the dotmatrix project

[photograph by Michael Dunn]

Above is the working cover for the 14 track live album we recorded last month at The Green Burro for the Greensboro-based, Southern Rock, alt-Americana group, The Radials. Our featured act on opening night, Sorry About Dresden, will have their 10 track live album finished sometime this upcoming week.

Each band we put on receives a live album, professionally recorded, mixed and mastered in downtown Greensboro. We record live on 6 to 8 separate channels — depending on the amount of vocal mics and mic’d instruments needed — through our Mackie Onyx 1620 w/ a Firewire card straight to Pro Tools on our MacBook Pro. Dan “Mixmaster” Bayer, our resident sound engineer, has been mixing both live and in the studio for years with outstanding quality.

Once the album is complete, we license it with a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. It basically means that anyone can use the music, even remix or sample it, as long as they give proper attribution and don’t use it commercially. Of course individual cases of copyright permission can still be managed individually, so the artists have complete control of their product.

Our distribution plan is where we shift away from the traditional label route — not to say that we consider ourselves or strive towards being a “label” on any decipherable level. Each album will be uploaded to the Internet Archive, where fans can download the tracks for free. We’ll also work with artists to get their albums out to spots such as Last.fm, iLike and AmieStreet while schooling them on how their fans can help them in the internet age by doing simple, free things like scrobbling tracks to their Last.fm account when using iTunes or their iPod, tagging tracks, recommending tracks, etc.

We’ll provide a package of audio tracks to the musicians — along with cover art, a professionally mixed video and professionally shot pictures of the show — but it’ll be up to each band to get their music to online stores such as iTunes and CDBaby or physical retail spots. We’re not interested in managing the machinations of music sales. Our profit margin is much greater designing software.

Once the product has been delivered, we’ll provide a free download of each album, along with links off to corresponding media from the evening back here at HQ. All we ask in return from people downloading the tracks is their email address and an optional PayPal donation to help us recoup our initial costs.

All of this is a designed effort to build community around diverse local artists, with local music fans, while still providing access to people around the world with overlapping tastes of music.

Prego, baby. Prego.

The Radials Live at the dotmatrix project by the dotmatrix project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Obviously, we’re not going to go to the, uh, you know, superstars and say, “We want a percentage of your…” They’d be like (makes a dumbfounded face)

It must suck to watch your industry fall apart at the seems. Hell, I experienced it in 2001 working in Silicon Alley. Too bad for the music biz that their problem isn’t as simple as the net bubble burst with overzealous investors saturating an immature market.

That’s a correction at worst, not a complete redefinition of industry.

Is the 360 deal the silver bullet? I doubt it. It reads as a way to stop the bleeding, not the necessary organ transplant of the business model. One Golden Goose (record sales) dies, so Flom and company pilfer the remaining geese — that’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, not changing the foundational approach of what it means to be a music label in 2008.

They’re not getting to the heart of the matter.

The music industry’s problem is that too many people can make, find, enjoy, experience and share music without ever needing to step foot in their marketplace. They can sign bands to 360 deals until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve moved away from a world of massive record sales and sold-out stadium shows to a world where free music online leads to well attended, yet cozy venues and small festivals.

We are living a more personalized, fun and affordable music experience.

Of course there will always be superstars, and they’ll demand a higher price point across the board, but marketing teams won’t be the genesis of their popularity moving forward. The web enables decentralized power through the aggregate of individuals — whether the individuals are musicians or fans — so our “chock full of choice” world is now aligning along the edges, not within the artificial heart of where the music industry dictates.

The 360 deal is a short-term play for industry executives to keep making coin, not a long-term solution to evolve their business.

Labels, in the business to serve musicians, need to do more with less because the ratio of revenue delivering superstars to nominally successful acts is becoming a smaller integer as each day passes. Indie labels without aspirations of world dominance can swing that transition because they’ve been working smart, sleek and forward-thinking all along.

How does a major label — with all of its bloated, corporate structure — compete in this dynamic environment?

They don’t.

(via KOAR)

Is this for real?

If it is, this completely redefines the concept of selling out. I know the music industry is in the shitter these days, and of course Kanye West isn’t Anton Newcombe, but still… this is pretty damn crazy.

(originally uploaded by stublog)

Bob Lefsetz
Apple Buys Universal
April 1, 2008

[…] With the Net ablaze with talk of Jim Griffin’s P2P licensing scheme, Steve Jobs has worked in secret to pull off the staggering, mind-bending, game-changing acquisition of Universal Music.

[…]

And starting April 15th, all Universal tracks at the iTunes Store will be fifteen cents. Steve wanted the price to be lower, rumor has it as low as nine cents, but he couldn’t convince Marty Bandier and the rest of the publishers to lower their share, so fifteen cents it is. […]

I’m holding on as if this is a huge prank. Not that I disagree with a similar move, though:

Me
Jermaine Dupri’s Shuck ‘N Jive
November 21, 2007

[…] If Universal and Warner both pulled out of iTunes tomorrow, Jobs could shift his focus to the relatively untapped, global long tail market of unsigned and small label acts in the wild. If he made it easier for such acts to upload music to his arena, he could pocket the cut (53%) that once went to labels like Universal and Warner, turn off DRM (the only reason he’s using it is because the big labels insist upon using it) and start a price war that even four gas stations at an intersection haven’t seen before.

You think labels are struggling now? That kind of a move would truly revolutionize the industry. And Jobs wouldn’t have too much to lose as it’s the iPod — not iTunes music sales — that is Apple’s revenue darling.

Who needs whom?

[…]

I’d bet my bank that an indie artist would jump at the opportunity to have their album/tracks available in as prime of a spot as iTunes with a $.29 price point per song. If I have $10 to spend on music, I have $10 to spend on music. Set a market-friendly price and watch sales jump through the roof while illegal downloads decrease, overnight. […]

If this were true, it’d be game on.

UPDATE: Alas…

UPDATE II: The best April Fool’s Day post in 2008 has to go to Davey D (Myspace blog):

[…] “New York City being the center of the cultural universe is a myth. It’s one big urban legend that in many ways is harmful”, Rochester stated. “One of the biggest falsehoods is that New York City is the birthplace of the music phenomenon called Hip Hop. For almost three decades we have been led to believe that a bunch kids from public housing projects went out and created one of the most vibrant and certainly one of the most popular art forms in the 21st century. It sounds good on TV. It reads well in newspaper. It tugs at our heart strings”, Rochester grimaced, “But the truth of the matter is this cultural expression is rooted in Texas sharecropping and cowboy culture.” […]

Oh man, his flock of sycophant Hip Hop heads ate that shit up! Bravo, D.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch breaks news of a $5 “tax” that Warner Music is cooking up to impose on ISP’s — per individual customer — to guarantee protection from future liability caused by their customers downloading music, regardless of the fact that only a minuscule fraction illegally download music, let alone download music through proper channels at all.

Admittedly, this degree of hubris reaches a new level for the Industry, but dying business models will be dying business models.

The important question to focus on is: What’s going to replace these dinosaurs?

Cause there’s no way this scheme will ever fly.

In the comment thread, Dennis Ramirez makes a few good points:

[…] no, a band does not need a manager nor a label to play a local coffeeshop nor VFW hall. sometimes, they may even be able to organize a small tour for themselves.

if they are content with that, fine. more power to them.

but the majority of artists themselves are not, and there are only 24 hours in a day, so it is much more efficient if a band can hire someone to route touring, get them P.R., reviews, solicit labels or investors, etc., so the band can find time to write songs and record them.

a couple can do it, like Ani DiFranco, but they are overwhelmingly teh excpetion, not the rule.

and the manager needs to be paid (i dont know where you get the 25 manager thing from, bands only have 1), as does the booking agent, the recording engineer, the producer, the artist who designed the cover artwork, the web designer, their rent, their bills, etc. etc.

and that’s if they distribute everything themselves.

a music label can help a great deal with that, just like a VC helps a great deal in getting a startup off the ground. it’s not hard to understand that.

Ramirez names at least eight disparate communities that must be involved in an artists world to assist them in their quest for exposure and compensation. Right now, that’s what the label offers. So what could take its place?

Sounds like the perfect storm necessary for creating an industry-specific social network.

Sketching…

A hundred years ago the Lower East Side was the first stop for waves of newcomers to America. Today this is the patch of town everyone is talking about. With streetscapes that are livable in scale and rich in history, there are scores of new restaurants, vintage and designer owned fashion and furniture stores & a diverse & vibrant night life.

The profile of the typical renter in the area is changing from the counter culture hipsters to the more mainstream hipster and young professional.

You are a downtown person and you want to live in the neighborhood you love.

The switch — boutique style quality and elegance. Five unique luxury 11 floor through homes located in New York’s Lower East Side.

Are you ready to make the switch?

A whole new view of the Lower East Side.

These two panels were stumbled upon by Molly while we waited outside to see a show at ABC No-Rio.

UPDATE: I found a clip of the documentary, 156 Rivington:

(originally uploaded by Ben Brown)

Bob Lefsetz: SXSW

Can an unsigned band get noticed? And, do we even bother to use that term anymore, “unsigned”. Do you want to get signed?

I mean what are the chances that the cognoscenti are going to care about your band when R.E.M. and even Van Morrison are shilling for attention. Oh, it makes you feel good, to rent a U-Haul, sleep four to a room and perform a set no one cares about. The same way it makes you feel good to send a CD to me! It’s amazing what people will do to make themselves feel good, make them believe they’re making progress.

[…]

Don’t worry about the short term money. If your music is good, if you play well live, the money will come. But sending me a CD or schlepping your equipment to SXSW isn’t going to make your music any better. If it’s good, put it on the Web, energize your fans, they’ll spread the word. But you probably suck and are looking for the easy way out. And crying that you just can’t make any money. Boofuckinghoo.

As much as I dig Lefsetz’s perspective on the realities of the music business, this no skin-having, binary, pessimistic position he pins on musicians trying to make a living while gaining exposure is BULLSHIT.

If You Love Music, Then Love The Music

Yes, Bob, you’re right about the labels. We get it. We know it through and through — signing on the dotted line doesn’t mean shit anymore. But only a fucking lawyer, one who NEVER MADE A DIME creating or building something born in their soul, would shit on such people who send him a CD for a listen.

You can’t have it both ways, Bob. If you’re so fucking into the music, if life is all about the music…

You know, the music, man
The thing that reaches into your heart
Past the Boss suit and fake tan
And sets your soul on restart

…then you must take CDs being sent to you as a SIGN that people want to connect with you because they think your taste in music MEANS SOMETHING. Quite possibly, they’re so caught up in the possibilities of this decentralized world that you so often rant about that they view YOU as a beacon of light, an avenue for advice or even exposure on some level.

Don’t sing the merits of music being at the soul of everything, reveal in detail the type of music that speaks to you and then SHIT on artists who expose their sound to you.

The people who feel like they’re MAKING PROGRESS when they post their music to the internet in an attempt to build community are probably the same type of people who would send music to an industry visionary they feel a connection with.

This attitude you’re conveying is as guarded and old school as any crap dropped by the head of a major label. That’s not too surprising since your blog is as closed of an experience as MTV proper, but I gotta say, man, the last few lines of your post are fucking reprehensible.

Should A Band Not Try To Make A Living?

There are probably acts that fit such a description to a tee — I’m referring to Lefsetz’s reference of weak acts looking to cut corners and then bitch about not making money — but such a gross generalization of PEOPLE shines a light on him that isn’t even becoming of a fucking DEFENSE LAWYER.

“Don’t worry about short-term money” has no relevance WHATSOEVER to an artist’s conception of “short-term money.” Lefsetz is talking to musicians about compensation with a label’s definition of ROI in his mouth.

$35k a year to pay the rent, eat decently and fill up the gas tank is “short-term money” to a vast majority of musicians. What do you call that, Bob?

If musicians need to build community in this world driven by the internet — that is your position, right? — then why SHIT on people who travel across the country to a music festival to expose their craft to a new audience WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE SAME INTERNET?

Great, unknown acts all over the world play their hearts out live, upload music to Last.fm, Amie Street, iLike and/or MySpace and still struggle to pay their rent. New connections and avenues of exposure in the meat space matter JUST AS MUCH in this brave new world of interconnectedness, ESPECIALLY for bands with a great sound.

SXSW isn’t about the back room dealings of major label A&R folks anymore. Do you realize how many bloggers converge on SXSW each year? How is getting a gig at SXSW these days not in line with your approach to building community online around the music?

Bands have always juggled their local and regional touring strategies with long-distance gig opportunities. In these days that decision is even more relevant to building a diverse following online. They’re working whatever channels they can find, particularly ones that expose them to people who publish intra-day, like yourself, and that’s a problem for you to watch or participate in?

WTF?

UPDATE: Bob’s blog minion moderates trackbacks, so this post isn’t appearing on his SXSW post. None of my past posts referring Bob’s letters had a problem getting through the moderation queue. I guess they only make it through when people agree with him.

So much for understanding online communities.

As an anti-war song with a funky baseline and classic delivery of poignant lyrics, Everlast’s latest drop stands on its own. But there’s so much more going on in the subtext of this video:

At 2:26, when Everlast raises his arms in a classic Christian pose while singing…

Pray for me, pray for my soul, ma

…the video transitions to classic Christian imagery with similar poses in the graveyard before cutting back to Everlast singing…

Pray for me and all my sins

…he’s now in a classic Muslim prayer pose, with palms exposed to the sky.

Everlast first took Shahada back in the mid-90’s and has been an evolving, practicing Muslim ever since. I dug up this interview from the late-nineties where he describes the second time he took Shahada, but for the first time in earnest:

[…] So finally I’m sittin’ there taking Shahada again. From that point on I’ve made a commitment where I’m going to try my best. I’m gonna do my best to make my prayers, let’s start there. Let’s not beat ourselves up because we went out last night and had a drink. Let’s make our prayers and pray for the strength to stop doing one thing at a time. That’s what I’m still dealing with.

You know, once you get over the big things, it becomes very subtle. It can be as subtle as looking [at] a man, and not even speaking bad about him, but back-biting him in your mind. The easy ones to beat — well I shouldn’t say easy — the big ones are easy to notice. It’s the subtle psychological stuff that helps you get into who really you are. You gotta be able to face the truth of who you are. If you are not able to face that truth of who you are, you’re gonna crumble, man. […]

Too often we think of the “sides” of both war and life in such simplistic, digestible, juxtapositions — Muslims vs. Christians or Good vs. Evil — that we miss out on understanding what leads up to humans behaving as we do. I mean, can you even begin to imagine what it must feel like for a once Christian, Irish-American white male who has professed Shahada to stare long and hard at the drivers of us going to war in the middle-east?

I can.

(via Navaho Gunleg)

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 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.

That status line from Stephen made me smile. Big time.

You’ll probably digest it differently from the next person — those familiar with the current state of the dotmatrix project have the best context — but I’m taking a positive drop such as that as a sign that I’m progressing in my attempts to become a community-centered entrepreneur.

My last project, The People, Yes, fell on its face — and is currently on life support in a coma — after more than a years worth of effort from a number of super talented people. While working with the homeless community isn’t an easy venture to begin with, we ultimately closed up shop due to my stubbornness — locking onto my initial vision with titanium clamps rather than to allow talented people do what they do best.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.

I’m sure I’ll continue to toss ideas into the mix that complicate everyones plans, but I’ll do so with an explicit understanding and respect towards the agreed upon and established roles of the dotmatrix project team.

Above is Stephen Charles, our Lead Coordinator, Photography Community. If you’re not familiar with his work, you should be.

I’ll introduce the entire team in a couple of days.