1. Good Morning, New York needs some additional vocals added, some crowd vocals (more on that later), drums recorded, and a final mix made. That’s about it.
2. The Last Pirate just needs some crowd vocals, otherwise, it’s finished.
3. These Wars We Fight might need the lead vocal re-recorded and maybe a tweak of the solo Harpsichord tone, but otherwise I think it’s finished as well. I might just be nitpicking about this one.
4. Frozen Oasis is finished. Done. Ready for mastering.
5. A Question of Sanity just needs a few minor tweaks to the arrangement, maybe to the mixing, but again this is probably nitpicking.
6. I Met A Girl still needs lyrics and finished songwriting, let alone drum recording. Working on that one this week, planning to post a behind-the-scenes look at how I turn a harpsichord into… well, whatever the hell I want it to be.
7. I Wish I Were is DONE.
8. Wait Here is in the same condition as I Met A Girl; it’s about half-written, but on a good track.
9. Normal Is Not For Me needs some vocal production tweaks at the end and needs real drums, but otherwise it’s ready for mastering.
10. A Million Miles Away needs another verse written, harmonies recorded, and real drums recorded.
11. All Over Again needs harmonies and drums recorded.
12. The Wreck of the Gale Odyssey needs real drums, a special guest vocal, and a lot of engineering work. As an instrumental, it needs to be acoustically flawless to be worth including. Also, I might add another section to make it longer, the song just feels like it ends prematurely to me.
13. Who I Am needs real drums and a tiny bit of vocal production re-recording at the end. Otherwise that one’s good too.

As for the crowd vocals, what I will need eventually is about a dozen friends in my studio all shouting into my good mic. If you’ve heard The Last Pirate you can probably tell I’m talking about a hearty “Yo Ho Ho” or two, but there are some other parts as well. Might even do a whistle chorus or hand clapping or something. Either way, it’ll be a party sometime this month.

After this comes the graphic novel work, which Gen Whitmore has a great idea for. I’ll cover that in another update, though, this one’s all about the album. It’s almost done! I CAN SEE THE LIGHT!

For more information about the upcoming album itself, visit http://whoisdexterpeterson.com

Download audio file (December%202011%20Audio%20Update.mp3)
December 2011 Audio Update – 7 MB MP3
Download Now »

Most of you know me as a writer of music, but I’ve been writing prose for about as long as I’ve been writing lyrics and notes. This short book, The Lives of Dexter Peterson, is the first time I’ve ever released a novel to the public.

I have to admit, it’s a little scary. When I play concerts I’m used to people singing along and having fun, but I’ve never subjected any of my fiction to a paying audience before. I’m not asking you to go easy on me– hell, if something sucks, for the love of God tell me about it before I get to the final draft!

This is not the final draft. Since you’re one of my awesome subscribers, I’m sending you the work-in-progress so you can see the evolution of a novel as it’s happening. That being said, I really want to hear your feedback. If you’ve got literary chops and want to help me with a full-on critique, I welcome it.

In any case, I just hope you enjoy it, even in its fledgeling state. Thank you!

Download audio file (Releasing-Dexter-Peterson-v3.mp3)
Releasing Dexter Peterson v3 – 4.5MB MP3
Download Now »

A little update for the subscribers. It’s short, so take a listen!

A little update for the subscribers. It’s short, so take a listen!

VIP Members: You’re officially invited to the second annual Beer Bash! If you can make it up to the Boston Area on July 31, 2010, you can join the party at Matthew’s new studio! Details below…

(If you’re not a VIP, it’s not too late to become one! Just grab a VIP Pass here…)

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Where and When:

• Saturday, July 31, 2010
  Noon-Whenever
• Matthew’s Studio
  (Address is on RSVP page.)

Right now we’re planning on touring Martha’s Exchange in Nashua. It’s a lot smaller than last year’s Harpoon Brewery tour, which means we’ll get a much more personal look at the process and the facilities for making local beer. Matthew can drive up to 6 people from his studio in Nashua, though the brewery is within reasonable walking distance if it’s not too hot.

After the brewery tour is over, it’s back to the studio for some backyard grilling and a taste of Matthew’s own homebrew (for the VIP’s that are old enough). You can bring your own grillables, munchables, and drinkables if you want, but Matthew will be providing food and snacks for the party.

RSVP

If you think you can make it, be sure to RSVP in advance! If you sign up less than a week before the event, we can’t guarantee there will be any food for you!

Also, each VIP can bring one non-VIP guest with them.

RSVP’s are handled by EventBrite at:
http://beerbash2010.eventbrite.com/
EVENT PASSWORD: bubbles

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Any questions? Just Contact Matthew or leave a comment here!

Just a few notes to my VIP supporters about what’s happening this month.

• I’m Moving! That’s right, we’re packing up all our crap and getting into a new house in New Hampshire, just north of Boston. Setting up the studio’s my first priority, so don’t worry about that.
• VIP Beer Bash: July 31? I know we voted on this, but that was before my room mates closed on their house and we found out we were moving in June. If you’ve got any objections to having the Beer Bash on July 31, 2010, contact me now!
• SHIRTS! If you haven’t already, double-check your shirt size in your Backstage Profile. The shirts are in, and they’re going out with the VIP goodie bags soon!

All Matthew Ebel dot net subscribers will be receiving The High Orbit Holiday Special as part of their regular downloads.

That’s right. Since the album project took all of my time for the last month, I haven’t been able to deliver on certain things. Hopefully this project will make up for it. Merry Christmas!

Download audio file (HOHS-Subscriber-Intro.mp3)
A Note About Novmber and December – 2.3MB MP3
Download Now »

And the transcript is below the fold…

Good morning, subscribers! Get comfortable, this is a long update. A “year in review” of sorts, and it concerns the very future of Matthew Ebel dot net.

First of all, as always, thank you so much for making Matthew Ebel dot net a raging success. As most of you know it’s only existed for less than a year now and already people are saying this is the future of the music industry. I don’t know about that, I’m just happy you guys are still listening after all these months.

So I’d like to talk to you about the future of Matthew Ebel dot net. When I started this little project, I had no idea just how big it would become in so short a time. I also had no idea what to expect, so I made a lot of promises right from the very beginning. Some were easy to keep, some took a lot of work, and some… well, some of them may have been a bit unrealistic. Let’s walk through them together.

Monthly Live Recordings

The whole concept that started Matthew Ebel dot net was that touring the nation in a van at $4 per gallon was a bad idea. Still I wanted a way to bring live music to my fans whether we could actually connect in the same building or not. Personally I think the live recordings have been a great success to that end. I’d like to record bigger and better shows, but I’ll cover that later.

2 Song Downloads Per Month

For the All-Access and VIP members, this is the meat. The backbone of Matthew Ebel dot net. Without question, this seems to be the most popular feature that you guys love. It’s also a lot more work than I anticipated. When I was sitting on Block Island with a pen and a blank sheet of paper, 2 songs per month sounded easy enough to do. True enough, writing a couple of songs a month is easy. Writing good songs, however, and backing those up with good productions takes up most of my time in any given month. Still, I’ve been able to pull it off and I think my writing has improved greatly because of all the deadlines. I couldn’t be doing this without your support, so thank you again.

Members-Only Albums and Deluxe Albums

Like I said, back in October I didn’t think 2 songs a month would take that much time. I figured I could easily come out with albums just for my subscribers and albums for general release while I was doing all this. Good Lord, what was I thinking? To be honest, it looks like those promises may just not be possible. At least, not with material you’re not already hearing twice a month. I imagine that, once I’ve been at this for a couple of years, I’ll be able to re-record some of the Studio Recordings with a live band and release them as album material for the general public. To be honest, though, I don’t know how in the world I’m going to find time to come up with members-only albums on top of that. Between 24 new songs per year AND trying to find places to play live concerts, I just don’t think there’s enough time in the day.

Two Annual Tickets to Matthew Ebel House Concerts

At this point I need to flat-out offer an apology. I had no idea how hard it would be to book any kind of live concerts on my own. Even house concerts. As any musician will tell you, booking a tour is the single most difficult task for any new artist. Right now I can’t afford to go on a tour that won’t actually pay the bills- like I said, that was the big reason I started Matthew Ebel dot net in the first place. With no booking agent or interns doing this work work for me, I barely have enough time to set up my weekly UStream shows, let alone try and get into colleges, house concerts, and conventions. I guess this part will have to go into my wish list, which I’ll get to in just a minute.

Members-Only Merchandise

I’ve actually had a Members-Only store open since day one, complete with shirts and other items you just can’t get anywhere else. Unfortunately, not many of you seem that interested in wearable stuff. So at this point I really need to hear from you. What do you want to see in a Members-Only store? Do you even care about a Members-Only store, or is it not that big a deal? As of today I’m axing the old store entirely and replacing it with a single item- Songs from the Vault. If I get some ideas for other store items that you guys actually want, I’ll do what I can to make it happen, but right now the archive CD’s seem to be the only thing in demand. And I’ll cover those a little bit later.

The VIP Goodie Bag and Beer Bash

Some of you were here in Boston last weekend for the first annual VIP Beer Bash. Of all the things I envisioned back in October when I started this little journey, the Beer Bash was quite possibly the weirdest thing I came up with. Who the heck would want to sacrifice a weekend just to hang out with me and drink some of my beer? Apparently, some of you did. Some of you flew up from Texas for this. For those of you that showed up, thank you. Getting to meet some of you in person for the first time made me feel so good, I just hope you had half as much fun as I did. And I hope you enjoy the goodie bags I gave you at the event. The rest of you will get yours soon and I really look forward to hearing your reaction to these things. Let me know what you think about them, and please feel free to post videos or photos online when you get yours in the mail!

The Custom Songs

As of this recording I’ve only done one, so I’ll be drawing a name from the hat later this week to award another VIP their custom song. It took me a while to finish Tony’s custom song, “Two Stars“, but that’s because I wanted to make sure it was exactly what he wanted. The emails and comments he sent me absolutely made my month, so apparently the custom songs are worth keeping. Like I said, stay subscribed for the next custom song that will be announced soon.

WHEW! That was a lot to cover. I really want to hear your comments about all of this, and there’s two ways to do it… we could just discuss via the website at Matthew Ebel dot net/blog, or I could set up a little “town hall meeting” of my own. Just you, me, and the other subscribers via UStream. What do you think? Drop me a comment on the blog either way, I really want to know what you’re thinking.

Mostly I’d like to talk about the future of Matthew Ebel dot net. I’ve got some questions, some future plans, and some things I’d like to see happen IF I can keep your support and keep growing over the next year or two.

Some Questions:

Songs From The Vault

Since it looks like I won’t be able to release members-only albums, should I make “Songs from the Vault” available as a free download to VIP’s? I was thinking that the most recent Vault collection could be included as a download, thereby catching up a new VIP on the last half year of songs. If you’re a VIP, drop me a line and let me know what you think about this. Just leave a comment in the blog or email me

New VIP level

A few of the VIP’s have suggested that I should have yet another subscription level, sort of a “platinum VIP” or something. Suggestions have ranged from a guaranteed custom song to a guaranteed concert in your town. Something like that would need to have limited slots, like 5 to 10 at most, and depending on what I can come up with it may cost $750 to $1,000 per year for something like that. I really need to hear from my VIP’s and anyone considering buying a VIP pass. I already consider you my investors, but for the few of you who want that “I’m with the band” kind of status, what would you like to see? And what would you consider reasonable?

Make VIP passes Annual only

The more I look at the difference between All-Access and VIP passes, the less sense it makes to do the VIP thing on a monthly level. The big upgrades from All-Access to VIP are mostly once-per-year events anyway, like the beer bash and the goodie bag. The custom songs only happen twice per year. I think I may make the VIP pass available as a yearly subscription only once we get to October, but let me know your thoughts on that.

Finally, now that your ass is asleep from sitting through all of this, here’s where I think Matthew Ebel dot net is headed in the future. Some of this stuff will happen soon, some will take time, and some will only happen if I can find enough subscribers to afford these changes.

Garage Band versions for All-Acess and VIP members

Since the house concerts and members-only albums may be a bit more than I can honestly handle, this may be a good replacement that’s worth your support. More than a few of you have asked for remixable versions of the Subscriber songs and I can definitely provide that, at least once every couple of months.

Professional mixing and mastering

I’m doing pretty well at the controls so far, but there are people out there who could take my songs and really make them sound like a major label (you know, back before they all started to suck). Once I’m bringing in enough money to pay for a real engineer, I can give you guys better-sounding tunes every single month. The songwriting and production will still be all me, but I could offer you tunes that will stand up next to anything you hear on the radio or Pandora.

Fix the damn website already

Believe me, I know how clunky it is right now. Fortunately, it works well enough to deliver everything I need it to, but the second I can afford a programmer to make it function WELL (like Apple well), I will have someone iron out all the wrinkles once and for all. I’ve had to sacrifice a lot of flexibility and function in order to keep my costs at minimum, but I want to fix these bugs as much as you do.

More live shows

Hell, ANY live shows. I’ll say it again, I just don’t have time to act as a booking agent and still make quality music for you. If I can afford to hire someone to book shows for me, however, I’ll be able to go on tour (on that note, if any of you know a good booking agent that wants to work with me, that will solve a lot of problems). Once again, though, it’s all about money. If I get enough subscribers that I can afford a plane ticket once a month, I can fly out to a different city every month and play a show in your living room, or down at your local coffee shop, or whatever. Believe me, I want to see you guys as more than names in a chat room every Tuesday!

Live band

I keep saying it every Tuesday night during my UStream shows: I want a live band. The robots are nice, but there’s just something so damn cool about a real drummer with all the flying lumber making a huge sound. I can’t afford to feed anyone else right now, but once we get enough subscribers that will change. Imagine what could happen if your subscription involved a real rock band coming to your town to see YOU, not the other way around.

Bigger and better goodie bags and Beer Bash

Simply put, the more VIP’s that sign up, the cooler the goodie bags and the annual party will be. This one’s pretty simple, I just need more VIP’s to make it happen.

Alright. Deep breath. That was the last of it. The bottom line is this: You guys are awesome. You are making something possible that no musician could’ve dreamed of ten years ago. It’s been a wild ride in this first year, but we can make things even better in the years to come. All I need is your support and your help and I can keep cranking out the tunes that made you fall in love with me in the first place.

I can’t thank you enough for all that you do. I hope to hear from you soon, and let me know if you want to do the town hall thing via UStream. I’ve got a poll at the end of this blog post right now, so go to Matthew Ebel dot net before the end of August and drop me a line. Thanks!

[poll id="2"]

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Download audio file (vip-update-20090405.mp3)
Just a few quick notes from Matthew:

• If you haven’t already added your shirt size to your profile, you might want to do that before the VIP Goodie Bags are sent out. Your profile can be edited at https://matthewebel.net/backstage/profile.php
• It’s time to plan the annual beer bash! If you think you can make it to Boston sometime this summer, please vote for the party details HERE
• It’s almost time to pick the first of 2 annual custom song winners! Stay subscribed and keep your ears on the VIP feed for the announcement…

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