Those influencers of rock who left their mortal coil too early:

1) Stevie Ray Vaughan (Clapton's heir apparent)

2) Layne Staley (godfather of Grunge, most distinctive voice in rock)

Related: Alice in Chains, Mad Season

3) Jimi Hendrix (likely the most influential guitarist ever)

4) Freddie Mercury (master of composition and arrangement)

Related: Queen

5) Chuck Schuldiner (Tech//Prog/Death metal pioneer)

Related: Control Denied, Death

I'll be moving and going on vacation for the next three weeks. So if I don't answer PM's or forum posts, that's why. I'll be back online regularly around the beginning of September.

My fiancée wife defended her PhD thesis successfully this past Thursday. Congratulations lo!

Edit: we were married on April 28!

I'll be there!

( I wasn't sure about creating an event for it, since it's not music related.)

As a followup to my "New Threshold" entry, here's my full list (as of this post) of anticipated new releases for 2007.

In no order:
Threshold - Dead Reckoning (Mar 23)
Sun Caged - Artemisia (Mar 23)
Evergrey - TBA (May)
Spheric Universe Experience - Anima
All Too Human - Juggernaut
Deadsoul Tribe - A Lullaby for the Devil (Apr)
Pantommind - Lunasense
Gamma Ray - Land Of The Free Part II
Megadeth - United Abominations
Redemption - Origin of Ruin (Apr 2)
Riverside - Rapid Eye Movement (Sep)
Symphony X - Paradise Lost (Spring)
Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos…

God damn, next year is going to be a superb release year:

Threshold announces change of album title and release date of Mar 23 2007

This in addition to new Pain of Salvation, Symphony X, and hopefully Winds (as well as many others).

As for the Threshold album name change, I like "Dead Reckoning" much better than "Pilot in the Sky of Dreams".

Now the question is, how light will my wallet become!

Some kick ass music from DVS Records:

Field of Names

A Different Point of You

Chaoswave- The White Noise Within

Shape

This is the one I actually went looking to buy. Then Alias Eye caught my eye, and the samples were great. Then I read the description for Chaoswave as "influenced by Nevermore" and gave those samples a listen.

I had to stop there, or my credit card would have taken a serious beating!

Damn DVS for providing descriptions, reviews and samples! It gets people to actually buy CDs!!

P.S. That's $61.60 US as of 2006/6/24 @ 2200GMT…

So the 2006/5/13 Chicago Tool show was simply amazing. Best concert I've seen - even with the nosebleed seat and short run time (1h 40m). (Def Leppard - 1988 was my first concert.)

The energy the band coaxed from the audience was unbelievable, but Stinkfist was the highlight of the show. During the whole song, the audience was singing as loud as Maynard and in the chorus, drowning him out!

Here's the set list:

Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann) - Justin opened stage left with that awesome bass line, then Adam walks out stage right a minute later.

Rosetta Stoned…

CBS's Criminal Minds featured a few minutes of Death Whispered a Lullaby tonight. I was really surprised! It totally fit the moment in the show too – one of the actors had been up for 36 hours and Mikael Akerfeldt is singing "Sleep my chiiild…", you just knew something big was coming (and a few minutes later the season ended with a big cliffhanger).

… Ticket that is. I was one of the lucky few to get a ticket to Tool's Chicago show on May 13th. This is one of a few smaller (about 2500 people) US shows that to Tool is doing before heading to Europe for a summer tour. Pretty expensive at $71 US (including about $15 in Ticket Raper fees), but I've been waiting 4 years for Tool to tour again.

I believe everyone of these smaller shows sold out within a few minutes when tics went on sale Saturday morning.

I only wish I would have gotten a second…