First round of voting goes through May 3rd, and the second round goes through June 7th. If you could help us make it to the top 10 in the first round, that would be incredible. You can vote up to 10 times a day, and with a month left in the competition, if everyone voted 10 times each day, we might stand a chance! Just search for “The Eastern Gate” in the search box in the voting section of the page.

You’ve already been so good to us. We thought we were done after we recorded our album “Seraphim,” and you keep believing in us. Thank you. Here’s your chance to continue helping us make history.

Vote Here:
http://ow.ly/1RxT

-TEG

We’re live on eMusic!  Check us out here.  E-Music is one of the best sites out there for DRM free digital music, with plans that make it usually cost less than$0.35 per track!  And the best part?  New signups get up to 50 free tunes!  Check it out.  This is definitely my main digital music store.

Our album just went live today on one of my favorite digital music stores: AmieStreet.com.  Amie Street has one of the most creative pricing schemes I’ve ever seen.  Every album starts out free, and gradually increases in price up to a maximum of $0.98 per song. SO, if you’re the first person to snag our album off of Amie Street, it’s yours FREE!  If you’re the second person it will cost you like $0.50 for the album, and so on.  Interested?  Check it out here.

So what if you’re not first?  No biggie!  Our album is already listed on Lala.com which is giving 50 free web songs to new signups, and you can always buy the album for web-only play (wherever you have an internet connection) for $0.80.  That’s right, the whole album for $0.80.

Need to have an Mp3 copy on your machine ? No biggie!  In the next few days you’ll see our album show up on eMusic.com. That’s good news, because eMusic is giving out 40 free downloads to any new sign-ups.  Even if you’re not new, eMusic is a great place to shop — songs only end up costing about $0.30 each.  Check ‘em out!

Finally, if you’re into the subscription thing, you can signup with napster for a 14-day UNLIMITED download free trial, AND 10 free non-subscription downloads (conveniently JUST enough for our 10 track album :D).  Check it out!

As always, don’t forget to leave a review if you have a few extra minutes.  

We’ll see YOU in Hillsdale, MI this MARCH!

Come Along in Indie Rock
I and you in Rock
News in Alternative Rock.

You can view our EPK (electronic press kit) here. It’s got some of our tracks up, as well as our bio and links to our other websites. Share with friends and anyone you know in the music industry!

OurStage is an interesting concept in music judging: you can’t just search for us and vote as the artists are all presented randomly. You just vote for the best of the random 4 that are presented. But everyone has an equal chance of showing up in the voting bracket - so go to the site as often as you can, and when you see TEG pop up, go ahead and vote for us! And vote for other good music, too. You have to register to vote, but it doesn’t take long. It’s a great way to discover new music, and support your favorite indie band. =)

We have some exciting news to share with everyone. The album is starting to get some notice across the music industry! Check out what Wildy’s World has to say about the album. Keep spreading the word, and help us get the music out there. We’re doing our best, but we still need your help to get the album noticed nationwide.

Wildy’s World review of TEG’s “Seraphim”

A huge “THANK YOU” goes out to Thomas Marcetti and Mark Hensch for their wonderful articles on “The Eastern Gate”.  Check them out below!

• Thomas’ article in the Hillsdale Daily News (sorry… no link available!)
• Mark’s Article in the Hillsdale Collegian

Stay tuned — we’ll have more details on our upcoming southern MI “mini-tour” in the next couple weeks.  If you’ve never seen us live, that will be your chance!  We already have a minimum of 4 appearances booked in the Hillsdale, MI area for March 6th-14th.  WOO HOO!  As always, the best way to keep track of us is to sign up for the e-mail newsletter.  Know any venues interested in housing us sometime in that date range?  Let us know!

Keep rocking!

We look cool.

Thanks to the huge success of the album launch and the generosity of some certain sponsors (Praxis of Hillsdale College being the largest) The Eastern Gate is getting back together for a show near YOU (if you’re in the Hillsdale, MI area). Stay tuned for details, but be sure to keep March 6th and 7th open!

PASS IT ON!

Don't forget to grab the album art!

The result?  YOU still rock.

While the sales figures for the last week weren’t quite as good as we had hoped - and again, these numbers are unofficial and possibly innaccurate - they still were definitely a sign of success.  Last week on iTunes alone we had 263 individual purchases from 20 different metro areas across the U.S.  

Not too shabby.  

Definitely not earth-shattering or chart topping numbers, but a huge success none-the-less.  

Want more proof?  Below is a good summary of some of the awesomeness that YOU have made possible:
 

Website stats — 

• At this point, we’ve had over 1,800 views of the site, from 33 different countries, and with 21 different default languages on their web-browsers.  I guess music really is the universal language!
   
• On Wednesday (Jan 21st) we released a “Thank YOU!” free download-able track (go get it yourself!) on the website.  It’s a special version of “Whirlwind” not available on the purchased album.  That track alone has been downloaded 62 times.
   
• 29 users have signed in at our site to become members.  Users can sign-in with their logins for Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or AIM. 
   

 Social Networks / Services —

• On Facebook our “Help us MAKE HISTORY!” event garnered over 1700 total invitations, and over 300 “Yes” or “Maybe” responses.
   
• Between Facebook and MySpace, we have 70 new fans since the album release on January 5th.
   
• Our MySpace profile has been viewed 554 times.
   
• On Twitter (@theeasterngate) we’ve gathered 152 followers in the last two weeks, including MTV Music (@MTV_Music), EMI Music Norway (@EMINO), ATT Mobile Music (@attmobilemusic), and several music blogs and radio stations.
   

Music sites —

• Our album “Seraphim” is being sold on FIVE music distribution sites (iTunes, Amazon MP3, Napster, LaLa.com, Shockhound.com) and will be on FOUR others within the next two weeks (eMusic, Rhapsody, AmieStreet.com, and GroupieTunes.com).
   
• On our first day for sale on Amazon MP3 (January 5th), we reached #200 on the best-selling albums of the day, and #1 on the “Movers and Shakers” chart.  Since then, we’ve peaked back into the top 1000 albums in sales rank 6 times.
   
• Between Amazon MP3 and iTunes, 13 fans have left reviews — all 5 stars.  We have a perfect 5 star rating at both stores right now.

Alex - http://www.twitter.com/alexlinebrink
Josh - http://www.twitter.com/jdpeterson

Follow us, and thanks again for listening We will have more news soon on the damage of our bomb last Monday!!!