My first exposure to Mike Portnoy was, I think, seeing him in Mapex ads in Modern Drummer in the early 1990s. Pretty soon, he was everywhere in MD: ads, articles, features, interviews, blurbs… Then, I saw a transcription of the opening to “6:00” in a Sabian brochure. I had to hear it.

I went to Blockbuster Music (remember those?), where they would open any CD and let you listen to it. That’s when I heard “6:00” for the first time. Holy crap… My fifteen-year-old head nearly exploded. Yeah, I’d heard and seen a lot of great drumming to that point, but Mike Portnoy and Dream Theater differed so greatly from what I was into at the time. And that was the start of long (mild) obsession with the band and their drummer.
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