the dotmatrix project

(originally uploaded by Rikke Moltisanti)

If you think you can capture the essence of a live show like in the above picture, we need to talk. Same thing goes for filmmakers with the following video:

The Wigg Report: It Won’t Take Long from Sean Coon on Vimeo.

We’re putting on a monthly show in the Back Bar of The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro. The bands are playing for free, a sound engineer is recording the live show for free, photographers are shooting for free and filmmakers are shooting/editing music videos for free.

Cost of admission: FREE

The idea is that if we all collaborate to create art and release it into the wild — online and off — we’ll be opening doors for each other that might never have been opened otherwise.

Along those lines, we’re looking to build a community of photographers and filmmakers interested in participating at least one time. That means you’ll be joining up with a media team and collaborating with the bands before the show on shot ideas. If you want to do more than one show, we’ll do our best to schedule it. If you want to work with a specific filmmaker, photographer or band, we’ll do our best to accommodate that as well.

We’re good like that.

Photographers: We’re looking to meet photographers who have access to DSLR cameras and can really craft a shot. If you have a great eye, you’re in. There’s no pledging involved, no hazing, no sleeping with farm animals. And while that last sentence read like an extremely male perspective on bad things adolescent men do do to join something potentially cool, we’d definitely like the talented ladies in our community to participate just as much, if not more. I promise, no more horrible analogies, ladies.

So if you’re interested in participating, please follow these two steps:

• Join the dotmatrix project flickr group and then contact Mike or Stephen to get assigned to a show
• Join our dotmatrix project Google Group to ask questions of or communicate with anyone on the project

Filmmakers: While we’d like to have professional filmmakers participate on the project, we’re very open to amateur filmmakers and videographers. All we ask is that you know how to use a modern digital video camera, have a good eye and have at least some experience editing on non-linear systems. dotmatrix HQ has a digital editing bay with Final Cut Pro, so you’ll be able to edit with your co-filmmaker on top notch equipment.

If you’d like to join up, please follow these two steps:

• Subscribe to the dotmatrix project Vimeo channel and contact either Jason Pierce or Andy Coon to get assigned to a show
• Join our dotmatrix project Google Group to ask questions of or communicate with anyone on the project

Cross-Promotions We’re currently working on finalizing deals with local establishments to cross-promote the material created from the show. I don’t want to jinx the potential deals in the works by naming names, but I will say that we’re close to finalizing a deal where a major movie theater in Greensboro would present still shots and music videos from our show prior to the trailers run before each film shown in the theater. We’re also working on establishing a quarterly photo exhibit in a well known downtown venue to present the best shots of the previous three shows.

Both of these cross-promotions are in the works to market the name and work of our participating media creators.

So are you down or what!?

For 15 minutes each day our virtual team — three people in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, one in London, one in Knoxville and myself in Greensboro — gets together to report what we’ve finished, what we’re working on and list the obstacles in our way to getting things done.

Reggie “Planet Progress” Valentine, our kick-ass PM takes it from there.

The conference call is over Skype, with video and desk sharing over Adobe Acrobat Connect.

And yes, video meetings bring out the craziness in folks.

I have an Ad Design degree from Syracuse University, admittedly much more so because I was convinced by my father that I needed a stable job coming out of college than out of any incessant love for crafting adverts. Illustration was my passion as an adolescent — political cartooning to be precise — but she wasn’t too stable of a pursuit, so I caved early on.

Even before I matriculated, I knew I was never going to use my degree in its proper setting. I had no desire to become a Jr. Art Director, slaving away on terribly boring, listless campaigns at a big agency named after a long dead, old, white male copy writer. But many of the skills that I developed in the VPA program — creative brainstorming, rolling with constructive criticism, putting my feet in the shoes of a person with need, etc. — I find myself using to this day on supply-side projects from time to time, though I do try to do so with positive intent and not simply add to the noise of the media ecosystem.

Doc Searls is a demand-side advocate, and I completely agree with his position on the false construct of our system that attempts to connect markets to product via the boisterous shouting of offers into the wind. Maybe his VRM work will begin to flip the script on that paradigm, maybe not.

In any case, Bill Hicks is genius.

The socially aware, innovative, street artist turn pop icon businessman would’ve been 50 years old two days ago.

Wow.

That’s pretty much all I can say. Today, I just got back from my first trip to Boston. It was cold and rainy for the most part but a very interesting city.

I was in the walking city because Inflowential, an artist I manage, won first place in an mtvU competition to open up for Wyclef Jean at UMASS. It was my first time seeing Wyclef perform and it was definitely the most exciting concert I’ve ever been to.

He is the most passionate performer I’ve seen live and everything he did was with such amazing ease.

He kept us on our toes for the entire performance with the surprises of:

• Playing the guitar behind his head
• Bringing his wife on stage — a beautiful lady who I had never seen before and who he admitted didn’t come to a lot of his shows
• Inviting 50 audience-member “Shakira’s” on stage to perform “Hips Don’t Lie” with him. (I had to be one..)
• Undressing down to his T-shirt in what felt to me like 40 degree weather and convincing the audience to do the same. (I did as well)
• Climbing the scaffolding
• Mixing his own vocals from the DJ booth

The picture above that I took from backstage shows right where he got everyone to take off their coats as well and wave them above their heads as we chanted “O-O-O-O-O” to a particular tune in support for Barack Obama.

The video below is very simple but touches my heart. I put together a quick video of two of my favorite clips of the concert, one from the beginning and one towards the end where his head was steaming in the chilly weather.

I had never seen something like this before.

I really hope you get to check out his live performance one day, it’ll be well worth it.

After a long, hard week at work, all I wanted to do was spend a bit of my Saturday afternoon shooting up dirty, rotten scoundrels on GTA4. Of course, when I tried to fire it up today, I got nothing but a frozen screen.

I called up Gamespot and then tracked down the issue online. It’s a bogus fix — you have to disable half the features of the PS3 to get it working — but it’ll do for now:

1. Delete the game’s install data. This is done via the PS3 options. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Game’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Game Data Utility’ Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, from the menu select Delete. This will delete the game’s install information.
2. Delete the game’s save files. To delete any save files you will need to do the following. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Game’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Save Data Utility’ Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, and from the context menu select Delete.
3. Disable your Internet connectivity for the PS3. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Settings’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Network Settings’. Now scroll down to the Internet connection option and press x, now select the disable option. Once this has been done unplug the ethernet cable if you are connecting to the Internet if using this.
4. Disable the console’s information board. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Network’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Information Board’, highlight this and press triangle. From the menu select ‘Do not display’ Press X to confirm this.
5. Disable Media Server functionality. Scroll to Settings, now scroll up / down to ‘Network Settings’ select Media Server connection. Once this has been done press triangle and change the option Disabled.
6. Delete all of the system’s Internet cache. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Network’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Internet Browser’, highlight this and press X. Once you browser opens press the triangle button once, from the new menu highlight the ‘Tools’ option and press X. Scroll down the menu until you reach ‘Delete Cookies’ and press X. Confirm the files deletion. Repeat this for ‘Delete Cache’.
7. Turn off the PS3 screen saver. Use the cross media bar to scroll to ‘Settings’, select ‘Display Settings’. Now highlight ‘Screensaver’ and set this to ‘Do not use’.
8. Once this has been done, manually restart you PS3 by holding down the power button for 5 seconds it will beep once and then shut down. Release the power button and re-press it and hold for about 5 seconds. The system will then boot and reset all display settings. You will be prompted to reset your display settings to how you require them.
9. Once restarted please try the game again, you will be prompted to reinstall.

Once the game has started please turn off the following features:

1. The game’s auto-save. Press Start, Game, and locate the Auto-save option. Turn this off.
2. Turn off the game’s flicker filter. Press Start, Display and locate the Flicker Filter option. Turn this off.
3. Turn off the controller vibration feature. Press Start, Controls and locate the vibration option. Turn this off.

Back to blasting.

UPDATE: Ok, I’m pretty far into the game now and I think I may have run into another freeze bug, though it’s a bit different. I just blew up the mob in the Actions Speak Louder Than Words mission and I’m stuck on a cinematic view of the smoldering rubble. The day is slowly turning to night and all I can do is hit start to get to the pause screen.

Fuck. If I have to clear my saved files to fix this, I’m tossing the game. I’m too far deep.

Iconfactory designer and all-around good guy, Anthony Piraino, has just released his first Mac application — DomainBrain.

If you manage more than one domain (I actually manage more than 15), you’ll want to check it out. The interface is clean, simple and at first glance, covers all of my domain management metadata needs.

At $14, it’s a steal.

Disorder has to be the best way to describe the state of FM radio today.

Here we have this ingenious group of people whose music individually (and now we know collectively) is always on the cutting edge, always leaving us wanting more. They all have such great originality and musical ability.

Why are they not all over the radio like maybe Young Joc, Young Dro, Young Jezzy, Young Buck?

Music is becoming more the business than the art.

So we have to ask ourselves what actually sounds good and makes you feel good? And, if you came up with that feeling on your own.

In business, the best way to sell your product is to know the market. Hopefully you can know it so well that you can make something they like before the consumer even gets to test it out. If you’re very lucky (or the most clever) you can mold your customer to want whatever it is you sell. The latter is the hardest but is that not where record labels have gotten so many people with their huge sphere of influence? An influence that dictates what is played on the radio and what is most accessible. An influence that makes people feel almost inadequate if they are not in with the trends.

I must admit I’ve fallen for some of the Soulja Boy songs against my (hopefully) better judgment. My disorder? I go to clubs for business and I would be so disappointed at what I heard, yet, I found myself wanting to like the music like I thought everyone else did.

Thank goodness a friend of mine who was all into this fad admitted to me that he really wasn’t as in it as much as he lead others to believe. Can I be mad that he wasn’t truthful with himself and others? A little maybe, but I was turning into a hypocrite myself.

So since I’m not the only one feeling this way there still just had to be a reason why it’s so popular.

That’s when I realized maybe people just don’t care about what they hear anymore; they just want to have “fun”. Add some deep bass and words they repeat over and over, loudly at that, and it feels “fun”, I’m only guessing? I too let go, my ex roommate Dima wanted to kill me for that; I just told her “It’s just fun, I just don’t think about what I’m listening to and pretend that I really like it, it’s the new thing!” She knew I was kidding, but I don’t think the other people who say that to themselves realize how detrimental this music is to the progress of our music and to the people as well.

We really can’t have more children wanting to be the next [insert sucky rapper] when they grow up.

On a side note, since when did you have to stop thinking to have fun? Oh yea, that goes with those who have to get sloppy drunk to have a good time too…

Try this: Next time your alarm goes off get out a pen and paper and write down what you’re going to eat at the next fast food restaurant you go to… Post the “song” with the “music” from the loud beep on YouTube and it really could be the next big thing.

Just like Wale said “Hip Hop’s not dead,” but I’d add the radio is.

: (

When I first met Shawn Patch, the lead guitarist of The Radials — a high-energy, twangy, “Hank Williams Jr. dueling with Johnny Cash in the back lot while Patterson Hood pours Jack Daniels lyrics over their heads” band out of Greensboro, NC — he was one-half of a two piece ensemble with vocalist & rhythm guitarist, Stephen Corbett.

Fast-forward six months to last Friday when The Radials opened up for Sorry About Dresden at the kickoff dotmatrix project event and the dynamic duo had grown to a full five player band. And while I was beyond taken by their full sound and stage presence, it was their lap steel guitarist, Tom Beardslee, who I couldn’t stop watching.

After the show, Tom and I chatted for a bit and he passed me his last album, Good Company. As I do with all artists I discover, I ran Tom down online later that night and low and behold — his story matched the uniqueness of his play:

Tom is not your average pop musician. He has made several trips to West Africa to study highlife, soukous, Afrobeat, and traditional music. He also worked in Ghana as a studio and live guitarist, playing with musicians like Okyerema Asante, Pat Thomas, Jewel Ackah, Sharon Katz, and members of Osibisa. He lived the life of a highlife bandsman with Amakye Dede’s Super High Kings, with whom he toured all of Ghana, as well as in Togo and Cote D’Ivoire.

In the US, Tom has worked with musicians from all over the world since his early teens. He has played styles as diverse as flamenco, punk, reggae, ska, rockabilly, blues, country, bluegrass, funk, and soul. His diverse musical wanderings have led him to work with such artists as Country Joe McDonald, Clarence Bucaro, Sekouba Bambino, Kaikpai Ukpendi, Big Dread, and Alassane Sarr.

Tom has recently earned a Master’s Degree in Ethnomusicology from Ohio State. He studied at OSU with Dr. Daniel Avorgbedor and Dr. Margarita Mazo, and at the University of Ghana with John Collins and J.H.K. Nketia. His studies have led to work with Afropop Worldwide, Guitar Player Magazine, Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and Fingerstyle Guitar.

Not a bad prelude to a listen, so I popped in Good Company, kicked up my feet and closed my eyes for a listen.

I’m not sure I can classify this album. It definitely has deep roots in wide range of blues, but it also has such an interesting contemporary feel without it being stereotypical. Good Company is mature, familiar and arranged, yet Beardslee’s layering has a real, substantive and simultaneously sweet edge to it.

It’s a sound that I haven’t quite heard before.

Beardslee’s storytelling is steeped in rich metaphors and interesting instrumental juxtapositions, yet it’s his lyrical delivery that cuts through the air and exposes his old soul. Whether he’s playful, crooning, narrating or belting, Beardslee brings it with an authentic flavor.

Toss in his picking and well, it’s found a home in my rotation.

Take a listen:

Stacks

I Would

There’s a dirty rumor floating around town that Tom is leaving Greensboro for the Midwest to head back to school. If true, it’ll be a loss for our music community.

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

Many more to come.