The State of the Blog 11 September 2010

For a variety of reasons, I never got a chance to post a State of the Blog post last week.

I’m making it up to you all this week.

You. Have. Been. Warned.

I came home Monday to 16 new albums sitting in my mailbox. Between those, and the ones I already had, and the ones that have popped in since then, I’ve got 32 albums in queue to listen to and/or review. If you’ve sent me something, and you’ve not heard back from me, just keep that in mind. 32 albums. I will not miss out on yours...it just may take me a little bit to get to yours. But I will.

This is not meant to discourage you reading out there from asking if I’d be interested in reviewing your band or album! All I want to express is that this is (still) a one-man operation, and as such I have a lot of responsibilities…finding news pieces to post, reviewing, formatting stuff, posting it, doing interviews, et cetera. But hey, I’m sure you and me, we can make this work, right? We just gotta keep talkin’, you and me. And it’s gonna work out fine.

It’s been a busy week. A lot has happened this week, including some frankly pretty shocking stuff. Let me put it this way…Wednesday night I was watching Episode 3 of Series 2 of The Lakes (a really awesome British series from the 90’s starring John Simm, among others), and popped on line to check e-mail to find a message posted from Facebook that Mike Portnoy had just left Dream Theater. When the drummer in a progressive rock/metal band is a trending topic on Twitter and Google and Yahoo search results, you know that at least one band has risen to a level of public awareness that is mostly uncommon for non-Big Six bands. I know tens of thousands of people are talking about it (as of 1240 on Friday 10 September 2010, there are 48,886 people looking at the thread on Mike Portnoy’s website announcing his departure). Those are staggering numbers for me to even conceive of.

Here in the little backwater of Bill’s Prog Blog, we’re seeing lots of hits and page views too…not the same numbers (thank dog), but a huge increase over last week. I know the news yesterday has something to do with it, but even before this happened we’ve been seeing an increase in visitors, and I chalk that all up to you. I don’t know if you’re telling others to check the site out, or what…but whatever it is, it’s working, and I thank you for helping keep this successful. I do this for myself, but I also do it for all of you.

We’ll be getting back to a more regular schedule this coming week, including a proper Magma Monday post (and apologies for the lack of one this week…needs must and all). I’ll be breaking my no Sunday posting rule for a review of Friday night’s Shawn Persinger is Prester John concert (and photo gallery) (and if you are in the area and didn't go, well, you missed one HELL of a show. but more about that soon!), since I’ll probably not have it all together for today. And as for the rest of the week, the usual mix of news, concert dates, new CD release bits, interviews, CD and DVD reviews, and everything else you’ve come to love and expect from this site.

A week or two ago I posted a ‘what am I listening to’ list. I’ll do the same this week for ya:

Edensong: Echoes of Edensong
Edensong: The Fruit Fallen
Stig - Biodiversity
District 97: Hybrid Child
SimakDialog: Demi-Masa
Goldbug: The Seven Dreams
The Wrong Object: Stories from the Shed

Perhaps not as lengthy a list, but there’s a lot to work through, so I’ve been more…precise.

Anyway, back to the regular grind. I’ll see everyone on the blog!