At age 21, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music. In 1995 Dotson started his professional career as the leader of
punk/
pop band
Size 14, named after his shoe size. The band broke up in 1998 and Dotson began playing and producing on other people's recordings.
Solo career In 1999, Dotson released his first solo album
Your Favorite Record on his own label called Franklin Castle Recordings. He performed nearly everything on the album, both instrumentally and vocally. He has since released four more albums:
Let Yourself Be Happy (2001),
Triangle (2006),
Attractive Singles (2008), and
Reheat & Serve (2008). The single for "A Girl That I Like" was released in 2011. Dotson released his fourth solo album in 2014 titled
Something Good and fifth solo album
Cabin Life in 2018.
Touring musician In the mid 2000s, Dotson played bass guitar for
Paul Gilbert on the
Burning Organ tour (2002),
Acoustic Samurai tour (2003), and the
Space Ship One tour (2005). He also played bass for
Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. on both of his tours.
Band member In 2010 he formed the band Palmdale with former
Letters to Cleo vocalist/songwriter
Kay Hanley and released two EPs,
Get Wasted and
How To Be Mean. Linus is active in the Los Angeles duo Able Machines. Able Machines features Los Angeles singer/hit songwriter Tay Côlieé and Linus as songwriter, producer and all instruments. Able Machines so far have self released two studio albums, in 2022
Pathological and in 2023
Digital Precision, the later of which featured a cover of
The Pixies track
Where Is My Mind.
Collaborations with other artists Artists Dotson has worked with include
Allstar Weekend,
5 Seconds of Summer,
Mr. Big,
Bowling for Soup,
Cheap Trick,
The Charlatans,
The Dollyrots, Gabriel Mann (of
The Rescues),
Gush,
Jennifer Lopez,
Jennifer Love Hewitt,
Kaela Kimura,
Kiera Chaplin,
Kool Keith,
Kylee,
Laura Dawn,
Lil' Kim,
The Leftovers,
Margo Guryan,
MC Lars,
Mis-Teeq,
Nerf Herder,
Ol' Dirty Bastard,
OPM,
Parry Gripp,
Paul Gilbert,
People on Vacation, Probyn Gregory (of
The Wondermints),
Puffy AmiYumi,
Roger Joseph Manning, Jr.,
Rx Bandits,
Puff Daddy,
The Smashing Pumpkins,
Tim Burgess, and
Wisely. ==Production==