ENN October 27, 2009 (Download MP3)

Long story short this week: Got 3 recordings to release, one of which is a full concert recording. No time to do anything else, more news next week!

Ugh… the plague… it has found me again. I gotta stop going to conventions and actually touching my fans and friends. What the hell am I thinking? Since I want to rest up and kill this little thing inside me, I won’t be on camera tonight. Sorry! I’ll see you next Tuesday…

I just got back from one crazy weekend. I’m sick, I have a lot of work to do, but man was it an absolute blast. Unfortunately, the hotel we stayed in did everything in their power (and in some cases against the law) to make our stay an unpleasant one. This is not the sort of thing a local hotel can get away with in the age of the internet.

If you attended Furfright 2009 and wish to send some feedback about the Holiday Inn in Waterbury, CT, here are a few resources:

hi-guestrelations@ichotelsgroup.com

This is the email address for customer relations with Holiday Inn corporate. Be sure to mention if you were a paying hotel guest.

lward@waterburychamber.com

Email for Lynn G. Ward, President and CEO of the Waterbury Chamber of Commerce. Be sure to tell her what local business you visited in addition to the hotel.

http://ct.bbb.org/File-Complaint/

File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and be sure to mention if you were a paying guest of the hotel.

tips@consumerist.com

The Consumer Reports website that will quite frequently bring local horror stories to national attention.

Update: Your General Manager for the weekend: Chris Costabile

Be sure to mention any problems you had, such as:

• Registered hotel guests being barred from the atrium at night, even with no noise complaints
• Illegal lights-out in the atrium at midnight (against CT fire code)
• Hotel management falsely claiming that these policies were at the convention staff’s request
• Inconsistent barring of late checkout for no apparent reason (there were not scheduled events at the hotel that day)
• No a/c in convention space even after repeated requests for adjustment
• Of course, any other problems that may have arisen during your particular stay.

I spoke with a local business about the kind of boost this convention is for the local economy. I was told very clearly that nothing- NOTHING brings a crowd to Waterbury like the annual Furfright convention. Hence why many of us are so puzzled as to why the Holiday Inn would allow not just bad service but illegal violations of fire code simply to try and break their contract.

Who knows? And frankly, who cares? All we can do is send feedback. I had a great time and I’ll be posting pictures later today.

ENN October 12, 2009 (Download MP3)

• Heading to Atlanta for a house concert on October 24… get your tickets at http://lucey09.eventbrite.com
• Facebook continues to suck. If you aren’t able to find my Facebook page, don’t worry- neither can I. A lot of Facebook users have seen their profiles and pages just disappear for over a week now. I’m not out of business, I’m not leaving Facebook, I just wish they’d get their shit together.
• A lot of you who responded to my survey mentioned you’d be okay with receiving text message updates before a show. Right now I’m looking for a service that will do a mass text message for free (or for really, really cheap). The service also must let my fans opt-out on their own at any time. If you know of any, please drop me a comment here!

A lot of you caught last night’s UStream Concert and have been Twittering me all morning now. Welcome to my corner of the internets! If you’re not really familiar with who I am or what I do, here are some great places to start:

• Listen to some of my music here.
• Buy a CD, MP3, or Subscription here.
• Watch some of my videos here.
• Catch my weekly UStream concert recordings here.

Other than that, just take a look around and tell me what you think. Thanks!

So a few of you have emailed me with some concerns over a survey email you received recently. First of all, thanks to those of you who filled the thing out… you’re helping me figure out how to better connect with you! Here’s the deal…

• The guy that sent the email is John Wall from Marketing Over Coffee, a show I listen to weekly (and I’ve been on it too). John’s been donating some of his weekly hours over the past few months to help me handle some of the business stuff. I really can’t thank him enough for handling some of the uglier sides of being an entrepreneur. I can send emails and look at web site stats until I go cross-eyed, but he can tell me what the results actually mean.
• If the previous bullet point didn’t make it obvious, yes the survey was indeed legitimate. In fact, it’s necessary at this point. I don’t know how much people actually know about my weekly UStream shows or Matthew Ebel dot net. We figured a quick survey would be a good way to find out.
• If the early results are any indication, you folks are okay with getting updates via text message as well as email. This is cool! Now I just need to find a way to make that happen once I’m touring again.

So thanks to all of you who filled out the survey. I’m pretty sure all emails in the future will actually come from a matthewebel.com email address, so sorry if there was some confusion there. In any case, your communication keeps me pointed in the right direction and I really appreciate it!

ENN October 05, 2009 (Download MP3)

• Podcamp Philly 3 was a blast, bigger than ever, and educational. Now let’s see if it helped anyone else out there.
• Much discussion about Matthew Ebel dot net took place over the past month. Today I must decide how the system is going to change, hopefully all the advice and feedback will work for the better.
• Yes, I am now a ham nerd. My current call sign is KB1SZT, but I have an application in to change that. I’ll let you know when it’s permanent!