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Update: If you like the podcast, btw, PLEASE go to iTunes and leave a comment!

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Photo by oskay

This, I believe, is an oversight on the part of most major labels and some indie artists. So that mellow, 90-bpm rock song sold 20 million round discs. It’s a good cut of meat, sure, but it’s only one part of the meal. You don’t want the entire album (or the band’s entire catalog) to sound like that one market-ready radio-friendly überhit ’cause the fans will get bored.

Here’s a secret: The artists will too. Most artists (songwriters at least) have a diverse range of output. This is what drives guys like Garth Brooks to become Chris Gaines or George Carlin to be Mr. Conductor. An artist’s output should reflect their humanity as a whole, not just the radio-friendly side or the dirty underground side. An album, especially, should sound like a well-balanced meal tastes.

If you don’t believe me, open up a restaurant that serves only unflavored pasta and chicken. Let me know how that goes for you.

the riaa have sued Jammie Thomas-Rasset of minnesota for $2,000,000 for illegally downloading music.

argh. what utter nonsense. this is how the record companies want to protect themselves? suing suburban moms for listening to music? charging $80,000 per song?

punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business. maybe the record companies have adopted the ‘it’s better to be feared than respected’ approach to dealing with music fans. i don’t know, but ‘it’s better to be feared than respected’ doesn’t seem like such a sustainable business model when it comes to consumer choice. how about a new model of ‘it’s better to be loved for helping artists make good records and giving consumers great records at reasonable prices’?

i’m so sorry that any music fan anywhere is ever made to feel bad for making the effort to listen to music.

the riaa needs to be disbanded.

moby

I’m not a huge fan of Moby’s music, but I agree with him 100% in this case. You see, I’m a Christian artist. No, I’m not making CCM albums anymore, but I believe in a Christian philosophy which can be summed up as this: I believe that people will try to steal from me whether I am a tyrant or a beggar. What defines me and my nature is how I treat other people, even if they’re not concerned with how they’re treating me.

The RIAA believes that huge fines will deter people from file sharing, much in the way that capital punishment seems to be deterring people from killing each other. Those of us in the reality-based community understand that you will never keep people from stealing, all you can do is treat your legitimate customers like kings and make their experience worth more than the 99¢ track they’re paying for.

Update: And now Richard Marx, an artist actually “damaged” by this file sharing, has released a public statement decrying the verdict and siding with Ms. Thomas-Rasset, calling it “farcical”.

Wait, what?

Every Birdy Needs A Robot by Stampy

A fan of my weekly UStream shows sent me this fabulous piece of original art a couple days ago and, with permission, I’m posting it here. This is one of the single most impressive chunks of awesome anyone’s ever thrown at me. Not only did Stampy catch my fascination with osprey, my laptop with red case and sticker, my M-Audio keyboard, and even the ugly-ass Exit sign that lived behind me at my New Hampshire gigs, but check out the robot playing bass behind me.

Yup, that’s Prodo-1, my faithful co-host from High Orbit and snarky sidekick from Goodbye Planet Earth.

It’s stuff like this that reminds me why I do what I do. Thank you, Stampy, and all the others that have been sending in photos and art! Birds dream of having fans like you.

rev⋅o⋅lu⋅tion [rev-uh-LOO-shuhn] –noun

2. Sociology. a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure
3. a sudden, complete or marked change in something

dictionary.reference.com

Back in the days when High Orbit was a weekly show, I named the spaceship the UTF Revolution. In those days there was an air of excitement, even fanaticism, about podcasting and downloads and new technology. The discovery that people could make and deliver content beyond the confines of TV, radio, and newspapers electrified the internet crowd. We called it a revolution. If the revolution started in 2004, it’s only beginning to come to a head now.

Revolutionary Communication

The past five years may have made this revolution seem… well, less revolutionary. After all, we’re not as jazzed up about the miracle of flight now that we can hop a shuttle from NY to Boston for less than a hundred bucks. Make no mistake about it, however, you are committing an act of rebellion with every new channel you support. The record labels and major networks are starting to realize they cannot make money anymore. Soon they will realize the nagging truth that some of us have been shouting from the town square for years: The artists and the fans no longer need them.

Revolutionary Thinking

Is that true? Are record labels obsolete? The answer isn’t a matter of sales figures or Billboard charts. The future of the revolution is in your mind. You must understand that as long as the old-media channels still claim a foothold in your brain, they are controlling you.

Here’s a revolutionary question:

If you’re a fan of my music, are you wondering when I’m going to get “discovered” by a record label?

If so, those record labels still control your brain. You are still chained down by a world where big companies decide what music is legitimate and what music is “just indie”. As the mon once said, “emancipate yourself from mental slavery.” Good videos don’t need a TV network, good news doesn’t need radio towers, and good music does not need a record label.

YOU are my record label. Yes, you. Do you like my music? Then my music is legitimate. I don’t need some guy in a crisp suit to own 80% of my artwork to make it good. All I need is for you to understand that as soon as you become a fan, you become part of my record label.

Revolutionary Action

If you want to keep the revolution fueled, you have a few responsibilities (I’m not going to call them a manifesto, that’d be beating a dead analogy at this point).

• Evict the corporations from your mind.
  They aren’t the ones buying the music, YOU are. You are in control.
• Small sacrifices must be made.
  Have you bought an album? Picked up your favorite show’s official shirt/mug/chia pet? Congratulations, you are now a shareholder in the revolution.
• Grab your bullhorn.
  The #1 thing you can do to support your favorite artists and shows is spread the word about them. Whether they’re on a major label or not, all musicians need that key action from their fans.
• Show up for the battles.
  For musicians, it’s about live concerts and release parties. For podcasters, it’s the live recording events. Whatever division of the revolution you’re fighting with, they need warm bodies to man the barricades.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate!
  The artists, producers, and revolutionaries are only as good as their supporters make them. Talk to them. Comment on their blog posts, post your photos/videos in their Flickr group or Facebook page. Tell them what you like, what you don’t like, and most importantly where you want this revolution to go.

The Revolution Grows

Some of us have been a part of this revolution for years. Some of us just discovered yesterday that you can turn a Mac Mini into an entertainment center (yes, that’s a link to a how-to video). However long you’ve been a part of the revolution, make no mistake: the battle rages on. Until we’ve completely killed the notion that a show, artist, or band needs a major corporate partner to be considered “legitimate”, we are still subject to an oppressive regime.

Make the change happen. Take action, and long live the revolution!

Osprey by Marc Schulman

A significant portion of you are familiar with this little dichotomy. I’ve been featured at a few Furry conventions over the years and my popularity among the animal-savvy seems to be growing. The fact that some of my Second Life fans still haven’t seen me in person as a human makes for a unique image to uphold. There are a lot of people, however, who just want to hear the music.

For the “normal” people out there, I’m just your average piano rocker trying to eke out a living in the music business. I can’t exactly hide my fascination with the Pandion Haliaetus, but fortunately most of you don’t seem to be weirded out by it. I’m not the guy with the ears and tail at the shopping mall, nor am I anything you’ve read about in Vanity Fair or seen on TV. If you’d like to compare me to those freak shows, I will happily find the choicest representatives of your hobbies or religions and write about them for you.

No, I’ve just had the usual fascination with animals and, in particular, Osprey. When I was younger (up to and including last week) I spoke to an imaginary friend- a 6-foot tall humanoid osprey. I even wrote a musical incorporating a friend of his as my senior project in college. I spent over a decade writing a 400-page novel about the world my avian friend comes from… I’m hoping that someday I can share it with you, but it needs some serious revisions that I just can’t focus on right now.

When you consider that anthropomorphism has played a major role in everything from religions to sporting events for thousands of years, it should surprise no one that some of us feel drawn to an animal that represents something we admire or covet. If you think this is odd, you haven’t taken a look at your favorite sports teams recently- chances are good they’re represented by an animal. So is your local gas station. Jesus Christ was called both a lion and a lamb, depending on the verse. We name our attack helicopters and fighter jets after birds of prey and Indian tribes. For that matter, those Indian tribes believe in spirits personified by the animals from their surrounding territory.

It honestly makes me sad when I encounter people who don’t entertain these kinds of concepts. If all you’ve thought about are things you’ve seen in this world, you are living in a very limited space. You’re trapped in a studio apartment with no windows- you may be content with your surroundings and your life, but I believe you suffer from an imaginative agoraphobia. Once you’ve seen what’s outside the walls of normality, you might wonder how you existed before.

Do I write songs about birds? Not a whole lot. I’ve written about cows more often than I’ve written about birds, to be honest. I write about what I experience, and I haven’t experienced birdness yet. The bird thing is more of a constant fascination- something that I feel drawn to in a way that I just can’t quantify. I wish I could be a bird, that’s for certain, but until I disappear in a cloud of feathers I want my fans to understand one of my long-term fixations. It’s a fun world to immerse myself in from time to time, and it affects my daily life in tiny ways I’m not aware of.

What are you drawn to? What’s the little non-sequitir that exists in your daily life, making things a bit more interesting? How are you using that?

Update: I love hearing from all of my friends who already get this stuff, but if you’re a “normal” person and are a bit shy about commenting, please respond to this anyway!

If you haven’t already enlisted Jon Stewart and P.J. O’Rourke to become cabinet-level advisers, please consider it. P.J. just made a hell of a lot more sense on a comedy show than you did explaining why I now own 60% of General Motors.

Sex on Wheels

So please, Mr. President, instead of purchasing a company that has ignored common sense and built bigger, more gas-sucking (and generally sucking) scrap heaps, can we purchase something that will reinstate our vicarious virility? To belabor the sex-appeal analogy, buying GM is like getting a boob job for an 80-year-old woman.

Why can’t we make Tesla Motors our new girlfriend? They’re not just an American car company, they’re making electric vehicles sexy. Like 0-60 in under 4 seconds sexy. Like fast enough to tear your clothes off but quiet enough not to scare the neighborhood sexy. In fact, I have only one question:

Which would cost the taxpayers more?

1. Paying for GM to design better cars, retool all of its factories to make better cars, wait while they take the time to make a new fleet of cars, and then hope they can actually sell enough of those cars to become profitable again.
2. Pay for Tesla to hire most of the old GM employees and subsidize battery costs for cars they’re already making and selling right now.

I await your answer, Mr. President. Whether or not we’d see any short-term profit from owning most of Tesla, I can guarantee we’d redefine what American car enthusiasts see as “sex appeal”. This is the new girlfriend we need, and she smells a lot prettier than her predecessor.

Sincerely,
Matthew Ebel
Taxpayer

Update: Apparently Tesla IS getting some money from the bailout.

Once again, I’m doing a concert live via UStream. Tonight I’ll be asking my viewers about the future of the show, so if you’re interested in helping me plot a course towards the future then join me at 6pm Eastern US time!

You can find the show, as always, at http://matthewebel.com/ustream

Awk!

Enter the Premium Theater, where we saw Pixar’s film last night. The concept isn’t new; this theater’s been in operation since 1994, I believe. The difference, however, is one of experience. It’s the same film reel, the same screen, and the same sound system as any other movie theater. For $20, though, there are perks…

• Unlimited popcorn and soft drinks (including tea… yes, Earl Grey tea). This alone makes it the same price as a typical movie experience.
• Ages 21 and over only. Even for a Disney/Pixar release, Act III realizes that grown-ups want to see this thing without interruption from kids and teenagers.
• COMFY seats with tray tables. These things were high-backed leather-esque easy chairs… all they lacked was a recliner.
• Real food, real drinks. I can’t speak for other theaters, but the Framingham location served some well-mixed cocktails and great food- yes, great food. Rolling a 20: Seven of us ate and drank for under $100, too.
• Reserved seats. Need I say more?
• The single drawback: The staff was obviously the same crop of 17-year-olds that work at the normal theater, not a wait staff that’s trained in customer service. They even cut off the ending credits before we were finished watching them.

As I said, the movie would’ve been just as funny, just as heart-twisting on DVD or an iPhone. I felt this movie was blog-worthy because of the live experience. In my line of work, it’s often difficult to convince people to come out to concerts when they already own great albums and great sound systems at home. It takes a lot of effort, I guess, to pry oneself from the computer chair, preen, and drive/ride into the city for a show. Especially if you’re going to pay $6 for a cover charge and eat out as well.

The difference, however, is quite measurable. A good live event makes you part of the experience. When you listen to an album or watch a movie, you are a spectator viewing through a glass window. The entertainment may be just as good on a pre-recorded disc, but the tangible trappings of a real night out can impress the event into your memory forever.

And these days we all need more good memories impressed upon us.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to UStream this one or not, so your only chance to come check it out will be at the show itself. If you’re within driving distance of Boston, please come out and have some fun with me!

Here are the details:

• All-Asia Bar and Grill
  Cambridge, MA
  www.allasiabar.com
• Thursday, June 11 @ 7pm
• Cost: $6

More details at eventful.com Hope to see you there!

On top of all that, the badges on the truck (you know, the little Chevy logo and the nameplate and all that) kept falling off, like they were held on by Elmer’s glue or something. The rest of the truck was rock solid (even though it’s a Chevy), but I was fairly pissed off about the cheap badges.

I guess the moral of this story is that no matter how bad the pollen gets, taking antihistamines before bed is a really bad idea.

If you’ve got a big living room and/or a backyard that you’d love to turn into a concert hall for an afternoon/evening, I’m interested in playing there. Right now this will have to be limited to my local area- let’s say within 100 miles of Boston -but we’ll see how things progress from there.

If you’re interested, please take a look at www.matthewebel.com/main/houseconcert/ and get in touch with me there!

Photo by R.W.W.

Now apply that obvious metaphor to our economic situation. Being laid off is seen as a serious emergency to many families right now, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. But how would YOU fare?

I had a few benefits working in my favor:

• I knew the layoff was coming, but right now if you aren’t expecting to get laid off you’re just not paying attention.
• I had been honing a marketable skill outside my day job- namely Music, something I’ve been working at all my life.
• I was single, young, and had no children to feed. I hate to say “no baggage”, but that fits the camping analogy.

All of those points amount to economic backpacking, preparing me for the inevitable catastrophe that would leave me jobless. It worked for me, but I’d been preparing for the layoff since I started taking piano lessons at age 5. What about you?

I truly hope that, if you’re holding a pink slip right now, you see it as a golden ticket. You heard that uncomfortable talk from HR as a graduation speech, not a death sentence. It is precisely at times like these, when the giant corporations are toppling like sand castles, that our own marketable skills save us.

Case in point: I recently saw an old episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe helped a post-Katrina salvage crew in New Orleans. The guy that owned the business didn’t start until after the storm. In fact, Katrina killed his old job. Instead of panicking, however, he went in to business for himself. He saw an opportunity for much-needed work and he had the skill set to pull it off. Now he gets to knock down walls with a bigass hammer for some serious money.

Have you been doing any economic backpacking lately? No? It’s alright, it’s never too late. Here are some handy starting points:

• Take a moment and write down all the marketable skills you have, or at least the skills you know you could learn quickly. Landscaping? Woodworking? Gerdening? Anything other than selling mortgages… The point is that the skills must not rely on any corporation other than your family.
• Pick one or two that you both excel at and could get some satisfaction from.
• Write up a real business plan for yourself based on those skills. Get specific… treat this like you’re seriously planning to leave your job whether the economy picks up or not.
• Educate yourself and hone those skills even further. If your job is safe, at least you’ll be better at something that is truly valuable and fulfilling.

Even if all you come up with is a plan on paper, you’re still preparing yourself for a job market where the only jobs are for entrepreneurs. Right now there’s never been a better time to be your own boss- the internet gives you a cheap worldwide marketplace, smart phones mean you can be connected with business partners across the country 24 hours a day… The benefits of finding yourself unemployed might be greater than you think.

Someone’s looking for ‘Night Train’ torrents. Oh dear.

Unlike the RIAA, I’m going to assume that this question was prompted not by a desire to steal from me (I’m not kidding, folks, some months it’s literally a 99-cent difference between paying bills on time or late). Since Night Train is a Members-Only song that has now expired, there really is no way to legitimately buy it at this point. As a music fan myself, I’ve been stymied by this phenomenon quite frequently when looking for tracks on iTunes or Amazon.

I’m working on a solution right now.

If you’re an All-Access or VIP member over at Matthew Ebel dot net, please do me a favor and read up on the proposal there. It’s your site as much as it is mine, so please give me your feedback over on The Blog.

Hopefully I’ll be able to provide legal options for people soon, preferably without sacrificing the cool exclusives people have enjoyed for the past 6 months.

All you have to do is make an in-game music video (aka Machinema) using “I Blame The Spy” and you could win a full year of free music from Matthew Ebel dot net!

Full contest details available at www.matthewebel.net

Even if it means no biking today.

Poll closes in an hour or so when I’m done brewing!

Poll’s done, looks like the robot wins!

Photo by be_khe

As the other good book says, don’t panic. To put things in perspective, the big flu epidemic of the 1800’s killed millions but so far we’ve seen less than 100 deaths in this country. More people died in the last 24 hours from car accidents than from the last week of swine flu.

Back then we also didn’t have Purell, antivirals, and clean public restrooms with hot water and soap at every Starbucks (every 10 feet). If you’re unlucky enough to live in a town with no Starbucks or some other dense concentration of sink/soap dispensation units… congratulations, you live in a town small enough that you probably won’t even see the next pandemic.

That being said, I know this kind of thing can be dangerous. I’m glad that most of my work is done at home- far away from densely-packed subways and cramped cubicle farms. I shake a lot of hands at gigs, but I don’t see nearly the exposure that your average commuter sees.

So while this post has nothing to do with music, I just want to wish you all well and offer two pieces of advice: don’t go nuts, but wash your hands.

New Music at Matthew Ebel dot net

• The software that runs the membership accounts was written by someone who doesn’t speak English very well… I finally went in and re-wrote ALL of the emails that the system sends out (password reminders, payment receipts, welcome emails, etc.).
• I rearranged the signup screen so, hopefully, it’s a little easier to follow. A lot of folks were basically buying themselves Gift Certificates when they didn’t mean to. Oops!
• Now that I figured out how to pass variables to the signup page, I’ve made links that automatically choose certain products or fill in coupon codes for you. Like this link to my All-Access Yearly Pass.

So keep your eyes peeled, there’s going to be more music coming out today. If you want to own it, you can now sign up for Matthew Ebel dot net a little easier!

Download Video

Sometimes I have to sit and face the tough questions, though, like “should this song about the Spy from Team Fortress 2 go out to Matthew Ebel dot net subscribers or do I save it for an album called Songs for Geeks?”

These are the choices that make my life difficult.

• If you want to post photos of me at a performance or convention, I strongly encourage it. All I ask is that you let people know who that guy in the photo is.
• If you’re videotaping or recording one of my live shows, I would love to see those recordings spread around. Just do me a favor- try to remind folks that they can get professionally-recorded live music at matthewebel.net. If you want more concerts, I need to keep paying my bills- subscriptions are the best way for me to do that.
• If you want to use my music in your project, just bear in mind whether or not it’s a money-making project. You want to put Everybody Needs A Ninja behind your kids’ martial arts tournament video? Awesome. Want to use it on a site that’s bringing in Google Adwords or affiliate link revenue? Talk to me first. I want to make things easy for you, but again… I have bills to pay. If I’m helping you pay yours, I’d appreciate some assistance.
• For anything you post online, try to tag things with either Matthew Ebel or matthewebel so Google and I can find it. And whenever possible, I always appreciate a link back to matthewebel.com as high up on the page as possible.

So there are some official policies straight from the musician’s mouth. Er, blog. The point is that I’m not some RIAA stooge, I’m not commuting to gigs in a private jet, and I’m not trying to break anyone. I want to see my fans get as excited about the music as I do, so if there’s anything I can do to help (or if you have any questions), just email me!

Hear the complete concert at matthewebel.net

As a bit of a teaser, I also just released one of the live tracks to the podcasting world. If you’re interested, check out Night Train - Live at FWA 2009 at matthewebel.com/podsafe.