I am not a revolutionary. I am only a Voice, just like you.

I did not begin as a Voice, I began as a listener. Like many music fans I spent my childhood plugged into radios, tapes, even an old 8-track. I listened to the music that was given to me by those who controlled me: Parents, teachers, preachers, radio stations, and record labels. Back then I thought I had no choice.

I became a pianist because, even at age five, I wanted to become more than just a listener. For twenty years, however, I learned to listen and repeat. Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninov- they were all Voices, not listeners. I learned to mimic them for two decades or more, learning how to be a better Voice, if I ever became one.

Meanwhile those with power used their Voices every day. The message remained consistent: Practice well and someday one of Us will let you be a Voice. One of Us will anoint you and make you famous. Us chooses who climbs the charts because we make both the Voices and the charts they climb. You can become one of those Voices eventually, but first you must please Us.

I’ve never been good at pleasing Us.

I listened as best I could to my teachers and professors, earning a degree that made me a Better Musician™. Still, I was not a Voice. I worked for a record label that made the music I listened to, but still I was not a Voice. I played with some of those who had been anointed by the record labels in venues anointed by the Us of the media. Still, I was not a voice. I thought I’d done everything I was supposed to, just as Us had been telling me since I was five.

Then, in 2005, I met You.

You, like me, were taught that you were not a Voice unless Us decided you were. You listened and listened until finally You grew tired of the Voices that Us fed you. Like me, You saw technology as a way to reach more of You. Like me, You no longer wanted to wait for Us to make you happy. You learned that You were everywhere.

I did not find You, You found me. You anointed me because You made yourself into a Voice. You created podcasts and internet radio shows, You invited me to become a Voice along with You. You lived in virtual worlds when the world of Us did not suit you. Us taught me to understand and mimic the Voices, but You finally made me one.

Now Us is not pleased. Fewer of You listen to their Voices, but still Us fights to maintain control of You. Us will tell you that the Voices you choose- even your own -are the “Cult of the Amateur“. Us will tell you that only through their Voices will anyone else listen. A band is “just an indie” until Us makes them “legit” or “famous“. A show is “just a podcast” until Us broadcasts it with an hour of advertisements to weigh it down. An idea is “just a blog post” until Us prints it on dead trees.

Us wants you to listen quietly, but no one can stop a Voice. Us needs You.

We cannot destroy Us- we must not. Us is our past and our foundation. Like King David, Us is an example of both good and evil. We must learn from Us even as we free ourselves from its control. We do not fight to silence any Voice, we create them. We transform listeners into new Voices even as we teach old Voices how to listen.

Us taught me to listen, You made me a Voice. We must not stop fighting until all become listeners and Voices.

Now that the big conventions are all out of the way for a couple of months, I’m really trying to focus on the world(s) of Dexter Peterson. One of the things I love the most about writing is the experience of jumping into another person’s life for a while. It’s the cheapest vacation you’ll ever experience, trust me.

Right now I’m trying to become the Dexter Peterson that almost had his head blown off in France. I’m not a military guy, even though everyone in my family has enlisted in some form or another. One of my best friends from high school is still flying C-130′s over the desert and a local friend has been to Iraq a couple of times so far.

Yet here I am, a lifelong musician trying to write 20 pages about life in World War II. Given the nature of the story, it actually makes a bit of sense. Dexter gets no training and no shakedown before jumping into the next life, so he’s as clueless as I am. Every so often- while making a cup of coffee or taking out the trash or something -I’ll stop and think to myself, “what would happen if I turned around and suddenly found myself in a machine gun battle?”

I wonder if regular musicians writing love songs ever have to do this kind of abstract thinking. Shit, how many alt rock albums actually require library research and references?

In the back of my mind I can see crowded theaters and conventions where people waited in line in the cold to see me in concert… Yet I know that I won’t get to that point until I can place myself behind a filthy hedge row somewhere in France, ducking bullets and running like mad for a farm house a few miles away. If you need me, hit me on the radio and make it snappy- I may need to blow something up relatively soon.

You can get your face and likeness in my upcoming graphic novel project, The Lives of Dexter Peterson.

Genesis Whitmore

Any VIP or higher members of Matthew Ebel dot net can send me a photo and she’ll work them into the book… somewhere.

Think about it… You’ll be forever immortalized in the tale of a man surrounded by faces- always changing, temporary, and impersonal until he finally sees that one face that doesn’t change. With over eleven thousand groups of friends, enemies, lovers, colleagues, and family, there’s no telling who he’ll meet next. Or who YOU will be in that crowd. The only constant is the mysterious girl who never changes.

Are you not a VIP yet? Sign up at www.matthewebel.net today and put your face in this project!

If there’s one thing I learned from my former years playing in houses of worship, it’s that the Sunday morning experience is designed for maximum effectiveness. Granted, some churches are more finely tuned than others, but the principles of your average worship service should apply to every single concert you play.

• Start with an engaged crowd. Even if it’s just the first row or two, a well-timed “Hallelujah!” now and again will get the cold crowd to warm up a little.
• Appeal to all five senses. Studies have shown that we remember events better if all of our senses are engaged. The Church, in its various forms throughout the millennia, has evolved to adopt this level of impact.
  1. Sight: Robes, banners, crosses, flowers, statues, you name it. Stained-glass windows and flying buttresses were designed specifically to catch your eye.
  2. Sound: Obviously, a church service involves talking and music. If your shows don’t have either, you’re reading the wrong article.
  3. Touch: At some point in most services there’s a moment to shake the hands of people around you. Perhaps there’s a laying on of hands while a blessing is read. In a world where we’re naturally suspicious of everyone else, a gentle touch from someone with a good message can leave a lasting impression.
  4. Smell: Roman Catholics nailed this one by swinging balls of incense. Mine would hang evergreen boughs in the sanctuary during Christmastime. Maybe your church bakes fresh bread for communion. Maybe it’s just the smell of coffee before and after the service… One way or another, your nose is being spoken to.
  5. Taste: In my religion, this one dates back to the guy that started it. The tradition of a little wine and bread was coupled with a very specific statement: “Do this for the remembrance of me.” Not bad advice.
• Audience Participation! This one deserves its own exclamation point. The reformation introduced many concepts into the Christian church, one of which was the involvement of laypeople in the worship service. People are more likely to pay attention if they’re a part of the experience.
• Speak their language. Again, another gift from the Reformation. If the people speak German, why are the services in Latin? Sure, you can prepare your talking points before a show, but pay attention to your audience and converse with them on a level that they will understand.
• Give them a mission. If you’ve reached someone, they won’t want the experience to end. Give them something they can do after the concert is over- even if it’s as simple as “give this download card to a friend who’s never heard of us”.

I’m not suggesting for one second that you train your fans to worship you… but you can certainly harness the power of thousands of years of effective organization to spread the word about your band.

What makes a musician think he can become a comic book writer? Music is all I’ve done since I started playing piano at age five. I’ve toured as a professional since 1999, got my degree in Music, and I’ve been making my living entirely from my music for a few years now.

So what the hell am I doing attempting to release a graphic novel? I’ve never done anything like this before. I do not run in comic book circles, I’ve never been to a comic book convention, and one look at me will tell anyone “this is not a comic book person.” I feel like an interloper heading to foreign territory. Why am I going there?

The simple answer is that I’ve never been there. The smart business move is to play to your strengths, but creativity is a collapsing bubble. If we don’t work to expand our reach, our abilities will stagnate, shrink, and eventually just fall apart. I’ve had stories and characters in my head for years (some of whom I talk to when no one else is looking), I finally felt compelled to bring them to life.

Kinda hard to do with just music, right?

I’ll be honest, though, I’m a little nervous about this whole process. I’ve never published a book before, but that’s going to be part of the project. I’ve also never worked with a real collaborator before either. Session musicians, voice actors, sure, but those are volunteers and contract help. Without them, I could find a way to make a project work if I had to.

This time, The Lives of Dexter Peterson simply cannot happen without Genesis Whitmore. I’ve never relied on a creative partner before, but I know she’s as into this project as I am. We’ve bounced ideas off of each other and made Dexter’s world(s) larger.

I think we’ll pull off something wonderful by next year, but it’s an area I’ve never played in before. I’m diving in head first and hoping for the best. Who knows? Maybe by the end of this experience I’ll be a comic book writer instead of just a musician.

There are days when I lament the inaccessibility of major publications to one-man operations like myself. I, like a lot of people, still assume that big print magazines are “taste-makers” that people actually read before buying CD’s. Reviewers, after all, are people that matter. Getting a blurb from something like Billboard or Rolling Stone makes for great press kit fodder, but does anyone else really care? In fact, would the person writing the quote even care? Would a quote from these people make my music any better or worse?

Then there are days like today when I get quotes from people that actually matter. They’re from people that don’t write for major publications or run radio stations. Quotes like these remind me why I do what I do:

I just wanted to thank you for the song I Will Wait for You. last FWA I nearly made a terrible decision to end a relationship with a girl that I really care about over stupid reasons that weren’t my own… We went to your show that night, having missed half of it due to our discussion about breaking up, which ended with both of us in tears.

That night you played a few songs I’ve already sent a note of thanks about, but I Will Wait for You was the one that mended everything that had been said and done that night. To this day whenever we hear it we always tend to get a little choked up.

…We just recently celebrated one year of being together, and I just keep thinking about what I would have missed out on had that night at FWA not gone the way it did.

I wouldn’t mind being photographed for the cover of Keyboard, but messages like these mean a whole lot more to me than any industry mags.

Image by Imagaday

When I announced on August 1 that my next project would be The Lives of Dexter Peterson, all I was thinking about was the story. I suppose that’s a good thing- thinking about the world of the creation rather than the logistics behind it. We didn’t get to the moon by planning on orbit, rendezvous, docking, and long-term health effects, we got there by pointing up into space and saying “let’s go there.”

But now I’m into that part of the project. There’s a reason they say the devil’s in the details. If creativity is heaven, project planning is the fifth level of hell. This is becoming the biggest project I’ve ever undertaken, way more complicated than Goodbye Planet Earth. When all the dust has settled, I need to end up with:

• A full-length story about The Lives of Dexter Peterson
• A music album based on that story
• A graphic novel based on that story
• Either an audiobook or a radio drama rendition of the story

Suddenly I’m not working on one project, I’m working on four. Gen Whitmore is handling the graphic side of things and my friend Calindy is trying to book convention shows so I’m not doing everything myself, but I’m doing pretty much everything else. Those four projects alone are ambitious enough for the one year deadline I’ve set, but there are always more details. Albums don’t sell themselves, even if you’re U2. On top of creating four finished works by next August, I have to manage all the support projects involved:

• Re-design www.matthewebel.com to better represent what I’m trying to do now
• Figure out where I can get a graphic novel printed in short runs
• Promote the project online. Somehow.
• Spread the word about the nature of the project itself
• Book some concerts so I don’t starve to death

If ever there was a time I needed a management team, it’s now. I pulled off the last major album by myself, but I don’t know how I’m going to create all this stuff, promote it properly, and still perform on stage without more help. The DIY mentality has sex appeal, sure, but there are just some projects that take a real team.

Right now we’re a team of 3. Hopefully that will grow soon!

Of all the things a little coffee shop could do to differentiate itself from Dunkin McStarbucks, small-business thinking seems to have won out.

Damn near 100% of my lyric writing is done in what I call my “field offices”, known to most as beaneries and coffee bars within 2 miles of my house. Since I’ve moved to a new home in Nashua, NH, I’ve been on the hunt for a new field office- some local establishment with a vibe conducive to making long strings of rhyming words. Finding one, for me, is a lot like finding a church; you have to experience the place and simply sense whether or not it’s right.

Photo by eyeliam

Last week I met with a drummer and a local friend at the Cakery and, late in the day, I wanted a pastry. That damned chocolate scone had been singing to me for about 3 hours and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Sadly, the place had already closed down their Visa machine and I, as always, carry no cash.

“Oh, just take it,” was the response. Not even an expectation of payment next time or any kind of prior arrangement. I was not a regular- like I said, this was only the second time I’d been in that joint. Somewhere there is a sales manager at Dunkin McStarbucks shouting “you idiot, you don’t give stuff away for free!”

I don’t know where that somewhere is, but at least in Nashua, NH, the price of one chocolate scone has made me a customer for life. That’s the kind of vibe that facilitates writing.

Oh, and believe me, I will be paying for the scone next time I’m there writing lyrics.