The second edition of the Dream Theater biography, Lifting Shadows, is now available to pre-order!

Full details of this updated book can be found at www.liftingshadows.com

For the second edition of Lifting Shadows, I've tracked down and interviewed even more people involved in the Dream Theater story. The text has also been thoroughly revised and updated. So there's also a detailed look at the making of the Black Clouds & Silver Linings album, which includes all new interviews with the band. Plus I've also added an appendix which covers the numerous side projects, such as Liquid Tension Experiment, Transatlantic, OSI, G3 and other solo albums, with interviews with the likes of Neal Morse, Jim Matheos, Tony Levin and the DT guys. This is edition is also around 40% longer than the original.

As you might know, the original, two book, one CD special edition set has now completed sold out. As that was sold strictly on the basis that it was a limited print run, the publishers have rightly decided not to reissue that. They are however producing a new limited edition version as there are people who want something more special than just a hardback. So there are two versions of the book on sale.

The Classic Edition of the book is a standard hardback version. If you imagine the "Words" book of the first edition, expanded by 40%, with 8 pages of colour photos.

The second of these is the Limited Edition book, which is bound in real leather. This contains the same text as the Classic Edition and also has 8 pages of colour photos. The print run is limited to 2000 copies and each copy is hand signed by myself.

The books are being published by Essential Works who printed the first edition of the book. All sales of the book will also be made via their website.

The book is priced as follows:

Classic Edition:

This retails at $28.95 in the US, £17.99 in the UK and EU plus shipping. Those of you who bought the first edition will shortly be receiving an email from Essential Works offering you a 25% discount off the retail price as a "thank you" for your support in getting the first edition off the ground. But even if you did not buy the first edition, for a limited time, those of you pre-ordering will be entitled to a discount of 15% off the retail price.

Limited Edition:

This version retails at £30 in the UK and EU, and $50 in the US plus shipping. Due to the high production costs, low production run and the price already being kept as low as possible, there will be no discount available for this version of the book.

Full details of all the ordering process, details of shipping charges, a list of FAQ and other details on the book can be found at www.liftingshadows.com

4 brand new Dream Theater Official Bootleg titles available from Ytsejam Records!

- The Making of Falling Into Infinity (1 CD)

- Train Of Thought Instrumental Demos 2003 (1 CD)

- Uncovered 2003-2005 (1 CD)

- Santiago, Chile 12/6/05 (1 DVD)

There's only one thing cooler than being nominated for Classic Rock Magazine's Album of the Year......

Having the nomination be announced by the almighty, legendary Spinal Tap! (see 2:30 and 3:24)

It is with the utmost disappointment that I am forced to share the unfortunate news of both Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish having to pull out of this summer's Progressive Nation tour....

Their label Inside Out just recently lost the financial funding for the tour as a result of their distributor SPV recently claiming bankruptcy...which effectively meant that both Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish lost the tour support that was essential to their ability to come to North America for Progressive Nation.

All parties involved (myself, both bands, Inside Out, etc) are beyond devastated at this turn of events and are truly sorry to all of the fans that were looking forward to this lineup. We tried everything we could do to salvage the situation, but in the end it was not possible...

Well as the album title says, every Black Cloud does indeed have a Silver Lining....so with this unfortunate news, I bring to you the good news of 2 incredible bands that will be jumping on board Progressive Nation to join Dream Theater and Zappa Plays Zappa this summer: Bigelf and Scale The Summit.

Los Angeles' Bigelf are my personal favorite new band to come along in many years...their latest CD "Cheat The Gallows" is my favorite album of the year and I already had positioned them onto the European run of Progressive Nation in the Fall....with them now joining us on PN09 in North America as well, it looks like world domination is now not that far out of reach for them!
Pretty soon, everyone will hopefully be falling for their retro, psychedelic, progressive, hard rock, doom metal as hard as I have!

Houston instrumental band Scale The Summit are a recent discovery for me and their top notch musicianship will be a perfect fit to this Progressive Nation lineup stylistically falling very nicely between the musicality of Dream Theater and Zappa Plays Zappa. They bring the instrumental elements of prog rock and fusion into today's contemporary hard rock/metal sounds and are one of the most talented group of young musicians I've seen assembled in many years.

Once again, apologies to anybody disappointed in this unexpected and unavoidable lineup change...but the circumstances were beyond our control...
In any event, PN09 will carry on and still deliver the most musical bang for its buck this summer throughout North America and we look forward to sharing the evening with you!

Sincerely,
Your Progressive Rock Ambassador,
Mike Portnoy

Dream Theater has just released a fifth cover track, "Larks Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2" by King Crimson. The original can be found on King Crimson's album "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" (1973).
- Click here to get it from iTunes now!
- Click here to get it from Amazon.com!

Dream Theater has just released a fourth cover track, "Take Your Fingers From My Hair" by Zebra. The original can be found on Zebra's self-titled 1983 debut album. Available from iTunes and Amazon

Below is a video of Mike Portnoy talking about the Zebra cover.

Stay tuned for Cover #5 to be released on Tuesday, June 16nd.

Dream Theater has just released a third cover track, "Odyssey" by Dixie Dregs. The original can be found on the album "What If" (1978). Available iTunes and Amazon.

Below is a video of Mike Portnoy talking about the Dixie Dregs cover.

Stay tuned for Cover #4 to be released on Tuesday, June 9nd.

Dream Theater has just released a second cover track of a medley of three songs from the legendary Queen: "Tenement Funster", "Flick Of The Wrist" and "Lily Of The Valley". The originals can be found on Queen's 1974 album "Sheer Heart Attack". Available on iTunes and Amazon.

Below is a video of Mike Portnoy talking about the process of laying down the vocal tracks for this amazing medley.

The first Dream Theater cover, Rainbow's epic "Stargazer", is now available at iTunes. The original can be found on Rainbow's 1976 album "Rainbow Rising".

Below is a video of Mike Portnoy revealing the details of recording "Stargazer".

The first single from Black Clouds and Silver Linings, "A Rite Of Passage" is now available on iTunes. Check out the singles video below:

For Immediate Release
March 26th 2009

DREAM THEATER TO TAKE THEIR "PROGRESSIVE NATION 2009" TOUR TO EUROPE / UK IN THE FALL WITH SPECIAL GUESTS: OPETH, BIGELF AND UNEXPECT

New York progressive metal veterans DREAM THEATER will take their PROGRESSIVE NATION tour overseas for the first time with a run through Europe and the UK throughout Sept, Oct and Nov 2009.

PROGRESSIVE NATION founder and mastermind, DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy, once again hand-picked the bands based on musicianship, originality and diversity...not necessarily by popularity and marquee value. He comments: "After the excitement of putting together two very cool PROGRESSIVE NATION packages for North America, I knew it was time to bring the concept overseas and share some of these other great bands with our amazing fans throughout Europe and the UK".

Joining the tour will be DT's tourmates from PN08 (and Roadrunner Records labelmates), the legendary OPETH from Stockholm Sweden. Vocalist/Guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt was excited to partake in another PROGRESSIVE NATION experience: "Once my man "The Port" suggested they're going to bring PROGRESSIVE NATION over to Europe, I more or less begged him to get us on it, haha! We had such a great time doing it in North America and it did many great things for us as a band. It's fair to say that I can't wait to get going with this one. It will be a blast, believe me!!"

Los Angeles band BIGELF will bring their unique brand of psychedelic, progressive hard rock to PN09. Vocalist/Keyboardist Damon Fox adds: "When I first met Mike Portnoy, I felt like we were cut from the same cloth, a brother from another mother. We could talk rock & roll for eons (we probably will on tour, hell yeah!). Being added to the PROGRESSIVE NATION tour feels like the planets have aligned for us and the elves have finally come home to Rivendell. The mentality of Dream Theater and PROGRESSIVE NATION reminds me of a quote from the great Willy Wonka, "There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be..." We eagerly await our return to Northern Europe and on a special note, we have never performed in England. This has driven us completely mad over the years. We are just brimming with passion and excitement to be able to bring our music back to the homeland which has inspired us so deeply."

Opening the show each night will be Canada's UNEXPECT who will surely blow people's minds with their insane musicianship and avant garde style of extreme progressive metal. Guitarist Syriak had this to say: "How can we rationally express that crazy excitement we feel about this awesome turn of events...Upon getting offered by Mike to be on board this amazing prog vessel, we accepted at once to participate and add our own mad musical touch to the crew! Being part of the European leg of PN09 is an extreme honor for us and playing in company of such talented musicians shall be a true and heartfelt enjoyment! See you all on stage guys!! "

The European leg of PROGRESSIVE NATION will follow on the heals of the North American version of PN09 which will run throughout July & Aug 2009 in the US and Canada featuring DREAM THEATER, ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA, PAIN OF SALVATION and BEARDFISH.

PROGRESSIVE NATION's successful inaugural run throughout North America in 2008 featured OPETH, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME and THREE.

A festival and headlining run of Europe in June, followed by the two PN09 tours will be the first treks across the globe for DREAM THEATER in support of their newest Roadrunner Records release " Black Clouds & Silver Linings" which is slated for a late June 2009 release.