ENN February 8, 2010 (Download MP3)

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Photo by Sebastian Mary

• Tonight’s show at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA at 10pm will be awesome! I promise! Come check it out, more details at www.matthewebel.com/tour
• February 17 I’ll be performing in Trenton, NJ at Purple Stripe Productions, again the details are at www.matthewebel.com/tour

I mention these shows because of C.C. Chapman’s latest episode of Managing the Gray. He reminded me about my dreams and my goals. Yes, I would be happy just paying my bills and feeding myself, but that’s not what I dream about. Nobody dreams about simply surviving, we all have grander visions of our futures. No one dreams of mediocrity. People in my line of work share the same goal: Playing shows in big arenas to a crowd so massive you can see it from space.

The two shows coming up this month are the first steps towards that kind of dream for me. I want to become a famous rock star like Ben Folds. There’s a reason games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero sell so well: many of us dream of doing that sort of thing. To make it reality, however, requires a combination of luck, connections, and hard work. I need to know if I am good enough.

We all want to know that we can jump over that bar when we come to it. We all want to clear the bar with two feet to spare and then set the next bar even higher. This is why we dream, this is why we set goals. My goal this year is to play more shows for more people who came to hear my music. And none of us can reach our goals without help.

I may not be an über-connected CEO, but I can help you reach your goals. Just contact me and let me know how I can help. If you can help me play new shows for new crowds of people, contact me. Even if you live a long distance away from Boston, you might be able to see a live Matthew Ebel concert anyway. Fans in Atlanta made it happen, fans in Ohio are making it happen, you can make it happen.

What are you doing to reach your goals and realize your dreams? What can guys like me do to help?

ENN December 28, 2009

It’s time for the New Year’s Resolution: TOUR. Now that Matthew Ebel dot net is off the ground, I can actually try to get out on the road like a real, live musical act. Imagine that!

Here’s what I need from you: Your hometown. Before I can go on tour, I need to know where you are! There are two ways to do that…

• Enter your hometown info and join the mailing list at http://matthewebel.com
• Join the Facebook fan page and make sure you’re sharing your hometown info at http://facebook.com/matthewebelmusic

I know, I know, discussion boards are like, sooooo 2001, but they remain alive on Facebook and I’d love to see you guys talking among yourselves. I’m really curious about two topics in particular:

How can I get to your town without going broke?

I really want to tour in 2010, but if I go broke trying there will be no more music from me. I’m hoping none of you want that, so I’d love to see what you guys can collaborate on to make some performances possible (especially the far-out ones like California or Canada)

What conventions and festivals should I hit?

Yeah, I’ve played tech conventions and Furry conventions, but I’d love to see what other mass events I can bring my music to where it would be appreciated. If you folks can help me get to more of these big events and get onstage, I’ll be able to see a lot more of you in person!

Yeah, I started these two topics, but this is a discussion board… so discuss! Add your own topics to the board if you like, I just want to see what you guys can come up with. I really need your help on those two topics, tho, so talk to each other and let’s see how powerful the Robot Army can be!

I know that a lot of my fans are either musicians or new media types, so rather than just quietly postpone the house tour until September, I want to talk about what I think happened.

First of all, the obvious reason I couldn’t do the tour was the coalition of high gas prices and low ticket sales. I’m not going to hide that fact, the ticket pre-sales weren’t enough to cover the gas alone (and occasionally I do like to eat while on tour, too). With dead dinosaur juice topping $3.78 a gallon this spring, the break-even bar is getting higher and higher.

So if not a 2-week road trip, what did I get out of this?
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I was self-employed for 365 consecutive days in 2007. As a result, I hugged my parents and grandparents more often than I had for the previous two years. I found out I’m going to be an uncle sometime in 2008.

I released a new album in 2007 that paid for itself from the pre-orders alone. Fans in Germany, the Netherlands, China, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, and the US have already bought copies. My fans released another album on my behalf seven months earlier. They also launched their own website at matthewebel.net and created their own music videos.

I discovered UStream, Second Life, and Twitter in 2007. Half my fan base has never seen me perform in person, and most of that half thinks I’m a bird. UStream.tv put my face and my music in front of viewers around the globe. Twitter has found me beds to sleep in, gathered crowds for badly publicized gigs, solved technological mishaps, and made working alone a lot less lonely.

I visited Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, California, Tennessee, New York, and New Jersey all in the name of the music business. More travel than I saw in the previous five years.

Touring has paid my bills in 2007. So has Coca-Cola, the Mommycast, crayon, Porter Novelli, Justin Kownacki, Joseph Jaffe, The US Postal Service, The Podcast & New Media Expo, Jeff Pulver, and a whole lot of music fans.

Chase Home Finance paid my bills for two and a half months in 2007, even though I wasn’t working there anymore.

I got my first mutual fund, my first IRA, my first business bank accounts, my own health insurance, and printed my first business checks with those useless stubs for people’s records.

Or, to summarize, 2008 is going to have a damn difficult time outclassing 2007.

[tags]Matthew Ebel, piano rock, 2007, 2008, Goodbye Planet Earth, Virtual Hot Wings, matthewebel.net, UStream, Twitter, Second Life, Hali Heron, Hali of Firpine, Touring, podcasting, Chase Home Finance[/tags]

Hey, I just remembered a cool way to figure out where I should be [tag]touring[/tag]. If you haven’t heard of the people at [tag]Eventful.com[/tag], they’ve got a system that lets you (the listeners and fans) tell me where you want me to come play. All you have to do is click the button and tell me where you want me. Try it out!

Yeah, you’re going to have to register to do this, but they haven’t spammed me yet and I’ve been using it to try and get Hank to come back to Nashville for a while now.

A few months back I asked you to help get the attention of a [tag]sponsor[/tag] for my [tag]podcast[/tag], [tag]High Orbit[/tag]. Now I’ve got a few companies interested, but they’re all asking me the same question… How many listeners do you have? You know I want to bring you [tag]live music[/tag] every week, but I can’t do that unless one of these companies helps me out. All I need from you is a little help drawing a crowd!

I need your help to make this happen!

The Mission:

Here’s the mission— and it’s a very simple one: Get a friend or two to subscribe to High Orbit

All they need is [tag]iTunes[/tag] or [tag]Juice[/tag] or any other [tag]podcatcher[/tag] program. If they’ve got a [tag]Palm[/tag] or [tag]Windows Mobile[/tag] gadget, there are ways to subscribe there as well. Just point ‘em at this page:

www.highorbitpodcast.com/subscribe
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