Club PA 2.0 has arrived! If you'd like to access some extra PA content and help support the forums, check it out at patreon.com/ClubPA
The image size limit has been raised to 1mb! Anything larger than that should be linked to. This is a HARD limit, please do not abuse it.
Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Prog and other unlistenable music
Posts
Yes, Portnoy is nowhere near the others in terms of feel, just in terms of technical ability. Like most of DT. He just gets an honorable mention because he's a goddamned robot. The dude can sustain double bass notes until the earth gets burned up by the sun's red giant phase.
I remember Buddy Rich and Animal doing a skit on the Muppet Show a long time ago... it was hilarious.
I thought you said you understood why people could hate Tool fans?
I went to a lecture on Buddy Rich...the Animal sketch was given an honorable mention.
I would love to type the sound of my brain and soul vomiting in unison
but
I do not know what that sound would be
I'm not sure that what I said -- "it's not the best thing in the history of ever" -- deserves that reaction, even from Beatles fanboys. But whatevs. Maybe I've just heard it too many times.
Dota2 = Glitchmo
Fuck yeah.
I saw em at Beacon Theater in NYC a couple years back. Fuckin awesome.
They played an amazing set. My girlfriend and I had backstage passes and we both got autographs. Our seats were on the second row and at the very end during the encore they let the front couple rows go right up to the stage. Unfortunately for us, someone saw that as the ideal time to steal our autographed programs ($20 each).
At first I was really angry but now I am just bummed out. At least we got to meet them. The experience was what really counted I guess.
I'd still like to strangle the mother fucker who stole them though.
I saw the show where they first played 6DoIT in its entirety (Denver, 2002). It was an amazing show and it was over 3 hours long. No opening band.
Awesome.
At the end of the 6 degrees tour (the same one that you saw) in NYC, they played Master of Puppets, in its entirety, as an encore.
I love Dream Theater.
I know. I'm so jealous of everyone who got to see that. Was there ever an official recording of that released?
Not as bad as the Number of the Beast, though.
I'm not sure. I don't even know if they did it both nights at the Beacon, or just the night I was there.
It was amazing.
After seeing him last night, I just have to flat out disagree.
Gilbert > Satch >>>>>> Petrucci. Absolutely right on.
Still, I see a lot of progressive rock 'masters' today, and it seems like all of them are just shredding, and there's a lot more to progressive music than just that. Sure, if you take a single scale and find every possible permutation of thirty-second notes and play it, it might be 'mind-blowingly' technically, but take a look at some musicians like John McLaughlin or Robert Fripp, who I think really stand alone with respect to musical ingenuity.
One thing John McLaughlin did a whole lot was play a little with bending into microtones, often playing past the note to give an exaggerated or 'out of control' feel. He did his fair share of 'shredding', but a lot of it was extremely well done, and completely different than modern-prog shredding. If you took a John McLaughlin solo versus a John Petrucci solo, and slowed them both down so that a 32nd note was an 8th note, the Petrucci solo would be boring as shit, and the McLaughlin solo would still kick ass. Between the subtlety of vibrato and bending, and lots of passing tones used in particularly interesting ways, it's hard to find someone as good as McLaughlin.
Robert Fripp also exemplified the 'sophisticated shredder' of progressive 70's music, and stuff like 'Larks' Tongues in Aspic' is the cream of the crop for 12-tone influenced modal improvisation. Even though there is no set scale for the guitar solo halfway through the first song, it traces patterns which, while being dissonant, make sense in the midst of where the song 'has been'.
As for all the Tool hate, I'm sort of a Tool fan, but I gotta say that I only really like their last two albums. Some songs I thought were utter shite too, like that entire 'Wings for Marie' thing from 10,000 Days. One of their damning characteristics, for me at least, is the fact that they use the same key for every fucking song... also, some other songs really feel like they're trying to be progressive, instead of just playing what they think is good. Case in point, the middle and ending parts of Rosetta stoned and meandering shit like Triad. Also, stuff like Eon Blue Apocalypse, Mantra, Faaip de Oiad, Lipan Conjuring, and Viginti Tres really piss me off. At least the Mars Volta has the courtesy to make their ambient bullshit interesting.
Don't get me wrong, I fucking love the Mars Volta. I give Omar the buttsecks all the time, dontcha know...
I don't care how deep you think you are, guys, give me a fucking composed song with riffs. Jeebus.
It's like I spent 20 bucks on 10,000 days and 10 dollars of that is paying to hear random bass guitar strums for 5 minutes of intro.
I would tend to agree. One of the reasons I like the prog that I listen to is because it's complex, but without being overly "shreddy." I'll quote a post from earlier in the thread that puts it eloquently.
The prog I enjoy has many things going on at once. The individual parts might not be overly technical (though still harder to play than the average pop song), but they're layered and explored in such a way as to make the overall piece full and fun to listen to for years to come. I think I like more classically-influenced prog for this reason, rather than modern prog-shred-metal.
If I can take 10 minutes of your time, I'd like to show you a few songs by Pain of Salvation, one of my favorite prog bands. I'd love for them to get some more exposure. Btw, do NOT click on these links if you don't intend to sit through them, as you can't judge either song without listening to the whole thing. Come to think of it, that's another reason I like the prog I listen to: there's a real sense of evolution and musical exploration from the beginning of a song to its end. No verse>chorus>verse>chorus>solo>chorus>end (where the last chorus is exactly the same as the first) here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvae5Lt0smI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxLaf3y6sDA
WWDWDWWWWDWWWWLDWWW - Premiers in April
WW - Champions in May
He was much more interesting on Awake and Images & Words, I totally agree.
Surprise Bouzouki! What the hell is he playing in that second clip?
I've seen DT a couple times.
I was actually a little disappointed insofar as the fact that...they really sound like their studio material. They were technically brilliant of course, but each time I wished for a bit more warmth and energy from the band. Maybe even a surprise or two.
As it was, we got carbon copies of each studio piece. That they can recreate everything with precision onstage is to their credit, but I'll admit to feeling a little bored.
It's funny you mention that because Omar probably does compose every single second of ambient ear-wanking on Mars Volta albums.
Not that that makes all of it okay.
4 minutes of church bells does not count as an intro to a song.
And I love The Mars Volta.
I still hate the church bells on FTM though.