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.

Another John Ford special is hot off the presses and ready to be served. Yes, John Ford is a front-end engineer God. No, he does not pay me to say such things. He simply makes cool shit work on the intertubes, super fast and to spec.

I swear I could take on Silicon Valley if I only had 20 John Ford clones.

What we have to the right is a dotmatrix project event calendar. As new gigs are scheduled, we post the event to Upcoming.org, add them to the dotmatrix project group over there and this fansy, shmansy, customized badge dynamically displays updated show dates within our custom design. It’s not revolutionary or anything, but I dig it.

The super cool thing about this particular pimped badge is that now you can use it as a promotional widget on your own blog, Live Journal, web site, etc.

Yes, you — the person who says that he digs live music, but never seems to finds the time to hit a show. I know you — you tell your girlfriends that you’re going to check out this awesome underground band at this totally cool spot, and then you bail to watch a Sex in the City rerun.

Tell me I don’t know who you are.

So now that you blog and participate with every social network known to man, you can wash away your live music dissing sins by simply posting the following code into your sidebar:

<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://www.dotmatrixproject.com/badge/"></script>

For those of you whose sidebar is a different size than the default 210 width here at HQ, simply use the following code and customize the width setting to your liking:

<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://www.dotmatrixproject.com/badge/?width=210"></script>

Down the road we’re going to support various visual themes and potentially accept styles submitted by you, our loyal readers. We do things like this because we love you. And because without your uncontrolled fanatical support of this here project, it’s not going to go anywhere.

So if you love music and want a pain-free, cost-free, time-free, guilt-free way to support your neighbors trying to gain exposure in an industry that’s tougher than ever to catch a break within, well, you know what to do.

-Sean

(originally uploaded by Rikke Moltisanti)

If you think you can capture the essence of a live show like in the above picture, we need to talk. Same thing goes for filmmakers with the following video:

The Wigg Report: It Won’t Take Long from Sean Coon on Vimeo.

We’re putting on a monthly show in the Back Bar of The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro. The bands are playing for free, a sound engineer is recording the live show for free, photographers are shooting for free and filmmakers are shooting/editing music videos for free.

Cost of admission: FREE

The idea is that if we all collaborate to create art and release it into the wild — online and off — we’ll be opening doors for each other that might never have been opened otherwise. And over time, if people dig the concept, maybe we can turn it into a sponsored event with a sustainable business model to support live, local music in downtown Greensboro.

Along these lines, we’re looking to build a community of photographers and filmmakers interested in participating at least one time. That means you’ll be joining up with a media team and collaborating with the bands before the show on shot ideas. If you want to do more than one show, we’ll do our best to schedule it. If you want to work with a specific filmmaker, photographer or band, we’ll do our best to accommodate that as well.

We’re good like that.

Photographers: We’re looking to meet photographers who have access to DSLR cameras and can really craft a shot. If you have a great eye, you’re in. There’s no pledging involved, no hazing, no sleeping with farm animals. And while that last sentence read like an extremely male perspective on stupid things adolescent men might have to do in order to join something potentially cool — though this ain’t a corny frat — we’d definitely like the talented ladies in our community to participate just as much, if not more. So I promise, no more horrible analogies, ladies.

So if you’re interested in participating, please follow these two steps:

• Join the dotmatrix project flickr group and then contact Mike Dunn or Stephen Charles to get assigned to a show
• Join our dotmatrix project Google Group to ask questions of or communicate with anyone on the project

Filmmakers: While we’d like to have professional filmmakers participate on the project, we’re very open to amateur filmmakers and videographers. All we ask is that you know how to use a modern digital video camera, have a good eye and have at least some experience editing on non-linear systems. dotmatrix HQ has a digital editing bay with Final Cut Pro, so you’ll be able to edit with your co-filmmaker on top notch equipment.

If you’d like to join up, please follow these two steps:

• Subscribe to the dotmatrix project Vimeo channel and contact either Jason Pierce or Andy Coon to get assigned to a show
• Join our dotmatrix project Google Group to ask questions of or communicate with anyone on the project

Cross-Promotions We’re currently working on finalizing deals with local establishments to cross-promote the material created from the show. I don’t want to jinx the potential deals in the works by naming names, but I will say that we’re close to finalizing we’ve finalized a deal where a major movie theater with Carousel Cinemas on Battleground in Greensboro to present still shots and music videos from our show prior to the trailers run before each film shown in the theater. We’re also working on establishing a quarterly photo exhibit in a well known downtown venue to present the best shots of the previous three shows.

Both of these cross-promotions are in the works to market the name and work of our participating media creators.

So are you down or what!?

Poster by Justin Reich.

(originally uploaded by paulcollinsbeat)

We’re coming down the homestretch to the first show and yes, I’m feeling a bit antsy.

Nothing is wrong, I mean, so far we’re all on point — the media crew is collaborating with the bands, the bands are actually putting together set lists so we can make sure we film the right songs, Andy just bought a light fixture for the filmmakers at the show to use, Justin is knocking out posters to go out this weekend around town, Molly has been contacting the local media…

You know what it is? I just want everybody to have a great time. And as the show approaches each day, I guess I’m realizing that I have less and less impact on that happening.

I’m not performing. I’m not shooting. I might be helping with sound, but probably by simply staying out of the way.

I’m not used to this — this not doing thing.

Which is fine, because each and every one of the people who are making this gray matter burp a reality are ridiculously talented people, who have all done this before.

I need to get over myself and stay out of the way.

T-minus 8 days.

Thacker Dairy Road
Molly McGinn

Solaris — a local Tapas restaurant / bar / event venue — put on a cool show last March. They had a regional hip-hop act play the stage while a handful of local painters set up shop on the perimeter and painted to the vibe of the show. I can’t remember the name of the act for the life of me, but it was a fun evening.

Here are some crappy shots I took from my Treo 650:

I’m still trying to figure out what I want The Verge to become. As of right now it’s ranging somewhere between a soup to nuts production, with the bookings, artist participation and a few venues to a roving media promotion team that collaborates with local venues to document and pimp their shows.

No rush…

Following in the “label darlings gone independent” heals of Radiohead, Trent Reznor is releasing his latest project — the production of Saul Williams’ album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, straight to the internet tonight, sans the middlemen label people clogging up the mix and taking their cut.

To that particular end, here’s Saul Williams message to the people:

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder.

The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways.

The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…

NiggyTardust!

love,
Saul

No doubt a creative and eloquent way to pitch the download of an album while riding the wave of the anti-label froth that has developed in the mouths of music lovers everywhere. The last line is a bit overstated at this point in time — middlemen will continue to find their nut to squirrel away — but the optimism is fresh and well taken.

Here’s the jist of the release approach:

• Download the album for free and receive it in 192Kbps MP3 format
• Download the album for a $5 donation and receive it in one of multiple formats — 192Kbps MP3, 320Kbps MP3, FLAC lossless audio
• All versions include a PDF with artwork and lyrics
• All files are 100% DRM free, and can be played on any device. MP3s are encoded with LAME v3.97

I heard Saul Williams first drop his style in a track called Ohm on Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1 in 1998 and his Buddhist / kung-fu inspired cut stuck with me for years. I rediscovered him in my iTunes catalog this past week, so I was already planning on supporting this release before Reznor “leaked” three tracks from the NiggyTardust album.

Check them out for yourself:

Ohm (Lyricist Lounge Vol 1)

Tr(n)igger (NiggyTardust)

Break (NiggyTardust)

Banged And Blown Through (NiggyTardust)

While I’m psyched to see artists use the guts of the internet to promote and distribute their craft, this model isn’t necessarily the savior for indie artists everywhere. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt for any artist to develop a site like the NiggyTardust site — chock full of free and donation driven download options, embedded widgets for viral promotion, etc. — but Trent Reznor is already Trent Reznor.

Would this work for him (and Saul Williams) if Reznor hadn’t gone the label route first?

As I see it, the future of independent music isn’t relying on massive shifts in the online distribution model. If Amazon.com and iTunes were as lax as Amie Street regarding entry into their catalog, distribution success would then be simply a question of the right price point — and that’ll work itself out through competition over time as the average kid’s perception of a music track moves farther and farther away from something one pays money to own.

The RIAA is doing their best to fight that losing battle.

So the question that’s popping off in my noggin’ is: What exactly is the draw for an artist or band to sign their lives away with a traditional label?

• Their hold on distribution has slipped away
• Online promotion is open to all with a clue
• Radio is no longer a huge draw to potential fans
• Music videos are probably watched more on YouTube than the reality show driven MTV

What’s the “sell your soul” pitch from a big label in 2007? Seriously, what angles of distribution and promotion do they still have a death grasp on? Big media connections?

How are successful smaller labels working with artists and differentiating themselves from the machine?

What are successful independent bands doing (aside from making great music) that can be replicated by other independents?

Will services like Facebook Music be the answer? Or can a walled garden truly provide that degree of change?

Anyone?

Where to begin?

Ten days have passed since ConvergeSouth Music and things are starting to get back to normal once again. It’s not as though the event was so unmanageable that it completely drained me or took up all of my spare time in the planning, it’s just that I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that it was a great experience for everyone involved — from the performers to the photographers to the audience.

Along those lines, I’ve received great feedback from all involved, which is extremely satisfying, but there’s still one event experience nut to crack: to draw an audience size that both the performers and the venue deserves. Well, that’s not entirely true; a number of the performers told me that they dug playing an intimate crowd — one that listened, danced and grooved without loud chatter — which is great, but the bottom line is that I need to ensure that the venue draws the numbers they expected heading into the event.

That’s the reality of promoting shows.

So, as I start to gear up for the planning of The Verge — a semi-monthly showcase of local musicians with artist and audience media collaboration — I’m still processing lessons learned from putting on my first music event (particularly during a ConvergeSouth weekend in downtown Greensboro). Here are a few of the more obvious ones:

• Don’t charge a cover: Well, at least not $10. Greensboro residents as a whole don’t seem to be big time supporters of local music and college kids (there are five colleges in this city of 220,000 strong) aren’t about “wasting” perfectly good beer money on a cover. Post-college grads here love it when a Pat Benatar or Van Halen comes to town and seem more than willing to pay exorbitant prices for a ticket at the downtown clubs or the Coliseum to see them live. They’ll also show up in droves to see a great cover band, but for high-quality, local acts with less of a reputation and a propensity to play their own music? Fuggetaboutit.
• Don’t overlap other conference events: We charged $10 at the door last week because I honestly believed at least 50 badges would show up from ConvergeSouth. With a 99 person headcount limit (including staff and performers) at the venue, I figured we’d do fine with even an average outside draw. Unfortunately, only 15 or so made it out that night — the rest of the 150 or so were enjoying Q at Hoggard’s house, along with acoustic music provided by the Radials. Moral of the story? Always go cheaper at the door and never compete with Q.
• Establish relationships with people within mainstream media: I did everything I possibly could in getting the word out online (blogged about it here, on the ConvergeSouth blog, posted the event info to Eventful, 336Events & Facebook, posted images to flickr, etc.) and even created a bunch of posters that I stapled up around town and as far away as Chapel Hill. And while we did get some play in the local media (a great article by Jeri Rowe, a little blurb in Yes! Weekly, a few mentions by J’s Indie/Rock Mayhem), I didn’t spend a second to reach out and connect with any of the local radio programs in town. Chalk that one up to inexperience.

Okay, so those are a few of the promotion related elements that I need to work on. Thankfully, a bunch of things also went right last week, from the killer lineup to audience participation in creating media, so the foundation is in place. Now I just need to build upon it to create more of an event than a one-off show.

The first thing I plan on doing is to invite local filmmakers and photographers to join the mix.

(originally uploaded by jdubfudge)

The filmmaker contingency last week consisted solely of me and my bro’, but we had a great time shooting and can’t wait to start editing the music videos for each of the bands. So if we’re excited, I’m hoping that a good number of local filmmakers and film students would be geeked to have full access to a band and venue — including straight from the board audio — to shoot a live music video or two.

Not a bad portfolio piece, right?

As for photography, Michael Dunn and Stephen Charles are two of Greensboro’s finest pro/am photographers, and their work the other night resulted in more than a handful of amazing moments captured in pixels.

(shot by CharlesMedia™ at ConvergeSouth Music 2007)

(shot by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan at ConvergeSouth Music 2007)

If we can get consistent participation from talented photogs such as these guys, we’ll have an amazing set of media for the bands to use as they will.

And in a nutshell, that’s what’s driving me to put on The Verge.

Greensboro has an interesting creative community, but so much of the art scene is relatively underground; the film community raises it’s head every year during the 48 Hour Film Festival and then is unheard of again the rest of the year; local photographers have public shows once in a while, but nowhere near what I’m used to seeing when living in NYC; and local music, well, I’ve already expressed my $.02 along those lines.

As someone who doesn’t particularly belong to any of these communities, but longs for a greater influence of such communities on the culture of Greensboro (A.K.A. Khakitown, USA), this is my experience.

So the idea of creating a repeatable event where these disparate creative communities can overlap for one evening every month or so, producing media that not only showcases their talents live, but provides each other with promotional and portfolio pieces that can work for them into perpetuity on the internet… well, that truly excites me.

I’m not sure when the first event will take place, but I’ll keep posting ideas and inspiration as time goes by.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

So far I’ve received nothing but great feedback from the other night (I had a great time, but I’m more than a bit biased).

There’s no way it could’ve happened without the effort of a bunch of people. A big shout of thanks goes out to:

• Simonne McClinton, Matt Bennett, Mikey Tourek and the entire staff over at The Green Burro: Thanks so much for hosting us. If you’re up for doing this again next year, I promise there will be no BBQ overlap to screw with head count. Thanks again for your hospitality and understanding
• The Wigg Report (Ben Riseling, Christine Fantini and Stephen Mullaney): You guys represent Durham like champs. Thanks again for trekking out. I’ll definitely take you up on the offer to hit up your neck of the woods the next time I’m in town.
• Little Mascara (Jessie Derusha, Chris Micca, Melissa Micca, Toaster and Max Diablo): Killer, rockin’ set; you guys brought it, put it on the table, unwrapped it and whipped our asses with it! Thanks again for putting your hiatus on hold for the show.
• Thacker Dairy Road (Molly McGinn, Chris Lord, Rebecca Stevens, Jonathan McMillan, James Harris and Jeff Yetter): What can I say? It’s been a fun time this summer watching you grow into such a dynamic sounding band. Thanks for holding down the late night segment. From what I’ve heard since Friday, you have a bunch of new fans out there.
• Sue Polinsky: Thank you for the trust you showed in me to do this right and for providing the budget for the bands. There’s no way I could’ve raised the money myself this year with my schedule. I’m still pissed about the BBQ scheduling overlap which cost us at least 40 people turning out, but I can file that experience under “Shit Not To Do Again” if you can.
• Mike Dunn (Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan) and Stephen Charles (CharlesMedia): Man, you guys are seriously talented. Seriously. Fer real. Thanks again for making it last minute and producing such amazing shots!
• Andy Coon: My brother from the same mother. I’m really looking forward to collaborating on editing these music videos together. Thanks so much for all your work and support (and filming pointers).
• Desmond Sharpe via Carey Sound: Great job with the setup, on-the-fly sound checks and mixing. I’m looking forward to hearing the audio tracks!
• Jeri Rowe: I know for a fact that your timely article on Andy, myself and ConvergeSouth influenced at least than a handful of people to come out to the conference to learn how to publish their voice online. Thanks again for the well written story and your shared passion for a more creative Greensboro.
• Jordan Green: Thanks for pushing the music details over to Dave and the be there! section at Yes! Weekly. I’m sure we got at least a few folk to attend just because of that little promo. I’ll catch you at a nearby show soon, I’m sure.
• Bob Lefsetz: I got turned onto Bob’s rants a few months back and he’s greatly influenced my approach to promoting independent talent. He had nothing tangible to do with the event, but everything to do with unfurling my creativity. Thanks, Bob!

I’ve got a bunch of plans for local music promotion in the works, but still have a few conversations ahead prior to committing running a bigger and better event (read: a real music festival) next year.

To the folks who made it out this year — particularly those of you who plan to upload media of the event to the web per our fliers — thank you! (If I missed linking to you, let me know who you are in the comments)

While we put on this event primarily for these reasons…:

1. Provide talented, local, independent acts a platform to shine
2. Involve the local film and photography communities in making media (music videos to come; the stills look great)
3. Expose less known musicians and artists to the residents of Greensboro (and ConvergeSouth participants)
4. Give local venues a top-notch event to hang their hats on while developing return customers

… giving the gift of music to people sits squarely at the top of the list.

Thanks again for showing up.