the dotmatrix project

Check out Stephen’s work at CharlesMedia. For more shots ofIncense the Goddess, hop on over to our flickr set.

The local business sponsors who helped us pay Stephen and the rest of the DMP media crew were Get Fit MAT Pilates and Manny’s Universal Cafe, both located in downtown Greensboro.

Bron G opened the night at Studio B and simultaneously shut it, shut it down.

Check out Stephen’s work at CharlesMedia. For more shots of Bron G, hop on over to our flickr set.

The local business sponsors who helped us pay Stephen and the rest of the DMP media crew were Get Fit MAT Pilates and Manny’s Universal Cafe, both located in downtown Greensboro.

If you’re ready and you know it clap your hands.

Bet.

There won’t be a better place to be this Saturday night.

See you there.

Local wonder Jennifer Dalton, along with Jack Benedict, start the night off at Studio B. Captured by the über talented, Stephen Charles

To see more photos from other shows, check out DMP’s flickr site

Studio B feelin’ the love from the Martha Bassett Band!

Check out CharlesMedia Photography to see more of Stephen’s work

Don’t forget the dotmatrix flickr site to see more of what we do!

The multi-talented Joe Craven captured by Stephen Charles!

Find more dotmatrix project photos on our flickr site

An overview of Bruce Piephoff by Stephen Charles

For more photos from the dotmatrix project, check out our flickr site

Ah, the beautiful sound of guitars, mandolins, banjos and… cereal boxes with strings?

Tomorrow night, the dotmatrix project is teaming up with The Rooster’s Wife — a wonderful venue / gallery in Aberdeen, NC — to put on Get The Folk Downtown! at Studio B (520 S. Elm Street, down the alley next to The Broach Theater) here in downtown Greensboro. It’s a lineup of Folk and Americana talent, both from within the Triad and across the country, that you won’t want to miss.

Jennifer Dalton w/ Jack Benedict		Bruce Piephoff w/ Scott Sawyer
photo by Marc DeRoberts

 
The evening kicks off at 8pm sharp with Jennifer Dalton, an acoustic folk musician based in Greensboro, NC. Originally hailing from Gainesville, GA, Jennifer has been dividing her time between recording her first collection of music, performing locally in small, intimate venues, defending her PhD thesis and raising two wonderful children. Accompanying Jennifer will be Jack Benedict, an accomplished guitarist & mandolin player and long-time collaborator and friend. He’s a former member of the folk duo Mystk Dog and currently plays in the band Hanging Thread with other local musicians.

Following Jennifer is a set by local legend, Bruce Piephoff, who’ll be playing with Jazz guitarist extraordinaire, Scott Sawyer. Bruce has been writing and performing songs and poetry for over 40 years. He began in Chapel Hill, NC in the late 60’s while a student at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has recorded 20 CDs of original, independent, songs and poetry for Flyin’ Cloud Records, and has performed nationwide on the folk singer/songwritercircuit. Bruce just published his second book of poetry, Fiddlers and Middlers in 2009. He has shared the stage with Steve Forbert, Riders In The Sky, Greg Allman, Chuck Brodsky, Tom Paxton, and others, and has played everywhere from Merlefest to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Fresh out of high school, Scott met Bruce circa 1976 on Tate St. in Greensboro, NC. The untimely demise of a mutual & dear friend initiated their 1st performance together in almost 30 years in the summer of 2009. This encore performance will feature a set of Bruce’s music and poetry, spanning material from the 1970’s and forward. Fans of Townes van Zandt, Elizabeth Cotton, Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt, Joni Mitchell, the blues, roots music, the beat poets, Bukowski, jazz and more are urged to attend this “rare” collaboration.

Joe Craven		Martha Bassett Band
		photo by Carolyn de Berry

 
The second half of the evening will get rolling with Joe Craven. Hailing from Dixon, California, Joe has been described as a madman with anything that has strings attached — violin, mandolin, tin can, bedpan, cookie tin, tenor guitar, mouth bow, banjo, berimbau, balalaika, boot ‘n lace — plus a world of percussion instruments including animal bones, squeeze toys, cake pans, waste cans, umbrella stands, martini shakers and Himself. Joe is an educator, former museum curator, visual artist, actor/storyteller, festival emcee and former 17-year vet for mandolinist David Grisman, He has recorded and played with folks ranging from jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli to Grateful Dead Guitarist Jerry Garcia to The Persuasions. We are extremely excited to have him for this show, with all credit due to Janet Kenworthy of The Rooster’s Wife.

North Carolinians have known the music of our featured act of the evening, Martha Bassett, for some time now, but in the past couple of years, she’s been finding a new audience throughout the southeast due to increased touring, her work on the Sony Classics film JUNEBUG, festival appearances, and numerous articles in the press. The Martha Bassett Band have opened for Lyle Lovett, played Merlefest, and although they are known for their ability to incorporate jazz, country, traditional, and rock standards into the live shows, it is their original music that fans appreciate most.

If you enjoy live music steeped in stringed instruments and beautiful lyrics, well, this is the show for you.

The DMP crew will be there documenting the event, as always. Tomorrow night’s team includes Dan Bayer (Sound Engineer), Stephen Charles & Doug Klesch (Photography) and Michael McQueen, Louis Bekoe and Ioannis Batsios (Videographers). This is an exciting evening for us, as it’s the first paid gig we’ve put on since we started documenting live shows two years ago this month. We can use all the support you can muster, so feel free to drag your neighbors out for a great time.

Tickets are $10 at the door and are also available with your debit or credit cards at Etix.

Hope to see you folk downtown!

Ben Riseling, the sax/keyboard player of the Durham based pop punk trio, The Wigg Report, contacted me in the summer of 2007 to see if the band could get in on the Converge South Music Festival that I was in charge of producing that fall.

(To be clear: three original acts — Little Mascara and Thacker Dairy Road were the others — getting guaranteed money at a downtown venue pseudo-qualified the event as a “festival” in Greensboro back in the day.)

photo by Stephen Charles

Anyhow, I was happy to have them play, and at the last minute decided to document the show — my brother stepped up to shoot the video with me while Michael Dunn brought Stephen Charles along to shoot photographs of the evening.

While the music video didn’t have a clean audio track captured from the board and the cameras weren’t synced — we had to drop to black & white as a last resort — the experience of making the video and culling through all of the great shots of the evening was too much fun.

By all accounts, this show was the precursor to the dotmatrix project.

And that leads me to today. Two and a half years since their initial performance and eight months since their official DMP show, we here at HQ are proud to announce the release of The Wigg Report Live at the dotmatrix project. There’s not much you can enjoy on this spinning chunk of rock for $1.30. This album definitely qualifies.

Please support your local artists and download the tracks today.

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

Stephen Charles is at it again with fabulous shots from DMP’s March show at the Green Bean! Check out all of Stephen’s work on his website.

Jacob Darden – lead vocals, guitar

To see more photographs from this show and others, take a look at our flickr site.