The Unseen University

Yeah, yeah, I know - there wasn't a Musician Spotlight for January. I'm sure all -3 of you that read this thing were livid.

Ahem.

Anyway, I'm probably going to have some more business - sorry, busy-ness - so from now until April 3^rd - or, until I update the Musician Spotlight again, whichever comes first - the Spotlight will be focused on Ian Anderson's new album, which is to be released as a direct sequel to the legendary Thick As a Brick... err, 40 years late.

I've heard lots of good things about this album (some of the songs that will be on it! Steven Wilson's involved! Another Ian Anderson album! Steven insisted that Anderson use the same instrumentation [for the most part] as the original Brick! Anderson went along with the idea!) and one bad thing (Martin wasn't interested in working on this album) that's kind of a good thing (Martin is instead off doing his own thing.) so I'm really pretty excited about this.

The one disappointment is that, unlike the live (and lyric-less) performance done in India a while ago, the album version of A Change of Horses is unlikely to feature sitar.

But, hey! This blog isn't about my opinions - no, really it isn't. My opinions matter about as much as the -3 people who read them matter. This blog is about the opinions of those people who 1. don't exist and 2. were just told, in a hypothetical universe where they do exist, that they don't matter!

So, tell me what you think of the upcoming Thick As a Brick 2. Or don't. Probably don't. But do if you exist.

My new flute arrived in the mail today. I'm already decently good with the penny whistle, so the most difficult thing for me is going to be getting a consistent sound out of that little embouchure. I'll be spending the next week working solely on that, after which I will allow myself to begin working on actually getting a tune out of the thing.

I'll be keeping a record of my progress on this blog, both for the really bored people who, for some reason, actually care about the "progress" some loonie is making on moulding himself into a pale imitation of Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, and for the obscenely  bored person who will one day be looking back to fondly(?) remember his earliest experience with the Irish flute.