I'm not sure if can count as a newb. I joined basically at the inception of this forum and posted occasionally for a bit, as is evident by my post count. I don't know the later history of this place, but I'm guessing there was some kind of database reset in '09 or so, so I suppose my old posts are probably lost. So this is more of a reintroduction, which for a lot of people will just be a normal introduction. I recognize a handful of people from the old days though and "the other forum" (I don't know how contentious that old history is still at this point).
I don't like the format of a lot of online places for music discussion, Reddit, Facebook, Youtube comments and the like, so I'm trying to establish a bit of a presence at some of the places left with some activity that are more pertinent to my interests. This sort of message board structure is so much more apropos.
I got into Joe Satriani completely serendipitously in '99, and his fan e-mail discussion "forum" at one point did a poll, and Dream Theater was either the first or second other favorite band there (I think Steve Vai was the other one). So I had to check them out, which in those days meant Napster for the impatient, and I managed to download DT's covers of Tori Amos' "Winter" and Metallica's "Damage Inc." (with Barney Greenaway of Napalm Death). Representative sample of their music, eh? Eventually I found "Overture 1928" and "Strange Deja Vu" from SFAM, loved them, soon after purchased a physical copy of the album, and I was off to the races.
DT was my favorite band for chunks of the early-mid 00s, but to be honest I kind of lost interest in them and overly technical guitar-oriented music by the end of the 00s for the most part and had sort of moved on to other things. I've also never been crazy about JLB's voice (though I recognize his talent). Fortunately, I've eventually come back around to this sort of music more again as part of a balanced musical diet, and I liked their last album more than any of them in quite some time (possibly since TOT or 8VM?, I'd have to think about it more).
Anyway, these days my main music consumption is metal (melodic death, progressive, gothic, death, power, doom, thrash in particular), electronic music, jazz, and bits here and there of almost everything else, progressive rock too. I'm a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, keyboards, drums, bass, saxophone, mandolin), and have floated around in various local amateur bands.