I've been feeling good about Queen World and my own smaller Other
World over the last few weeks.

The BEST AIR GUITAR ALBUM IN THE WORLD EVER has been doing fabulously
well, as you've all probably seen - the TV ads, and Word of Mouth on
the streets about how great the Track Listing really is, seem to have
propelled the album to ever greater heights. In the first couple of
weeks we were selling four or five thousand and being pleased about
that - but now the thing is doing around 35 thousand weekly and
they're working hard to print it fast enough to keep up! I'm really
very proud of it - it was just a fun idea at the beginning, just a
pipe dream from Pete, Justin, and I… But after a lot of serious
work it really did materialise into the kind of Dream Guitar Album
that I always wanted to make - it's been warming my heart in my car
ever since… and to be able to get all that magnificent seminal
guitar music to the ears of young folks just starting out playing
guitar is a great feeling for me.
Big Thanks to all who helped us make it happen!!! - especially Steve
Pritchard at Virgin records UK.

The new edition of the BRIAN MAY GUITAR is also doing brilliantly
well so far. It's JUST out on sale - and so far every one that's
been made is already sold. For those who haven't come across it,
it's the new edition of replicas of my own Homemade guitar which my
Dad helped me to build 40 YEARS AGO! We designed the original all
from scratch, aiming to make a guitar which would feed back through
the air in the best way, making an instrument that would 'Sing' with
its sustain and tone. Somehow it worked, and the 'Red Special' has
been the instrument I have used for 99 per cent of every Queen
recording and live shows, as well as my own outings for "Back to the
Light" and "Another World".

Two previous editions of "Brian May Models" were made by Guild
guitars of the USA, all now unobtainable except at ludicrously
inflated prices second-hand. Burns of England have now made a new
model, in close consultation with me, with Pete Malandrone my Tech,
and with Greg Fryer (who made me 3 beautiful identical clones of the
guitar 5 years ago, christened Paul, John, and George) which is
excellently made and sounds almost indistinguishable from the
original Red Special. It's also much more affordable, at 500 quid or
so.

The new BURNS BM model was rave-reviewed in GUITARIST magazine a
couple of months ago and they have now named it their Guitar of the
Year! Thanks Guys!!! So I am well happy with this new venture - and
hope that the guitar will inspire many more young players to ROCK!!!

I've been very busy. Just got back from L.A. where I was helping to
put the finishing touches to the new 5.1 Surround mix of our 1975
album, "A Night at the Opera". It sounds COLOSSAL!!! To hear it you
will need a 5.1 system, and a dedicated DVD player which plays the
Sound DVD format. The surround sound is produced exactly as in the
new Cinema THX systems - two speakers in front, left and right, two
in the back, left and right, a "hard cetre" speaker in the middle in
front, and a Sub-Woofer some place, preferably under your seat! The
ANATO album is perfectly suitable for surround - since there was
always too much on our multitrack tapes to condense down to just
stereo! It's amazing now to hear all those vocal harmonies and
guitar orchestras zooming all around your head. The project was
piloted by hugely respected producer Elliot Steiner, and our own
original co-producer, Roy Thomas Baker. I went over to Capitol
Studios (under that building that looks like a stack of 45 records on
Vine Street in Hollywood) to meet them, since I was the only one who
could remember where all that bounced stuff was meant to go! It was
also a chance to be creative in the new medium, and I tried to do all
the stuff we WOULD have done at the time if we'd had the technology
at our disposal. It's VERY in