the dotmatrix project

If you’re interested in understanding more about how our world is shifting from the center to the edges in terms of connectivity, exposure, the distribution of ideas and other major cultural shifts, check out Dr. Michael Wesch’s presentation at the Library of Congress entitled, An anthropological introduction to YouTube.

Dr. Wesch’s more famous videos, The Machine is Us/ing Us and Information R/evolution, are worth a watch as well.

(via Robert Patterson)

We’re documenting live shows, so along with the memorable moments, we’re bound to capture the hiccups, the warts and the brain farts each band produces. It’s part of the charm of a live show.

But what happens when the song that blows up also happens to be the song being recorded for a music video?

Overdub.

Andrew Dudek and Dan Bayer stopped by dotmatrix hq the other day to overdub the first verse of Oh Please:

He nailed it, even with me shooting a video (just playin’, Andrew).

Here’s the original, live track:

And here’s the overdubbed version:

Remember, you can pick up the album at Amie Street.

We just announced the album release over at our DMP Google Group (feel free to join), so download it while it’s still inexpensive over at Amie Street.

As always, we’ll release the full album, with free downloads, to Last.fm in the near future.

Possum Jenkins evoked some DBT at the show last night.

Still glowing.

First of all, I messed up. There’s no two ways about it.

A bunch of local clients I picked up last year had their email accounts hosted on a service called DNS Made Easy. I had never heard of it before, so after reviewing the service and finding the mail client and admin interface severely lacking in both features and solid UX Design, I began switching my clients over to Google Apps, one by one.

Mistake #1: I should’ve spent an entire weekend and transferred them all at once.

Why?

My last client on DNS Made Easy called me today in a panic. Apparently, his email account stopped working without notice. So I hopped online, logged into the DNS Made Easy admin account and found that, apparently, the account was overdue for a re-up since July 15th — two weeks ago.

Mistake #2: I didn’t change the settings I inherited to employ an auto-reup. With my schedule the way it is, that wasn’t smart.

So, earlier today, I paid for another year of service ($100 +), hoping to have the account turned back on so my guy could access his old emails. After waiting 30 minutes with the login continuing to misfire, I contacted their customer service to see what was up.

Apparently, DNS Made Easy kills email accounts and all their data — with no chance for reinstatement — once too much time goes by without a response to their re-up emails. But I hadn’t received any of those emails… wtf?

Mistake #3: For some reason, I had set my contact email address at DNS Made Easy to my old Yahoo account — something I never do elsewhere — so I never received their re-up notices.

Apparently, they’ve been trying to contact me since late May.

Now I’m kicking myself pretty hard. I messed up with not setting auto-reup, I provided a bad contact email address and I delayed the move to Google Apps because, well, quite simply life has been pretty busy lately.

All that’s on me.

So I replied to Kate, the customer service person on the other end of my email thread, and asked her very politely if it was possible to pull the account “out of the trash” and this is the response I received:

I have asked the administrators to try to find anything that they can but they are stating because the account was so past due the account was permanently removed.

Would you like me to issue you a refund? Otherwise if you let us know the passwords you want we can reset up the accounts for your user.

The “permanent” part of her response threw me for a loop. I mean, is there a non-permanent state? And what would a historically on-time paying client have to do to get that instead? So I responded as such:

yes, i would like a refund.

also, i understand that it was my fault that you couldn’t get in touch with me via email , but i’m pretty damn dismayed that:

1. an active email account was shut down without trying an alternative method of contact. you do have my physical address. for what reason, i’ve no idea.
2. in this day and age, with moore’s law creating storage business models left and right, i’m shocked that you didn’t simply put a freeze on the account. my client called me today. if you simply froze the account, we would’ve been back in business this afternoon.

-sean coon

Being that the work I do for my local clients is what I consider to be community service — compared to my primary gigs in the design world — I was much more upset that my guy lost his emails than me losing the re-up fee from today, especially because I was absolutely guilty of human error.

But I couldn’t get past the fact that the policy at DNS Made Easy seemed pretty damn archaic. I mean, no attempts at contacting the account holder — one that has always paid on time and who’s account is active on a semi-daily basis — in an alternative manner before hard deleting the account?

I didn’t expect a postcard in the mail with a hint of perfume and a royal invite to write them a check, but such a drastic no tolerance policy — without attempting a call or notice by mail — feels, dare I say, spiteful?

Well, this is the response I just received from Kate:

Wow…. Spent hours trying to help you today. Offered you a refund even though we have a zero refund policy and this is the attitude you give me?!?!?!

> 1. an active email account was shut down without trying an alternative
> method of contact. you do have my physical address. for what reason, i’ve no
> idea.

Are you joking me? You expect us to send you personal letters by mail? For an account of your size? Should we fly to your house also and knock on your door? Should I call your whole family also and let them know you are late paying your bill?
Please…. this obviously is not a business for you.

> 2. in this day and age, with moore’s law creating storage
> business models left and right, i’m shocked that you didn’t
> simply put a freeze on the account. my client called me today. if you simply
> froze the account, we would’ve been back in business this afternoon.

It was frozen for 4 days then removed. Not our fault that your client noticed after it was removed. Not our fault if you give us your free yahoo account to check your emails. Not our fault you do not check your free email’s spam box.

Since you made a list for me, here is a list for you.

1. Don’t use your free yahoo email account for hobby / business. Did you tell your friend / client that is why you lost all of their email?
2. Learn to write down when your services expire. You are lucky we gave you over 2 weeks. Most providers shut you down much sooner.
3. Always pay your bills on time.
4. Don’t be rude to people that have tried to help you for free…. Eventually no one will try to help you.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions, concerns, or comments regarding this ticket.

-Kate
DNS Made Easy Sales / Support
sales@dnsmadeeasy.com

Please let us know if our response did not answer your question. To reply to this ticket you can do so by email (just reply) or by the support site.

Nice. Apparently, my use of the word “you” in my last email was taken by Kate as something personal, and not aimed towards the policy of her company. That wouldn’t have happened if I were able to call DNS Made Easy, but their business model is that I have to pay for that pleasure.

So now I have the market on human error and being a stupid shit… and DNS Made Easy is perfection in motion.

Fun. I just tried to log into my shell account, and it’s now been deactivated.

No, not spiteful at all.

What a wonderful way to wind down an evening.

photo by John Leonard

photo by John Leonard

photo by John Leonard

photo by John Leonard

Tom Beardslee wove together a beautiful, soulful solo set and then Possum Jenkins stepped up and absolutely tore the roof off. After two encores and a posse of fans throwing their PBR’s sky high, PJ left the room a buzz, wailing and wanting more. I’m going to post the encore tracks as soon as we mix them down.

Killer.

A huge thanks to the media crew who participated tonight — particularly Jason Pierce for stepping up last minute and filling in as the third filmmaker. And from the look of John Leonard’s shots above, I think we might have raised the quality bar once again.

And while it might not seem like a huge number elsewhere, I counted over sixty people in the back bar at one point during PJ’s set. It was a friggin’ sauna back there, but everyone seemed to be having a great time nonetheless.

Look for the albums soon.

Photo by Tanya Peterson

Josh Neas and I had a blast rapping about DMP, talking ConvergeSouth and listening to some of the live tracks by veterans of the project on his Wednesday night, 6pm to 8pm show on 90.9FM WQFS.

Check it out:

Poster by Justin Reich.

I had an interesting lunch hour today, bumping into two local music heads who got me thinking about the “value” of a recording — both intrinsically and in today’s market.

First, I spent a few minutes rapping with Chuck Carroll over at Edward McKay on Battleground, after stopping by to put up a last minute show poster for tomorrow night’s gig.

Seeing all the CD’s in bins, with a packed parking lot outside and scores of young(er) people browsing the store, absolutely yanked my gray matter back to 1986.

Back then, I’d hang out at Crazy Rhythms record store after school, buying music either via stolen quarters from my Dad’s NJ Parkway toll jar or using up my meager allowance. If I was broke, which was the majority of the time, I’d just be lounging to check out what was new.

It was an experience just to be there.

Chuck, a manager at EM and a DJ at WQFS, happened to be available this afternoon to chat, so I on-the-fly pitched him a few distribution/co-sponsorship ideas about getting DMP compilation CD’s onto his shelves.

The Real World Blues

It’s not that Chuck isn’t into the concept of the project or a supporter of local music, but as soon as we started talking numbers, it became obvious that he had a hard time picturing an investment in more than just a few CDs at a time.

Before you comment, yes, I know this is 2008 and not 1988. FREE is a major part of our strategy to get the word out. But no matter the degree to which reality has camped out in my skull, there’s simply a draw, an indescribable allure, in making music available in a tangible format — particularly in an environment where two people can share in the vibe of the transaction of taking it home.

And that takes material production, which costs money.

So now that our online approach is somewhat standardized, I’m beginning to focus on the challenges surrounding the production and distribution of DMP compilation CDs — particularly, how best to collaborate with local institutions to make them readily available to people within the community.

The interesting angle of this particular business problem lies in figuring out how production costs can be covered with a barter approach, similar to how the media was created in the first place through the barter between artists.

Essentially, co-marketing each other.

What value can we provide a business for their percentage investment in the production of the CDs and their management of distribution to customers?

I’m thinking that if we can work with a number of supportive local businesses — coffee shops, book stores, bars, etc. — to offset the production costs, we can then divvy up the CDs to be made available in those same spots for either a low cost (a $5 CD where the profits go to the retail shop) or free with a swap of an email address (which we’d add to our Google Group or similar).

And all of this depends on how cool both the bands and the businesses are with the idea. I’m not interested in making coin in this process, but unless we find some hardcore music loving establishments, coin is what speaks to most businesses. And then once money becomes a part of the picture, the deal gets much more intricate.

We’ll see where this all goes.

Is It Live Or Is It Memorex?

After speaking with Chuck, I headed over to Earth Fare to hang another poster and ran into the venerable Kathy Clark. I mentioned my conversation with Chuck and that sparked a parking lot discussion about the live albums we’ve put out to date.

Kathy spent some time over the last few days reviewing the six live albums I brought to her show last Friday, and in the end, was only truly impressed by the Citified album.

It wasn’t the quality of the recordings that threw her off, but the actual performances of the bands on the recordings. A missed line here, not singing into the mic there, a bad fill in-between, you know, the realities of a live performance. Citified was by far the tightest band we’ve put on so far, so that aligned with her expectations of listening to an album.

I enjoy studio recordings just as much as the next music fan, but the studio creates a level of controlled perfection that’s hardly ever replicated at a live show — unless the band explicitly chooses to follow that creative line.

That said, the allure of a live album, to me, lies in the unplanned interactions with the audience, the fleeting moments of tightness that defies the very definition of a live performance and yes, the very warts that made Kathy cringe.

Photo by Stephen Charles

But I absolutely get where Kathy is coming from. I mean, would I romanticize these recordings in the same manner if I wasn’t as up close and personal with not only the show, but the bands and the entire process?

I don’t know. Probably not.

My goal in documenting and releasing this music — beyond exposing local artists to people who might never have checked them out in the first place — is to capture the realness of the show experience. But does the very process of recording live music alter the expected presentation of the art to a point where realness is no longer valuable?

Chew on that mind twister tomorrow night: Possum Jenkins w/ Tom Beardslee.

104 years ago, today, Reva Patrick Coon was born. Speaking with her tonight in Northern California, she sounds as vibrant as ever.

Between my mother on the piano and my father’s mother on the violin growing up, I didn’t have much of a choice but to fall in love with music.

For that, and so much more, I’m sending out a hearty green, white and orange coated thank you.

Cheers, G’ma.