Lifting Shadows - Dream Theater

 

Guess what I got for a Christmas Present from Santa? I'll review it as soon as I finish it. I promise to be nice, as I have always been about this band!

 

After 200 pages.

Thx

(removed by author)

The best things out there, for me, are not a speed read! It took me about 10 days to read the whole thing, between Christmas and New Year's, and it wasn't because I was lazy, and I did not listen to any of the Dream Theater stuff during it, to avoid checking left and right for any anomalies.

 

Talking about an artist is not easy. There is a side of it, that is very intuitive and experimental, and this was the case amidst those that frequented our house in Lisbon, when my dad was translating them. But you learn one thing that is most important ... they are people like you and I, and in most cases, and even here, the tendency is to think they are Jseus, or God, and no one can say anything else about it, which is a "fan-atic" way, and not an appreciative way within an artistic or literary sense, as was the case in our house.

 

You make your fame, and road, off YOU, your own road, not off being a "fan" of someone else, and the book is pretty clear that despite the stuff that they liked and played all the time (many covers), in the end, they knew who they were much better, and you can not fault that in a band at all!

 

I will not, make bad comments about the other Mike that left, except that I do not think he is that great a drummer as he thinks he is, but he is very good, and very valuable to help DT get going, and probably massive in his ability to see things move forward, which is not easy for everyone, and an immense energy drain otherwise for himself.

 

Thanks Cyg. It is a nice and enjoyable read, but again, if someone can only talk about the "filler" in a piece of music, then they are better off going to look at the Cliff Notes top ten, and not bother reading anything!

 

I have a couple others to write, and Marianne Faithfull is a tough one. Roxanna, does not quite fit the progressive mold, but was a fun read. I'm not sure I will read Mike Rutherford's book, as I am really tired of the Genesis myth. And Peter's grandstanding as a star.

 

The only book that needs to be written with lots of help would be a good one on Amon Duul 2 and also Guru Guru. The stories need to be put together instead of being separate. When one puts these words together with Edgar Froese and Holger Czukay in the Krautrock special, you will find, more than likely, that it was (by very far) one of the very best defined artistic scenes ever designed and it wasn't flaky ... and it ended up also extending to film, theater, and writing ... and this is the worst part of the "progressive" anything, because it refuses to accept connections to all the other arts around them.

 

DT's work, is good and important, as a very well defined internal process for their members, and I do not think that this is something that most fans see, or appreciate, and is one of the reasons why I like their work, and find the later work even stronger than the earlier work. The depth is there, and they do not have to show it off.