Hear Me Out (And listen to my music)

Understand before you read this, that this is not a plea for pity or any kind of plea for anything.  It's just my thoughts.  Take them as just that.

As you probably know, I just released my 4th official album called RE:boot (my 5th album if you want to count my first Mp3.com only release).

Sometimes (ok, maybe more than sometimes), it gets really discouraging at times doing music, especially after hearing some of the music out there that does "make it" while mine goes largely unnoticed.

Synthpops did pretty well actually.  I only have 3 or 4 copies of that left (and have since made it free to download here: http://www.flamingfish.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117

I'm A Pop Star stayed on the top 10 charts on several Indie radio stations for months. Five other songs made it to the charts as well.  I feel like both Rejuvenate and RE:boot outshine Synthpops in so many ways, but in some ways I feel that Synthpops was my "heyday" so to speak.  Funny thing is, Synthpops almost makes me cringe at times.  I hear so many technical mistakes and production flaws that I would fix now, but alas...people loved it.

Like I said, this isn't a plea for pity, sales, or anything.  I'm not doing music to make money, which is good, since, I've never made a profit on a single project. Amazingly, I've always broke even.  It's not the money, it really isn't.  I have a great day job, and even a great 2nd job working for Ted. I just want people to hear my music and enjoy it.  Yes, my family enjoys it.  They have to.  :) I have a few close friends, and my Kickstarter fans, but I'm talking about people I don't even know.  Not because I want to be famous, but because I want to share my music.

I do have one amazing story about Stating The Obvious I'll share, if you haven't already heard it.

As you know, STO pretty much tells my life story with a bit of poetic license. We ordered 1,000 copies of it.  Hey, it was Midiboy's first major release on my indie label, and someone gifted the release to us. It included a 16 page full color booklet that was designed to represent journal entries for a man named Logan. One day, I got an email from a girl asking for 10 - 20 copies of the album so she could pass them out to people at a church youth event. I was sitting on 950 CDs still, so I offered to send her a case of 50.  She was very thankful for that and offered to pay me for the extra.  I told her not to, because I felt that God wanted me to do this.

I had forgotten all about it.  Maybe 6 months to a year later, I got an email from someone named Robert saying that he was at a baseball game the previous summer and someone was passing out CDs.  He said he almost threw it away because he figured it would be Christian since, who else passes out free things, but something prompted him to keep it.  He said the artwork was fascinating, and he loved the booklet, but he said he felt that the lyrics were speaking directly to him.  He was contemplating suicide and he said that this CD was instrumental in saving his life and with his giving his life over to Christ.

Talk about a moment.  Wow.  We wrote back in forth quite a bit, but one day, I just lost contact with him.  I am not sure where he is now, if he's still with us, but I hope that one day I will be able to meet him face to face.

But you know...as amazing as that is...I just realized this...I have NO idea who that girl was that emailed me. Have NO idea how she even knew about me or my music.  She was sent directly by God as far as I know.

So, I guess that memory keeps me happy with my music, but is it selfish to want more of those kinds of memories?  That is why I write my music.  None of my songs are "fabricated."  They all have meaning to me.  Most are from my own experiences, or things I have been witness to. Yes, a lot of my songs tend to be dark, but this is a dark world, but they all point to the light, ultimately.

The light is Jesus Christ.
He is the reason I do what I do.
That is all.
Gregg