Album Of The Week #20 – Train Of Thought

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 31, 2012
Posted in: Album Of The Week. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Before October ends and we abandon our “dream” theme I want to offer up this album from Dream Theater.  Take a listen and see what you think about their progressive metal sound…..

Train Of Thought was significantly influenced by a tour with Queensrÿche that the band completed immediately prior to its recording.  This influence introduced more of a metal sound to the band moving them more into the progressive metal genre.  I like the sound…..let me know what you think.

The following information regarding the album comes from Wikipedia and will hopefully add to your enjoyment of the album.

Track listing

No. Title Lyrics Music Length
1. “As I Am” John Petrucci Petrucci, John Myung, Jordan Rudess, Mike Portnoy 7:47
2. “This Dying Soul”

  • “IV. Reflections of Reality (Revisited)“
  • “V. Release“
 Portnoy Petrucci, Myung, Rudess, Portnoy 11:28

  • 6:31
  • 4:57
3. “Endless Sacrifice” Petrucci Petrucci, Myung, Rudess, Portnoy 11:23
4. “Honor Thy Father” Portnoy Petrucci, Myung, Rudess, Portnoy 10:14
5. “Vacant” James LaBrie Myung, Rudess 2:57
6. “Stream of Consciousness” (instrumental) Petrucci, Myung, Rudess, Portnoy 11:16
7. “In the Name of God” Petrucci Petrucci, Myung, Rudess, Portnoy 14:14
Total length:
 69:24

Songs

  • The first song “As I Am” starts with the ending synth/orchestral chord of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.
  • Some lyrics of “As I Am” were inspired by Dream Theater’s 2003 summer tour with Queensrÿche, described by Mike Portnoy as an “irksome series of shows.” According to Portnoy, Queensrÿche guitarist Mike Stone tried giving John Petrucci tips on playing guitar, leading Petrucci to write the lyrics: “Don’t tell me what’s in, tell me how to write”.
  • “This Dying Soul” continues Mike Portnoy’s Twelve-step Suite, started with “The Glass Prison” on Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and later continued with “The Root of All Evil” on Octavarium, “Repentance” on Systematic Chaos, and ending with “The Shattered Fortress” on Black Clouds & Silver Linings. These songs share some of the lyrics and melodies. For example, this song features a riff from “The Glass Prison” is heard at the start of this song’s step “Release”.
  • “Honor Thy Father” was written about Mike Portnoy’s stepfather. When asked about what inspired him to write that song, he stated in an IRC: “I’m not very good at writing love songs, so I decided to write a HATE song!!!”
  • Some of the mumbles during “Honor Thy Father” are taken from Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Magnolia, in the scene when Jason Robards’ character is talking to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character about his regrets in life. There are also parts taken from the film At Close Range in which a scene of Sean Penn and Christopher Walken’s characters can be heard arguing.
  • The lyrics to “Vacant” were inspired by James LaBrie’s daughter, who fell into a short coma after suffering a sudden, unexplained seizure three days before her seventh birthday.
  • “Stream of Consciousness” is the longest Dream Theater instrumental to date (not counting live mash-ups such as “Instrumedley”).
  • Between 5:51 and 6:07 of the song “In the Name of God”, there was a hidden composition buried beneath the far louder sounds of the song itself which lay undiscovered for over a year and a half. The band did not tell anyone that a hidden “nugget” (as it became known amongst Dream Theater fans) was present in the song, and only when Mike Portnoy mentioned it in his Mike Portnoy: Live at Budokan Drum-Cam DVD over a year later did someone find it. The Mike Portnoy message board was rife with fans scouring the song looking for what it might be, until a fan going by the pseudonymous name “DarrylRevok” mentioned that from 5:51 to 6:07 there appeared to be morse code audible, which Nick Bogovich (user handle “Bogie”) isolated and discovered that when translated to English, the phrase “eat my ass and balls” (a Mike Portnoy catchphrase) was the result.
  • From 12:56 onwards of “In the Name of God”, the American civil war hymn “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” can be heard in the right channel.
  • Jordan Rudess played the final note in the album (heard at 14:06 of “In the Name of God”) with his nose as shown in the “Making Train of Thought” documentary. Mike Portnoy approved the take while he was filming. This is also the first note of Octavarium’s first song, “The Root of All Evil” and the last note of the last song, “Octavarium” (heard at 23:29).

Day 7 Of Mitt Romney Support For Richard Mourdock – Completely Wrong

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 30, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics, Religious Extremism. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

To continue our discussion of the extreme views of Richard Mourdock and what they tell us about his number one supporter Mitt Romney, I have a great article from Salon.com that highlight what we have been saying on this blog for the last week.  Mr. Mourdock’s views on Rape, just scratch the surface of his radical, right-wing, tea party, out of touch, views.  Read the article and you will hopefully agree that neither Mr. Mourdock, nor his number one supporter Mitt Romney, deserve any votes from the American public.

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Why Mourdock’s rape talk is no surprise

Indiana Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock’s comments about God-approved rape are not out of character

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

Why Mourdock's rape talk is no surpriseRichard Mourdock(Credit: Reuters)

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock shocked the political world last night with his comments suggesting that women being raped is all part of God’s plan. But should we really be surprised? As Irin Carmon has already noted, this notion is actually pretty common in today’s GOP. Moreover, even a cursory glance at Mourdock’s past shows he’s an extreme right-winger in the Todd Akin mold.

Few people were paying attention to Mourdock’s Senate run until 8 o’clock last night. Indiana’s Senate race has always been close, and thus critical to control of the Senate, but it’s never attracted anywhere the attention of other races like Missouri’s or Massachusetts’. True, he attracted some attention earlier this year by defeating longtime moderate Republican Sen. Dick Lugar in a bitter GOP primary where lots of conservative groups like the NRA, the Club for Growth and Sen. Jim DeMint poured money into Mourdock’s campaign. Lugar was known as one of the few remaining senators willing to work across party lines to get things done, but Mourdock proudly declared that he has no such designs. “I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view,” he told MSNBC shortly after winning the primary in May. In fact, that was sort of his whole shtick in the primary. The Republican National Senatorial Committee supposedly took over his campaign at that point and kept him pretty well muzzled for most of the summer, when he was notably absent from cable news and out of most national media.

But before that happened, he had enough time to say lots of things that should raise anyone’s eyebrows. Once, he compared poor people not paying federal income tax to the Civil War. After mentioning Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided speech,” Mourdock said, “I am here to suggest to you that we are in a house divided. You know this past April, when our federal taxes were paid, 47 percent — 47 percent — of all American households paid no income tax.” He later defended the comments. His website states: “He believes that Roe v. Wade represents a serious misreading of the original intent of those who established our Constitution.”

He’s suggested that he would filibuster Supreme Court nominees who aren’t like Robert Bork, the failed arch-conservative Supreme Court nominee. This is the same Bork who called the 1964 Civil Rights Act “unsurpassed ugliness”; who said it was “utterly specious” to suggest that women have a right to contraception; who said just last year that it’s “silly” to think women are discriminated against.

Mourdock recently visited a controversial Baptist church that, as a powerful CNN feature last year revealed, subjects its students to such sadistic corporal punishment that it’s hard to call it anything but child abuse. Even more troubling, one former student recounted how he was raped over a period of years at the church and the pastor did nothing when the boy brought it to his attention. Mourdock spoke at the church one day and accepted the pastor’s enthusiastic endorsement.

He’s even suggested that the entire social safety net is unconstitutional. “I challenge you in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. where those so-called enumerated powers are listed, I challenge you to find words that talk about ‘Medicare’ or ‘Medicaid’ or, yes, even ‘Social Security,’” he said at a Tea Party rally. (His campaign website promises he’ll “preserve Social Security and Medicare” by adopting Paul Ryan’s plan.)

This is a guy whom Lugar has refused to campaign for in the general because he’s too extreme. In a concession statement Lugar said of Mourdock, “In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party.” John Danforth, a longtime former GOP senator from Missouri who also served as George W. Bush’s ambassador to the U.N., told the New York Times in 2010: “If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”

But here’s the really crazy thing about Mourdock: Most of his views are not outside the mainstream of the GOP. Mitt Romney made Robert Bork a legal adviser to his campaign, Mitt Romney has had his own run-in with the 47 percent, and plenty of Republicans think abortions should be outlawed, even in cases of rape.

Don’t Believe In Romnesia – Here Is The Latest Irrefutable Proof It Is Real

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 30, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Hypocrisy, Politics, Romnesia. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Just tonight I posted a Romney video from the Republican Primary where he clearly states that he would do away with FEMA (checkout the post named “Republican Commandment #3 – The Less Federal Government The Better”).

Well now that disaster approaches and everyone is looking to FEMA for help, the Romney campaign is saying that Mitt is all in for FEMA.  A clear case of Romnesia if I have every seen one.  Here is the article from tonight’s Huffington Post.

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Would Romney abolish FEMA? His campaign says no

DAVENPORT, Iowa—As Hurricane Sandy bears down on the East Coast, Mitt Romney’s campaign is pushing back against suggestions that he wants to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency—insisting that he would simply prefer to see states take a greater role in disaster relief.

At a GOP primary debate in June 2011, Romney, when asked about FEMA’s budget woes and how he would deal with it, had said, “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”

During that debate, the moderator, CNN’s John King, had gone on to ask if that included “disaster relief.” Romney suggested it did.

The Center for American Progress, a liberal group, called attention to Romney’s remarks in an email to reporters on Sunday.

Asked for clarification today, Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said the GOP nominee wasn’t implying he would get rid of FEMA, but rather that he simply wants states to play a greater role in disaster response.

“Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” Henneberg said. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”

Romney has proposed a budget that includes across-the-board cuts on federal programs, with the exception of defense and entitlement programs, as a way of curbing the growing federal deficit. But he has not said specifically where those cuts would be. Asked if FEMA’s budget could be on the list for potential cuts, Henneberg did not comment.

Romney has publicly supported a House GOP budget bill drafted by his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, that called for greater efficiency in federal disaster relief spending.

The debate over FEMA funding could be revived in coming days amid predictions that Hurricane Sandy could cause massive power outage and damage in its path.

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Just for old-time sake let’s listen to the Romnesia song one more time…….

Major Milestones Reached – 300 Posts and 12000 Visitors In Ten Months

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 30, 2012
Posted in: Completely Right. Leave a comment

Today I made my 300th post on this blog. Even more amazing is the fact that as of today we have had 12,000 visitors.  To put this in perspective, in our first five months (January-May) we had 1000 total visitors.  In the five months since then (June – October) we have had an additional 11,000 visitor from over eighty different countries!

This is amazing growth for a new blog and I owe it all to you, our faithful readers.  Thank to each of you for sticking with us!

Long Song Tuesday #38 – Moonchild (Including The Dream/The Illusion)

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 30, 2012
Posted in: Long Song Tuesday. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

I have a great one today from King Crimson for our last “dream” inspired Long Song Tuesday post.  This is an amazing song from King Crimson’s first album and I think you will really enjoy it.  Greg Lake is one of my favorite rock vocalist and he does a fine job on The Dream portion of this one.  Let’s listen…..

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the song.

“Moonchild” is the fourth track from the British progressive rock band King Crimson’s debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King.

The first section, “The Dream”, is a mellotron-driven ballad, but after two and a half minutes it changes to a completely free-form instrumental improvisation by the band (called “The Illusion”), which lasts until the end of the song. Robert Fripp plays a snippet of “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top” from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” in this section. In the 2009 remastered version of the album, the track was edited by Fripp and colleague Steven Wilson, with around 2.30 minutes of the original improvisation (the reference by Fripp to “Surrey With the Fringe on Top”) being removed. This issue of the album does, however, offer the original version as a bonus track.

Republican Commandment #3 – The Less Federal Government The Better

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 29, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Republicans like to talk about how they plan to cut the federal government and turn key Federal programs over to the States.  They seem to forget that we are the United States of America, not 50 independent states.  Every American, regardless of the State they live in, should be guaranteed the same benefits and services.  Voting rights are one important example.  All of the voter suppression programs that we have spoken about in this blog are done by Republicans at the State level.  Another example is education.  The quality of the education of your child should not depend on what State you happen to live in.  I happen to live in the south in one of the poorer States, should my children suffer because of that??  The answer is no and we have the Federal Department of Education that ensures that every child gets a solid education.  Of course, as we discussed in a post last night, the Republicans what to do away with the Department Education.

The particular example I have chosen to highlight today is the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA.  FEMA ensures that people, regardless of the State that they live in, get the support that they need during disasters.  This one is a particularly timely example today as our highly populated northeast cost is getting hammered by Hurricane Sandy.  It is FEMA that is coordinating disaster relief across the 10-15 States that are likely to be impacted and ensuring that everyone benefits from the power and resources of the UNITED States.

What is Mitt Romney’s position on FEMA you might ask……kill it and turn disaster relief over to the States or even more laughable turn it over to private industry.  Read the Huffington Post article, watch the associated video, and then you make the call.  I think the answer is pretty clear!

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Mitt Romney In GOP Debate:

Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency,

Send Responsibility To The States

Mitt Romney Fema

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA’s cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?”

“Including disaster relief, though?” debate moderator John King asked Romney.

“We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” Romney replied. “It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.” The clip was flagged by HuffPost blogger Eric Zuesse.

 

UPDATE Sunday, 10:04 p.m.–

A Romney official reaffirmed the former governor’s position Sunday evening in an email.

“Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters,” the Romney official said.

UPDATE II Monday, 9:10 a.m.–

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent adds: “There’s another nugget here worth highlighting, though. In that appearance, Romney also suggested it would be ‘even better’ to send any and all responsibilities of the federal government ‘to the private sector,’ disaster response included. So: Romney essentially favored privatizing disaster response.”

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If you haven’t heard enough yet, watch this video and hear it from Mitt himself.

Day 6 Of Mitt Romney Support For Richard Mourdock – Completely Wrong

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 29, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Today, I want to share an article from The Telegraph, a newspaper in the UK.  I am more than pleased to see that our friends in the UK are aware of this topic and have taken a stand very similar to the one expressed in this blog.  I think you will find it to be most interesting.

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Mitt Romney can be a centrist,

or he can stand by Richard Mourdock

He can’t do both

By Dan Hodges US politics Last updated: October 25th, 2012

Richard Mourdock believes that if a women gets raped she should be forced to give birth to her rapist’s baby, because that is the will of God. “Life is a gift from God,” he said, “and I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that God intended to happen.”

While that view may be abhorrent to most people, it is not an unusual one. There are plenty of cranks out there with extreme fundamentalist views, and normally we just ignore them and scurry on our way.

But Richard Mourdock isn’t any old crank. He’s the Republican candidate for the United States Senate seat of Indiana.

What’s more, he isn’t just any old Senate candidate. On Monday, a video started airing in Indiana. In it Mitt Romney looks directly at the camera and says “This fall, I’m supporting Richard Mourdock.”

Romney’s endorsement wasn’t just ritualistic support for a GOP candidate in a tight race. It was the only personal ad endorsement he has given any Republican senate hopeful in the entire campaign. And it spells big trouble for Romney.

I’m not a student of the “game-changer” school of politics. We’ve had lots of “gotcha” moments in this election campaign: Obama’s “not optimal” comment, Romney’s Gerald Ford moment on Libya, Donald Trump’s October surprise, Big Bird. None of them have stuck.

But Mourdock’s comment will. And that’s because it goes straight to the heart of all the old doubts about Mitt Romney and his candidature.

On Tuesday I wrote how the final debate had exposed the fundamental strategic weakness at the heart of the Romney campaign; that he is trying to position himself as a centrist while leading a party that has lurched to the political margins. Well, Richard Mourdock has just turned himself into a national poster boy for that particular strain of GOP fanaticism.

He believed that life was precious “to the marrow of my bones”, he told a hastily convened press conference yesterday. It was the most precious gift God could give, he added, and what’s more, he’d seen the polling to back it up. He hadn’t meant to claim God wanted people to be raped. But he stood by his comments that if people were raped, and that resulted in pregnancy, it was God’s will. They would have to carry their rapist’s baby to term.

That would have been bad enough for a Romney campaign desperately trying to give the impression his is a campaign with momentum. But having being given a stark reminder of the lunacy of senior members of the Republican party, the voters were then given a staggering reminder of the poor judgment of that party’s candidate for president.

Mitt Romney had one course of action; cut Mourdock loose. Instead, he tied himself to him. A statement issued by the Romney campaign said that while their man disavowed Mourdock’s comments, he was still endorsing him for the Senate, and would not be withdrawing the advert urging people to vote for him.

This could not have come at a worse time for Mitt Romney. Just at the point he was trying to sustain his faltering “surge” narrative up pops a very real, and self-inflicted, October surprise. “I don’t know how these guys come up with these ideas,” Barack Obama said on the Jay Leno show. “This is exactly why you don’t want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women’s health care decisions.” Cue thunderous applause.

Watching from the UK, it’s difficult to understand how someone who holds views such as Mourdock’s could actually be a candidate for high public office. And it’s even more difficult to understand how a candidate for the highest office of all could continue to endorse him once those views had been aired publicly.

Thankfully, large number of US voters won’t understand it either. Mitt Romney can try to can recast himself as one of the great American centrists. Or he can stand by Richard Mourdock. But he can’t do both.

Mourdock’s intervention is no game-changer. But with less than two weeks less to go before the polls close, it is a significant moment all the same.

Songs Of My Parents #2 – Jim Bridger

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 29, 2012
Posted in: Songs Of My Parents. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Neither of my parents was a big music fan…I don’t remember them ever playing music in any of the different houses that we lived in.  Amazingly, I do not even remember them playing music on the car radio when we driving…..and we did a lot of driving as we moved around the United States every year or so.

We did have a old record player, however, and when I was about ten years old I discovered a few records that belonged to my mother.  For the next four years or so I wore those few records out playing them over and over again.  The records were a diverse selection of popular music from the late 50s and early 60s and they represent my earliest musical memories.

One of my mother’s albums was Johnny Horton’s Greatest Hits and it was a treasure trove of great music and American History put to music.  If I had to name one album that got me interested in music it would be this one.  The album also gave me a love of history that continues to this day.  Jim Bridger is probably my favorite Johnny Horton song.  Let’s listen….

Jim Bridger was one of the many mountain men that explored the American west in the early 1800s.  They were a hardy lot to say the least and we have them to thank for laying the ground work for the expansion of America to the Pacific coast.  Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article about Jim.

James Felix “Jim” Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881) was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites. He was of English ancestry, and his family had been in North America since the early colonial period.

Jim Bridger had a strong constitution that allowed him to survive the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from what would become southern Colorado to the Canadian border. He had conversational knowledge of French, Spanish and several native languages. He would come to know many of the major figures of the early west, including Brigham Young, Kit Carson, George Armstrong Custer, John Fremont, Joseph Meek, and John Sutter.

You might be more familiar with another of Johnny’s songs about the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.  That song was a  number 1 hit for him in 1958.  Here is a great television performance of the song, let’s listen……

I am sad to have to tell you that Johnny died a tragic death in 1960 at the age of 35.  He was returning home from a concert performance when a car that he was driving was hit by a drunk driver.  Another talented musician lost way too soon.

As always, let me know what you think.

Day 5 Of Mitt Romney’s Support For Richard Mourdock – Completely Wrong

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 29, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

The last couple of nights we have discussed Richard Mourdock’s despicable view on rape, bipartisanship, and global climate change and what those views tell us about Mitt Romney.  Let’s not forget that Mitt has chosen Richard as the only Senate candidate that he has personally endorsed in an ad.  Five days after the Rape comment Mitt is still supporting Mr. Mourdock so let’s continue our discussion of him and learn some more about Richard and Mitt.

Next up, let’t talk about how Richard Mourdock supports elimination of the US Department of Education.  Once you watch the video below you will discover that Mitt and Richard hate education just as much as they hate women and science.  The Republican Party is clearly the party of ignorance and Mitt is right there with the dumbest of the dumb based on his support of Richard Mourdock.

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Mourdock For Elimination Of

The Department of Education

Republican Commandment #2 – Non-Heterosexuals Do Not Have Any Rights

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 29, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics, Religious Extremism. Leave a comment

Again, I think this one is well documented but since this is my closing argument I feel the need to review where the Republicans stand on all key issues.  Let’s hear their position in their own words.  Listen to this and then decide if you stand with the Republicans or with President Obama.

Not enough for you?  Listen to Rick Santorum on this topic….

Still not enough?  Listen to to Mitt on this 2008 video that was just posted.