So yesterday was Chartbombing Day for The Lives of Dexter Peterson. If you’re reading this, I probably didn’t need to tell you because I emailed, Google Plussed, Facebooked, and tweeted about it a thousand times yesterday. Now the dust is settling from the virtual cash mob of yesterday and it’s time to see the results.

Traffic Jam Session

The first and most easily followed result was website traffic. Thanks to Google Analytics I was able to watch real-time numbers throughout the day. Sometimes I’d see a tweet or a G+ post and go check out the stats to watch the bump, but more frequently I’d see the traffic number suddenly spike and then go look for what caused it. Many, many thanks to FurAffinity for all the traffic they sent my way, you were easily the #1 driver for this event other than myself!

Overall, traffic to my website jumped (wait for it) 1,058% yesterday. Obviously the majority were fellow Amercians, but the UK and Canada nearly tied for second place with Germany and others close behind. I was a little surprised to see a nearly even split between Firefox and Chrome browsers cruising the site since, to my knowledge, people only use Chrome for Google+ Hangouts. Eight of you were still using IE 6 (seriously, wtf?)

But you don’t really care about traffic, you want to hear about charts.

Bombs Away Part I: iTunes

The most difficult chart to follow was the iTunes Music Store. Like all things Apple, they don’t announce how often they update their charts, how they calculate positions, where an album is likely to end up, or what it takes to get on the front page. We just sort of had to stumble across the results whenever we could. I don’t know if anyone else saw a higher peak than we did (please let me know!), but when we finally did see movement, The Lives of Dexter Peterson hit #85 on the iTunes Rock chart (by the time I took a screen-cap it was at 87). As of this morning, it’s sitting at #127, but damn… we broke the top 100!

To give some perspective, that #85 put me higher up than Elton John, the Foo Fighters, and The White Stripes. While I only take pleasure (no small amount) in besting the latter, that should clarify the kind of league I was playing in. This is why I was pushing so hard for support from the community- to quote Oliver Platt from The West Wing, “this isn’t Arena League, this is NFL football.” The fact that I’m even visible on the rock chart at all right now is a victory, but breaking the top 100 is a badge that the Robot Army should wear with pride.

Bombs Away Part II: Amazon

I’ll start with the good news: As of this morning, The Lives of Dexter Peterson is currently the #1 best seller in Amazon’s Adult Alternative category. Boom! That’s far more than I expected to happen with this little stunt. In fact, the album hit some incredible milestones yesterday, but what matters most are the lasting effects. Amazon’s charts are updated hourly, so any victories could be rolled back in less time than it takes to watch Serenity on Netflix.

The current standings for the album:

• #1 in Adult Alternative
• #6 in Miscellaneous (seriously, that’s a genre?)
• #44 in Alternative Rock (think Green Day or The Black Keys)
• #225 in all of Amazon MP3

Think about it for a second. I am nobody (just like my Manifesto says). I do not have a record label, management, a publicist, or major investors. All I have are people like you who are reading this long, boring wrap-up because you like my tunes. You’ve put my new album in the top ten of a couple genre charts, the top 50 of a particularly competitive genre chart, and the fact that I’m in triple-digit standing in all of Amazon’s music catalog at all is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

As for the single itself, “I Wish I Were”:

• #1 in Miscellaneous (there we go again…)
• #4 in Adult Alternative
• #38 in Alternative Rock
• #382 in all of Amazon MP3′s singles

One thing that the iTunes charts lack is a “Billboard Hot 100″ equivalent. Amazon, however, calls it their “Movers and Shakers” chart. Thanks to the efforts of a ton of people yesterday, the album is still #5 and the single is #2 on the Movers and Shakers chart. This one, by definition, is temporal, but if you want to measure a surge, this is the best place to look. Oh, if only I could conquer the music world at 18,827% growth for the rest of my career. Hell, for the rest of the week, even.

My Conclusion

I have no conclusion yet. After 24 hours, I’m humbled, stunned, and excited all at the same time, but God only knows what this surge will mean in the long run. I will certainly try this again the next time I release an album, but as one fan suggested on Twitter I will not do this for more than a day at a time. The amount of prep, coordination, and flat-out spamblasting involved just isn’t sustainable. People seemed excited enough about joining the effort for a day, but I’m pretty sure I’d lose a lot of friends if I did this all the time.

The one solid conclusion I can come to is really a confirmation of something I realized years ago: I have the best fans ever invented. Thank you.

(Oh, and if you’re still reading this, please do me a favor and leave a review on iTunes and Amazon if you liked what you heard. Thanks!)

In a nutshell, we’re trying to storm the iTunes and Amazon daily top-ten charts today. All it will take is a 99¢ commitment from you to make this happen! If we manage to push this song into either of the two charts, I’ll be sending out the exclusive Commentary Album to everyone who signed up at www.matthewebel.com/preorder. So what are you waiting for? LET’S BOMB THOSE CHARTS!
The Song: I Wish I Were

iTunes Instructions

1. Head to www.matthewebel.com/itunes
2. Purchase the single “I Wish I Were” for 99¢ – Even if you intend to buy the full album, just buy the single first!
3. If you signed up to buy the whole album, go back to www.matthewebel.com/itunes after downloading the single and take advantage of iTunes “Complete My Album” feature. The rest of the album will be discounted so you’re not buying the same track twice. This way “I Wish I Were” will still hit the single charts even if you’re buying the whole album.
4. Let me know via Twitter!
5. Tell your friends to join the effort!
   
6. If you’d like to gift an album or track to a friend, go back to step 1 and click the triangle next to the Buy links… you’ll see “Gift This Album” or “Gift This Song” as an option!

Amazon MP3 Instructions

Single Track Only:

1. Head to www.matthewebel.com/amazon
2. Purchase “I Wish I Were” for 99¢
3. Let me know via Twitter!
4. Tell your friends to join the effort!
   
5. If you’d like to gift an album or track to a friend, go back to step 1 and click “Give song as a gift”

Full Album Only:

1. Head to http://amzn.to/DexterPetersonMP3
2. Purchase The Lives of Dexter Peterson for $8.99;
3. Let me know via Twitter!
4. Tell your friends to join the effort!
   
5. If you’d like to gift an album or track to a friend, go back to step 1 and click “Give album OR song as a gift!”

The far-reaching effects of the Stop Online Piracy Act (house) and the Protect IP Act (senate) are being discussed throughout the internet right now- just as they should be. I wish every bill our leaders bring to the table fell under the same public scrutiny. I, however, don’t need to add to the discussion of global implications, I want to discuss just one. One implication has made me support SOPA: Grooveshark

You see, if SOPA passes, I want to own Grooveshark.com

It’s not about fairness or liberty or innovation, really. My support for SOPA comes strictly from the fact that it wouldn’t be difficult for me to own Grooveshark once these bills pass.

If you’re not familiar with Grooveshark, here’s their business plan in a nutshell:

1. Allow users to post and distribute MP3′s of any band they like
2. Whatever the users don’t post, Grooveshark will post for them
3. Ignore DMCA takedown requests, court orders, and lawsuits
4. Don’t pay any royalties to labels or indie musicians.

Don’t ask me how a site like this gained any legitimacy, but for some reason tons of people think Grooveshark actually supports the music it’s using to sell ads and subscriptions. There’s a reason they’ve been sued by every major label and why independents like Zoë Keating have had to issue DMCA takedown notices upwards of seven times. Just like the United States Congress, Grooveshark has become a respected batch of pirates that nobody seems to sense as a threat.

How SOPA Can Help

Under the terms of the SOPA bill (yes, I’ve read it, have you?), pretty much any site on the internet becomes a site that facilitates piracy. My dad’s blog about shit he finds on the beach in Washington? Total pirate haven. Forget YouTube, Wikipedia, and of course Grooveshark, any site with a comments section falls under this bill’s definition.

All I’d have to do is issue a notice to sites associated with Grooveshark under the new law. You read that correctly, I don’t even have to inform the site I’m attacking. At that point those sites have 5 days to stop servicing Grooveshark- Paypal, Google, whomever. If Grooveshark doesn’t somehow sense they’re being targeted via some disturbance in the force, they’ll probably keep violating copyrights and ripping off musicians as though nothing had happened.

At that point, I can literally own their domain name through a simple court procedure. I wouldn’t get their bank accounts or assets, but think about all the traffic I could funnel directly to my website through their more popular name. Hell, I could just point Grooveshark.com to my Pandora Radio station since Pandora actually pays royalties to guys like me.

If Grooveshark bothered to notice and tried to defend themselves, it’d be even better. Since every site- even mine -is now a Pirate Bay, they’d be perjuring themselves the second they tried to claim otherwise. That means jail time for their directors and executives, but SOPA adds a bonus: They would immediately be responsible for my legal fees. I could hire the ten best lawyers on the planet and let Grooveshark pick up the tab.

How You Can Help

You too can help me own Grooveshark.com – it will be a simple matter. Besides, if you don’t help me, I’ll just own your domain name instead. It will be far, far easier than you can imagine and you will have no legal recourse to fight these claims.

If you doubt any of this, I suggest you educate yourself on SOPA/PIPA right now… though I wouldn’t recommend it. Congress and their friends at the MPAA/RIAA are counting on you NOT knowing what the hell is going on in order to pass these bills.

So you’re better off joining my quest to own Grooveshark. Just tell your representatives how you feel about SOPA/PIPA and together we can make this happen!

General Ebel here, fresh off the plane from Fishcon 2011. I was recently interviewed by the Freelance 4 Real show and we talked about what it takes to survive as a small business- any small business -but particularly the über-competitive world of independent music. Co-hosts Justin Kownacki and Michael Sorg asked me about the delicate balance involved in asking YOU to spread the word about my music. It’s the difference between begging for attention and earning your assistance.

I don’t like begging, I don’t know anyone who does, but to be frank my very survival depends on your involvement. You’ve already heard the music and I’m glad you’re a fan, but I need you to go one step further than the ordinary masses out there. Chris Penn would talk about changes to Facebook and Google and how their systems now depend almost entirely on people sharing stuff with their friends, but I’ll put it in terms of the music industry:

• Blogs, Magazines, and Radio stations only want to run stories about bands that have a buzz going.
• Venues and booking agents only want to work with artists who inspire their fans to action.
• The #1 reason people buy new music is based on a recommendation from a friend, not from ads or promotions.
• I will only be able to tour to your town if we can generate enough buzz to get people’s attention.

Music, like any other small business, depends on people like you spreading the word around your town and your online community. Without your help, all I’m doing is begging for attention. It’s like two lovers having a fight: Music industry types aren’t going to hear me if I tell them I deserve a shot, but as soon as they hear the same message from one other trusted source they’ll take it seriously. It’s amazing what a little word of mouth can accomplish.

The Ask

Something we talked about during the interview was not being afraid to ask.  So what am I asking you to do? I need you to keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to spread the word. Here are a few examples:

• Whenever I post a video on my YouTube Channel – Don’t just “Like” it, share it via email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• When I post something to the blog, use the Share buttons at the bottom.
• If you hear of a local event or business that could use my music, throw it at them. If I knew anyone behind #OccupyWallStreet right now, I’d be sending them copies of It’s Raining Bankers and They Got The Money

In a nutshell, YOU are my record label. Every artist you like depends on you to help them grow and survive. If you truly want to see this lone goofball’s music rise and dominate the world (a modest goal), then I need YOU to share me with your friends. Anything I do that doesn’t flat-out offend you or injure your soul, please share it with others. I’m counting on you every day, so thank you for not letting me down.

I’m doing my best not to let you down, ever.

Every ten minutes another Indie Music website is born.

Okay, that statistic is a completely ad rectum statement, but sometimes it seems that way. I get emails from these budding young social networking sites weekly. Almost daily. Honestly, I’m not sure whom some of them are trying to kid; nobody wants to go to a website to listen to indie music.

Every one of these sites function the same: They expect musicians to upload their music, bio, photos, tour dates, and videos, a process which can take upwards of an hour for some of us with extensive catalogs. The sites don’t really do any outreach of their own to connect these musicians with new fans, relying instead on the musicians to bring their own audience to the site. Why the hell would I funnel my fans into someone else’s website just so they can reap the rewards of ugly banner ads and pre-roll commercials?

I have yet to see a site whose events calendar can interface with… well, any other calendar known to mankind. This is why ArtistData exists, the only good service Sonicbids offers (and they didn’t create it). And let’s not even talk about hidden, indecipherable, dubious clauses in these sites’ twenty-page Terms of Service. Who owns the rights to what? Perpetual license? Are you selling my music to MTV reality shows and pocketing the money, or just making sure I don’t sue you for carrying music that I uploaded in the first place?

Occasionally there are real innovators. Turntable.fm lets users play DJ with other users. Pandora developed an alarmingly accurate recommendation engine (robot voodoo, I say). Noisetrade.com gives you a handy widget to trade free tunes for email addresses and even some Paypal tips. New music social networks aren’t always bad, but for some reason the good ones are few and far between.

General Ebel’s Advice

My advice to musicians: There are only two things you should focus on when looking at social networking sites. The first question is obvious: is anyone here but other musicians? Normal people and potential fans are on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. Why waste time on some unknown site that’s only full of other indie artists trying to pimp their latest hip-hop remix tribute mashup album?

The second question is harder to answer but is still important: Does this site do something that I absolutely, positively need to be a part of? If it’s not so cool that your fans will jump out of their chairs in excitement, maybe your time is better spent reaching out to new people on the big sites. Scratch that… how about playing an online concert or releasing a new track to the fans you already have? Tell them to share it, let them do the social networking.

My advice to anyone who wants to start up a new music site: If you don’t already have a significant population of non-musician users, you’d better provide some kind of service that musicians actually need. If you expect musicians to drive their fan base to your site (and your site ads) without offering anything they can’t already get from Facebook, Twitter, or their own website, you’re just wasting your time. Worse yet, you’re wasting my time.

This is another post about Spotify, believe it or not, and why James Bond has made me afraid to use it.

As we all know, the famous British secret agent is a crafty one. He’s entertaining to watch, worth every penny I’ve paid to Netflix to see him. In fact, the entire James Bond catalogue appearing on Netflix Instant Watch is what prompted me to sign up for the service in the first place. (If it hadn’t, the entire Star Trek TNG series would have.) So now I get to watch Mr. Bond do battle with evil masterminds, Grace Jones, and the governor from those pirate movies, all while skillfully avoiding death, imprisonment, and chlamydia. I’ll be entertained for months.

Except I won’t. Secret agents are trained to disappear, remember? The rights holder for the James Bond franchise pulled the entire library out of Netflix Instant Watch shortly after I signed up. As a token of their remorse for my disappointment, they promptly raised their prices to make up for it. But I’ve still got my Star Trek, right? Right? Well, as of this posting I still do, anyway.

Compound Mr. Bond’s untimely disappearance with the concerns raised by James Allworth of the Harvard Business Review. The main concern I share with Mr. Allworth is one of habits: We don’t tend to watch the same movie over and over again (unless we’re really, really high), but we will listen to the same album repeatedly. What happens if the cost to keep listening suddenly jumps? Or what if that album disappears entirely?

Maybe 007 stole it for his Lotus in-car turntable. He’s probably got one, you know.

Either way, the conclusion I’m rapidly approaching is that Spotify, like Pandora, is best used as a way to discover new music, that’s all. And again, Pandora is a much better system for discovery since you really don’t have to do any work to be exposed to new music you’re likely to enjoy. The robots pick the playlist and there’s no illusion of “owning” or even renting the music; it’s just like radio with no DJ and your own personal program director.

So I’ll be here with no James Bond. At least, not until I can afford the full DVD collection or whomever’s pulling the strings decides to let me enjoy what I paid for. Again.

At long last, Spotify has launched here in the United States! My initial instinct is that it’s a technological one-two punch: Discover an artist on Pandora Radio, go listen to the full album on Spotify. Let’s see what happens every time you listen to a track on Spotify…

If 10,000 people buy a track from iTunes, I can pay off my credit cards and keep making music. If 10,000 people listen to a track on Spotify, I earn $13 and change; I can almost buy dinner at Chili’s.

Shit. Please, folks, buy an album if you like what you hear.

This is a reblog-with-permission from fellow musician Rob Michael of the Atmos Trio. I thought it was perfectly in line with my previous post about other people lowering your expectations for you.

I’ve had people say to me, on a few occasions, “You play so great, why aren’t you Famous?” or “I’ve never heard of you, sorry the music thing didn’t work out.”

Since I was very young, my goal in life has been to make a comfortable living doing what I enjoy doing. I was never driven by Visions of Grandeur or being a Big Star. I just wanted to be a great musician and have the ability to support my family while doing that.

I have enjoyed the privilege of doing exactly that. In my view, things have worked-out exactly as planned-beyond my dreams really… I thank the Universe every single day and shake my head realizing that I’m actually pulling this whole thing off.

Whenever someone says “I’ve never heard of you.” I smile and say “That’s OK, I’ve never heard of you either.”

I’m starting to wonder if people actually listen to themselves as they speak. Watching Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin is enough proof to the contrary, but in this case I’m referring to ordinary people, far far from the political spotlight. They’re aunts, parents, friends, even teachers who should know better. They all say the same thing, totally oblivious to how defeating a simple question can be.

All you English, Philosophy, Music, Art, or Theater majors can say it with me. On three, ready? One… Two…

So you’re getting a Music degree, eh? You going to be a music teacher?

I thank God that I never grew so frustrated with that question as to shout back, “no, I’m actually learning this shit because I intend to use it.” It seems unfathomable to most people that a degree in anything but Engineering, Business, Law, or Medicine could ever be used for a wage-earning skill other than teaching that skill to others. I didn’t take more than two decades of piano lessons just so I could be another part-time piano teacher.

The irony is that, when I was in college in the late 90′s, nobody asked all my Computer Science friends if they planned to teach Computer Science. It was assumed that they’d step off the commencement stage directly into the limo that would whisk them to their cushy Silicon Valley job. Maybe if someone asked them The Stupid Question a few of them might’ve pondered alternate career tracks. You know, just in case their entire industry was propped up on an ever-weakening economic bubble.

Do people ask Education majors if they plan to teach other aspiring teachers about how to teach? That concept just seems too recursive for me to focus on right now, so forget I even mentioned it.

My problem isn’t with the act of teaching; I have great respect for those with the patience and knowledge to make someone else smarter. Teaching anything requires a skill set I simply don’t possess and the great teachers wield it with all the skill of Stevie Ray Vaughan on a guitar. No, my frustration lies with the question itself. Roughly translated, it reads something like this:

So you’re getting an English degree, eh? You know you’ll never actually earn a living as a writer, so what’re you going to do to pay the bills? You going to be an English teacher?

There are a very small number of people who will become “famous” thanks to their artistic endeavors, but everyone has to earn a living. Those aspiring programmers I knew ended up in jobs ranging from network admins to gas station attendants. All of us have one simple task before us: Create something of value and earn compensation for it. Artists, for the most part, are entrepreneurs by definition. Everyone else can work for an established company and climb a ladder or start their own law firm or software company if they’re brave enough. The fact that no readily available corporate structure exists for artists (there is no mail room or reception desk for Philosophy majors) doesn’t mean they won’t earn a living from their art.

Don’t torpedo someone’s aspirations simply because you’re too narrow-minded to see their path to success.

If you find yourself confronted with a young artist and feel the urge to ask The Stupid Question, ask yourself a couple of questions first:

1. Are they getting an Education minor? If so, go ahead and ask, it’s no longer a stupid question.
2. What do I do for a living? How would I feel if people assumed the only way I’d be able to use my education was to teach it to others?
3. If everyone who got one of these degrees just taught English or Philosophy or whatever, who the hell is writing the books that I read? Who’s making the music I listen to?
4. Do I want a piano shoved up my ass? (This one’s really just something I wished people would’ve asked themselves before asking me this question in college.)

I’ve discovered that there are two factors that motivate The Powers That Be (otherwise known as the Us from my Manifesto): Eyeballs and Influence. You, my awesome fans, matter only insomuch as either how many of you are out there or how much you’ll do when I ask you. You’re either a valuable demographic or an eager volunteer.

If you want me to become famous and tour the planet, you need to help me prove myself to the Big Industry Players. At least, that’s the way they want it to work. If you ever want to see me on a big stage with sparklers and moving lights, I have to show The Powers That Be that I can mobilize you like… well, like a Robot Army.

Would you do that for me? If I asked you not just to share my music but to get five or ten of your friends to join my mailing list, would you make it your mission? If I book a show 50 miles from your house, would you pack the car with friends and road-trip out to the concert? Those are the kinds of things The Powers That Be want to see; I must be able to command you like the President deploying the 101st.

Fuck that.

Again, as I said in my Manifesto, you are not just a listener drone. I don’t empower you, You empower me. I am neither your commander-in-chief nor your boss nor your mom. All I’ve done to deserve your support is show You support when you use your voice.

Do I need more fans? Of course I do. Would “being noticed” by the Big Industry Players help me get on stage in your town? Very likely. I won’t pretend that an active crowd of Matthew Ebel fans wouldn’t propel me into a new echelon of rock stardom. I’m just not going to pretend I’m your leader, even if I call myself General Ebel from time to time.

If you need a mission, there are always a few over at www.matthewebel.com/help. But I’m proud to say that my fans are not mindless followers. You are creative, you are proactive, and you mobilize me.

All I ask is that you influence others as much as you’ve influenced this lone piano-rocker.