Mike Portnoy solo projects Mike Portnoy major collaboration projects Mike Portnoy minor collaboration projects

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Hi Paul,

Is that thefunkygibbons? Love your monkey man.

Mike

Mike Portnoy

Michael Stephen Portnoy (more commonly known as Mike Portnoy, born April 20, 1967) is an American drummer primarily known for his work with the progressive metal band Dream Theater.

Mike Portnoy was born and raised in Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. His father worked as a DJ at a local radio station, helping Portnoy gain an appreciation for music at an early age through bands like Deep Purple and the Beatles. Although Portnoy taught himself how to play the drums he did take music theory classes in high school, and during that period he began playing in local bands Intruder, Rising Power and Inner Sanctum, the latter of which released an album. He left Inner Sanctum after being awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he met John Petrucci and John Myung and formed what would become Dream Theater.

Portnoy names his biggest influences as Rush drummer Neil Peart, and composer/guitarist Frank Zappa. Other favorites include drummers Terry Bozzio, Vinnie Colaiuta, Peter Criss, Simon Phillips, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Bill Bruford and bands such as The Beatles, Queen, Yes, Rush, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Jellyfish (band), Iron Maiden, Phish, Deep Purple, Radiohead, Umphrey's McGee, U2 and Jane's Addiction.

Portnoy has won 19 awards from Modern Drummer magazine, including "Best recorded performance" (5 times) and "Best Progressive Rock Drummer" (for 10 consecutive years), and is also the youngest person (at 37 years of age) to be inducted into their Rock Drummer Hall of Fame.

He has also been the catalyst for founding several other progressive rock groups and projects: Transatlantic, Liquid Tension Experiment, and O.S.I. (with former Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore).

He has released three instructional videos, Progressive Drum Concepts, Liquid Drum Theater, and In Constant Motion. He has also released many "Official Bootlegs" on his website, including footage of the studio sessions for the Dream Theater albums Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Train of Thought, Octavarium, Systematic Chaos and the Transatlantic release Bridge Across Forever. He also recently released bootlegs of his tribute bands Hammer of the Gods (a Led Zeppelin tribute), Yellow Matter Custard (Beatles), Cygnus and his Sea Monsters (Rush) and Mike Portnoy's Amazing Journey (The Who).

Mike and his wife Marlene live in Pennsylvania with their daughter Melody Ruthandrea, son Max John, dog Bongo and cat Cypress.

Mike is also a recovering alcoholic. This prompted him to write a musical suite called "The AA Saga", which will eventually comprise the 12 Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program. So far, Dream Theater has written four songs, which describe the journey through the twelve steps. These are: "The Glass Prison" (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence), "This Dying Soul" (Train of Thought), "The Root of All Evil" (Octavarium) and "Repentance" (Systematic Chaos).

Discography

In respect of side projects, I have split these into solo work, where the band member has issued work under their own name, major collaborations and minor collaborations. For major collaborations, I would expect that the band member was significantly involved in a substantial part of the work, whereas for minor collaborations, their involvement is only on a single song or is incidental to the work as a whole.

TheFunkyGibbons.net

Mike Portnoy page

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Mike in action

Mike in words

Mike Portnoy

Discography

Solo work

Major collaborations

Minor collaborations