Regarding the DT.club supporting ex-members;
One of the things I stipulated as a non-negotiable requirement for me to take the reins of the new fan club I was building, as that I wanted full editorial freedom. The right to choose the content on the sites and social media that I control.
The reason for this was I wanted this to be a true "Dream Theater World" - not only uniting the fans all across the globe into one fan club, but to ensure that we would have the ability to objectively cover anyone and anything connected to Dream Theater. Current members, staff, ex-members, side projects and so forth. There's no Dream Theater breathing down my neck making sure I only post stuff they approve.
So I really don't get this bias argument. I have covered Charlie Dominicis attempt at crowdfunding. I have covered the Kevin Moore patreon and new tracks. I have covered Mike Portnoys bands (specifically Neal Morse Band, Shattered Fortress and Sons of Apollo as they're the ones that have been relevant during the period the fan club has existed). I don't take sides! I don't even see it as sides. It's a bunch of musicians creating music. Some of it good, some of it maybe not so good. What on earth would my gain be in being intentionally biased against Sons of Apollo? If anything, Sons of Apollo would provide me of yet another source for content. Sucking up to Mike and Derek would be in my best interest, if I was a man without any integrity. But I've prided myself on having the ability to try to stay objective and neutral even considering the fact that I have had personal access to people others simply do not have.
Great post and excellent review of the album. I think the band members that commented on it (MP, DS and JSS) are just too blinded by the novelty of SOA that are, at this point, incapable of seeing any flaw on their own work. They're saying something like "We've created the most amazing album you could ever listen to in your entire lives. If you don't agree with it, then you're retarded, biased, or some crap like that". And, imo, that's the worst thing a new band can do (or any band, actually).
I basically agree - I think it's a shame there's this drama, and I don't really understand why both the band and a chunk of the potential fanbase seem to think there need to be two "sides".
There's no need to split this into two "sides" that are at conflict with each other. In fact, when this was first announced, I was very excited about this new band/album and had big amounts of respect/admiration for DS, and, to a lesser degree, MP. However, they were the ones who started taking sides as in "if you like them, I don't want to have anything to do with you". So it's bassically their fault that people are taking sides on this topic.
Also, as many other people have said on previous posts, it's really a very bad move to start taking shots at the people who conform pretty much around 90% of you potential fanbase. At this point, SOA is a band directed mostly (mainly because of MP's and DS' actions) to hardcore fans that will buy anything that has MP and/or DS names on it.