the dotmatrix project

Jack Carter of The Subterranean Bums.

A group anthem from the Sub Bums.

To see more of Jessi’s work, check out her blog.

The Subterranean Bums and Eating the Invaders drew in a crowd that grew steadily throughout the night.

David “Driveway” Moore, one of DMP’s favorite subjects.

For more of Elizabeth’s work, check out her blog

Originally uploaded by Jessi Hagood

Off their new album, Cloak and Dagger, Voice and Brain:

Back & Forth

Underneath the crowds of faces
Are heart’s just yearnin’ to be complacent
Wanting something lasting
Some place to go to rest your bones
I want the thing that I’m willing to live for
To be the same thing I want to die for
Please peel off your faces
Let me see your veins, let me see your skull, let me hear you bleed

Oh and I know
People come and they go
I just want you to stay
Brighten up one more cloudy day

La da da da
Da da da da da
La da da da
Da da da da da
Da da da
Oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oooh oh

I’m doing the best I can
To understand
What it takes from me to
Be a good man
It’s just so hard when it’s so easy
To act just like a child
So I pace the floor
Back and forth
Thinking the next step
Might bring me more
Of an idea or clue or something to let me know
What’s going on inside your pretty little head

Oh and I know
People come and they go
I just want you to stay
Brighten up, brighten up
Oh and I know
People come and they go
I just want you to stay
To brighten up one more cloudy day

La da da da
Da da da da da
La da da da
Da da da da da
La da da
Oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oooh oh oh

These misfits will be playing in just a few short hours at The Green Burro.

C’mon, brave the ridiculous downpour from the Gods and come on out to our free show.

Local talent documenting local talent.

Word.

Photo by sous les paves

I’ve been surrounded by creative people all my life, but not in the way I am here in Greensboro, NC. The passionate vibe to create and the hustle people have to support themselves is unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

I mean, both of my parents were art teachers, which provided them a consistent income, but they spent a vast majority of their creative energy fostering the creative development of others. They both had the skills to pursue doing art for a living (I’ve seen their work), but at some point early on they made pragmatic, career-based decisions to teach and raise a family instead.

They chose one life over another.

Over the years that I lived in NYC leading up to my move here, I befriended numerous people who were musicians, composers or artists after hours with a consistently advancing career in the commercial art world by day. Sure, there was always a struggle for time, but the job could be replaced in the blink of an eye with a linear move elsewhere in town. Making it as an artist, first and foremost, was a goal, but it was without a true sense of immediacy.

In These Parts

The people I’ve come to know here live their craft, bent on doing whatever it takes to keep doing what they do — whether they’re single or married with kids, creating is not an option, it’s a necessity… like breathing.

Take Harvey Robinson at Monkeywhale, or his PiC Carolyn de Berry. Not only do they create beautiful short films and photographs, but they prolifically pimp the best work that our creative community has to offer, 24/7. All of this with an eye on financing a feature film. Somehow, they make a living doing commercial work in the short time between.

Matty Sheets is a Monkeywhale contributor, member of two bands — Eating The Invaders and Come Hell Or High Water — and the MC of The Flatiron’s Tuesday night open mic. Last I heard, Matty was slinging coffee at The Green Bean, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hustling elsewhere to grab a buck to make ends meet.

My brother, Andy Coon, is creating, producing and shooting a web series, The Corporate Assassin, while taking on numerous freelance gigs to contribute to his mortgage payments. He’s married, wants kids and needs health insurance.

Molly McGinn works part-time at an agency, runs three blogs and assists at her friend’s palates studio so she can make both rent and music with her girls in Amelia’s Mechanics.

Dan Bayer shoots local HS sporting events and runs sound at shows around town (including ours at DMP) while trying to get a sound studio off the ground.

I could go on for a long while like this.

This is Greensboro — a town chock full of talented artists, musicians, filmmakers… but also defined by an aggregate population seemingly more interested in what’s on television & clubbing downtown than supporting the arts.

Check that. Not the arts, their arts.

See, that’s what community is about — recognizing common interests and supporting each other in our pursuits. At least it is to me.

So you say we’re not Austin, or even Chapel Hill. Go where the interest and action is, right?

You tell that to one of my friends. You tell them that if they want to make a living at their craft, they should uproot to find a “market” willing and able to support them.

These people aren’t suits, willing to constantly start over, moving from one town to another to make a better buck. They’ve invested time, energy and love to help shape this community and honestly love what they do while valuing their place here.

So they do what they have to do to get by.

Josephus Thompson III wrote an article, steeped in personal experience, about this very subject in GoTriad last week. He ended it as such:

[...] The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead,” so we work and keep the faith; we pray and we stay on the straight and narrow, traveling the unbeaten path believing we can make it and cascading through all the gray areas of the unknown, postponing or as Langston might say, deferring our dreams. So, we must not defer, we must not linger in our fantasies, but pursue our desires and our dreams. And at the end of the day we do, doing whatever it takes to get us through to the next stage of our lives — hopes, dreams and ambitions in tow. For we understand and know that we must do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do.

Sometimes, that notion becomes lost in the darkness of pursuit and struggle. I’ve experienced it myself. So to both the friends I’ve come to know over time and the creative souls I’ve yet to meet, I’ll let Josephus III take us out…

In The Morning

We’ll get there.

Harvey shot this beaut 6 months ago, completely unaware that it would launch the band into the national spotlight that DMP commands.

Heh.

Matty, Marshall, Driveway and Barry will be rocking the Burro this Thursday night at the next DMP show (along with The Subterranean Bums).

Free local, original music, folks. Come on out, get your groove on and support your neighbors.

Filthybird and Albina Savoy — it has a certain ring to it when said at once, like Hercules and Love Affair.

These two Greensboro bands treated us to a set apiece on April 30th at the year anniversary of DMP shows upstairs at The Green Burro, both playing music characterized by diverse, striking melodies, fronted by exceptionally talented female vocalists — yet their sound and stage presence couldn’t have been more different.

Albina Savoy

“A long time ago, I met this lady named Albina Savoy,” says guitarist Barry Cantrell. “She was this vaudevillian, Floridian lady living in a motor home, and I knew that one day I was going to name a band after her.”

Photos by Kevin Belton & Mark Smith

There’s a strong vaudevillian underpinning to the songs of Albina Savoy (Crystal Bright, Barry Cantrell and Jon McLean), but it feels characterized more so by the physical presence with the long-lost art of busking. We should have ripped up the streetlight at the corner of West McGee and South Elm and hauled it upstairs as a backdrop for this trio. This is said not to trivialize their music, but hopefully it gives a sense of place and setting to their sound — an upright bass, keyboard, Django-gypsy jazz guitar, accordion, and wait for it folks…the saw.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to listen to a saw played properly, it’s fascinating. It makes the kind of sound that defies its method of sonic production. When played with a bow and twisted and just the right time, the saw sings a delayed to the twist, high, eerie wail. Though she’s only been playing saw for a year and change, Crystal Bright plays this unconventional instrument like she’s been at it for a while.

Albina Savoy opened their set with “Water,” a riffing, boiling and churning chant that owed a lot to gospel. With everyone singing on this number, there was a building aspect to the song with call and response. “Hip Bone” featured Crystal on accordion and with slapping bass and swelling tempo, the effect was something like a train trying to pick up steam all the while balancing to keep it’s momentum in the process. This deliberate kind of boozy, swaying quality with tempo helped establish early on that the songs would vary widely within the set.

With The Lounge of the Burro being closed off from the rest of the bar, it gave listeners a chance to dissect and insert themselves into the songs. Many of the later songs in the set demonstrated not only attention to melody, but striking lyricism. With “Emeline,” the causal set turned somber and self-focused. With a pervasive sense of loss and fragility, Barry sings:

Where’d she go
Where can she be
Who’s watching her
Don’t know, isn’t me

Stories that come with the experience and of having survived only to speculate. “We’re all damned and blessed, so indifferent and obsessed,” Barry sings on “Cynical and Vain.”

We all feel you, man.

Filthybird

Filthybird (Renee Mendoza, Brian Haran, Shawn Smith, Mike Duehring) is loud, yet subtle and distinctly joyful rock. Think Leslie Feist fronting My Morning Jacket. That evening, the vocals were intentionally drowned in reverb, washing through the guitar and keys. Unfortunately, at times the lyrics were indistinguishable, but this gave Renee Mendoza’s voice an otherworldly ring that contrasted the clear vocals of Albina Savoy.

Photos by Mark Smith

Having been on hiatus for some time and still drawing a strong crowd, Filthybird’s set was unfettered and electrifying. Brian Haran is an exceptionally captivating guitarist who is as dynamic as he is appropriate in the way he plays. He writes crisp and almost vocal guitar lines that add another dimension to Mendoza’s voice and keys. Where Mendoza’s sound is glass and endearing, the guitar contrasts with groaning and strung out melodies.

“The Gospel Song” is a bell-like, singing guitar waltz to grab someone close and spin. If I had to ascribe a physical action to the music of Filthybird, imagine “spinning and rocking.” These are songs to sway to and inevitably find a way to get lost. Mendoza describes Filthybird’s sound as “textures, vocal character differentiating between songs, but family members nonetheless.”

Many of the songs they played are from their new record which is to be released this fall that is tentatively titled, “Songs For Other People.” The new songs seem to more inclusive of Haran’s selection on guitar and it will be a highly anticipated follow-up to their 2007 release, Southern Skies.

All in all, it was a great evening featuring two dynamic, local groups. Mark your calendars for May 28th when The Subterranean Bums and Eating The Invaders continue the FREE. LIVE. MUSIC. concert series.

Moustache’d friend who
slings coffee and guitar riffs
wears ties. Awesomeness.

Check him out at The Green Bean or this month with one of his (many) bands Eating the Invaders at the May 28th DMP show.

Thursday, May 28, 2009
8:00pm - 11:00pm
The Green Burro
106 W. McGee Street
Greensboro, NC

After a full year of putting on DMP shows, I have to say that Citified has become one of my favorite bands in the area. Not just because of their lush sound or their dedication to the craft, but for being great fans of the local music scene and making it out to practically every show I make in town, including our own.

All that said, you really should try to make it out to The Flatiron tomorrow night at 9pm and support these fine musicians — including the fun sound of Pinche Gringo and DJ Josh Neas, who’ll be spinning tracks out in the open.

Most importantly, you’ll have a chance to get absence (available at Eskimo Kiss Records on May 26th), three weeks before it hits the shelves.

Chris Jackson was nice enough to get me a copy of the EP a few weeks back and it didn’t disappoint. Even though the overall sound of the album has a slower tempo than their last release, The Meeting After The Meeting, it definitely moves the band into a genre beyond 80’s Shoegaze and Indie rock into one that begs to defy definition.

Check out the elemental, dreamlike qualities of Founded:

And contrast that with the 1950’s sounding rhythm, crispness and delivery of Dutiful Scout:

Chris’s vocals and the band’s rich experimentation with layered melodies tie the songs together as a cohesive presentation, but there’s real variety within the structure of each song.

Citified is three albums deep into their journey and their sound becomes more and more intriguing each time out.

See you tomorrow night.

UPDATE: Some memories from the show:

Photo by Sean Coon

Photo by Molly McGinn

Photo by Molly McGinn

Photo by Sean Coon

Photo by Sean Coon

Jerry has been a mainstay within the community for a long time now. From his patented empathetical stories of the people living within the Triad to covering the far reaches of our music scene, when Jeri lays down the ink you’re bound to learn something new and enjoy the read along the way.

Thanks for everything you do, Jeri.

And yes, please do save the Monkeywhale.