Sixteenth part:
BOO! by DANIEL PIQUE (2009)
Tracks played in:
Croack
Over Dee Moon
Peacock Ink
Pigs Might Fly!
They Snickered At My Dreams
THE CALL OF THE FLAMES by SHREDDING THE ENVELOPE (2009)
Tracks played in:
The Call of the Flames
Standstill and Scream
Devils Roadmap
Caravan of Cannibals
Where Are My Real Brothers
Ruby Avalanche Red Flood
I Just Don't Want to Say Goodbye
The Wonder, the Curse, and the Crave
Shredding the Envelope
OUT OF OBLIVION by ETHAN BROSH (2009)
The Hit Man
Night City
Downward Spiral
Ancient Land
Illusion
In a Sentimental Mood
Blade Runner
Last Hope
2009 was a busy year for Mangini. Aside from teaching full-time in Berklee, he also played session drums for several new acts. It is nice to see Mangini supporting up and coming artists despite his already considerable stature in the industry at the time. And the good thing about Mangini is that even if these are newbies, he does not phone in his performance. The drumming in these albums is superb. However, the overall quality of the music is not really up to par. The Call of the Flames by Shredding the Envelope (Dave Reffett), in particular, is testosterone-driven wank that I barely find listenable. The full album is downloadable for free
here. Daniel Pique's Boo is just marginally better, just take his self-proclaimed "he is the most influential artist of this new generation in South America, maybe in the world?!" with a grain of salt. And hey, the album is
legally downloadable for free also.
Of the bunch, I find Ethan Brosh's work best. The Berklee alum really has composition skills and serious chops. I just with he would have a
better taste in making music videos. Mangini's drumming is awesome in that song anyway (and it features THE George Lynch).
Still, Mangini fans like me can only say at the time, is this really what is due for the great Mike Mangini while still at his prime? Supporting new acts? He deserves a bigger stage to showcase his amazing talents. He deserves to be in a pantheon of elites where his creativity is pushed to its limits. And you know what?
THANK GOD FOR DREAM THEATER.
And with that, I think I will close this Through The Years thread with my favorite Mike Mangini statement on how much he is cherishing his opportunity to be with Dream Theater. I hope that through this thread, I have somehow made you, my fellow DTFers, better appreciate the journey the Genie took before he landed his dream job with Dream Theater.
Peter Hodgson: So what’s it like, being the drummer in Dream Theater? It’s the dream job for a lot of drummers!
Mike Mangini: It’s been a major point in my life with the fulfilment of what I want to be and who I want to be. My path up until that point was that I had been in bands or working as a drummer and I got to the point where I really didn’t want to work for someone else and be at someone else’s whim because you’re not paid retainer sometimes, you’re hired when you’re hired and you’ve gotta look for jobs in between. I took a job at Berklee College and I started to really bloom over there in terms of learning way more things than I thought. There was so much to make me think, because I was being asked so many different things by students. I dug in and I did well there but the thing is I was taken away from what I loved the most, which was playing. And once you start to teach at a college, they say ‘This is your main gig,’ and I understand what they mean; it’s my main income. That’s what it is. But the main gig is in my heart, y’know? That’s playing, and you teach based on playing. Eventually I had to play more. I didn’t find a way to let both worlds exist – well, I did but then there were some changes happening there and then the opportunity for me to take advantage of gigs and things got squashed so I didn’t wanna live with that. I became open to getting into a band and lo and behold, the opportunity hit me. I had to be prepared for it though, and I really wasn’t physically prepared for it although I was emotionally prepared for it. I don’t know how but I somehow… no, you know what it is? I do know how: my pattern recognition is really high and I also work with very, very large, multi-simultaneous time signatures. I don’t do the typical five and seven at the same time – which is really difficult, y’know? But I’m doing stuff that is rare. I don’t know who else is doing the 19 and 18 at the same time, 17 and 21 at the same time. Usually it’s very small numbers at the same time. So when Dream Theater tested me I got everything the first time because it was only one thing, it wasn’t even two things at the same time, and it was bars of seven and six and eight and four. That’s really far below what my pattern recognition is capable of, so I was able to be a musician. In other words, it wasn’t technical to me, it was easy. No matter how that sounds, it was, and I was able to do everything the first time they asked me and make music with it. I’m still doing that to this day with them. It was a liberation of the spirit. Y’know, today the word ‘liberal’ has been completely perverted. A lot of words are perverted. ‘Choice’ doesn’t mean ‘choice,’ it means someone else is making a choice who doesn’t get a choice. People don’t look up what words mean, and the word ‘liberal’ used to mean liberation of the spirit, not liberation of the human, like human nature: “Don’t tell me what to do, don’t tell me who to sleep with.” The original word is very religious in nature and it has to do with spiritual liberation. Get away from human nature and move toward who you should be as a person fulfilling all these gifts you’ve been given. And for me it was a true liberation. And I know that’s a lengthy explanation and you’ll have to squelch my words down into one sentence instead of five sentences, but I want you to know what I mean. So for me, getting that phone call, getting that opportunity, it was liberating for my spirit, because I had set up a drum set but had nobody that let me play my drums. Really, really let me go, y’know? It was great with Vai. I was able to be a bit more myself but I was also working for Steve. And what made me really happy working for Steve was that his ideas were things that turned me on. For example, Vai was one of the few people that would tell me every note to play sometimes, but I liked that, and that’s why we got along. We got along because I liked what he told me, because he told me unorthodox stuff. And we laughed! We had a lot of humour. We came up with drum parts that were just funny. I don’t mean that it’s funny to hit the seventh note of an 11-note run, but he and I would laugh about it, that I could do it, or that he heard it in his mind. We were a team, we were like soul mates with that stuff. And now with Dream Theater it’s a sense of fulfilment that I’m in a band where there are five of us all moving in the same direction. And that’s why I cried [upon being named new Dream Theater drummer]; because I wanted liberation of the spirit. It’s part of the gifts I’ve been given. It was really emotional for me.
Topic: Mike Mangini through the years (Read 25845 times)
