Talking Into Infinity - Episode 103 – Fantasy Football-Style Song Draft – Mangini Era Only!

He’s back with more explosive-fueled insanity and killer road stories – he’s friend of show “Pyro” John Watkins! This time around he’s got a kickass book to promote – “Do You Know Who I Think I Am? Memoirs of a World-Class Smartass” – it’s fantastic and engaging and Pyro is dishing all the details about the creation of this unique and hilarious read!

We’re back with another list – this is one that we found online, and let’s just say that there are some interesting choices on it! What is it listing? Someone’s opinion of which song is the best on each of the 16 Dream Theater studio releases! Let’s see if we agree with their selections – or if we’ll want to scream to the Peruvian Skies about how ridiculous some of them are!

We are back talking some Sons Of Apollo on TII! We’ve done our deep dive into Psychotic Symphony, the amazing debut from SOA - Sheehan, Soto, Bumblefoot and, of course  - Sherinian and Portnoy – this time we’re going track by track through their acclaimed sophomore (and, sadly, final) effort MMXX!

With the NFL draft having just taken place, we thought it would be a good idea to have another fantasy football-style song draft on the show – with a twist! This time, we’re ONLY allowed to choose songs from the Mike Mangini era of the band! The only question is… will Breaking All Illusions be the unquestioned #1 draft pick, or is there a sleeper in the cards? We’re on the clock and it’s time to find out!

We’re sitting down with our good friend and legendary guitarwriter Steve Rosen to discuss the third edition of his phenomenal Edward Van Halen book Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey With Edward Van Halen and digging into how he made the recently-released audiobook versions come to life! We also touch on Steve’s thoughts about the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame and Alex Van Halen’s recent autobiography Brothers!

We are back from our adventures in New York City attendingthe final show of Dream Theater's 40th Anniversary Tour - and not only do we have some stories to tell, but we have some special guests along for the ride! John Raaness of DT Norway will be discussing what goes into setting up theirawesome pre-show fan hangouts, and our good friend Wayne Joyner will be giving us all of the behind-the-scenes details on how he created the stage show for this tour – specifically his incredible and emotional video for The Best OfTimes!

On this episode, we bring on legendary pyrotechnic technician John “Pyro” Watkins to talk about his life on the road with Van Halen, Kiss, Bon Jovi, Journey… just to name a few! We even delve into the Station Nightclub fire and what went so very wrong… John has some incredible stories!

The wait is finally over! Not only do we have a new Dream Theater record to sink our teeth into, but we have our first new music with Mike Portnoy behind the kit in almost fifteen years! On this huge day in DT history, we turn the show over to the fans to get THEIR immediate reactions to the new album Parasomnia!

It’s the next entry in our series of “you can’t have DT”, so… it’s 2007 and you walk into the record store to buy Systematic Chaos… and the clerk tells you that you CAN’T buy it! You HAVE to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we’d buy when we can’t have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record!

We’re back for our first show of 2025, and we’re bringing back our good friend Paul Logue of Eden’s Curse and James LaBrie’s solo band! After the success of our Empire deep dive, Paul asked if he could come back and talk some Van Halen – twist our arms! Paul chose 1991’s banger For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge – this is one of Jon’s favorite albums, so this promises to be a great discussion about a truly standout record from the VH catalog!