Åkerfeldt vs. Wilson

With all this professional and unprofessional talk, Vince, it seems like you hold SW to a higer standard than ordinary people. Is this true? If so, why does is matter? People are people, and I'd not necessarily respect, but admire a musician willing to speak his mind rather than just smile and say, "Well this band is just fine." or "I have no opinion on this matter."

Edited by stonebeard - August 09 2006 at 00:08

Come on, Mike. We haven't had a really good discussion in awhile.  At least not one about DT.

I feel like bashing my head against the wall multiple times for starting this sh*t.

As unprofessional as it may be, what do you say if you are asked a direct question like, what is your opinion on rap music?

It's really tough to get around that kind of a question without stating how you really feel, unless of course you lie about it. Personally, I will try to be as nice as possible, but I'm not going to lie about something in order to be "professional". Being professional is more than just not saying bad things about others, and I'll be damned if the definition of professional is to "lie about everything in public so as not to offend anyone"

Just some food for thought.

AtLossForWords wrote: Val wrote: Tlossy - I think that SW has made a valid statement here and though we hate seeing bands criticised by other artists, it is as SW infers a practice that occurs regularly. In fact SW has had to take a lot of flak from prog music fans as well as other musicians. If the criticism was extreme then I am sure SW and DT would no longer be friends. Everyone has a right to express an opinion whether it is something we like or don't want to hear. That is part of being fortunate to have democracy as a standard on this forum. I think criticsm should not be taken personally but used as vehicle of learning and from there we should move on with a new lessons "under our belts". Cheers   I completely understand personal opinions, I hope people still have them.  If Steven Wilson doesn't like Transatlantic or Dream Theater that's just fine with me.  My problem is that it was unprofessional as a musician to say statements like he did about Transatantic and their genre.  Musicians from the international to local levels are always going to have opinions on other bands and genres, that's cool on a personal level, but to publish those opinions should be sickening to a fan of any kind of music.   Gary Holt did a very similar thing in an interview dissing on EMO.  Do I like EMO, no not one bit, but I still find it unprofessional to insult another musician or music genre in a published interview.

AtLossForWords wrote: The Miracle wrote: He's real Wilson, Mike....Steve: those who don't like you are Flower Kings fanboys who didn't like your comments on Stolt[IMG]smileys/smiley2.gif" align=middle>   Fanboy or not, an asshole is an asshole.    Anyone that takes it upon themselves to insult a band that features Mike Portnoy is an asshole.  Mike would never say a bad word about anyone.  Apparently being a member of Transatlantic means you shouldn't be treated as nice as you are.  Steven Wilson apparently does say bad words about others.  It was this same nasty individual that was unplugged by Yes, and I don't think it's because they thought his band was playing to long.  This same individual also said that it's to Tool's credit that it's O.K. to play prog again.  I have a question for this individual, since when was it not O.K. for a musician to play any music other than the kind he wants to?  When was it not O.K. for musicians who want to play Prog of play Prog?   I don't have any respect for any musician as talented as they may be to go out and give an interview where they insult another band, musician, or genre that they don't particularly like.  It's not professional of them at all.   EDIT: If Roine Stolt plays Neo Prog, I'd like to know just how his projects sound like Jadis or Pendragon.

Hold up here. I understand why you might get offended by things musicians say under stress. For example. I've seen interviews where Daniel Gildenlow (Daniel Gildenlow is amazingly humble, we all know it) has come off as arrogant. Obviously Wilson is on good terms with Portnoy, as they are doing a side project with them two and Akerfeldt (which should be awesome). You can't judge a person on a couple things they say. May have been a bad day, a stressful concert, whatever. Stuff happens. Whether Wilson is an asshole or not should only be decided if you know him...which you don't.

Stop acting like a hungry politician looking to pick apart an opponent. Leave the crow's work to crows.

Hehe, I just noticed my top played artists on my list. Glad I look like a fanboy now and all. That's cool. =(

Oh, by the way, I actually voted Akerfeldt, hehe. Mostly for sheer versatility.
    
    
    

Edited by FishyMonkey - August 08 2006 at 23:42

Other people (serious musicians) probably don't spend too much time worrying about exact labels, Vince, unlike us. And it is often a very fine line between modern symphonic prog and modern neo-prog.

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I just find it wrong to insult musicians simply because they have a different approach.
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In fact I spoke with Roine about this, and apologised - my comments about these bands was borne out of frustration with certain jounalists trying to lump us into some kind of "neo-prog" movement.  And frankly it's just not my kind of music.  Of course it's true that it's an ugly thing to criticise other musicians, but I don't think there's any musician on the planet that has not at some time been critical of their contempories in the press (including Mikael A).  Many times I have had to eat humble pie with the guys from Dream Theater because I've had to come clean in the press and say I don't really dig their music (and these guys are my friends!)

SW

Mikael Åkerfeldt.

As much as I respect Mikael's work, it is Steve Wilson all the way for me - a true musical genius. [so speaks a fangirl].

Edited by valravennz - August 08 2006 at 22:50