backup vocals. (I don't think they're horrible but they have some rough edges on an album that is not about rough edges otherwise.) It's pretty close to a perfect album for me, though.

also, if you want to figure out Dream Theatre, understanding that those two come from deep Long Island is relevant.

Ha, I had assumed they were from Boston. I don't know why this seems to make more sense, but it does, somehow.

Mike Portnoy came into #metal on DALnet once. he was predictably boring and got raked over the coals by the regulars.

those guys went to Berklee and formed the band there, but P and P are from Long Beach & King's Park. They told me that when they went to berklee in the 80s, it was very unusual to be into rock, metal et al: everyone was all about jazz. Not the case now.

Portnoy being skeptical about chops-centric music is a little like Jane Roe being antiabortion, or neoconservatives second-guessing the Iraq invasion.

Yeah cool story bro but the damage is kinda done.

I think it's possible Portnoy, Paul Gilbert et al. were trying to make some point with these shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEtmHhD7xQ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZamTrI1680

i'm going to listen to "Caught in a Web" for shits and giggles.

0:00 - cool riff underneath cheesy as fuck synths
0:07 - well that was nice while it lasted
0:21 - LaBrie sounds like a precursor to Chester Bennington by way of Rob Halford
1:14 - Queensryche-ian chorus, too AOR for my tastes
2:43 - breakdown serving the only real dose of heavy in the song, then gives way to pointless octave noodling
3:13 - solo with a really boring bassline underneath
3:36 - cowbell. ok.
3:49 - ok the shitty synths are back

ok that's all I can stand

I think you figured out Dream Theater.

I don't think deciding against an anti-Bush song is necessarily conservative. There was a lot of shit protest songs from that time.

I wouldn't call it full-on shit but IQ's anti-Bush song from Dark Matter is one of the weakest things on the album and even sounds like patriotic Christian Rock at points, for a satirical purpose but it still sounds like patriotic Christian Rock all the same.

I think it's possible Portnoy, Paul Gilbert et al. were trying to make some point with these shows:

That point apparently was, "We didn't learn a fucking thing from listening to the Who."

the only thing of Portnoy's I've ever enjoyed is that video where he played the Hello Kitty drumkit

Xpost they probably learned that Pete Townsend would have sounded better if he used active pickups.

Hmm I'm a little surprised there is almost zero support for these guys on this board. I like them, though I think their music is pretty soulless a lot of the time. Especially their singer - I never hear any emotion from him, everything is just signifiers of emotion. But just on a technical playing and writing construction standpoint, I like many of their songs. "Panic Attack" from Octavarium is what I usually tell people to start with - I think some people know that one from one of the Guitar Hero games anyway

I admit when I was getting into prog in my late teens I bout a DT album (I forget which one, maybe Metropolis?) that's quietly mouldering back in my parents's house. It was one of those times where you have a friend who's really into something and you buy into the hype... didn't last long. This is also why I have a couple of Porcupine Tree records, which, if anything, I regret more. From what I remember of this and hearing DT occasionally over the years is that the riffs/choruses etc. are just so perfunctory and obvious it feels like they're saying "don't worry kids, we have to get this pleb shit out the way so we can get to the REAL good stuff in a sec." I feel like good prog, jazz or whatever can use technicality to actually say something if they're any good. "Soulless"/"signifiers of emotion" really sums them up I think.

That said I'm not going to rag on anyone who likes them, people listen to music for all kinds of reasons, though I could only laugh if/when one of them tried to educate me on what "real music" is.

Anyway I thought up the phrase "virtuoso signalling" this morning which sums up this kind of empty musicianship nerd shit but I'm too tired and apathetic to fit it into a coherent joke

When I moved into my first student house we found a copy of Metropolis in one of the bedroom drawers, along with Countdown to Extinction by Megadeth and £3 in Marks and Spencer vouchers, I don't think we listened to either of them.

Countdown is a good album. One of Megadeth's best, IMO.

And definitely underscores why Dream Theater sucks. You could be technical and virtuoso and complicated and even tuneful and not suck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF75xTzMuXw

i feel like this belongs on this thread

My head is exploding at the contrast between that guy's excellent footwork and his extremely sloppy snare fills. Also what is up with the weirdly clicky, high kick drum sound?

Also what is up with the weirdly clicky, high kick drum sound?

That's what modern metal kick drums sound like, so they can cut through the downtuned guitars and bass.

and they sound awful like typewriters from hell

Triggering.

Seen a bit in a magazine from Barney Greenway who is a fan and has collaborated with them. He said they were massively underrated as songwriters.

I still haven't tried them yet but that's a long way off yet. Too much classics to get to first.

"YOU NOODLE!"

just an absolute banger headline, thank you Ultimate Guitar pic.twitter.com/fItjWuK6Io

— domvan (@domvanford) December 13, 2021

lmao

from upthread

[Instrumental Bridge 5]

[Keyboard Solo 1]

[Guitar Solo 2]

[Chorus 1]

[Chorus 2]

[Instrumental Bridge 6]

[Hard theme alternate]

[Hard theme alternate variation]

2022 will go down as the year when Dream Theater released a song that I like unambiguously (even if it is a straight-up pastiche of Rush): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbzrxFRCyAk

Oh I guess it was released in 2021.

haha such a silly song

joyful

There's an even more Rush-alike song from their 2013 self-titled album. I worked for their label at the time and I remember laughing out loud the first time I heard it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cf1CF6Avvc

The other day someone I follow on twitter responded to a Joe Bonamassa tweet that was in turn responding to a Guitar mag prompt asking for the best guitar album of the '90s. (I don't know anything about Bonamassa, never heard a note; iirc he picked an album by The Hellecasters.) Anyway, I made the mistake of scrolling down to see what others picked, and it was the usual 16th note sci-fi flurry shit: Steve Vai, Satch (iirc someone even picked "Surfing with the Alien," and stuck to their guns when reminded it was from the '80s). But, inevitably, someone picked Dream Theater, and I realized, you know, I've never really spent much more than a couple of minutes with them. Because this person also picked a specific track which (paraphrasing) had it all, I listened to that one, and woof - why would anyone want to listen to this? Why would anyone want to *play* this? The guitar was so precise, so technical and clinical, and so souless that it might as well have been an intricately programmed synth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEKTNtmKZEw

First comment: "The solo is just perfect, I think it has almost every imaginable technique on guitar"
Second comment: "It's not a solo, it's a clinic on how to make shred guitar tasteful."
Third comment: "whatever"

This song is what happens when everyone in a band thinks they're the most talented member of the band, including the singer.

This song is what happens when everyone in a band thinks they're the most talented member of the band, including the singer.

If I’m not mistaken, I think every member of dream theater has been on the cover of a very bad magazine associated with their instrument (ie modern drummer) multiple times. Plus, they have tons of fans who say things like “you are the greatest guitar player of all time, man!” on a daily basis.

Their lives are incredibly messed up

I do like this style of drumming in other contexts (metal, Greg Fox projects).

Their lives are incredibly messed up

Offstage they're some of the nicest people in the world. John Petrucci is just a dad from Long Island who spends most of his day practicing guitar and doing bicep curls, keyboardist Jordan Rudess is a giant dork and gearhead/inventor, bassist John Myung is incredibly chilled-out and one of the least fame-oriented artists I've ever met, and drummer Mike Mangini is, like, giddy when you talk to him. The singer, James LaBrie, I've never had any interaction with, but he's Canadian, so how bad could he be?

Sounds like having "tons of fans who say things like 'you are the greatest guitar player of all time, man!' on a daily basis" is a sound recipe for mental health!

xp that doesn’t surprise me! I still tbey they must be completely messed up. There’s no way you play a 19-string bass and then do yard work

Somehow I always forget that portnoy left dream theater in 2010.

Also somehow I missed that portnoy was with avenged sevenfold for a minute?

Look let's just be thankful that the surviving members of Rush haven't formed a supergroup with the guy

Portnoy is so insanely busy, amazing this guy has time to sleep, considering how many long ass songs he plays on. I mean, just in the last five years he has recorded albums with:

Liquid Tension Experiment
Transatlantic
Neal Morse solo
Neal Morse Band (x2)
Flying Colors
John Petrucci solo
Sons of Apollo

not to mention associated touring with all of these acts