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.
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If you didn’t catch my other two posts about what happened this week, I was called in at the last minute to make good use of my UStream capabilities for the Dresden Dolls shows in Boston. I had planned on doing a lot of writing and live performance prep this week, but this two-day request would pretty much axe all that. They were only planning on covering food and parking, not two full days worth of my usual session player rate. So why the heck should I volunteer my time and talent for someone who’s already got a manager, an agent, and an army of people helping her?

What makes me drop everything for someone else’s project?

On one level it’s a matter of karma. Whether or not Amanda and her team ever plan to drop everything and help me out, I try not to pass up opportunities to do for others what I want done for me. It’s one part personal belief, one part gamble. I believe the chance of return from good karma is a hell of a lot higher than winning the lottery or getting “discovered” at an open mic.

Most importantly though: I don’t believe it’s coincidence when someone you know has a pressing need that you’re the perfect guy to fill. I’ve been in the right place at the right time with the right people far too often to believe it’s all chance. Granted, I still wish my career would move a lot faster than it is, but I think I’m moving at a pace that’s being intentionally directed. Maybe it’s to retain my humility for a longer, happier career. If I turned into a superstar overnight I probably wouldn’t respect my fans and supporters as much, I don’t know.

All I do know is that if you’re doing something I believe in, you need help, and I’m the right guy for the job, I will drop everything for you.

So here are the questions for you folks reading this: What do you drop everything for? What are you doing for those people who drop everything for you?

So seeing the Dresden Dolls last night made me a little uncomfortable. I admit it. I’m no better than Pat Monahan… I get very jealous when I see others doing the things I wish I could do. I’ve been dreaming of playing sold-out shows at big theaters since I was 12.

Why should I get jealous when I see a good show? I know those two have worked their asses off to get to the stage they’re at, nobody just handed them enough fans to fill the Wilbur Theater. They earned them. Still, here I am: Working my ass off trying to put on the best show I possibly can. I can’t afford to hire the kind of crew that Train or Amanda Palmer have working with them, I’m doing most of this myself. And yet I haven’t quite reached that goal of playing the big rooms with my name on the marquee.

The Dresden Dolls show reminded me of what I don’t have.

Does this make me a bad person? I don’t think so. It makes me a person. One of my heroes summed it up best in August:

The guy I really let get to me was John Mayer. Man, I wanted what that guy was achieving and now that I’ve had a chance to hang with him and see how great he is at what he does, I truly only want great things for him because he really is a crazy talented musician and an ultra smart dude. Yea, there may be one or two others that I still need to love instead of envy but I’m trying AND learning. Happy to be where I am right now. That other place is way lonelier.
- Pat Monahan

I will get there someday. I don’t know how the hell I’ll do it, but I’m going to succeed or burn out trying. The only way it’s going to happen, though, is if I stop coveting the success of others and just enjoy the shows they produce. Turning envy into inspiration is not easy, but it’s the only way to keep it from eating you alive.

If you read my last three posts about the 140 Characters Conference, you’ve seen my initial reactions and thank-you’s from the event. After a few days of simmering, It occurs to me that I learned more about specific people than I did about the real-time web. I’ll admit I spent more time tending to the panelists I’d invited than actually watching the programming, but that was out of necessity. I felt like I’d gotten them into this thing, I better make sure they had a good time (even though Jeff Pulver always makes his events fun). Here’s what I learned about the people I spent my time with:
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That’s me, Amanda Palmer, Jeff Pulver, Andy Dixon, and Keith Spiro doing an impromptu version of Sesame Street at the 140 Characters Conference.

Here’s the 1-frame-per-minute video stream (the wifi at the BBEC sucked) of the Music panel with me, Ariel, Ted, and Amanda. Hope you dig it!

Video courtesy of Steve Garfield

To say the least, the 140 Characters Conference was fun. I got to lead the Music panel and I was fortunate enough to convince Ariel Hyatt, Amanda Palmer, and Ted Cohen to join me. I’m so glad Jeff Pulver invited me to moderate this panel, I never thought I’d get all three names at the top of my list to sit at the table. I felt like a little fish in a very big pond, given that they’ve all dealt with major labels and real established acts in the past and I’m still working my ass off just to bring you all some tunes on a monthly basis. Still, I think each of us managed to provide some insight into the real-time web that your average corporate marketing type wouldn’t really have seen.

Honestly, though, what makes social media events like this fun aren’t really the events. It’s the socializing. Getting to talk about indie music promotion with Ariel is always a highlight. Hearing stories of touring with Van Halen and Prince and the like from Ted Cohen never gets old. And Amanda Palmer? Yeah, she’s as groovy as I anticipated. Busiest woman I’ve ever seen, though, she’s literally the CEO of her own company just like me. Her business is significantly larger, though, so I can see why she needs caffeine. What we talked about on stage mirrored what was happening backstage: Talk to people online, Don’t just promote shit, actually converse. If you’re not interacting with your fans as a human being, you’re not interacting with your fans.

And speaking of interacting with your fans, the most unexpected surprise for me was meeting Derrick, one of my VIP’s, for the first time. He’d been a VIP member since day one, but I never thought I’d actually get to meet him. Why? He lives in frickin’ Singapore. Right now he’s in the Boston area, though, and was attending the 140 Characters conference. I don’t think he knew I was going to be there, but I’m damn glad he showed up. I don’t know if many of you know how cool it feels to meet someone who’s a big supporter even though you’ve never seen them and never played a show in their country. It takes a real fan to take part in something like Matthew Ebel dot net without knowing if you’ll ever actually get to SEE the artist you’re supporting, so I considered it a stone-cold honor to bump into Derrick.

The dinner afterwards sealed the day perfectly. NY Times best-selling author Julien Smith sponsored this indie rocker’s meal that night, and man am I grateful. I got to spend the final hours of the day talking with friends like CC Chapman, Chris Penn, Chel Pixie (who organized the dinner), Jeffrey Sass and his aspiring-rock-star son, and more. These kind of people create a notable change in conversation every time I’m around them. I’m usually among folks who create or manage technology- networking, storage, programming, etc. -but the people I ate dinner with are a different kind of cutting edge. They don’t make the tools, they use them in ways nobody else imagines. It’s refreshing to hear from people who are paving new roads using the toys that my other friends are crafting. It’s a hell of a perspective and I’m thankful for the opportunity to see all sides of the picture.

So here’s to the con-goers at 140 Characters. I hope to see you all next year!

The 1980′s are still trying to make a comeback, bringing their overinflated sense of self-importance with them.

A few weeks back I was featured in a WBUR on-air segment about performing live via UStream and selling my songs as a fan-driven Subscription Service rather than just making round pieces of plastic every year or two. The people at the radio station thought what I’m doing was innovative enough to give me nearly 8 minutes of air time during the morning drive. Then I got two comments like these:

That idea doesn’t sit well with everyone, including Boston musician and rock critic Dave Wildman. “I don’t know, it freaks me out,” he says with a laugh. Wildman likens Ebel to a talented street performer on the information super highway.
WBUR.org

It’s success if that’s what he wanted, definitely. If not…then no, he’s still got more work to do.

My guess? Dude still has a lot more work to do.
Justin Boland, comment on Hypebot.com

These two comments, though lamentably myopic, are understandable. Believe me, I can level with these opinions by making only one assumption: Their definition of “success” is stuck in the coke-filled limousine of Motley Crue, 1985.
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