the dotmatrix project

Frenetic Directional Chaos And The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Hope It’s Not An Oncoming Train)

Sean Patrick Coon — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:28:06 +0000

This past year at DMP has been a topsy turvy adventure compared to the consistent monthly events we put on over our first year and a half in existance, so I can only imagine how our collaborators and community have perceived our moves.

If you’ve felt let down on any level or if I’ve been unresponsive, I sincerely apologize. Things just got tough.

We went from energetically promoting shows with intricate, full color posters placed around town weeks in advance and teaming up with locals DJs to interview our bands to just getting the damn show on and hoping our turnout was live enough to represent on the recordings.

Even our interactions with the musicians involved petered out to a weak fish handshake, non-existant upfront collaboration and minimal follow-up. For the first year of the project, we would try to collaborate with the musicians and post-show, the album and video would be ready for release before the next monthly show. Over the past year, a nine month backlog has been the norm, which in turn, understandably, saps our musician’s passion for promoting their involvement in the project.

Essentially, the passion from everyone involved has been slipping and I, undoubtedly, was the leader of the passionless pack.

What to do?

Back in December of last year, after feeling the burnout coming on, I met with members of our core team to discuss potential moves in 2010 — hoping to find a spark to our project, something to rally around. If nothing came of the meeting, I told myself I was ready to shut DMP down and move on to more personal, expressive pursuits, such as setting up a studio at Lyndon and painting in my off hours.

I think I was actually hoping for such an out.

The outcome of the meeting? I didn’t get a sense that people wanted to stop doing what we were doing, rather, the feedback was positive with the catch that our media team should start getting paid for their time. And I was in total agreement.

I was already having a difficult time asking neighbors who are knee deep in a local, economic climate of a 12% unemployment rate to donate their time to the project. Aside from that self-applied guilt, which was substantial, I had been scheming night and day for years trying to figure out the levers involved for creating a sustainable project as part of our long-term vision.

The problem I keep running into is the commoditization of media over the past 10 years — commoditization to the point that music videos and live albums had little to no “value” in the marketplace. Also, how the hell do we squeeze blood from stones, where people either don’t have the money to support these local artists or simply don’t care enough to do so.

So I left that meeting with what you might call… a challenge.

Making moves… any moves

Not quite sure how to reframe our project without losing the vibe we created, we attempted to make our Jan. show in Durham a gig with a cover charge, hoping to garner enough cash to pay the media crew. But since we were glomming onto an existing show last minute, that conversation came far too late to the table. In March, we held a non-paid gig for The Brand New Life and Israel Darling at the Bean as part of what we considered a four show per year free approach.

Not quite a plan for sustainability, either.

In April we attached ourselves to a Symbiotic event and our photogs and shooters were paid by the event organizer himself, but aside from the pictures and one album, paid for by the musicians, the rest of the media sits on the shelf. And I lost decent money on the deal.

In May we recorded the Often Awesome Benefit Show for a compilation album with all proceeds going to Tim LaFollette. We then recorded a live show for Crystal Bright and The Silver Hands, forgoing any pay to help them kick off a tour. Later that month, we held a hip hop show with Psyoptic Records, charged $5 at the door and landed two local sponsors for less than $100 per. Again, I walked away with a hole in my pocket.

Admittedly, I was ready to start painting.

As a last ditch effort to keep the project moving forward, in any direction, I contacted a local acquaintance who’s much better than I with these things, to see if he could help me make any sense out of DMP from a business sustainability perspective. After a long conversation over a few whisky & waters and Guinness’ at Fishers, I walked away with a plan of sorts:

Document a 1 to 5 year vision for the project, in all its forms, along with a budget
Create a structure for the organization that will enable us to receive grants, donations and sponsorships
Plan a fundraising event to establish us with a baseline operating budget
Begin the work of writing grants and chasing down sponsorship leads

None of this stuff makes me feel creative, let alone comfortable. I mean, a fundraiser? We don’t have cancer or ALS or any number of life or death afflictions that friends of mine are dealing with right now. How can I expect people to come out and open up their wallets to support our project?

And then my acquaintance, who’s quickly becoming a friend, said something alone the lines of, “If people love this project and want this project as a part of the community, they’ll financially support this project.” To such wisdom, I reluctantly acquiesced.

Moving forward

So I now find myself drawing up a business plan of sorts, one that focuses on re-establishing our events over the next year and building out from there. Without any shows scheduled for the rest of this year, I’m thinking about putting together a huge festival-like fundraiser in the fall, hopefully stacked with musicians who’ve played DMP previously and are willing to give back.

Photo by Tanya Peterson

Anyone interested in helping me plan the event, man the keg stand, sell merchandise, run sound, market the hell out of it, please get in touch with me. If everything falls into place, we could be in a position to start having monthly or bi-monthly shows once again, with a steady night and home, beginning in the spring, with everyone walking away happy.

Then it’ll get interesting.

More Than Often Awesome

Sean Patrick Coon — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:39:56 +0000

A few months back, we (and by “we” I mean DMP sound engineers Don Ravon and Dan Bayer) were lucky enough to be able to record the 3rd Often Awesome Benefit Show, held at Greene Street in downtown Greensboro. Seven different acts performed, with many having no connection to Tim LaFollette prior to the evening.

While it’ll be bit longer until the compilation album is complete as a fundraising vehicle for both Tim and ALS awareness, Andy and Blake just released what I feel is so far the best episode of their Often Awesome web series.

Spread the word, people. This disease is too terrible to continue in existence.

Stephen Charles Photography: Incense The Goddess

Sean Patrick Coon — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:54:05 +0000

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.

Elizabeth Lemon Photography: Maf Maddix and Luse Kanz

Sean Patrick Coon — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:58:05 +0000

Maf getting reflective.

Luse telling you what!

For more shots of the performance, check out the DMP flickr set. To see more of Elizabeth Lemon’s work, visit her blog.

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

Stephen Charles Photography: Bron G

Sean Patrick Coon — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:48:19 +0000

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.

Elizabeth Lemon Photography: Antigravity Animated

Sean Patrick Coon — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:28:21 +0000

Antigravity Animated rocked his set with DJ Nincompoop 17000 as the headliner of the May Soundbombing event, put on by DMP and Psyoptic Records.

I would go as far as to say that the present is stupid.

For more shots of the performance, check out the DMP flickr set. To see more of Elizabeth Lemon’s work, visit her blog.

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

What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

Sean Patrick Coon — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:42:31 +0000

A while back I wrote a post about how I imagined Creative Commons might play a role in our project over the long haul, particularly in regards to how we might contribute to building community. As I often tend to do, I imagined on a grand scale, outwardly hoping that people, both locally and around the world, would find our media useful and merge it into their own works of art.

Well, I’ve yet to hear back about anything as grand as a French mashup, but on the local front, I do get calls, quite often, regarding the use of DMP media from the artists themselves. Can we send a photo to a newspaper to run in an article about the band? Can I use this image on our upcoming album? My answer is simple: give attribution back to our independent photographers and you’re good to go.

Earlier today, I stopped by The Green Bean to get my mid-afternoon drink of choice and I caught the following on the upcoming events wall:

This was the first time I caught one of our shots being used in a local show poster. Check out the solid attribution for Kevin Belton, added as an element of the poster design itself.

No calls to me, no direction needed.

It doesn’t hurt that Dan Bayer (of The Raving Knaves) is part of DMP’s core team, I’m sure he influenced the process, but how about that CC license love?

Tito, get me some tissue.

We’re still wheeling about, doing shows when we can, figuring this all out as we go, but it’s nice to see part of the plan of local artists cross-promoting local artists coming together here and there.

Oh yeah, if you’re in the area, be sure to go check out the show!

Saturday Night Soundbombing

Sean Patrick Coon — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:41:05 +0000

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.

Kevin Belton Photography: Crystal Bright and The Silver Hands

Sean Patrick Coon — Mon, 24 May 2010 17:12:17 +0000

DMP was lucky enough to record some CBaTSH tunes while capturing their eccentricities in a pixelated form.

Check out more of Kevin’s work at his flickr page.

Often Awesome Benefit Show

Elizabeth Lemon — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:05:13 +0000

An outpouring of heartfelt passion was seen Tuesday night as the Often Awesome Army assembled to raise money for Timothy LaFollette and his fight against ALS.

The event occurred at the Green Street Club in downtown Greensboro. Donations were collected, raffle tickets sold and seven local bands came and performed for a wall-to-wall crowd, showing their support for Tim and Kaylan. Halfway through the show, Tim gave a moving speech where he asked for one more favor: keep spreading awareness for ALS.

Photo by Elizabeth Lemon

All Aces Media shot video and the dotmatrix project recorded the show to create a compilation album. Both the video and album will be available shortly. All Aces is also currently working on a web series about Tim called, Often Awesome The Series.

Thanks to everyone who came out and made this wonderful night possible, especially Michael Sileno, who organized the entire evening.

Photo by Elizabeth Lemon

Michael Sileno introducing Josh Neas

Photo by Mark Smith

Photo by Elizabeth Lemon

Chris Jackson of Citified joins Josh Neas for a song.

Photo by Mark Smith

Treason and DJ Royale

Photo by Elizabeth Lemon

“if you love hip hop…”

Photo by Elizabeth Lemon

Social Life giving it their all.