The Wreck of the HMS Ophelia

Captain Robert searches
for a safe place to land

The ropes creaking, ship's leaking, sails are on fire,
and this whole bloody ship could go up like a pyre.
We've got smiles on our faces, but we've seen this before

No telling just now what we have in store.

(Abney Park. "Æther Shanties." Æther Shanties. Abney Park, 2010)

15 October 2010 brought us The End of Days.  This is, of course, Abney Park's latest album.  The release party was held in an IRC channel and, I believe, hit about 140 people at one point.  Music was provided by Dementia Radio, who, amongst their usual selections, played songs from the new album.  The big hit seems to have been Victorian Vigilante as both times it played, the IRC server throttled back the channel (thinking it was a DOS attack ore something) and Dementia Radio's Shoutcast server choked, killing the song half way through (The Captain assures us this does not happen on the CD).

The time finally came; midnight.  The CD goes on sale!  All 130+ people in the channel, and presumably more, hit the Abney Park market to buy the CD.  First, a little background.  This was not just the CD being offered.  The first 200 were autographed and numbered!  This is all it took to create the Internet equivalent of The Who's 1979 Cincinnati, Ohio concert!  Within 5 minutes the site died.  There was nothing to do but wait.  And wait we did. 

Eventually, a new server was set up and, as it started building steam, fans were able to order the disks.  I think I was able to get mine just before 2:00am.  Was it worth it?  Oh, yeah.

And with everything we went through, if anyone starts a torrent of the album, they will be keelhauled!  THEN turned over to the Captain!  BUY IT!

Additional: I find it funny that, so far, most of the hits for this blog came from searches for  '"Abney Park" "The End of Days" torrent'.  If that is how you found this page CLICK HERE for the CD!

**Edit** Picture of Robert Brown added with permission.