Last night was good.  We had twenty something people come out for us, plus regulars.  People danced to my music!  I moved a bunch of copies of my new album (read: these things are going fast, so pick yours up before the limited pre-release of 100 is gone).  Guy was great (loved that hat!), James Dalton ripped it up (as per usual) and Chris Brown gets better every time I see him.  R.I.P Acoustic Music at Echo (2004-2007).

In other and completely unrelated new, I’m one of the spotlight artists at DiscRevolt.com.  Check it out!  They like me!  They really like me!  Maybe more people will learn that I exist.  Time will tell.

Two great shows just passed, so glad to have seen so many of you out there.  I wound up at Cool Beans, playing the Oh! Becky Records showcase, which was a super-good time.  Alex Biese was awesome, Darrin Bradbury never ceases to enterain me, and Rick Warren, though  I missed his set on Friday, will be down in Red Bank tonight, at the Internet Cafe’s Open Mic.  A good time.  Saturday, I found my way to the Princeton Library, where I played for a very receptive audience of high school students.  I dug them, and they dug me.  I hope they enjoy my new album, ’cause a bunch of them picked it up (and you can, too…just visit the music or store page).  I also took an hour or so to walk around Princeton.  I checked out the Princeton Record Exchange (which was good, but they didn’t have Pet Sounds on vinyl) and Small World Cafe (which seems like a place I’d love to play), and walked most of the main drag and side-streets (J. Crew, Ralph Lauren and their ilk don’t interest me, though).

Don’t miss this Tuesday night’s show at Echo, in Red Bank.  It’s their last night of acoustic music.  I’m there with James Dalton, Emory St. and Guy Gsell.

Sonni Shine was great.  Sonuva! was great.  David DiGioia was great.  Carolyn Selheim was great.  I was fair to middling.  Oh, who am I kidding…I was great!  No, not really.  I got the giggles on stage.  I broke a string.  David DiGioia lent me his guitar, only to find out that his battery was dead, so I couldn’t get amplified.  I moved the mic out of the way, and the crowd literally surrounded the stage (like, right up on me), and I played the rest of my set like it sounds in my bedroom (which is how I write the songs, anyway).  It was wonderful.  I could hear you all singing along so well!  My movement wasn’t limited by keeping my face in one spot.  It was a good time, and everyone had fun with me.

Tomorrow…Oradell!  Check it out in the sidebar —> or in the shows section up there.

Every Tuesday night, I host at Songwriters’ Workshop a the Count Basie Theatre, in Red Bank. Last night, we had our stellar crowd of teens through adults (including peer-participants who attend and teach at the same school). Matt Diff was scheduled to play at Echo, but missed his train, so I filled in (cut out of the Workshop a little early), following Sonuva! (with whom I’m playing this Thursday), for my tenth performance in 5 days. I rock. However, I got the unfortunate news from Gary Dean (owner of Drummer’s Alley) that next week will be the last week of acoustic music at Echo. Boooooo. On the up-side, I’m playing that show with James Dalton, Guy Gsell and Emory St., so we can send the old girl off with a bang.

In lighter news, don’t miss my show at the Internet Cafe this Thursday (and if you live in North Jersey, or are willing to take a road trip with me, the Oh! Becky Records showcase on Friday).

Monday night is New Brunswick night for me, whenever I have the gas money.  Last night, I played the West End Coffee Bar at about 9pm, was the featured artist at the Court Tavern at 11pm, and rounded off my night with a 1am performance at the Harvest Moon.  Sarah Jean, Rob Jones and Dave Tucker  host (respectively), and I adore each one of them.

Big thanks to Carolyn, Bob, Sarah and everyone else who came out to support, and Ken for letting me borrow your guitar when my G-string broke (no bad puns, please).

Catch me Thursday at the Internet Cafe, in Red Bank, with Dav!d DiGioia, Sonni Shine, Carolyn Selheim and Sonuva!  $5 tickets, free back-rubs.

Wow.  I had SUCH a great time this past weekend at the 2nd annual Wave Gathering.  Much Kudos to Gordon, Scott and Adam for putting on an incredible event!  Not only did I perform FOUR times (America’s Cup, Brick Wall, Wish You Were Here, and the Twisted Tree Cafe), but I also managed to catch performances by Bob Denson, Anthony Fiumano, Readymade Breakup, The Gay Blades, Hero Pattern, Augment to a Dream, Bobby Strange, Status Green, Arlan Feiles and the Lone Orchestra, Dixie Lyon, Joanna Burns, Janey Todd, The Ruling Party, James Dalton, The Churchills, Paperback Radio, Maybe Pete, Cook, Tommy Anton, Amanda Duncan, Jon Caspi, Last Perfect Thing, Holtz, Arlan Feiles (solo), April Smith and Bob Burger.  WOW!  Wish I’d been able see more, but WHAT a weekend!

Tonight, I’ll be the featured artist at the Court Tavern, in New Brunswick, 10:30pm.  Come on out!

3…2…1…BLAST OFF! The new EricGinsberg.com is officially launched! Woo-hoo! I’ve still got a few pages to finish toward the bottom of the Music page, and a few more mp3s to upload, but I’m just about wrapped. Also, I’ve been working on editing a live video with my friend, Janine, for the last few days. That should be up soon, as well.

My new album, “Disconnect”, is getting officially pre-released today! YEAH! Check the Music page to listen to it, downlaod freebies or buy the album, or come see me, live, to purchase a copy. I’m starting a series of 9 shows in the next three weeks, starting tonight. ALRIGHT! I had laryngitis for the last week, so I was really nervous that I wouldn’t get to make it out tonight. But creating this website has actually helped me, there: I had hours of solitary work to do, which kept me from talking and exacerbating my voice.

My upcoming shows are listed to your right, in the sidebar. Just click on them for more details, or go to the Shows page in the top bar. Can’t wait to see you all soon!

The About page is gone, and has been replaced by the info page. It’s good.

The Music page still needs me to finish the album info, the bottom group of songs, and the ability to purchase everything on the site.

The Store is up and fully functional, but the text is a little messy. I’ll have to play around with it later tonight or tomorrow.

The Shows page is up and functional, though not as pretty as Jonathan Coulton’s. It’ll do for now. I’ll play around with it more once the rest of the site is done.

I still have to make the FAQ and the Contact page, as well as the song pages for the bottom group of songs on the Music page. However, things are moving along quite well at this point. Oh, and I still have that annoying HTML Insert of a playtagger, which doubles it where I want one, and produces it where I don’t want it at all. Chandra and I have combed through all the css and php pages looking for where that rat-bastard is hiding and have, thus far, been unsuccessful. I’ll keep hunting.

Keep your eyes open for more fun stuff!

Header is done.  Lyric pages for album songs is done.  Some of the link-backs need to be fixed to look prettier, but they work, and for now, that’ll do.  Annoying PlayTagger code is seemingly indestructible.  I put it in a slot to apply to all the pages, decided I didn’t want it there, and now I can’t get rid of it (hence the double play button in a lot of places).  Some of the link-backs need to be fixed to look prettier, but they work, and for now, that’ll do.  I’ve started some of the other pages, and I’ve fixed and confirmed that the buy buttons work (I haven’t tested each one individually, which I’ll eventually have to do).

More on the way.

I got the Music page up.  It’s not done, but it’s up (smart, right?).  I figured out how to change the banner from the swirly blue thing to some pictures of me and my albums.  We’ll see if I can get that squared away tonight.  I need to make the individual pages for each song which will require a good deal of transcribing and a good deal of ripping off JonathanCoulton.com (which is down right now, and I swear it’s not my fault this time).  Then I have to go into the music page (above) and post all the links to those pages.  It’d also be nice if I could figure out how to make things nice names like ericginsberg.com/music, instead of the weird URL that it goes to right now (click it up there in the bar and find out).

That’s the bulk of the work that I have to do.  Once I’ve got that under my belt, putting in the events should be gravy (as long as I learn some API, but I’ve be surprising myself with my ability to learn MySQL and PHP in the last few days).

So, I should probably write something more interesting and substantial on my about page, if I decide to keep it, I’ll have the music page and the events page.  What the hell else do I need?  Oh!  A store!  I need a store!  I need a way for you to give me money for things that come in the mail!  PayPal funness should take me some time, though.  Damn.  However, I defy Jonathan Coulton and his Sting-like rock-stardom where in he demands you order tangible things from a go-betwen like CDBaby, CafePress or LuLu.com.  “Nay,” I say (like a horse…yeah, I said it).  I will personally mail you the stuff that you pay for (this way I can include snarky post-it notes…and keep all of the money).

I’ll whip up a contact page, and maybe a page of links of people/things I endorse.  I’m likely going to forego the pages for photos and contests that my old site had, and who needs a blog when I’ve this thing?  So that’s three things gone.  I will, however, very likely bring back the FAQ.  I just never get tired of that thing.

More to come.