Charles “the cleave” Cleaver intensely works the keyboard as Max Indian closes up another great evening with The Dotmatrix Project. Thanks to all the fans who braved the wind and snow to come and support local North Carolina bands! If you like the photos, you can see more of my work on my blog.

Carter Gaj changing it up.

Ryan Gustafson who also plays with The Light Pines and Max Indian, has his own self-named project with a folk/indie style and a lot of heart. If you are interested in seeing more of my work, please feel free to take a look at my blog!

Josh Moore on acoustic guitar

John Pope shares a laugh with Carter Gaj in The Light Pines first live performance on January 29 @ the Duke Coffeehouse. They opened up the night for Ryan Gustafson and Max Indian. All three bands shared a few key members while rotating others, giving each band a sound to set them apart. Fans braved the snowy streets and packed out the venue for an upbeat and entertaining evening. If you would like to see more of my photos I’d love for you to check out my blog!

Will Dawson connects with camera and crowd.

Fans become part of The Alcazar Hotel’s performance as Will Dawson moves off the stage and into the crowd.

To see more of my work, check out my blog.

Liza Jane gets the crowd to participate in the music.

Josh Johnson makes final adjustments to his amp.

To see more of my work, check out my blog.

Don and I made the trek out to Durham with Elizabeth yesterday to be interviewed on WUNC’s The State of Things. I had pushed for a group interview — so many people have made this project a reality that quite honestly, my voice matters much less than theirs — but Laura Leslie was sitting in for Frank Stasio, who had prior knowledge of the project whereas this was all new to her, so it was deemed best to keep it relatively simple.

That meant Prez and Andy had to stay home, and Liz had to sit in the hallway and do her best to take a few shots for posterity.

The interview happened, and Laura was extremely warm and gracious and overall it went well. I flubbed the end, as unbeknownst to me, the engineer behind me began a countdown to armageddon that Laura needed to react to, but otherwise I think we represented ourselves alright.

We’re in the midst of making a number of changes two years deep into this venture — in particular, leaning towards documenting paid shows only. What we’re unsure of is how such a shift in direction will impact the community building / participation aspect of the project and whether or not that in and of itself will effect our happiness with the direction of DMP.

At least we have the power to reform our wayward direction if we so choose.

Here’s the interview:
[Click through to the post to listen to audio]

================

In June of 2009, the dotmatrix project hit another milestone.  It was our first opportunity to feature three performances in a single evening.  We were pleased to showcase three singer/songwriters all local to Greensboro, NC.

Randy Furches is a high-spirited, high energy person and performer.  He kicked off the evening with a short set that showed off his love for all varieties of music.  There was some Blues, some Folk, and a little bit of Hip-Hop.  He brought along with him two musicians to accompany him during his set.  Hank Johnson provided some extra flavor on guitar and on mandolin.  King-Kev-O helped Randy finish his set off, bringing his own lyricism to the stage on “Cryogenics.”

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording Engineers: Don Ravon, Dan Bayer, Jerrod Smith
Mixing Engineers: Dan Bayer, Cesar Oviedo
Mastering Engineers: Cesar Oviedo
Cover Design: Sean Coon
Cover Photograph: Elizabeth Lemon

Morgan McPherson is a talented young performer who I believe has a long and prosperous career ahead of her.  For this evening, she was accompanied by Ron May on bass and Strother Bullins on drums.  The magic these guys brought to the stage can also be found on Morgan’s EP, Destiny Save Me, which was recently recorded in Nashville.  It should be available soon.  You can check out her myspace for more information on that.

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording Engineers: Don Ravon, Dan Bayer, Jerrod Smith
Mixing Engineers: Dan Bayer
Cover Design: Sean Coon
Cover Photograph: Doug Klesch

Kristen Leigh has done quite a bit of traveling as well, going as far as the West coast, to produce her music.  Fortunately, for us, she still calls Greensboro home.  When she’s not performing purely solo, Ueli Schweizer joins her on violin, as he did for us this evening.  Sara Dickson, Kristen’s friend and tutor on piano, also accompanied the talented songwriter during the performance.

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording Engineers: Don Ravon, Dan Bayer, Jerrod Smith
Mixing Engineers: Don Ravon
Cover Design: Sean Coon
Cover Photograph: Matty Sheets

Elizabeth Lemon, one of DMP’s photography leads and curator of tomorrow night’s photo exhibit opening at The Green Bean, was featured in an interview by Matty Sheets over at Monkeywhale.

Congrats, Elizabeth.

The exhibit… is up.

That was only a few months in the making.

This Friday night @ The Green Bean is the exhibit’s opening, featuring the music of past DMP performers: Laurelyn Dossett, Mr. Rozzi and Eating The Invaders. We’re also going to screen a slew of DMP music videos created by the ever talented All Aces Media, Ioannis Batsios, Jason Marc Pierce, Jennifer Graves, Bret Jones and Michael McQueen.

As far as the exhibit goes, we have 29 large format photographs on display, shot by 9 local photographers across 8 monthly shows, which will stay on the walls until September 27th.

Friday night, the entire month… it’s our way of both celebrating and promoting the talent found within our own community.

We do hope you can come out and enjoy it with us.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t introduce our featured photographers, so here they are:

DMP PHOTOGRAPHERS (These are the folk who signed up with us to shoot specific shows and then uploaded their high-res shots to the DMP flickr photostream under a Creative Commons license, which in turn furthers our mission)
		Kevin Belton flickr account Email | Voice: 336.816.8571 Kevin is a professional product photographer for the High Point furniture industry, second camera for John Leonard Photography for weddings and special events. He has been shooting themed based ideas in the last year or so featuring addiction, fashion, and music. Art is his passion and the camera is his medium.
		Stephen Charles CharlesMedia Photography Email | Voice: 336.682.9517 Stephen Charles began taking photographs in 1983 with a 35mm Canon Sure Shot. With the advent of Digital SLRs he has pursued photography as a growing passion, with a desire for letting candid captured moments tell the story.
		Jessi Hagood Jessi Hagood Photography Email Jessi Hagood is a native of Eden, NC and works primarily in the Greensboro area as a Wedding and Portrait Photographer. Recently her work has involved photographing Bodybuilding and Figure Competitions, soon to be featured in Muscle and Fitness Magazine and in an upcoming episode of MTV Made.
		Doug Klesch Doug Klesch Photography Email | Voice: 336.542.3071 Doug is a refugee from the cubicle farms of corporate America. Failing to have sapped all creative energy from him over more than a decade, his overlords released him back to the world. He gratefully returns wielding a camera.
		Elizabeth Lemon Elizabeth Lemon Photography Email | Voice: 719.244.3518 A recent graduate from the photography program at Randolph Community College, Elizabeth is adjusting to life outside a classroom. She is pursuing fine art and documentary photography with rediscovered inspiration and a tool box of new knowledge.
		Alex Maness Alex Maness Photography Email | Voice: 336.707.6121 Alex Maness, local boy done good, likes to travel and explore, but keeps Greensboro, NC as his center of gravity. He runs a photography business shooting for magazines and advertisers, as well as his own documentary projects.
		Mark Smith flickr account Email | Voice: 336.414.4721 Mark’s first inkling that photography could be fun was when his parents brought out the dreaded slides of their jaunts overseas. Once Mark could afford it, he bought a Pentax ME Super and “that was that.” These days, Mark happily takes sports and beach pictures as well as the live music events at DMP.
COMMUNITY PHOTOGRAPHERS (Talented, local photogs who came out to shows and documented the evening)
		Carolyn de Berry Carolyn de Berry Photography | Email Monkeywhale Productions | Email A Connecticut native and graduate of Guilford College and the Commercial Photography Program at Randolph Community College, Carolyn is a freelance photographer and assistant living in Greensboro, NC. She is also the production photographer and studio manager for Monkeywhale Productions.
		Allen Martin MartiniVision Email | Voice: 917.687.1912 Greensboro native Allen Martin is a photographer and designer who has recently relocated back to his home town after 18 years in NYC. A camera owner since adolescence, for the last several years Allen has focused on fashion, fine art and entertainment photography.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Katie Southard, Owner of The Green Bean
• Elizabeth Lemon, for matting, framing and curating the show
• Laurelyn Dossett, Mr. Rozzi and Eating The Invaders, for generously donating their talent at the exhibit opening
• Don Ravon for running sound at the exhibit opening
• Don Ravon & Dan Bayer for mixing the music video tracks
• Ioannis Batsios, Blake Faucette, Michael McQueen and Bret Jones for scrambling to produce their music videos on time
• Andy Coon for helping prep the music video DVD
• Allen Martin for the beautiful show poster
• All of our talented photographers, many of whom aren’t represented in this show. You can see their all of their work at our flickr spot

A SUPER SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR FRAME SPONSORS:

• Mark Wagoner Productions
  Email | Voice: 888.854.0406
• 243 Framing
  243 E. Salisbury St., Asheboro, NC. 27203
  336.629.5101
• Martin’s Frame and Art
  336.274.2426

After two wild months of hard-rocking and hell-raising tunes, the dotmatrix project got a little mellow for the month of February.  The audience buzzed with a cool anticipation as Bruce Piephoff and a small orchestra of musicians took the stage to kick off the eleventh DMP show.

Photo by Mark Smith

Bruce has been around a while and he’s got plenty of music to show for it.  He dipped into his collection and pulled out several great tunes for us here at DMP.  His set included a song referencing his time in Texas (Rosalita), one about a local basball hero (Big Foot In The Door), and a tune about a one-time Tate St. staple known as the Nightshade Cafe (Old Crow).  Check them out, along with the rest of Bruce’s live album, on Amiestreet or Last.FM.  For the newbies, here’s our promo entrance page to sign up for an account with Amiestreet and receive free money to support our local artists.

One more thing…

This is the first DMP album to be mastered thanks to the gentlemen at Studio 4.  Bruce likes it.  We like it.  I’m pretty sure you will, too.

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording Engineers: Don Ravon, Dan Bayer
Mixing Engineers: Dan Bayer, Cesar Oviedo
Mastering Engineers: Cesar Oviedo
Cover Design: Sean Coon
Cover Photograph: Elizabeth Lemon