Thank you all more than i can ever express or get across in words.
I had NO idea the release of the The Dieselpunk Opera was going to have the impact it did. None. The flurry of activity surrounding the release has been…. unforseen. Shocking. And immensely moving for me.
I’ve dedicated to my life to making these albums and this music and these stories and up until recently i’ve been doing this in utter obscurity. I release albums to deafening silence. I make like, NO money. I just keep on doing this and doing this because… basically because i’m an idiot. Any halfway smart person would have given up years ago and gotten a real job so they could actually have a decent life. When Annabelle sings about despite a lifetime of dedication, dying a failure in the SO, i wasn’t kidding.
The past few days have been unprecedented. The online popularity of The Steampunk Opera has been unprecedented. I assumed The Dieselpunk Opera would be far less successful since, you know, dieselpunk doesn’t have quite the same infamy. But holy CRAP i didn’t expect this kind of reaction.
Thank you. Thank you all. Seriously. People are paying MORE than the asking price! WTF?!?! I didn’t see THAT coming. OMFG i love you all. Like, love… love like…. if i could i would turn myself into a small, yappy dog and visit each and every one of you so i could hump your leg in that kind of creepy, over excited way little dogs hump legs.
And thus let us get onto business.
The future of New Albion:
There will of course we one more opera in the New Albion world. I will not continue it on after that. The entire thing is best served by being a trilogy and not some unending cycle. There will be 3 operas and 3 tangential albums of unrelated, stories from the New Albion world not related necessarily to the city of operas.
The first of these tangential albums was of course, Fairy Tales of the Lost and Wandering.
The second, which will come out sometime in the fall (probably late fall) will be the Fairy album. An album of stories involving faeries that does take place in the New Albion world, although has no relation to the operas and only a a few songs in the city itself. The Faery album DOES have a larger story throughline, although it’s more subtle than in the operas which are clear stories with sung character parts.
Next May, if all goes well comes The Atompunk Opera. I actually have the larger plot pretty decently outlined. Ignore what i said earlier about it moving in a perfect backwards time (the 1st Act being New Albion 11 and the 4th being New Albion 8). There will be generational jumping backwards in time, but it won’t go like i said.
Obviously by now it’s pretty obvious that the Voodoopunks will a through line throughout the operas. I can say, and this is the last spoiler until next year, i will be using the Blood Red Dogs again. It’ll be in a different capacity, and the story will obviously take place years after The Dieselpunk Opera (the earliest point the story will return to will be a generation later). The opera will center around a heartbreaking love story.
After the Atompunk opera, there will be one last album of stories before i let New Albion go and beginsome another series.
I appreciate all the email and comments. And by appreciate i mean small bug eyed dog looking up at you with his little mouth open, tongue waving to the motion of his frantic pelvic movements. I don’t mind clearing up story points. There ARE some points that are meant to be confusing and i wanted people to have to reflect on. I don’t do that too often though, as i prefer to make a story clear.
I also like easter egss, a number of which i always throw into the operas. i assume no one will ever get them, but every once and a while someone emails me and gets one. Because i love y’all here’s a freebie: Google papaver.
As usual this blog will continue with plenty of fun and merriment. I have CRAPLOADS of upcoming posts on atompunk related material as well as whatever other shenanigans. But i wanted to take a moment and thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Let's connect! Here is where you can find me:
I’d like to join the “thank you”s. You deserve all the good feedback and the money, because you created something so amazing and beautiful 🙂
The blood red dogs are so cool, man.
Also, I’m *very* interested in what sort of sound you envision for the atompunk opera.
You are a true artist, sir.
I love your work, and I’m glad I heard about it (in my case, I heard about it via an article on tor.com).
I think we all owe you more thanks than you owe us. You’ve given us all this beauty and passion and it’s outstanding, if not inspirational. I’ve loved your music and your stories for nearly two years now, and I’ve adored every minute of it. When you finish, I’ll be as devastated as I will be thrilled, because while the story will end and be complete, this will be the end.
I still listen to the Steampunk Opera in my car on long journeys, and think I always will. It’s as pervasive as a dedicated stalker, invading my life, my actions, and, like a good stalker, my body.
Thank you.