the dotmatrix project

Read this list of folks right here, and see if “singer/songwriter” comes to mind:

Johnny Cash
Bob Dylan
Neil Young
John Denver
James Hetfield
Joni Mitchell
Carly Simon
Tori Amos
Ray LaMontagne
Laurelyn Dossett
Matty Sheets
Conor Oberst
Ani Defranco
Amy Winehouse
Harry Chapin
James Marshall Owen
Scott Avett
Lily Allen
Ryan Adams
Jeff Tweedy
Dan Fogelberg
Dolly Parton

For me, there’s a few in there where the phrase singer/songwriter sticks out to me like a black turtleneck sweater.

John Denver. Joni Mitchell. Cat Stevens.

The others, not so much. But I found most on a wiki list of singer/songwriters.

Johnny Cash? Come on. Singer/songwriters don’t flip the bird at Columbia Records.

They whine about it.

And that’s the basically the idea I’ve been carrying around about the singer/songwriter genre for a few years now.

The switch flipped a few years back. Precisely the moment when, sitting in the home studio office of an LA-based music producer, the man said in a very kind, very matter-of-fact way, something like, “We’ll try and make your songs sound a little less singer/songwriter.”

My brain did something like:

Singer/Songwriter: Bad
Metallica: Good (for your reference)

And for the last two years, I’ve tried shaking the term off like, well, a tight black turtleneck, throwing as many musicians and arrangements and Garage Band beats as I could at songs to take them out of the coffee shop and into the coliseum.

I wanted my songs to flip you the bird. Not sing about them.

Dammit.

Recorded a bunch of songs in a studio with some fine musicians. And when I heard the playback the first few times, realized the songs I’d worked so hard to write, were now so far away from the original purpose, far from anything I could ever duplicate live.

Far from tunes that literally stood naked in front of you. Not the first blush of love, naked, when everything sounds like a pop song, new, and not yet overplayed. The naked-in-the-bright-light, when every thing about the person is real with flaws and missteps and wrong notes. That kind of naked.

Being naked in front of people takes a lot more courage than flipping somebody the bird.

So I took the term, singer/songwriter, back.

Took off the black turtleneck.

Realized again it takes a kind of unordinary courage to be a singer/songwriter.

Where you have to sing the notes – not scream – into the mic.

Where melody can’t hide inside some refrigerator-sized amplifier.

Where the singer, songwriter alone has to fill the room.

That unordinary courage is what you’ll see this week at the dotmatrix project with the singer songwriter performances of Kristen Leigh, Morgan McPherson and Randy Furches.

Authentic, real and naked.

Dress appropriately.

Live at the dotmatrix project
Thursday, June 25
at the Green Burro

The sci-fi sound of ETI’s name gets a boost from this photo…

…where James Marshall Owen appears to be transported by the music.

A different perspective on ETI, as Alex has Matty Sheets apparently getting ready to go right through the camera.

For more of Alex’s work, you can go to Alex’s web site or check out his other shots in the DMP photostream.

I really dig how Don has classified The Leeves — Punk jazz. Fits, doesn’t it?

MUSIC VIDEO CREDITS
Editor: Blake Faucette
Camera: Blake Faucette
Camera: Micah Moore
Camera: Ashley Panzera
Sound: Danny Bayer
Sound: Don Ravon
Producer: Matt “Beard” Williams

If you’d like to hear more from The Leeves’ set that night, the live album is currently available for the low, low price of $1.53. If you’re new to the Amie Street process, be sure to use our promo entrance page to sign up for an account and receive free money to buy albums and support our local artists by putting coin directly in their pockets.

Enjoy!

In December of 2008, we put on the ninth DMP show. That evening, two local punk bands set the DMP “stage” on fire! The evening started with The Leeves.

Photo by Stephen Charles

With a little help from their friends, they put on a fantastic performance! You can listen to (and buy) a copy of that performance at Amie Street, or Last.FM.*

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording Engineers: Don Ravon, Dan Bayer
Mixing Engineers: Don Ravon
Cover Design: Sean Coon
Cover Photograph: Kevin Belton

After their fellow rockers finished warming it up, and Doug Pike got a chance to rest his limbs, Queen Anne’s Revenge claimed the stage to finish off a great evening of Punk for the dotmatrix project!

Photo by Kevin Belton

Photo by Stephen Charles

You can get a copy of their live album on Amie Street or Last.FM, too.*

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording Engineers: Don Ravon, Dan Bayer
Mixing Engineers: Dan Bayer
Cover Design: Sean Coon
Cover Photograph: Eric Velarde

*To make the whole process a whole lot easier for you on Amie Street, here’s our promo entrance page to sign up for an account and receive free money to support our local artists by putting coin directly in their pockets . My advice…USE IT!

Subterranean Bums’ continually shifting lineup both layered and stripped their folk format. Friends jumped on and offstage with new instruments to add to the mix of songs like “World Full of Downers” and “Oklahoma Thunderstorm.”

Off with the electric bass and on with the horns. Now let’s get some upright bass.

Photo by alex maness

Their show at The Burro on May 28^th was blissfully youthful Americana. It was something in the same vein of The Avett Brothers before they became the Avett Brothers, though perhaps more pharmaceutical, so to speak.

Wiry vocals, jittery melodies, outbursts and prone to lampooning, it was a performance that literally had the babies in the crowd dancing along. Seriously, I saw it with my own eyes. You must be doing something right when that happens, right?

Photo by Mark Smith

Sticking with the friends theme, there was no shortage of supporters both on stage and in the crowd for the Subterranean Bums/Eating the Invaders show. You couldn’t help raise your glass to the music of Eating the Invaders. They write suburban hymns which are best enjoyed while drankin’, which was especially fitting for a show at The Burro. Their songs are played seemingly for fun’s sake. This seems obvious, but it’s not every band’s MO. It’s easy to tell when a group plays songs regardless of audience reception–though it’s important to note that the audience certainly enjoyed themselves as much as the band did that night.

Photo by alex maness

Where the crisp trumpet of Steve Jackson was often showcased in the music of Subterranean Bums, Eating the Invaders music isn’t the same without the harmonica of David “Driveway” Moore. Rumor has it, he even snuck in a kazoo solo.

All in all, a great night accompanied by friends and acquaintances, offstage and on. And maybe a few cabaret dancers thrown in there for good measure.

Photo by Mark Smith

From the May 28th ETI set….

Marshall Owen, picking at the speed of sound.

And one shot of most of ETI….

Matty, Marshall and “Driveway” Moore belt out a chorus.

Jack Carter of The Subterranean Bums.

A group anthem from the Sub Bums.

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

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 Mark Smith

James Marshall Owen can’t turn a gig down. If he’s already got a date on the books, he’ll say no. Otherwise, he’s on it like Mick Jagger on a mic.

He’s a bone’ fide Buster Dilly, master collaborator and pinch-hit guitar slinger. Call him when your bass player gets sick. Call him when you’ve got a super fantastic gig, with no one to play with, and you need someone to wear a sharp suit, a tie, and learn the tunes on stage and kick. that. set’s. ass.

That said, I’ve always wondered about the equipment Marshall throws in his knapsack to head out the the door and catch the bus, or a quick hitched ride to the latest musical emergency. Usually, he plays whatever is available. But his preference? That’s what I wanted to know.

He plays three instruments: Guitar, bass and banjo. His main money-maker is a work-in-progress electric built by both factory and artisan hands.

You know what? I’ll let Marshall tell you the rest (you can also hear it yourself when Marshall plays the dotmatrix project this Thursday with Eating the Invaders and The Subterranean Bums).

John Leonard via the dotmatrix project

Main electric instrument: 1995 Yamaha Pacifica “112″

It’s the Strat-style six-string, with a Rose Wood fingerboard, brass nut, and a custom-made maple flame wooden pick guard. Gael carved that for me.

This guitar is kind of an ongoing project. I’d like to refinish it and replace the remaining plastic parts with rosewood to match the fingerboard.

Every time I break a string, it’s at the bridge (aka saddle), where there are tiny (invisible to MY eye) burrs.

I love the pickups; with a humbucker in the bridge position it’s definitely more versatile tone-wise than a Telecaster, which is typically my second choice.

Past loves: A piece of crap Stratocaster Squier

It was a fairly unpopular model they only made for a couple of years. It’s like a cross between a Strat body and a Telecaster neck and electronics. It was a piece of crap but I loved it. That was stolen in the parking lot of a certain 24-hour diner after an Eating the Invaders show at the Green Bean about a year ago.

String gauge: Grimy Ernie Balls or D’Addario’s .012-.056 round wound strings

On both guitars (as well as my hand-assembled Franken/LesPaul Copy, which is currently being rocked by Mike of Our Horse Jethro).

Ernie Balls tend to last pretty decently, but the way I play, pretty much any set of electric strings ends up grimy and too heavily used to stay in tune properly long before I get around to changing ‘em.

In any case, I’ll change around depending on my mood, but aside from being pretty picky about using heavier gauges, I like any old set of strings as long as they’re new. Wait. What?

Ampage: Fender Princeton Chorus 2×10

It’s not that I don’t like tube amps, just don’t have one!

Pedals and effects: Horrible fuzzy

I’ll use a wah or chorus once in awhile but I usually just stick to a 6-band EQ that I kick on for volume boosts or drastic tonal changes mid-song. Oh, I also have a bass distortion pedal; I like using that with the guitar cause it’s a horrible fuzzy sound and there’s a blend knob so you can mix the clean signal with it.

Acoustical preference: A piece of shit and a pawn shop

I swore on a Yamaha FG400 or something like that for years. I bought it for $50 from this guy I knew from a community theatre production we were in; it had sat in his closet for about 10 years, so it looked like shit but turned out to be wonderful.

Last summer, I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, so I took that guitar to Yesterday’s Music in High Point, which is a fantastic shop run by fantastic people (Paul & Cathy Szydlik) who gave me a great trade-in for a brand-new 2005 Alvarez AJ60SC acoustic-electric.

With maple back/sides and spruce top, it’s a much lighter-sounding instrument than the one I was used to, but it has pretty good balance of highs and lows, and the neck is amazing. It’s as comfortable to play as an electric, but you can still really dig in.

Bass face: a 4-string Schecter custom

Not much to say about this one; I also got it brand-new, though with the scuffs I’ve given it in a year you wouldn’t know it. I don’t know what kind of strings I got for it. Ernie Ball’s medium maybe?

Photo by Julie Welch

Keeping it all together: I play all 3 of those with Eating the Invaders

I don’t change setup much from one group to another, although if I’m gonna use any effects, it’s way more likely to happen with Project Tritium.

Don’t think I’ve used the bass fuzz with ETI (yet). I’ve recorded some electric parts on the Yamaha for Subterranean Bums, but I primarily play acoustic–and banjo.

The loaner: A banjo

My only banjo is an old untunable Sears Silvertone, and Les Paul signed it in Sharpie so I just play whatever banjo Jack Carter or Emily Stewart loans me.

I have no clue about banjo strings at all! It’s the one instrument I’ve never broken a string on. (Knock on wood).

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.