dans.blog

I was hoping to post this early, but I've been extremely busy at work lately. Anyway, we had band practice again last night. We hadn't played in two weeks, because Todd had a cold. We're definitely getting better by leaps and bounds—but I can definitely tell the difference when we miss a week of practice. I've really got to work on Van Halen's Panama though, that's definitely the tune that gives me the biggest problem.

Posted by Dan on Jun 17, 2003 @ 9:24 PM

The guys at the German Fanclub for Dream Theater have released up to part seven of their behind the scenes video series Nine Degrees of Backstage Tourbulence. Only two more parts to go!

It's been a pretty interesting series so far, if you're in to music (especially playing life) you might enjoy the series even if you're not a fan of Dream Theater. I just downloaded parts 6 & 7, so I'll probably watch them later today.

Posted by Dan on Jun 17, 2003 @ 8:37 AM

Well I heard some more of the new Spock's Beard album this weekend. I definitely will be placing my order for the new album. The stuff I heard sounded really good. I'm going to miss Neil Morse, but the new stuff did sound good. I'll post more once I get to hear the full album all the way through a few times.

Posted by Dan on Jun 9, 2003 @ 9:01 AM

Spock's Beard has released an mp3 sampler of their new album. The song excerpts are from "Feel Euphoria", "East Of Eden, West Of Memphis", "A Guy Named Sid", "The Bottom Line" and "Ghosts Of Autumn". They're only going to live the sample online for a bried period of time due to the bandwidth issues it's caused. I download the sample and listened to it for a bit last night. The music sounds great, but I think I'm really going to miss Neil Morse's voice. I'm not saying Neil had the greatest voice in rock or anything, but it's definitely become a big part of Spock's Beard for me. Also, I bought Nick D'Virgilio solo album—because I think he's a fantastic drummer and musician. I was pretty dissapointed in the album overall, it just didn't have the same kind of creativity as SB does. Well I think Nick's voice is good—and fits in great as background vocals, I thought the vocals on his solo album were a little bland. I'm hoping he's mixed things up a bit more for Feel Euphoria. Anyway, go to Spock's Beard's website for more information.

Posted by Dan on May 29, 2003 @ 9:10 AM

Dream Theater just released their own mini-record label—Ytsejam Records! This label basically seems driven by Mike Portnoy (the drummer for Dream Theater.) The site will sell "official bootlegs"—which I hoping means are going to be rather high quality bootlegs.

There's actually a couple of interesting titles already posted—a live recording featuring both Bruce Dickenson and Ray Aldur and another which has some studio recordings from The Making of Scenes From A Memory. I'll be curious to see what happens with the site.

PS - DreamTheater.net doesn't even have this information posted—but I think there's some information about the new record label at Mike Portnoy's website.

Posted by Dan on May 27, 2003 @ 10:51 PM

Here's the track listing for the new Spock's Beard album due out in June:

Posted by Dan on May 23, 2003 @ 10:19 AM

The solo EP "Twist Of Fate" by former Fates Warning front man John Arch is now available for pre-ordering at CD Universe and Amazon.com. "Twist Of Fate" is approximately 20 minutes in length and features Jim Mathoes (Fates Warning / OSI) on guitar, Joey Vera on bass and Mike Portnoy on drums. The EP will be released by Metal Blade Records on June 17th, 2003.

- DreamTheater.net

Posted by Dan on May 22, 2003 @ 3:13 PM

Here's a handful of recent King's X interviews from around the web.

5/2003 interview with ty @ Metalhall.com
5/2003 Interview with ty @ ElectricBasement.com
interview with ty @ guitar.net
interview with Doug @ 1340.com

Posted by Dan on May 22, 2003 @ 9:21 AM

Ok, I picked up the new King's X album Black Like Sunday. I've only had a chance to listen to the first half of the CD, so I'll wait to post a review until I can listen to the album all the way through a couple of times. My initial impression was there were a couple of keepers, and the rest was not up to the King's X standard. (I actually haven't been very found of the last 3 King's X CDs. Bulbuous I thought was good, but the other two just felt hastily thrown together. That's not to say there weren't songs on the albums I liked, just overall it just felt rushed. I still think their first five or six albums are all good though—especially the first four.)

Posted by Dan on May 22, 2003 @ 9:17 AM

Here's an interesting trivia bit. I was doing some miscellaneous surfing over the weekend. I was watching a video from some 80s female singer I didn't remember so I looked her up on the web. Her voice sounded really familar, but I didn't recognize the name. Anyway, the site was geared towards all female metal bands and while reading the site I came across reference to a band called "Meanstreak".

Anyway, the band didn't ring a bell with me—I don't remember them, but I did read something odd on the page. Three of the band members are now married to Dream Theater members. (The site says only 2, but actually it's 3.)

Anyway, the relationships are:

more…

Posted by Dan on May 10, 2003 @ 10:48 AM

Spock's Beard's new album has been completed and is scheduled to be released on June 30, 2003. This is great news!!!

Posted by Dan on May 10, 2003 @ 9:20 AM

Ok, I found this on floating around on the web. It's the guys from King's X when they were known as "The Edge" doing a remake of The Beatles "Here Comes The Sun." It definitely has an early 80s vibe to it and seems to have a similiar feel to the remake that was in the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

King's X - Here Comes The Sun

Posted by Dan on May 9, 2003 @ 5:12 PM

I got my Maiden tickets today! Thanks Eric! I've heard that this is pretty much a "Greatest Hits" tour and that they're going to be playing lots of classics!

Dio and Motorhead are also on the ticket, although I've got no real desire to see either of them. Dio's alright, but I thought he's been boring when I've seen him live in the past. I've never been a big Motorhead fan—just can't get past Lemmy's voice—so I'm no big hurry to get there to hear either of these two bands. Dio does have some songs I like, so hopefully Motorhead is opening up so I can just skip them.

Posted by Dan on May 9, 2003 @ 4:59 PM

King's X new album hit stores May 20, 2003. You can download the title track (Black Like Sunday) from MetalBlade's King's X site.

This album is made up of songs they wrote 20+ years ago, back when they were known as "The Edge." The title track definitely has a retro feel to it.

Posted by Dan on May 9, 2003 @ 4:53 PM

The iTunes Music Store is launching with a library of 200,000 tracks, with participation from all five of the major record labels. In addition, the store will list exclusive tracks from 20 artists, including Bob Dylan and U2.

The songs cost 99 cents each to download, with no subscription fee, and include the most liberal copying rights of any online service to date. Jobs has been an outspoken opponent of so-called digital rights management (DRM) in the past, arguing that limitations on digital music will undermine the market for legitimate content.

- John Borland, CNET News.com

Apple released it's much anticipated "iTunes Music Store" today. I've thought for a long time the record companies should be actively trying to sell music online. There's lots of music out there I'm willing to pay for, but I'm not a fan of paying $13-20 for one song on a CD. However, I'm more than willing to pay $1-3 for a song really like (depending on the length of the song.)

While I've yet to had a chance to check out the Music Store (as I don't have a Mac—which is required to run iTunes,) all the reviews have been very postive. It seems like the model is fairly decent and even with the DRM attached to the file, the restrictions on what you can do with the files are fairly loose (3 PCs, unlimited burns, max of 10 burns per playlist.) Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how well this works out. Hopefully the PC version will be coming before December—the projected release date—because the majority of people out there have PCs, so they're limited their target audience at the moment.

Posted by Dan on Apr 28, 2003 @ 9:23 PM