A Cautionary Tail – Live at FC 2012
Video from Eliaphir, shot during our recent Further Confusion concert in San Jose.
Video from Eliaphir, shot during our recent Further Confusion concert in San Jose.
I Know You’re There – Live at FC 2012

Photo by foxgrrl via Flickr
This month I played what I believe is only my third west-coast concert after leaving the Christian Music scene… The folks at Further Confusion not only invited me to play their awesome convention, they made me one of this year’s Guests of Honor. How cool is that? It was a truly rad experience, despite the usual first-year-in-a-new-hotel troubles. The people out in San Jose welcomed us with open arms, paws, wings, whatever.
If you want to hear the entire concert recording, of course, you’ll need to head to Matthew Ebel dot net and log in. Members will be able to download the recording for a couple of months, so grab it now before it disappears into the Archive.

I have the best fans EVER.
Music piracy, as we all know, is the sole reason for the downfall of the Big Label Music Industry™, right? Those damn kids with the BitTorrents and the WiFi’s, P2Peeing all over my lawn like they own the place. They don’t value music at all anymore, so musicians will have to earn their living selling shirts or with a side job. Right?
Bullshit.
My industry, like many right now, suffers from one major source of adversity: De-humanization. For twenty to forty years “stars” had been bred as an image of an elite icon, something above the rest of us. Rock stars are whisked away after the gig into a locked bunker where only the VIP’s are let in. Rap stars drive Bentleys made of solid gold, at least according to all of their videos. Country stars are driven to the Nipper’s Corner Starbucks in a Hummer limousine, yet are expected to sing the ballad of the blue-collar working man.
When the peak of “legitimacy” in your industry is to become an icon so far removed from reality, you rob the entire process of its humanity.
It’s something like the tale of Icarus from Greek mythology. The larger-than-life images are like wax wings, taking the industry higher as the fantasy appeals to the buying public. Soon thereafter, the perception of music itself changes: Regular human beings don’t make this stuff, rock stars do. There’s no emotional or personal connection with the human being that made that album on that torrent site, so it’s much easier to download it without feeling guilty. The human being simply isn’t perceived as a part of the process anymore.
The wax wings just took the industry so high that they melted under the heat of reality.
At the heart of all creations- music, textiles, cars, websites -there is a human being burning calories and sweating to make it happen. There always has been. We don’t value music or toasters or plumbing nearly as much as we value each other. This new world of new media has made it so much easier for fans to connect with the artists they love. Maybe we can still be larger than life, just not so far above it that our own hubris brings us down again.
The only thing that will save the music industry- and any industry, to be honest -is a focus on re-humanization. Less of the factory-farmed processes and more of a real, personal “I made this” approach. Everyone loves a fantasy, but as any geek living in their mother’s basement can attest, eventually you must connect with other human beings as a human being.
People, at least in this life, are more valuable than anything else.
More concert footage from Atlanta earlier this year, one of my personal favorites to play. This one was actually written for an Atlanta-area fan who was part of my first Entourage. Matthew Ebel dot net All-Access and higher members can actually download the full-quality versions as they come out.
The audio was graciously engineered by Keith Lesinski (same guy that made us sound awesome at the live event), the video was shot and edited by Aaron Zschau.
I got a request for advice from fellow musician Dan Russo and asked if I could post the exchange here. Hopefully this will help some of my other musician friends who follow my blog…
…I have always been super-impressed with your musical skills but I’m more impressed with your focus and determination and, I dare say, manipulation of the interwebs to your whim. I was wondering if you had any suggestions, insights, or advice. Does playing more matter? Does reaching out more matter? Which of your many outreaches works the best?
Honestly, nothing has mattered more to me than cultivating a relationship with my fans. I can do what I do primarily because my fans go above and beyond the call of duty.
This means a few practical things:
As for advice about playing more… yeah, I don’t know about that. I finally got an agent last week and I’m going to see how much an increased tour calendar helps. Hopefully that answers your question a bit!
I’m not sure what year it was, but everybody was young. The crowd was… well, let’s say the crowd was just one person. Me. I was front and center with a bag of popcorn, close enough to the footlights to feel the heat. The concert that changed my life was about to begin and all I knew was that I wanted to hear some music. House lights down, the curtain parted, somewhere in the building an idiot complained about the wrong-sized bread.
The opening acts were a classic rock revue- not the shit that classic rock stations play now. Van Halen is not classic rock; Eddie learned his moves from these guys. Steppenwolf, The Who, and The Guess Who played back-to-back short sets, reminding all that you can still rock without auto-tune or makeup. I was in high school, but these guys wrote these songs decades earlier. Once the drums had exploded, the roadies dragged them offstage and brought out the evening’s first headlining act.
Like a curveball nailing a batter smack in the ear, the concert shifted to Contemporary Christian music. I shit you not, Jars of Clay started off with that one song that got played everywhere. At this point I was in college and the popcorn was already half empty. Dan said thank you and made his exit, just as the man himself walked on with a guitar. He was three feet tall and smiling like some kind of weird celtic punk-folk pixie. The rest of the band took their places and Caedmon’s Call started their set.
They didn’t just play a few songs, they performed a strange drama right in front of me. The beginning of the set did something Christian music’s not supposed to do: it made me think. And it made me dance (I must have looked weird, all alone in that front row). The band realized their mistake, I guess, and started playing the typical praise-and-worship crap. Only the diminutive one seemed as disappointed as I by the change in mood. By the end of their set, the house was silent and unmoving. The band quietly disassembled their gear and walked off stage right, but Derek Webb exited alone, stage left. He’d be back later.
For a long time there was nothing. It was as though the stage manager realized they’d booked the wrong lineup and was scrambling to put together another show right then and there. When finally the stage lights went up again there was a tall skinny guy like me standing at the mic. Train played three whole albums worth of material while I watched. I didn’t mind, I was out of college and hated my job; I had nothing better to do. With Pat’s voice still ringing out in the theater, they performed a no-huddle play and switched to Jason Mraz. I got out a notepad so I could keep on top of the linguistic swordplay.
Read More…
After a long, long wait (have I ever released one of these on time?) I’ve finally managed to kick Songs from the Vault, vol. 3 out the door. It really wanted to just stay and continue sleeping on my couch, eating my food, and playing Ratchet and Clank into the wee hours of the morning, but I felt it was time for it to start earning its keep.
Every track has been remixed and remastered. I’ve learned a lot about engineering since the last release, this one represents my best efforts to date! Also, thanks to Bandcamp, I’m now able to offer fully uncompressed audio to anyone who wants it! The physical CD isn’t ready for purchase just yet, but you can get the digital version with complete album artwork today.
Download your copy now at matthewebel.bandcamp.com
My Matthew Ebel dot net members can download this album at half price from Bandcamp. Merry Christmas! If you want the coupon code, just log in and read the post over at Matthew Ebel dot net
Once the physical CD’s are ready, you’ll get your framed, signed copies as soon as I can go get frames for them! In the mean time, you should be able to download the MP3 version in the Album Archive
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.
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.
That’s me, Amanda Palmer, Jeff Pulver, Andy Dixon, and Keith Spiro doing an impromptu version of Sesame Street at the 140 Characters Conference.