Last Wednesday, August 2^nd, was the big occasion, which I missed for reasons spelled out here. But I’ve now been at this site for two years. A late party is still a party, no?

It has been an interesting year – I’ve changed my mind a lot on stuff I want to do. It’s no big deal, this site isn’t big stakes or anything so I can pretty well do what I want. I may switch a format up again in the coming months but as of right now I’m totally undecided on that, and if so it won’t happen any time soon.

I was pleasantly surprised a few months ago to find my posts being dumped into the Google mobile feed, whatever that deal is called. In April of this year I got more views than I had for all of 2022, and that new monthly trend has largely held. While a number of posts have been pored over on it, the Iron Maiden singles series was the main focus of all of that. Perhaps the numbers will hold, if for nothing else than to feed my ego.

One thing I do want to start doing is focusing more on social media – it’s the one area I haven’t generated a great deal of action. Someone buying and then messing with his new toy was the main culprit. Social media is a slog and it can be tough to get any kind of buzz on there, but I won’t get anywhere without putting in some kind of effort.

I will divert for just a moment and talk about music in 2023 – man, there just isn’t a whole lot hitting me real hard this year. I’m sure I’ll be able to fill out a top 10 list at year’s end and there are a few pretty anticipated releases still coming, but this year has seemed kind of quiet compared to the last few. Nothing necessarily wrong with that but it’s kind of hard to write “yeah, that was ok to hear” over and over again. But there’s always the boundless past to explore.

As far as what’s coming up in the rest of 2023, be assured there is more Iron Maiden on the way. Hell, I could probably run various Iron Maiden series for a few years (and I probably will). The Maiden live album series will be up in September and I’ll let that close out the year, then I’ll open 2024 with the psychotically ridiculous song ranking. I’ll also have a new review set coming soon, probably also sometime in September. It’s not huge but it also should run through the next few months.

There will also be a handful of gig recaps on the way as I’m actually going to a few shows in the next little bit. I’m not certain if I’m attending a few more big-ticket concerts (though I’m going to try), but there are a few smaller club shows I will certainly be at. I also totally forgot to run down a show I went to earlier in the summer so I’ll try to get my lazy ass on that soon.

One other thing that will pop up relatively soon – I’ll start doing more one-off album reviews, these with actual scores and all that. There’s no great “system” to it, stuff will just show up when I have it ready. There’s also a fair chance a lot more of the heavier stuff will be included in these, it’s a more suitable format for that than my typical “Album of the Week” presentation.

That probably wraps up all I wanted to say. As always, thank you to all who read these piles of words. I know time is a fleeting thing and there are millions of other things to read, see and do, and I really appreciate everyone who stops by to spend a moment here.

It’s on to year three for this site. And yes, tomorrow’s post is related to Iron Maiden. No great mysteries here.