the dotmatrix project

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

Many more to come.

That’s Molly McGinn, with Chris Micca on guitar and Toaster manning the drums at last year’s 5th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival at M’Coul’s Public House in Greensboro, NC.

Tonight at 8:30pm, Molly will be introducing a new set of Buster Dilly players to the St. Patty’s Day crowd:

• Dave McCracken on keys
• Chris Lord on guitar
• Andrew Lazare on bass
• Jonathan McMillan on drums
• Bennett Sullivan on banjo
• Josh Lovings on trumpet
• Hank Widmer on trombone

I was behind the camera for that shot above, as I had just started working on a media promotion strategy with my latest client, Simonne McClinton, owner of M’Coul’s Public House and The Green Burro.

Man, what a difference a year makes.

dotmatrix, llc is now headquartered down the hall from Simonne’s office, a window spot overlooking The Green Bean. 12 months later, I now consider Simonne, Matt, Mikey and the rest of the crew as extended family. Hamburger Square is no longer an obscure reference to a time long ago; it’s the foundational core of my understanding of community here in Greensboro.

Two other good friends of mine have picked up where I left off last year and are documenting this year’s event in ways I could never do myself. Michael Dunn and Stephen Charles, photographers extraordinaire, will hang their shots on the walls of M’Coul’s and post the digital files across the web for people to enjoy and begin anticipating next year’s event.

And oh yes… a few months after that spellbinding performance last year, I tripped and landed in a bushel of Shamrocks where Molly was playing about, busy introducing tunes and words in dance, drinking Ginger Ale, making faces, centering herself and very quickly becoming the most important person in my life.

I love you, milady. Kick some ass tonight.

It’s a damn good thing to be Irish.

UPDATE: I swiped the set list.

Traditional Tune
Blue-Eyed Boston Boy
Preachers and Thieves
Pall Bearers Handle
Kill Devil Hills
Satirical Cynical Man
Wild Rover

Transition to the full show

Stonecutter’s Lament
Damn Strange Thing
Walking Cane
Tennessee Waltz
Secret Heart
Beautiful Ugly Man
Sunday, Bloody, Sunday
Whiskey in the Jar-O

Horns

Sideshow Harley
Butterflies or Whiskey
Into the Mystic
Deep Ellum Blues

After a bunch of cat wrangling through acres of honey-drenched fields, I’m happy to announce that the kick-off dotmatrix project gig has finally been booked.

=====

UPDATE: David Bartel had to cancel his trip, but The Radials have stepped up to open for SAD. It’s going to be a great show.

=====

David Bartel and I go waaay back, all the way to the days of CD-Rom game development — yes, there was life before the internets took over. We teamed up as sound producer (David) and animator/illustrator (me) deep in the belly of Soho’s edutainment production row. When we weren’t twisting pixel’s arms to make them dance to our whim, we’d catch the Thursday night Mingus Big Band show at the Fez like clockwork — it’s where I learned to love jazz. Those were the proverbial days.

Soon thereafter, David dropped a tune on Abstraktions, Volume 1 and then started Deep Sound Channel, on which he dropped his second collaborative album, 01. If you dig avant-garde, ambient & abstract music, you’ll enjoy David’s set. I’m psyched and honored for him to make the journey down from Philly just to play this gig.

Our featured act, Sorry About Dresden, blew me away last year at a Local 506 show in Chapel Hill. I originally made the trip to powder blue country to meet my buddy, Nate Aune, who was in town for a conference. Due to SAD’s killer performance, I ended up focused in on the show like nothing else existed. Sorry Nate.

Aside from their distinct indie rock sound, SAD represents exactly the type of band that we’re looking to promote — a local/regional act, playing to succeed, either unsigned or on an indie label. A big shout of thanks to James and the fellas for agreeing to kick-off our event.

So get your cameras recharged, your recording devices fine-tuned and we’ll see you at the show!

The hunt is on.

Dan Bayer and I hit up Carey Sounds, SE Systems and the Music Loft this past week in an attempt to narrow down our PA system options for our monthly show.

Heading into the afternoon I had a basic understanding of what I was looking for — a couple of high-quality active stage monitors, a couple of lesser-quality active monitors (that can double as a vocal speaker for Molly’s solo shows, and as floor monitors for our gig) and a mixer with enough mic preamps, channels and settings to handle a wide-range of acts, coupled with the ability to record output in separate channels directly to my MacBook Pro.

Thanks to Dan the Man, a bunch of footwork around town and the forums over at rhythm(ism), I think I’ve got my head wrapped around what we need.

Since the venue — the back bar The Green Burro — is relatively small (35′ x 25′ with a 15′ x 15′ bar in one corner) and sound bounces nicely off its brick walls, I’ve been looking for high-quality over high-wattage since day one. That means portability and active components. The advise I’ve received from friends, who live and breathe music, all point to Mackie, so this is the setup I’m currently looking at:

• Mackie SRM450v2
  400W Active 2-way Live Speaker with Active Electronic Time Alignment, Light Weight, and Class-D Amplification
  I’ve found nothing but rave reviews about this speaker; at high-volumes it’s supposed to be able to continue to produce studio quality sound with impeccable stereo imaging, depth of field and definition — at full-on loudspeaker levels.
• Mackie ONYX 1620
  16 x 2 Analog Mixer w/ 8 Onyx preamps, 4-band Perkins EQ, and Support for FireWire Option
  It has 8 mic preamps and all the pre/post controls Dan says we need, but what sold me is the optional FireWire I/O card, which bridges the analog-to-digital gap by providing up to 18 independent channels of high-quality 24-bit/96kHz audio that I can plug right into my MacBook Pro. We’re going to record each show to get the music out all over the web, so I want to make sure we have separate channels to mix in post.
• Mackie SRM350
  2-way Bi-amplified Loudspeaker with 165W LF amp & 30W HF amp (each)
  The SRM350 has incredibly smooth, spike-free response and dispersion over a wide range of treble frequencies. So you can turn up the volume without boosting feedback-inducing spikes. Perfect for a floor monitor and as a vocal speaker for one of Molly’s solo gigs.

Save for an equalizer down the road, that pretty much covers the majority of the system.

I fully realized when I decided to put on this show that there was going to be a substantial upfront cost, but going high-quality with active components is damn costly. As I lamented this fact on the phone with Danny yesterday, he quickly put it back into perspective for me:

Pay once; cry once.

Agreed. That being said, I still need to hunt for a package deal for this bad boy. I’ll probably head back to SE System to see if we can work something out.

I’m more than willing to shed a few tears upfront to ensure that the only way our show sounds crappy is if the act themselves don’t bring it. Aside from building a quality sound system and booking killer acts, there’s not much more I can do to control that from not happening.

Up Next: Vocal mics

UPDATE I: Ok, so I headed out to SE on a mission to get a great package price and Ed Poindexter over there hooked me up. But just as we were putting together the sales order (and I was pulling out the plastic). Ed and I started rapping about the state of Mackie as a company:

• Mackie has been bought and sold 3 or 4 times over the last few years
• The latest owners dropped customer service to the bottom of company priorities
• All production has been shipped overseas. For an entire year, parts were unavailable. The current situation is only “slightly better.”
• SE Sounds doesn’t do Mackie warranty repairs; the closest Mackie warranty repair shop is in Durham and the service there is unenthusiastically “ok” and “slow at times.”

I had previously read a bit about Mackie the company — their off-shore production situation in particular — but when Ed told me that they didn’t do Mackie warranty repairs, well, that pretty much made me stop in my tracks.

I’m now looking at the JBL Eon 15 G2’s and 10 G2’s with a Yamaha MG206C USB mixer. More soon.

UPDATE II: I’m now hitting up the forum at rhythmism.com for feedback.

UPDATE III: After a bunch of feedback, I went ahead and picked up the following system:

In a side-by-side test, the QSC HPR 112I had a clarity that was lacking in the Mackie SRM 450. Two other pluses: a wooden cabinet and a 6-year warranty.

The JBL EON’s couldn’t hold a candle to the 450’s as FOH speakers, but they’re a good option for a floor monitor.

Our first show is on April 25th!

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

It took three months, but here’s the first music video from ConvergeSouth Music 2007.

A big shout of thanks goes to my uber talented brother, Andy Coon. His skills on The Final Cut Pro is only matched by my ability to futz around on The Internets.

Up next: Thacker Dairy Road

(originally uploaded by CharlesMedia™)

Turn up the volume; the dotmatrix project is about to cross-over into the real world.

Beginning in April we’ll be putting on a monthly show at The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro, building upon the collaborative format of ConvergeSouth Music 2007.

Along those lines, we’re actively working to align with folks representing the diverse creative communities within this region, particularly photographers, filmmakers and musicians, to plan live events where each community can contribute to the promotion of the others by simply performing and creating art.

Here’s the ballpark concept for the project so far:

Pre-Performance

• The film and photo community leads book media creators interested in participating
• The creative team and sound engineer meets with the band(s) to collaborate on ideas and discuss strategy

The Performance

• The musicians play their set and sell enough merchandise to become filthy rich
• The filmmakers shoot songs, green room banter, the audience, etc.
• The photographers shoot the event
• A multi-track recording is made of the show
• The audience contributes by shooting via cell phones, cameras, whatever and uploads their media to specific spots online

Post-Performance

• The filmmakers edit together their videos based on pre-performance conversations, taking audience submitted media into consideration
• The photographers, well, they make each shot look great and tag/post them to flickr
• The sound engineer will mix down the recorded performance to a live CD format

Promoting the Hell out of Everything

• Our new media peeps will post the final videos across numerous online spots and distribute meat space copies of the video to regional public access channels and networks to promote the event, filmmakers, the band and original music in downtown Greensboro. We’re also working on a deal with Carousel Cinemas on Battleground to play the videos prior to each movie shown in the theater.
• Every three months we’re planning on putting on a photo exhibit of the best shots from the previous three shows to promote local photography and original music in… you guessed it, downtown Greensboro (venue TBD)
• We’ll also register each show recording with Creative Commons before uploading the tracks to numerous spots online, including the Internet Archive and Last.fm. The band will get the master for duplication purposes.
• We’re going to use each event as an opportunity to pimp media created at prior events, as well as educate the audience about how each of them can support indie artists by using the web

Aside from sponsor partnerships to help offset production costs and the dollars exchanged at the bar to quench the palette of the audience, the entire event will be run without exchanging cash. This is a barter deal for everyone involved.

Our long-term goal in putting on the dotmatrix project is to contribute to a sustainable, vibrant original music culture in downtown Greensboro. The Green Bean, Solaris, Greene Street, The Rhino, Fishers, The Press; each venue has added a dimension to the mix, but we’re not yet at the point where original acts are wading in a culture amped to listen.

In the short-term, though, I’ll be satisfied with having a blast and pimping each other into perpetuity online.

All that said, we’re looking for bands that want exposure and the rights to crafted media of their performance in exchange for a few hours of jamming for free. With photographers and filmmakers, we’re looking for talented and skilled eyes to cut their teeth on capturing the vibe of a live event and their time in post-production to receive multiple avenues of exposure in return.

If you’re any of the above — including a business or individual interested in sponsoring the event — contact me at sean at dotmatrixproject dot com.

That’s Jessie Derusha, Chris Micca, Melissa Micca, Max Diablo and Toaster of Little Mascara dropping one of their favorite songs last Friday at ConvergeSouth Music held at The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro.

This is a sample of the many raw files that Andy and I will be working from sometime next week as we begin post-production editing on a music video for each of the bands that participated the other night. In addition to the video shot that night, we have music recorded straight from the board and a bunch of amazing pictures uploaded by our talented event photogs and audience.

Keep an eye out, kids.

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.

Fresh off their win over 30 some odd bands at Ziggy’s Battle of the Bands last weekend, Thacker Dairy Road — along with The Wigg Report — has signed on to play the inaugural ConvergeSouth Music event on Friday, October 19th at The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro.

This entire evening of great local, indie music is free for registrants of ConvergeSouth, which is also free… so what are you waiting for?

Register today.

We’re still booking acts, so stay tuned for updates..

I’m happy to announce that the well-reviewed and self-described pop-punk outfit, The Wigg Report, is the first act signed to play ConvergeSouth Music to be held on October 19th at The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina.

In the spirit of local talent at ConvergeSouth, they’re representing nearby Durham, North Carolina.

More soon!