The New Neal Morse Appreciation Thread

I've always thought that Neal's overall writing style goes hand-in-hand with Portnoy's bombastic playing.

I think Portnoy is a fantastic drummer and a real character too.

Pub Lounge Philosophy...now that is an album title!

Crumple wrote: @Barney - Just wanted to point out that Jesus Christ HATED religion. He railed against it, flaunted it's rules, and generally made a nuisance of himself while insulting religious types. To the point that on more than one occasion they decided to just kill him then and there (you, know, before they actually did kill him). He and his followers were the bonfire dancers of their day. And IMO, we all need to spend more time dancing around bonfires, both literally and metaphorically. @zumacraig - agree somewhat with what you've posted. we need egalitarianism when it comes to PEOPLE, and we need elitism when it comes to OPINIONS/IDEAS and instead, many times - and certainly with ideas - we have exactly the reverse.

Hm. well if there was a historically confirmed person as Jesus (unlike Mohammed who genuinely existed, Jesus could well have been mythical, there is a helluva lot of evidence to suggest that Jesus/Mithras/Dionysus are all the same mythical man who was put to death by crucifixion) - then he would have been (as the wonder full life of Brian Portrays) a beat-nick soothsayer, causing trouble for the ruling romans. But if he existed then it is as plain as the nose on my face that he was a man born of a woman, and in no way the son of some sky-fairy who thinks that it would be a good idea (after six million years of evolution) that homo sapiens should be saved from "original sin" by letting his son die..so that his followers get to live after their death. I admit it's a good story, but that is all it is. I was dead for 14.7 billion years before I was born and as such will be dead after my death until the heat-death of the universe....Anybody who believes in life-after-death is just fearing the reaper...it's comforting to think that loved-ones who have died, somehow live on in everlasting glory - but alas - it's plainly all made up so some misogynistic old men can control the gullible masses. The bible/Quran have nothing in them that wasn't known at the time of their writing - if they were truly the words of the creator of all - then he should have put in some mathematical truisms like a fecking big prime number that he calculated using his god-computer....No the bible is full of localised tribal brutality and some fairly banal pub-lounge philosophy!
All children should be reading "The origin of species" or "Brief history of time" - forget the fourth century dogma...we are now in the 21st century !!!

Edited by M27Barney - December 05 2013 at 11:15

Not all "prog" bands record 100% "prog" music 100% of the time. Its about the music and not a label that is subjective anyway......Calling something prog is an opinion, depending on what you consider is prog. I am sure there is plenty of music people listen to on this site that is not considered prog.....Just look at the thread on What You Are Listening to.

zumacraig wrote: M27Barney wrote: Aye - I have no personal beef with anybody who wants to believe anything they want. If the guy next door lit a bonfire on the back lawn on the 22nd December and he and his wife danced round it naked and even felt they had to "consummate" the event. I wouldn't care less a s long as he didn't use my fence as fire-wood!!! However, Christianity and the like are full of stupid rules that the supposed Master of the universe seems keen to enforce - nearly all of those are to do with sex and the sexual power of women in particular. Religious people spend so much time worrying about what other people are up to! Forget the rules - enjoy life and embrace the whole human race, not just the people who you think are part of your in-group gods chosen people.... In fact the naked dance round the solstice fire sounds like a good idea...I hope it isn't too frosty.... This is where I differ from you and the great Infandous.  I used to be a live and let live kind of guy, but this post modernism gone awry society we live in where all opinions are deemed equal is a dead end.  It's precisely unexamined beliefs and lack of critical thought that have left the world as it is.  Ironically, it is those who profess belief in some god or ideology that must be dealt with.  We have to make people accountable for their beliefs when the reify them.  This can be part of taking seriously the great discovery of post-modernism, that all is socially constructed.  Unfortunately, these constructs still have causal power.  That's how we get people claiming belief in a loving God while completely acquiescing to war and capitalism.  Fortunately, we can re-construct our world to end suffering, delusion and actually deal with the stuff that leads us to irrational beliefs in the first place. Done...maybe.

I don't think that all ideas have equal merit, far from it! I hate post-modernism and all that woolly thinking - All I was suggesting was that if somebody wants to do something that doesn't cause any actual physical harm (Like dancing naked round a bonfire) to anybody else then I (as a liberal humanist) don't have the right to prevent them from doing it. It is ludicrous that the jewish/muslim faith's are allowed to chop the foreskins off children - the removal of the foreskin in children should only be done for medical reasons - and when the man is 18 - he can then choose to have it chopped off - just as is free to have a spider-web tattooed on his face (I know a geezer who has such a tattoo). Also bacon butties are very nice and nobody should be prevented from eating them by some rule set down by some ignorant old men thousands of years ago...

M27Barney wrote: Aye - I have no personal beef with anybody who wants to believe anything they want. If the guy next door lit a bonfire on the back lawn on the 22nd December and he and his wife danced round it naked and even felt they had to "consummate" the event. I wouldn't care less a s long as he didn't use my fence as fire-wood!!! However, Christianity and the like are full of stupid rules that the supposed Master of the universe seems keen to enforce - nearly all of those are to do with sex and the sexual power of women in particular. Religious people spend so much time worrying about what other people are up to! Forget the rules - enjoy life and embrace the whole human race, not just the people who you think are part of your in-group gods chosen people.... In fact the naked dance round the solstice fire sounds like a good idea...I hope it isn't too frosty....

Aye - I have no personal beef with anybody who wants to believe anything they want. If the guy next door lit a bonfire on the back lawn on the 22nd December and he and his wife danced round it naked and even felt they had to "consummate" the event. I wouldn't care less a s long as he didn't use my fence as fire-wood!!! However, Christianity and the like are full of stupid rules that the supposed Master of the universe seems keen to enforce - nearly all of those are to do with sex and the sexual power of women in particular. Religious people spend so much time worrying about what other people are up to! Forget the rules - enjoy life and embrace the whole human race, not just the people who you think are part of your in-group gods chosen people....
In fact the naked dance round the solstice fire sounds like a good idea...I hope it isn't too frosty....

M27Barney wrote: infandous wrote: AlanB wrote: I thought Shine was OK but I'm hoping that the rest of the album is a lot proggier. Putting that song out as a taster for the album would have been like Neal advertising Momentum with Smoke and Mirrors. I'll say it.......it's songs like Shine that made me seek out more interesting and adventurous music all those years ago.  Songs like this drove me away from popular music and to progressive rock.  It's generic, it's completely bland and it makes me wonder why they bothered.  It's not progressive in any way, shape, or form.  It's boring, dull, and completely uninteresting.  Roine's guitar soloing on it is far from his best, though I would agree it's the best part of a tepid and extremely lackluster tune.  It's not even remotely original, either (I know I've heard that exact opening guitar line before, I just can't quite place it.........Can't Find My Way Home by Traffic maybe).Anyway, I won't base a judgment of the album on this one track, but man was it as huge disappointment for me.  I should probably mention that I've enjoyed the other ballads they've done, which seem like absolute masterpieces in comparison (when in reality, they are just breathers on the albums........though We All Need Some Light is a great anthem and easily my favorite Morse ballad type tune). I was looking forward to the first listening of the next TA CD I'm not too sure now though....Did You REALLY study the bible at university? I used to swim with a geezer who used to be a priest in the Vatican for 15 years - he was studying theology at university - we didn't see eye to eye really - he genuinely believed that Darwin was controlled by demons when he wrote "The origin of species" just as he believed that every person who denied Christ was controlled by the very same host of demons that Satan had on his payroll.....Nice harmless bloke all the same though.....He never tried to exorcise me or anything....I was always wary when he went into his swimming bag - first sight of those knives used in the omen and I would have been legging it

Yes, I have a bachelor of the arts degree in Religious Studies from Penn State University.  I studied more than just the bible, but that was the focus of most of my coursework (aside from the basic required classes I had to take to graduate, of course).  I found it very interesting and I was searching for meaning in life at the time as well.  I didn't find it in religion, needless to say, but I did find it and those studies (particularly Philosophy classes I took, along with writing and poetry and, of course music) did help with this I think.  To paraphrase a friend of mine, I keep my mind as open as possible.....but not so open my brains fall out 


As to TA, I don't want to discourage anyone, I just had to state my opinion of that song that has been released via the video.  I'm probably still going to pick up the album, in the hope that that track is not characteristic of the album as a whole (I'm assuming that is the obligatory ballad and that the rest is actual prog music......we'll see).


Edited by infandous - December 04 2013 at 11:18

infandous wrote: AlanB wrote: I thought Shine was OK but I'm hoping that the rest of the album is a lot proggier. Putting that song out as a taster for the album would have been like Neal advertising Momentum with Smoke and Mirrors. I'll say it.......it's songs like Shine that made me seek out more interesting and adventurous music all those years ago.  Songs like this drove me away from popular music and to progressive rock.  It's generic, it's completely bland and it makes me wonder why they bothered.  It's not progressive in any way, shape, or form.  It's boring, dull, and completely uninteresting.  Roine's guitar soloing on it is far from his best, though I would agree it's the best part of a tepid and extremely lackluster tune.  It's not even remotely original, either (I know I've heard that exact opening guitar line before, I just can't quite place it.........Can't Find My Way Home by Traffic maybe).Anyway, I won't base a judgment of the album on this one track, but man was it as huge disappointment for me.  I should probably mention that I've enjoyed the other ballads they've done, which seem like absolute masterpieces in comparison (when in reality, they are just breathers on the albums........though We All Need Some Light is a great anthem and easily my favorite Morse ballad type tune).

I was looking forward to the first listening of the next TA CD I'm not too sure now though....Did You REALLY study the bible at university? I used to swim with a geezer who used to be a priest in the Vatican for 15 years - he was studying theology at university - we didn't see eye to eye really - he genuinely believed that Darwin was controlled by demons when he wrote "The origin of species" just as he believed that every person who denied Christ was controlled by the very same host of demons that Satan had on his payroll.....Nice harmless bloke all the same though.....He never tried to exorcise me or anything....I was always wary when he went into his swimming bag - first sight of those knives used in the omen and I would have been legging it