Jeremey wrote:
Lula, thanks for your post and I respect your opinion. Only two points I can make here. First off, I never instigated anything as far as TG went. I was approached behind the scenes by people involved to help provide support for their arguments. The fan base was tearing itself apart. I was not outraged at Steve A or the band - As every post I made emphasized the fact that "everyone has to do this at one point or another, please look at this evidence and make your own decisions." Again, I was asked to offer some professional expertise to that situation, and only came forward with some information in the hopes of quelling the battling between the fan camps. I came to help a friend online who asked me to help bolster their situation. Now point 2, why am I not as outraged about JSS' situation? Who says I am not? Who says it doesn't look like shit and it tears me up to see people battling about it! But now, like it or not, I'm part of the story. So I'm doing my best to maintain some level of impartiality here, while at the same time not adding to any speculation or further damage to the fan base. This whole thing will work itself out. As I've said continually to you and people in private messages and publically, the dust will settle, the music will survive.
If tribute bands aren't your thing, then I am fine with that too. The point of my original post was why is it particularly bad to have a tribute band singer as a singer (who knows the catalog possibly more than the band themselves), versus a singer from another area or genre of music that may not have the same perspective on the material?
I apologize to you Lula, for anything I may have said or done to offend anyone, and I plan on counting all of you among my friends no matter what happens, but don't make a TG comparison here when there isn't one to be made. I hope I've been clear in my role in all of this and how much a night and day situation this is versus when I was approached to help out someone who was getting sandbagged left and right.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me, you have not offended me at all. I don't begrudge you in any way. I'm not comparing this to tapegate, I was just trying to understand your position. Obviously you have every right to do as you see fit. I think it's great you have been given the opportunity to sit down with guys you admire. I used to admire them too, before they cheated their fans and have shown complete disregard to a fellow, now former, band member. You have to admit the cropped photo, missing tour info, missing bio before the press release which is buried below all the Soprano's press is tacky. It's like they took a magic eraser and just attempted to make the past 11 months disappear. Like I've stated numerous times, Jeff with his talent and integrity saved Journey for me. Please tell me the the quote in bold does not mean you condone taped lead vocals. I understand background vocals are piped in and that seems to be the norm which I guess is okay.
We both have bigger things on the horizon with starting families and my concern for Sabrina and her health does not waiver. I hate the idea of stress being brought to her because of this. You are not at fault here, you've been dragged in. I guess Journey really doesn't care about the human element, a hard lesson for me to learn.