the dotmatrix project

As I popped around town yesterday, looking to knock a few errands off my seemingly never-ending list of shit to get done, I caught a NPR segment about a relatively new book publisher making waves in his industry.

The grand idea behind Jonathan Karp’s TWELVE is actually quite elegant:

TWELVE was established in August 2005 with the objective of publishing no more than one book per month. We strive to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority. Works that explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain. We seek to establish communities of conversation surrounding our books. Talented authors deserve attention not only from publishers, but from readers as well. To sell the book is only the beginning of our mission. To build avid audiences of readers who are enriched by these works – that is our ultimate purpose.

Karp spent 16 years at Random House Publishing Group prior to founding TWELVE, beginning in 1989 as an editorial assistant, working his way up to Editor-in-Chief. I’m guessing that during his run, he probably noticed something peculiar about the structure of a major publishing firm that interfered with the creative process.

From a 2005 BusinessWeek interview, Cutting Through The Noise:

[...] I’m going to personally edit every book. I’ve learned that you have the most fun and you can have the most impact when you work directly with the authors. I think I’ll have better publishing ideas because I’m also editing the book. I’ll be close enough to the content and spirit of the book that I’ll be able to communicate what’s special about it to audiences [...]

Sound familiar?

Well, it sounds familiar to me.

Over the last few years — after making a huge life change leaving NYC to setup camp in Greensboro — I’ve slowly altered the definition of dotmatrix from strictly being an online design and strategy consultancy to include what I now like to refer to for now as a “next-gen music label.”

Forget the consultancy aspect of the equation for this particular conversation (to my current and potential clients: I’m still in the game); I’ve been stressing about what I should call my work with promoting shows, local musicians and, in particular, Molly’s career.

And the term label just doesn’t sit right with me.

Why?

My mental model of what a “label” represents has been corrupted over the years to be squarely centered around the business of making money, much more so than the business of enabling the growth of musicians.

That said, I’m not about trying to create some kind of old school, micro-managed, opaque, middle-management, tired ass A&R tiered nightmare organization to pull down a buck while skimming over artist development and promotion. Hell, I don’t want to “sign” artists to anything even closely resembling the notion of a contract; I want to empower them to make it happen for themselves.

Bob Lefsetz weighs in on the future of the label:

Will there be labels in the future? Sure. But they won’t look like and won’t have the same names as the big four companies today. Because the new labels will be about building acts and maximizing revenue in all areas of exploitation. They’ll be about transparency. They’ll be run by geeks as opposed to mini-mafiosi. There will be a level of trust between performer and businessman. All things today’s majors abhor, which will contribute to their marginalization.

Lefsetz is on the right path here — transparency, non-mafioso business types, trust — but there’s still a degree of traditional thought buried in his perceptive noggin’; the percept that an artist needs a businessman to make shit come together.

See, I’m thinking that what replaces the traditional label will most likely be more of a service — something that brings together and overlaps all communities of the current industry in a way that enables artists, producers, engineers, venues, merchandisers, lawyers and fans to self-connect, collaborate and/or support one another — rather than a business model where non-musicians represent the artist simply to play matchmaker, get muddled up in the creative process or push avenues of exposure on artists that might be more about their own agenda.

Jonathan Karp experienced the craziness within his industry and created TWELVE as an answer for dealing with the insanity. As a relative outsider to the “music industry,” I don’t have the muscle memory of 15 years within the business, but my goal isn’t to replicate this diseased model locally or to arrogantly focus on a new angle based purely on assumptions derived from creating information architectures for the live web over the past 10 years.

Over the next year I’ll be digging in locally to promote shows, expose artists, book acts, learn how to both mix sound for a show and a live recording, read up on copyright & revenue sharing and push the edge as far as possible in freeing up music and media in order to build community.

In other words, I’ll be asking questions, listening, supporting, learning, getting my hands dirty, modeling, designing… then building.