Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Mike Portnoy interviewed by That Drummer Guy




Just checking this out as I post this. I'm incredibly happy for Josh to finally get to interview Mike, something I can't even help but envious and jealous as well.

All the years on his forum, both Josh and even longer for myself.

Content?
naturally a lot of it is about the new Neal Morse Band album The Similtitude of a Dream, which Portnoy has been talking about a ton over the last several months.

Of course my situation with it being my only experience with Neal's solo music, the Christian element, Christian lyrics have had me shy-ed away from it. But I dunno, I may have to check it out after all the glowing comments (although I could have said the same about many of Neal's other solo/NMB albums as well).

I may try and edit a few more comments about this later once I've heard the whole interview, but again, this is really a great thing to happen for Josh. I dunno, perhaps it will lead to more interviews with Mike Portnoy in the future, which will only grow Josh's success with That Drummer Guy, which I'm totally happy to see.

edit: probably the biggest news from this interview is Mike has a new "Secret Project" in the works. I wonder if any of these 3 people might be involved:
Mikael Akerfeldt
Daniel Gildenlow
Jim Matheos

also possibly Casey Crescenzo. Someone on Mike's forum mentioned possibly a Power-Pop group with the likes of Casey, Roger Joseph Manning Jr and Matt Bissonette.  One can dream?


http://www.thatdrummerguy.com/interviews.html

Steven Wilson
Devin Townsend
Mike Portnoy

Daniel Gildenlow?
Mikael Akerfeldt?

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Sharon Jones: Rest in Peace

I meant to post this the other day but ended up not finishing it it here in the blog.

Sharon Jones was a singer/musician my wife is a big fan of. I have known her, really since seeing her and the band on the IFC show "Dinner with the Band" like 10 years ago.

I always knew she was sort of a late bloomer. But then like a year or 2 later, the hipsters started promoting her, including 89.3, etc.

At any case, my wife and I saw this documentary and it was rather eye-opening, her whole battle with Pancreatic Cancer. It going into remission. Unfortunately, the doc ends before it came back, and now sadly she did lost her battle to it on Friday.



Noteworthy, she did a show with Mayer Hawthorne and Hall and Oates at Red Rocks in CO that my wife wanted to go to as a Bachelorette party in August, but they weren't able to.

Also she appeared live from Daryl's House.

And the below Prince collaborations/jams, etc.




Kevin Gilbert b. November 20th, 1966



Today, November 20th, 2016, Kevin would have turned 50 years old today.

No time to write a long-winded tribute right now, but I didn't want to forget about posting something in here, like I did for Jeff Buckley a couple of days ago.

Both came to us 1 Half Century ago.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Jeff Buckley b. November 17th, 1966



Happy 50th Birthday to Jeff Buckley.

Kevin Gilbert's is on Sunday.

Love that tune. I contended this morning, had he lived to finish it, Sketches would have been better than Grace, no question.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Phil Collins + Mike and Tony (but not Peter) Tour in 2017? (Genesis reunion)

Not sure how to treat this.

a) The search per Google ends showing a Post Date of July, 17, 2010. However I don't see a date on the story, and the comments are new at the bottom.

b) assuming this is true, no Peter Gabriel of course isn't surprising, but disappointing, and the same about Steve Hackett of course.

c) even if this does happen, odds are it won't hit Minnesota of course. But that also remains to be announced. If somehow it does, I will certainly try and go.

d) Gabriel's quote is of course hard to get all that excited for since beyond the 1 new song from that soundtrack, no new material really has come in recent years. And the I/O hope seems low as well, but I recall Peter said something about the songs written for that album don't really hold up now in an interview a few years ago.

Societyrock.com



"According to reports, Phil Collins will reunite with some of the members of his old band Genesis for an epic reunion tour! He is planning the tour for next year and reports are saying that rehearsals have already gotten underway! Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford wil be going to join Phil for the tour, but former frontman Peter Gabriel will not." 
  
Peter Gabriel has revealed this: "Tomy, Mike and Phil are rehearsing now. I'm not involved in this round or this year. I haven't ruled out the possibility of doing something in the future, but right now I'm going to focus on my own work." 

The Reign of Kindo: Patreon. 2nd track "City of Gods"

11/12/16
new song "City of Gods" posted for the subscribers. Proggy as hell in the middle.


9/20/16 10:30PM

Facebook link

https://www.patreon.com/thereignofkindo

The band posted something within the last month about new music finally coming soon, and this is it. Am I surprised? not incredibly. I signed up, mainly because I love this band and want to support them. I just downloaded the 1st song of many as they explain in the video below. Song is titled "Human Convention."

I haven't listened to it yet, per my fiancee is on the phone.

Of course our wedding is only 4 days away now, so my focus on this stuff isn't what it is normally, but once the wedding is over, I hopefully can get back to all this stuff.

But for now, I wanted to pass this along anyone who may not have seen. The Reign of Kindo is a favorite of mine, and really should have a much larger following than they do. But we'll see if this new platform will be quite helpful for them to make music and not worry so much about costs of making it, etc.

And of course, at some point they tour as much if not more than they are. The Dear Hunter and them someday should tour, at least if the stars allign. And they should play in Minnesota as I know a ton of people in town who are fans, and even were of This Day and Age back in the day.

And with The Dear Hunter in Minnesota would be just perfect to happen. Spring 2017? I'm just wishing for. If it does? maybe it'll feel like fate, if it happens in a year or 2, I still will be overjoyed.

Also I may post a new entry for each song, or maybe I'll try and do what I did with the Three entry back in 2014 and just bump this with each new track.

edit: finally checked it out. Catchy as hell at times. Love the synths.






The time has come.
New music available now. Download 'Human Convention' for free.
Visit www.thereignofkindo.com to get it and learn things. 
We're trying something new.

Original hand-painted artwork by Jeffrey Peter Dickash.

Spread the news all over everyone's faces.
We love you.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

New Videos: Vinyl/CDs + Rock Hall Rant

Not much to add other than it's good to make some new videos again. I have more coming hopefully soon (this week/weekend likely).


The Dear Hunter - Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional (Double Vinyl)
Marillion - Fuck Everyone and Run (Double Vinyl)
Marillion - Fuck Everyone and Run (CD)
Marillion - Unconventional (BluRay DVD)
Porcupine Tree - Nil Recurring (Vinyl)
John Wesley - a way you'll never be... (CD)
Revere - Man of Atom [EP] (CD)





http://www.futurerocklegends.com/Nominating_Committee.php

Monday, November 7, 2016

Anakdota - Overloading (2016-2017)

Well this is a pleasant surprise, to a point.. I of course only have listened "Girl Next Door" "Late" and "Different Views" which from a percentage basis, kind of sucks to only have 5 news songs, but I can't complain tho given they have so much potential and I really love all 3 of those tunes.

Great to see them put out their debut album finally!

Anakdota, the Israeli jazzy tinged college-prog band.

This album just was released, so of course being after Halloween, goes on 2016-2017's list, which is both good and bad. Good because it may be the leader in the clubhouse early on. Bad in that it won't measure up to the 2015-2016 list, etc.

But given I haven't spent much time with it yet, it's probably for the best.

Album of course is free to stream on the bandcamp link here:



1. One More Day 07:03
2. Different Views 05:42
3. Late 04:20
4. Mourning 05:28
5. Overloading 07:08
6. Staying Up Late 08:24
7. Girl Next Door 05:01
8. End of the Show 05:58