Dream Theater

Dream Theater
Score: XOX: 20th Anniversary World Tour Live with the Octavarium Orchestra (Rhino)

Reviewed by Lucas Aykroyd


In 2005, SPIN pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman published an essay called “That 70’s Cruise,” describing his experiences at sea with Styx, REO Speedwagon and Journey. He claimed that the baby boomer core audience for this bill reflected a generation gap: “The people on this cruise don't believe modern bands know how to play, and they’re willing to spend $2,500 to see groups who can.”

Well, if those folks were more open-minded, they could have saved some cash by joining the 6,000-plus at Radio City Music Hall in New York for Dream Theater’s double-decade celebration in April. Admittedly, with this three-CD live recording, the Berklee-trained prog-metal quintet caters more to those who bought Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans than Steve Perry fans with Bic lighters. The set list, which stretches back to the band’s 1989 studio debut, heaps virtuosity upon virtuosity.

Disc One features renditions of six shorter songs (averaging 7:16) from five different albums, plus two other previously unreleased epics from the 1980s and 90s. Prominent in the mix are James LaBrie’s soaring vocals (he shuns the rasp he affected on 1994’s Awake), lead guitarist John Petrucci’s electrifying tone, and Jordan Rudess’ rippling keyboards. “Under A Glass Moon” spotlights those elements impeccably, without underplaying drummer Mike Portnoy’s Neil Peart-like flair.

The second and third discs introduce a 30-piece backing orchestra, and while that doesn’t work for every band (why did Metallica think “Enter Sandman” would sound awesome with the San Francisco Symphony?), it’s bang-on for Dream Theater. The overture to “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence,” for instance, comes across more powerfully than in the 1999 original, and the 40-minute composition goes beyond a mere chops-fest filled with time signature changes. Moments of genuine emotional beauty and judicious highlighting of crowd applause set this career-defining package apart.

Lucas Aykroyd has written for such magazines as Rock Sound, Metal Hammer, Powerplay Rock and Metal Magazine, and Classic Rock. He is the author of 1984: The Ultimate Van Halen Trivia Book.

Ultimate DVDs for the ultimate spy

By Tony Buchsbaum

In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming wrote a motto for the Bond family crest: “The world is not enough.” Well, it seems regular old DVD is not enough, either. Because all twenty James Bond films—from Dr. No to Die Another Day—have been released on ultra-special DVD, using mega-high scanning rates that make the picture as close to high-def as you can get, without actually going high-def.

The films have been around for 40-odd years now, making this the longest-running and most successful series of all time. I have a feeling that’s just how Fleming and the film’s longtime producer Albert R. Broccoli would have wanted it.

Packaged in four glorious box sets, each containing at least one Sean Connery, one Roger Moore, and one Pierce Brosnan (with the other Bonds, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton, peppered throughout), and you can’t go wrong with any of them.

While Goldfinger has Pussy Galore, these DVD sets have extras galore, some of which are repeats of material created for the Bond DVDs issued a few years back. But these extras dive even deeper into the vaults of EON Productions, maker of the official series since the very beginning. Here, the pickins are impressive, illuminating the films to such an exhaustive level that only aficionados will care—but boy will they! Each film gets a pretty cool Mission Dossier, highlighting the high-points of the action, from gadgets and girls to chases and locations; click an icon, and you jump to scenes from the film. There are interviews with cast and crew, as well as fascinating commentaries. Each film has the requisite stills and art gallery and making-of documentary, but now you’ll also get special material not seen for, sometimes, decades.

Examples: “On Tour with the Aston Martin DB-5”; the Ford Motor Company’s “A Child’s Guide to Blowing Up a Motor Car”; NBC’s 1965 special, “The Incredible World of James Bond”; a 1971 BBC interview with Connery; a CBC interview with Fleming… The list goes on and on, and so do the wonders.

But the real star of these box sets are the films themselves. Rescanned frame by frame, each film comes alive in terms of color and contrast and clarity—I’ve read that the films haven’t looked this good since their original release, but I’ll go one step further and say they’ve never looked this good. I know the casual viewer won’t be able to tell the difference—or won’t care to try—but for anyone interested in film and film preservation, the care that was taken restoring this series is remarkable. It’s a real miracle.

Though sticker shock will keep some people from getting all of these sets, I can tell you they’re well worth it. They’re a great way to relive much of the excitement of the early films, and even find new things to appreciate in the later ones. Frankly, even a casual viewing will remind you why the world fell for 007 in the first place.

That feeling also comes across—loud and clear—upon watching Casino Royale, the new 007 film. Starring Daniel Craig in his first outing as Bond, the film is a gut-punch of fantastic filmmaking. It restarts the franchise in thrilling ways, daring to make Bond a human hero rather than a super-human one. The key is the first scene, Bond's first kill, and when the guy's finally dead, Craig puts it all in his eyes: the exhaustion, the self-loathing, the disgust. It's a real "What have I just done?" moment, and it makes you feel for this guy in ways that are new and strange, considering this is a Bond film.

Another standout is the score by David Arnold (available on CD, of course). This is his fourth go, and it's pretty terrific. He's not John Barry—who is?—but he does a great job here, weaving new themes with old, signalling that this is a new take but also part of a larger mythology. Arnold saves the famous Bond theme for the film's final moments, and it proves to be a brilliant choice; its absence only makes us hunger for for it, and when it comes, it's absolutely exhilarating.

The Kids Are All Right

by Richard Klin
photo by Lily Prince

There is a lurking fear -- albeit a minor one -- that plagues parents and parents-to-be. It’s the fear of music -- or, more precisely, being subject to that inevitable, inescapable barrage of child-friendly tunes. It is quite the irony that a generation raised on loud, sometimes ear-splitting music takes their place as parents and then has to banish their own music for mellow, happy kids’ songs. Out goes the treasured vintage Stones collection. In comes “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” and lots of Barney.

But it ain’t, as they say, necessarily so. Kids’ music has evolved since the days when I played my treasured Munsters album over and over. As the concertgoing generation evolves into the child-rearing generation, music for the younger set has too evolved. Kids’ music is no longer synonymous with saccharine-sweet melodies that serve only to entrance the children -- but leave the parents holding their ears.

I recently and unscientifically sampled five CDs of kid-oriented music. They were chosen at random and are not meant to be any type of representational grouping. The musical styles and approaches all differed wildly. But all had one thing in common: they all managed to break through the narrow confines of what has been considered “typical” child-friendly fare. All five examples blurred -- consciously or not -- the boundaries between children’s music and just plain music.

I then put all this music through its paces, subjecting it to rigorous testing with a demanding, no-nonsense consumer focus group: our daughter, Stella, age two and a half, and her peers Rylie Sasha, Asker, Jonah and Morgan. They gathered together to listen, respond, eat raisins, and -- when the spirit moved them -- to dance.

Fans of WFMU, New York-New Jersey’s legendary freeform radio station, praise the station with the fervor of the true believer. It is not surprising, then, that a station as innovative as FMU would carry original, unpredictable children’s programming.

Greasy Kid Stuff -- only recently on hiatus -- was the musical and programming brainchild of spouses (and parents) Hova Najarian and Belinda Miller. The show dug deep into the pop grab-bag of oldies, novelty songs, bands off the beaten path and hummable, updated anthems from Schoolhouse Rock, Captain Kangaroo, and Underdog. It’s a concept so good that it’s a real wonder nobody has mined this material for little ears before. Songs Inside the Radio and the companion More Songs from Inside the Radio (Confidential Recordings) are a fun smattering of Belinda and Hova’s best.

The gentle, Hawaii-inflected ukuleles of “Monkey Brian” by the Hoppin’ Haole Brothers was a big hit with our test group, as was Guv’ner’s clap-along remake of 1959’s “Lucky Ladybug.” “Chicken: Impossible” by the aptly-named Nutley Brass is a poultry-chorused update of the Mission: Impossible theme that our bunch loved (as did I) along with the infectious “Aba-Dabba-Do-Dance” by T. Lance and the Coctails.

“Most of the music we play,” says Belinda, “wasn’t actually intended for children per se--but by placing the songs in a different context they became kids’ music. It seemed like a good idea.”
Parents were “casting about for some kind of alternative culture to share with their kids, and so our show has struck a chord with a lot of them ... for us the test remains: Is this something we’d listen to ourselves whether we had kids or not?”

Greasy Kid Stuff’s rocking quirkiness may be lost on the smallest of the small fry. Much of the show’s louder music is geared more to the school-age set. But both compilations are funny, original, very hummable and highly recommended.

Dog on Fleas has a certain well-deserved renown in New York’s Hudson Valley and points beyond. With any justice, this renown should spread to points far, far beyond. The band’s live performances--including a sanitized version of Hot Chocolate’s retro classic “You Sexy Thing”--can spur this father to pick up his young daughter and cavort in full, public view.
The key, perhaps, to Dog on Fleas’ listenability is a real musical virtuosity. Accordingly, the eclectic music is simultaneously tight and playful with lyrics both fun and thoughtful. When I Get Little (self-released) is an album with easy appeal across the age spectrum.

Dog on Fleas is a band, happily, hard to pin down. The Cajun-style “Mon Pain Pedu”--sung in French--was a big hit with our test group, as was the Ska-influenced “What’s Behind the Wall.” Dog on Fleas run the gamut of musical influences: fiddle music, call-and-response, jazz, ballads--all make an appearance without losing cohesion or focus.

The child-friendly music is fused to intelligent lyrics. “What’s Behind the Wall,” for example, dares to reference the timeless “I see London/I see France” with musings on Katmandu and Mogadishu.

Probably everyone involved with children’s music is aware of the pitfalls of talking (or singing) down to children, but how about talking up? Is there ever the danger in being too literate or inventive? “No,” Fleasman Dean Jones answers emphatically. When he writes a song, there’s often the opportunity to include a “curveball for kids and adults” both. There is the freedom to “throw in something that will go over kids’ heads--or my wife’s.” The fun is adding “a little twist. Eventually somebody might get it.”

Dog on Fleas walk the creative tightrope of child-like music that isn’t childish. When I Get Little maintains its focus throughout, and children and parents should give it a listen.

The Hipwaders are a Bay-area power-pop trio, specially modified for the younger set. The Hipwaders are a lot of fun to listen to, so much so that I used my daughter as an excuse to play the songs over and over. There’s a seventies/retro timbre in the most listenable sense. The Hipwaders can be viewed as cooler friends of the Archies ... who went and formed their own band. It is easy to conjure up a double bill with the Hipwaders and Josie and the Pussycats.
These connotations are no surprise. Bandmate Tino Uquillas was, since childhood, “a huge Beatles fan” who also grew up loving “the Monkees, Archies, Banana Splits and the Partridge Family.” Moving into the teen years, his listening tastes evolved into “the whole punk rock/new wave” scene and the “influence of old cartoons.”

Adding to the appeal is while the band’s rockish tempos are the antithesis of plastic, pro-forma children’s music, the lyrics are upfront and unabashedly about kids. Our little group of music testers loved the danceable opening number, “Come Along With Us,” which invites all within listening range to come join the Hipwader caravan. “Messy Room Blues”--all about, obviously, one’s messy room--brought back some unfortunate personal memories. “Twitchy” is another easy-to-relate to ode to not being able to sit still. “Stand Up to the Bully!” is a nice exhortation to do exactly that. (Inspired, no doubt, that Tino “truly remembers [painfully!] what being young is all about,” including the “feelings, fears, and interests...”) The Hipwaders closes with the genuinely affecting, Beach Boys-flavored “Valentine.”

The album--and the group itself--are a poppy, happy revelation.

Elizabeth Mitchell’s folk-oriented You Are My Little Bird (Smithsonian Folkways) is a welcome rejuvenation of the folk idiom -- a genre that has attained institutional status. Listening to Mitchell’s engaging songs brings on a simple, startling revelation: the original premise of this music was that it was conceived as music for folk -- people from all corners. Accordingly, Mitchell picks familiar sources such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie but also offers the wonderful Japanese “Zousan (Little Elephant)”, French and Korean music, and -- in a real act of genre busting -- reworkings of Bob Marley, Neil Young and the Velvet Underground. How did she happen to deem such unorthodox choices as kid-friendly? Children’s music, says Mitchell, “is a door of possibility for me -- like the minds and hearts of the children I sing for, it’s wide open. Children don’t know that they are supposed to like only one kind of music,” she accurately observes. “They haven’t committed themselves to fit into a genre yet!”

Fortuitously, You Are My Little Bird opens with one of Stella’s all-time favorites, “Little Liza Jane.” Our focus group as a whole loved the rockabilly-inspired guitar of “Who’s My Pretty Baby” and the easy-to-hum “Little Bird, Little Bird.” The album was co-produced by Warren Defever, who with his own band, His Name is Alive, has offered up stark, evocative music of his own. There is a haunting quality throughout the album (“Buckeye Jim”) and some of the songs are augmented by the strains of some very young, wonderfully unformed voices. “When I hear a sense of wonder in a song,” Mitchell relates, “I hear the possibility of singing it for children.” Not a bad criterion for an album.

The Vancouver-based Duplex! is the rare kids’-music ensemble that actually features ... kids. Ablum by Duplex! --yes, that’s the spelling -- boasts the musical talents of a three- , eleven- , and twelve-year-old, along with parents. (Mint Records) If the Hipwaders are akin to a latter-day Archies, Duplex! come across as those super-smart students who easily polish off their homework, leaving lots of time for prank phone calls -- augmented by adults who probably spent too much time listening to Frank Zappa. Ablum is a funny, eccentric work.

Band member Veda Hille is correct when she opines that “having children in [the band] makes the whole thing quite distinct,” and the “adults ... change their playing, which is good.” The impetus for the multi-generational sound “came about ... because they are our kids, and we wanted to make music with them and for them. It seems more authentic than having adults decide what kids want to hear. Some of my favorite tracks on the album were written by the children.”

Our focus group loved the bouncy “Salad Song,” although too young to grasp the anti-vegetable lyrics: “eat your salad/tastes like dirt/eat your salad/then get dessert.” It’s sure to raise the hackles of green-loving parents and educators -- precisely the point, I imagine. “Mr. Slim” is a danceable three minutes with typical oddball lyrics concerning the globetrotting Mr. Slim. Schoolhouse Rock appears to be an irresistable well to draw from, and Duplex! offers a melodic, pretty “Figure 8.” The troupe closes Ablum with--believe it or not--”Pooing and Peeing.” No further explanation needed.

Ablum by Duplex! isn’t by any stretch a run-of-the-mill kids’ collection. Things have changed quite a bit since “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.”

I learned quite a bit about, to me, what was a previously unfamiliar genre. It was a series of pleasant surprises and discoveries. Childrens’ music has, these past years, clearly grown by leaps and bounds. Both parent and child can get equal pleasure out of listening -- no small accomplishment. As I mentioned, my listening samples covered some broad styles. What they had in common was talent. Something quite new has been created.


Richard Klin lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. His writing has appeared in the Forward, Brooklyn Rail, LiP, Parabola, and others.

Also sprach Zarathustra

Reviewed by Pedro Blas Gonzalez

Richard Strauss
Also sprach Zarathustra
Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony
BMG Classics


Richard Strauss (1864-1949) who is not related to either Johann Strauss, father or son, began to compose music at age six. He wrote Festival March and his Serenade for wood instruments when he was only ten years of age. By 16 Strauss had written a symphony in d minor and a string quartet by 17. Strauss is best known as a composer of tone poems and operas, the latter of which he began creating later in life. He was also conductor of the Berlin Royal Opera from 1898 to 1918.

Strauss also wrote 12 operas beginning with Guntram in 1894 and culminating in 1938 with Daphne; two symphonies: F Minor and Aus Italien; nine tone poems and numerous other chamber, orchestral and vocal works. His Also sprach Zarathustra (1896) is the musical equivalent of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s autobiographical work of the same name that depicts individual, differentiated man via-à-vis society.

While musically Strauss’ composition stands on its own as a work of genius, the extra-philosophical importance of this tone poem cannot be overlooked, given its inspiration by the German thinker. The work is divided into ten sections, Nietzsche’s book into four parts and 80 sections.

Strauss skirts Nietzsche’s sentiment in what can only be described as an admirable manner. Essentially transcribing a work of philosophy -- but also one of profound emotion -- into a musical sinesthesia, Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra is a moving and memorable depiction of the existential exaltation as well as travails of the solitary thinker.

Beginning with "Sunrise," the composition opens with a prologue of ominous anticipation. The first 21 bars of this famous opening have become the staple that identifies this Straussian masterpiece. The piece was used in the opening of the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey to signify the ascent of man. The tension that the timpani, trumpets and organ create easily serves as counterpoint to Nietzsche’s own words about the genesis of his book. Nietzsche explains:

Looking back now, I find that exactly two months previous to this inspirational I had had an omen of its coming in the form of a sudden and decisive alteration in my tastes -- more particularly in music. It would even be possible to consider all ‘Zarathustra’ as a musical composition.

The proximity that exists between these two works is truly astounding and a testament to Strauss’ musical intuition and execution. This is by all accounts a much more difficult task for Strauss than to compose from his own inspiration--– if he is to remain true to the philosophical work that he tries to convey.

Because both Nietzsche’s book and Strauss’ composition can be considered “romantic” in origin -- at least judging from the period of their creation -- they can easily also be said to be very sonorous in makeup. From its thunderous beginning, Thus sprach Zarathustra gives way to a melodious sentiment that starts with a pianissimo, which is distinguished by the low range of the double bass. Again, what follows is marked by more anticipation. This section continues through a crescendo that eventually involves the entire orchestra.

The piece develops through other sections that are taken straight from Nietzsche’s book: “O Joys and Passions,” “Of Science,” “The Convalescent,” “Dance Song and Night Song” and finally ending with “Night Wanderer’s Song.”

This is a recording that dates back to March 8, 1954. Conducted by Fritz Reiner, a man who made Richard’s Strauss’ work his passion, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra sounds as rich and fresh as it ever has.

Pedro Blas Gonzalez is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Barry University in Miami, Florida. Amongst his intellectual pursuits is his interest in the relationship that exists between subjectivity, self-autonomy and philosophy.