Joel McNeely (born March 28, 1959) is an American composer, arranger, musician, and songwriter. He is a composer of film and television music.
Joel McNeely was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Both of his parents were involved in music and theater, and as a child he played the piano, saxophone, bass, and flute. He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, studied jazz at the University of Miami, and earned a master's degree as a composition major at the Eastman School of Music.
Lucasfilm chose McNeely to compose the soundtrack to the 1996 Star Wars novel Shadows of the Empire. This was an experimental project where he conveyed general moods and themes instead of writing music to flow for specific scenes.
He is also notable for conducting a series of re-recordings of Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, John Barry and others' scores under the label of Varèse Sarabande, notably Vertigo, Psycho and Citizen Kane, and selected scores from the Twilight Zone television series, among others. He also composed the score for The Avengers and the theme and music for FOX's Dark Angel. Additionally, he scored the movies Terminal Velocity, Iron Will (which was used in the teaser trailers of Toy Story), Flipper, Gold Diggers, Samantha, Virus, and I Know Who Killed Me (2007). He also scored a multitude of Disney animated films (Mulan II, Peter Pan: Return to Neverland (2002), Tinker Bell and many others).
Dies is a surname, and may refer to:
In Roman mythology Dies ("day") was the personification of day, and the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess Hemera, the daughter of Nox (Night) and Scotus (Darkness).
She is the goddess of the daytime and, according to Hesiod, the daughter of Erebus and Nyx (the goddess of night). Hemera is remarked upon in Cicero's De Natura Deorum, where it is logically determined that Dies (Hemera) must be a god, if Uranus is a god. The poet Bacchylides states that Nyx and Chronos are the parents, but Hyginus in his preface to the Fabulae mentions Chaos as the mother/father and Nyx as her sister.
She was the female counterpart of her brother and consort, Aether (Light), but neither of them figured actively in myth or cult. Hyginus lists their children as Uranus, Gaia, and Thalassa (the primordial sea goddess), while Hesiod only lists Thalassa as their child.
Joshua S. Porter, better known by his stage name Josh Dies (born June 12, 1983) is an American singer, songwriter, musician and novelist. Porter is widely known as the vocalist and songwriter for the band Showbread. His debut novel, The Spinal Cord Perception, was released in December 2006 and features a dark, postmodern style similar to Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, and many other Generation X novelists. Besides several other novels, he has also authored a children's book.
Porter and Showbread also started "Raw Rock Missions," an organization designed to provide food and shelter for orphans and children with special needs.
In 1997, Porter began working with brother Patrick Porter creating and evolving the band Showbread, which became a full-time international touring act in 2002. In 2004, following several independent albums, Showbread released No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical, featuring music and lyrics written by Porter, and arranged and completed by him and his band mates. No Sir... expectantly failed to achieve commercial success. However, it was rewarded by Revolver Magazine to be the best Screamo album of the year, and Showbread’s already respectable and rabid fan base was propelled by the thousands.