Falling Into Infinity? Less meddled with than you might think

[KevShmev]

I've always liked FII a lot.  Even though I knew it wasn't as great as I&W or Awake when it first came out, I still liked it a lot. 

To me, the glaring problem with it is the beginning.  You Not Me is obviously not good, and while I like New Millennium, it just isn't a good Track 1.  If you look at every other DT studio album, Track 1 sounds like it was written to be a kick ass opening track (regardless of quality).  Sadly, none of the songs from the FII sessions have that "kick ass Track 1" feel to it, so it almost feels like New Millennium was placed at the start almost by default, like, "Well, nothing else works as the first song, so we'll go with that."  The flow from tracks 3-11, however, is pretty darn great, and even the lesser songs in there - Burning My Soul and Just Let Me Breathe - are enjoyable to some extent when listening to the album as a whole.  I know would say, "Just lop off the first two songs and make Raise the Knife the first song," but even that wouldn't work, as Raise the Knife doesn't have that Track 1 feel either. 

[ReaPsTA]

Why on earth would he bother trying to "save the face" of an album released 17 years ago? There's no reason for him to do that.

Because of the way things are now, which Blob posted earlier in this thread:

There have been many things to back this up, and it was never in question until JP made this one comment, that is in line with DT's new policy of sticking to the "everything is awesome, everything is cool when you're part of a team" thing.

Why did JP say something about it now? Because he was asked about it.

I think what we have here is again, a different perspective. MP and JP both gave similar accounts, but their outlook was different. MP was absolutely negative about the rejection of songs, and some cutting, long process, and ONE song being partially re-written. JP was rather positive on the experience, with Shirley the producer being involved with cutting, as they do. But the band wanted a more straightforward approach.

So what we half is glass is half full/glass is half empty, but it's still a glass that is 50% occupied.

Absolutely. And I think JP using the term "setting the record straight" is meant in the sense of, MP's version has been the completely dominant one, to the point where people assumed that the whole band hated the album. JP was trying to rectify that, no, not everybody hates that album.

If I were going to reply to Noxon's post, it would have been a less good version of what Scotty and Rumbo wrote, so thanks guy.

[Madman Shepherd]

Meanwhile... MP is happy we're dissecting a JP quote for a change.

Seriously Eric? Dude, I know you despise MP, but give it a rest! 
 
 

WTF?  Petfish can correct me if I'm wrong but it comes across as a joke.  MP always says that everything he says is over-analyzed and dissected so the joke is, "for once we are doing that to Petrucci!"

I understand Portnoy is your friend but it seems you are so oversensitive to criticism that you are taking an innocent joke that pokes fun at our picking apart a Petrucci quote instead of a Portnoy quote that you perceive that to be bashing.  Maybe you need to give it a rest. 

[KevShmev]

I agree, Madman, but in Scotty's defense, he's probably just being loyal to a fault.  I am the same way with family and friends: loyal to a fault.  So, I can't really hold that against him, especially since he's a good guy. 

[hefdaddy42]

Not to mention that PetFish is, more often than not, hypercritical of MP.

I took it as a joke, too, but I easily see how may not be taken that way, given the circumstances.

[Setlist Scotty]

Meanwhile... MP is happy we're dissecting a JP quote for a change.

Seriously Eric? Dude, I know you despise MP, but give it a rest! 

WTF?  Petfish can correct me if I'm wrong but it comes across as a joke.  MP always says that everything he says is over-analyzed and dissected so the joke is, "for once we are doing that to Petrucci!"

I understand Portnoy is your friend but it seems you are so oversensitive to criticism that you are taking an innocent joke that pokes fun at our picking apart a Petrucci quote instead of a Portnoy quote that you perceive that to be bashing.  Maybe you need to give it a rest.

I get that he may have been joking, but as hef said, Eric goes way over the top in his criticisms of MP, and in this particular situation, it was unnecessary for him to bother bringing MP up, in essence to take yet another jab at him.

Trust me, there have been NUMEROUS times that I've held back on posting some sort of response regarding the bashing of MP that regularly appears on this board. On top of that many times, I actually agree with what's being said - MP is not in the right anywhere near 100% of the time, and I'm not blind to think he is.
 
 

However, it should be noted that it was the band's decision to go with Kevin Shirley, *not* the label.

Decision based on a strong suggestion from Derek Oliver, as he was the one who actually put forward the name Kevin Shirley even though the band had a list of producers they wanted to use. Paul Northfield was rejected by Derek Oliver at this point in time specifically for not being able to think "single material", while Kevin had a good track record of producing singles.

However, since they actually liked Kevin and got along well with him, they were accepting the suggestion and decided to go with him. They were also willing to go along with his suggestions, even though it pained Mike to do it. All of this is in the FII Demos liner notes So yes, technically you'd be right to say that it was the band's decision, but you could just as well argue that it was an acceptable alternative, especially considering the reality was that they might not be able to do an album at all...

Interesting insight that I don't recall being aware of - I thought Derek Oliver was already gone by the time they did FII. It's been a while since I've read the liner notes to the FII demos. Think I'll have to take a look at them to refresh my memory. 

[Madman Shepherd]

Meanwhile... MP is happy we're dissecting a JP quote for a change.

Seriously Eric? Dude, I know you despise MP, but give it a rest! 

WTF?  Petfish can correct me if I'm wrong but it comes across as a joke.  MP always says that everything he says is over-analyzed and dissected so the joke is, "for once we are doing that to Petrucci!"

I understand Portnoy is your friend but it seems you are so oversensitive to criticism that you are taking an innocent joke that pokes fun at our picking apart a Petrucci quote instead of a Portnoy quote that you perceive that to be bashing.  Maybe you need to give it a rest.

I get that he may have been joking, but as hef said, Eric goes way over the top in his criticisms of MP, and in this particular situation, it was unnecessary for him to bother bringing MP up, in essence to take yet another jab at him.

I get that PetFish is one of the more critical of Portnoy on this board but how is it unnecessary especially since he is not even criticizing him (taking a jab) ?  It almost seemed as if Petfish was taking a jab at us for picking part everything MP says.  So now we have guidelines of when we can and can't bring up current or former members of Dream Theater? 

I almost feel like PetFish is in the position that MP claims he is in.  "People will overanalyze and dissect anything I have to say and take it the wrong way." 

The difference is, if MP says something tactful about Dream Theater, people don't bash him (other then a few trolls on youtube.)  In fact, there was a time when he was on a roll of mentioning Dream Theater in respectful terms even though it was still apparent that he is still hurt from the split.  Just about everyone, including myself, basically praised him for that thus disproving that he will be criticized for anything he has to say. 

Anyway, to bring this back on topic, isn't it actually a good thing FII turned out the way it did?  Instead of getting a 25 minute Metropolis Part 2 we get an 80 minute Metropolis Part 2. 

Booyah!

[GasparXR]

^ About Metropolis Pt. 2, it was the most highly unfinished song there, enough that I think it was likely they would end up cutting it anyway and using it for the next album.

[Madman Shepherd]

^ About Metropolis Pt. 2, it was the most highly unfinished song there, enough that I think it was likely they would end up cutting it anyway and using it for the next album.

The demo was incredibly rough but they recorded that right before a break just to make sure they didn't forget parts.  The plan was to come back to it and finish it up but then the double album idea was nixed so they put it on ice. 

[Stadler]

Interesting insight that I don't recall being aware of - I thought Derek Oliver was already gone by the time they did FII. It's been a while since I've read the liner notes to the FII demos. Think I'll have to take a look at them to refresh my memory. 

I'm pretty sure he was gone; I was under the impression that it was "new management" so to speak, and so there was some element of "let's give them (the new people) the benefit of the doubt".  I, however, wasn't there, so what do I know?

[Miss Bangkok]

I've enjoyed Falling Into Infinity since the day it came out...it's by no means a perfect album, but there's some really awesome stuff on there. Trial of Tears is in my top 10 fav DT songs.

[PetFish]

Clarification:  It was a light-hearted joke for all of us to enjoy.  I guess I forgot a smiley or something?    Or should it have been green?  I dunno, I get confused with the posting etiquette here sometimes.

I don't want to be hyper-critical of MP but I guess it's coming off that way so I apologize for that.  It's born purely out of frustration with his immaturity since the split.  It seems like every week we dissect an MP quote and I thought it was fun that we were dissecting a JP quote for a change.  I do not hate/dislike MP, just his attitude.

And now we're going after James LaBrie in the other thread cuz it's possible he allegedly may have said something that might be taken as possibly being somewhat anti-MP.  MP has been taking shots at Dream Theater for the last four years.  It's at the point where we pretty much expect it now and that is tragic.

When the split happened, I was excited for great new music from both sides.  I really hoped that they could actually support each other in interviews and even tour together.  Sadly, and very quickly, it became crystal clear that MP was going to hold a grudge and take many shots at anything DT-related... ANYTHING as proved by T-shirt Gate.  Up until recently I still thought a reunion down the road would be a great thing but he's burned so many bridges and said so many ridiculous things I really do not want a reunion... ever.

I love Falling Into Infinity.   

[noxon]

Interesting insight that I don't recall being aware of - I thought Derek Oliver was already gone by the time they did FII. It's been a while since I've read the liner notes to the FII demos. Think I'll have to take a look at them to refresh my memory. 

I'm pretty sure he was gone; I was under the impression that it was "new management" so to speak, and so there was some element of "let's give them (the new people) the benefit of the doubt".  I, however, wasn't there, so what do I know?

My statement was taken from reading the FII Demos booklet, written by MP. Granted, I read the liner notes on monday when i first saw this discussion, and wrote my reply from memory on tuesday, but still. I don't have the booklet with me today to confirm, but I'm pretty sure it was Derek Oliver who was mentioned.

But I found this on a Amazon.com review:

Quoted from Lifting Shadows, DT's Authorized biography; Chapter 10, p.186-188

Previously, the label had allowed Dream Theater a reasonable degree of flexibility but pressure was being exerted on their A&R mand Derek Oliver to encourage them to write more concise, commercial tracks that could be sold to radio. Consequently, although they were creating songs at a frantic pace, they constantly had to endure the ignominiy of having their carefully crafted demos repeatedly rejected by the record label moguls. It was a wearisome period of unceratinty that would last for almost a year, and left the band questioning how they were going to escape from such a debiilitating cycle.

"By now, East West Records had been folded into the Elecktra label and instead of corporate pressure dissipating it became even more intense," explains Derek Oliver. "Sylvia Rhone had become the president of Elecktra and was now overseeing a huge roster, and was faced with tremendous finanial overheads. Her focus had switched from the hard rock mainstays of the Atco/East West roster to the urban, eclectic and alternative acts that came with Elecktra. In my opninion, she would have dearly loved to have dropped Dream Theater, and we did in faact have discussions about transferring the contract to Warner Interantional. But she was attracted to the band's overesas success in Japan and Europe, and that prompted her to keep them on the label. However, she was clear that this time around they should come up with some shorter, snappier tracks so that radio could get behind the band again."

From the label's perspective, the release of a punchy single could, given the right ariplay, provide them with the perfect advert for the album and logically, it would have a positive affect on sales. But crucially, they were missing the point. Dream Theater have never been a band for whom the single format was a natural medium, and "Pull Me Under" was a result of fortunate timing and shrewd editing. And although that was something Derek Oliver doubtless understood, he was under the strictest of instructions to ensure that commerciality was at the forefront of the band's mind as they toiled away in the studio. The trick for the band was to write songs that were deemed to be acceptable to the mainstream but which didn't overly dilute their identity. But rejection of their work was not a reaction that Dream Theater had previously experienced, and when the likes of "Raise The Knife" and "Where Are You Now" were presented to Oliver in March of 1996, they recieved a somewhat muted response.

"That was weird," Laughs John Petrucci. "I can just remember writing all this stuff, demoing it and being totally psyched. And I'd then go in and play it for Derek and he'd say 'Yeah. I really don't think there's anything there.' And I'd be like 'What are you talking about?' I'd never really had a response like that before. I remember going back to the studio, being alll pissed, and then having to go back to start writing songs again."

"We would write a whole bunch of songs, like 'Lines In The Sand', 'Trial Of Tears' and 'Just Let Me Breathe' that felt like Dream Theater and we'd hand them in." adds Mike. "Derek would play it for a few people and there would just be no reaction. He was fighting all the other people at the label as well and it was tough for him. So they would ask for something more commercial, as they basically still had that 'Pull Me Under' mentality. Then we would go off and write something more accessible like 'Hollow Years' or 'You Or Me' and those were the ones that got them excited. They were just looking for singles. I mean, we started writing 'Metropolis Part II' during 1996 as we were finally going to write the sequel. It ended up being this twenty-minute epic, and again that got no reaction from the label. We'd write two or three songs, demo them and then hand them in the new batch every couple of months.

"But it was always a case of back to the drawing board. That is a horrible way for a band to write music - just trying to please a suit-and-tie executive that is going to completely determine the fate of the band. It's absolutely ludicrous that one guy's ridiculous taste was going to either catapult or bury a band. It's everything that is wrong about the industry, and why the whole period was so frustrating. We were so terribly disappionted with Derek Oliver's inability to stand behind us and to get us where we wanted to go without being consumed by the machine. Derek was telling us to write and write, and wanted us to go in a more commercial direction. John Petrucci was more willing to accept that kind of change, whereas I was still fighting against us changing just for other people.

[BlobVanDam]

JP's comments there don't fully agree with his recent comments. That's not setting any record straight.

Whatever happened, I still love the end result.

[King Postwhore]

Memories fade and their feeling for that album probable changed as well.  The internet is a bitch for those who can't remember what they said many years ago.

[Bolsters]

Isn't there some DVD extra footage of JP backstage before a gig saying he doesn't want to go out and something along the lines of "we have the worst fuckin' album"?

[BlobVanDam]

Isn't there some DVD extra footage of JP backstage before a gig saying he doesn't want to go out and something along the lines of "we have the worst fuckin' album"?

I don't remember anything like that, but it sounds like the kind of thing that might be a joke.

[Zydar]

Isn't there some DVD extra footage of JP backstage before a gig saying he doesn't want to go out and something along the lines of "we have the worst fuckin' album"?

I remember him saying something on the Budokan bonus DVD (Riding The Train Of Thought) about not "feeling it tonight" before the show.

[King Postwhore]

That's sounds like a MM thing.  Wearing his heart on his sleeve.

[Bolsters]

Isn't there some DVD extra footage of JP backstage before a gig saying he doesn't want to go out and something along the lines of "we have the worst fuckin' album"?

I don't remember anything like that, but it sounds like the kind of thing that might be a joke.

I really want to find it now. It didn't sound like a joke the way he says it.

[Stadler]

And now we're going after James LaBrie in the other thread cuz it's possible he allegedly may have said something that might be taken as possibly being somewhat anti-MP.  MP has been taking shots at Dream Theater for the last four years.  It's at the point where we pretty much expect it now and that is tragic.

WE aren't, I am.  That was me.   And I think I both explained myself pretty well, and was reasonable when presented facts from the "other side" that I had forgotten about.  No "allegedly may have possibly might have somewhat".   No axe to grind either way, and certainly do not "expect" anything along the lines of what you are saying.   I know there are plenty here that do, but not everyone does.  The only thing that IS expected, is that when MP does say something, someone is going to take it and run and use every opportunity to shoot back at him.  In my view?  Unless and until MP takes a shot at me, it is not my job to shoot back.   It is not my job to defend DT; it is solely their responsibility if they choose to. 

When the split happened, I was excited for great new music from both sides.  I really hoped that they could actually support each other in interviews and even tour together.  Sadly, and very quickly, it became crystal clear that MP was going to hold a grudge and take many shots at anything DT-related... ANYTHING as proved by T-shirt Gate.  Up until recently I still thought a reunion down the road would be a great thing but he's burned so many bridges and said so many ridiculous things I really do not want a reunion... ever.

And while I don't know who you are (you could be John Myung for all I know, and actually HAVE a say), I'm hoping that they don't ask you before they do it IF they do it.  From my perspective, all he's done is burn YOUR bridge.   To my knowledge there have been no formal quotes to that effect from the people that matter (JP, JR, JMX, JLB) so...    I have a group of friends since college (about the same time that JP and MP have known each other) and I know from experience that what you find "ridiculous" may not be considered such on the inside, within the only relationships that matter. 

[Ravenfoul]

Isn't there some DVD extra footage of JP backstage before a gig saying he doesn't want to go out and something along the lines of "we have the worst fuckin' album"?

I don't remember anything like that, but it sounds like the kind of thing that might be a joke.

I really want to find it now. It didn't sound like a joke the way he says it.

Actually I just saw this somewhere on youtube a couple weeks back, and if it's the comment I'm thinking of then it is without a doubt JP just joking around. He says something like 'I don't want to go out there tonight, it's going to fucking suck / I'm going to fucking suck'.

I remember it specifically because it was funny 

[hefdaddy42]

It's from the 5 Years in a LIVEtime DVD.  Derek Sherinian had just been shown saying how tonight's live recording would go down as one of the greatest live albums of all time, then they cut to JP in his dressing room saying how tonight is just going to suck, it's going to be awful. 

Both guys were joking.  Well, maybe not Derek.

[nobloodyname]

You Not Me is obviously not good[...]

More accurately, it's not to your personal taste.

[seasonsinthesky]

You Not Me is obviously not good[...]

More accurately, it's not to your personal taste.

and to further both sentiments — they cut what i thought was easily the catchiest part (the high "oooh" bridge), which just shows me the whole ordeal was such a clusterblarg that it was chart-doomed no matter what happened! 

[Big Hath]

So they had their list of candidates and were originally going to go with Kevin Gilbert until he died.

would have loved to have seen/heard this!

[TAC]

Just reading this thread now.

I don't think JP had as much of an issue with the commercial direction as MP did. So he obviously views the "influence" different from MP. But the thing is, you're just not going to EVER get an inflammatory quote from JP about anything. While he speaks in a very engaging manner, he's pretty good at saying nothing.

[GasparXR]

Just reading this thread now.

I don't think JP had as much of an issue with the commercial direction as MP did. So he obviously views the "influence" different from MP. But the thing is, you're just not going to EVER get an inflammatory quote from JP about anything. While he speaks in a very engaging manner, he's pretty good at saying nothing.

I wouldn't say JP says "nothing", I'd say he just has a very positive and forward outlook on everything. Some of it is undoubtedly PR but I wouldn't be surprised if that's just the way he wants to answer rather than someone else telling him what to say.

[bosk1]

Just reading this thread now.

I don't think JP had as much of an issue with the commercial direction as MP did. So he obviously views the "influence" different from MP. But the thing is, you're just not going to EVER get an inflammatory quote from JP about anything. While he speaks in a very engaging manner, he's pretty good at saying nothing.

I wouldn't say JP says "nothing", I'd say he just has a very positive and forward outlook on everything. Some of it is undoubtedly PR but I wouldn't be surprised if that's just the way he wants to answer rather than someone else telling him what to say.

Yeah, I mean, he is that way in person as well in terms of basically putting a positive spin on everything and not wanting to get down into the mud.  Unless have happen to hit on something that really strikes a nerve, that's just how he is.

[Another_Won]

Just reading this thread now.

I don't think JP had as much of an issue with the commercial direction as MP did. So he obviously views the "influence" different from MP. But the thing is, you're just not going to EVER get an inflammatory quote from JP about anything. While he speaks in a very engaging manner, he's pretty good at saying nothing.

I wouldn't say JP says "nothing", I'd say he just has a very positive and forward outlook on everything. Some of it is undoubtedly PR but I wouldn't be surprised if that's just the way he wants to answer rather than someone else telling him what to say.

Yeah, I mean, he is that way in person as well in terms of basically putting a positive spin on everything and not wanting to get down into the mud.  Unless have happen to hit on something that really strikes a nerve, that's just how he is.

Like medleys?  I think those touched a nerve because he flat out said he hated them.