Dave Patten's University of Entertainment

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Break

I'll return to the blog later this week.  Been a crazy past few days and I haven't had a minute to post!

Warner Meeting, Eh...

Scheduled up a meeting at Warner Bros Records out in LA yesterday, met with one of the execs of the outfit (not just some A&R guy) which was cool.  Hung out in the lobby for a good while before the meeting, watched Wacka Flocka and Gucci Mane videos in succession the entire time lol.

I'm not gonna type up some pipedream bs and tell you that the meeting was wonderful and we're off to the races.  I have no reason to lie... it was a bad meeting.  We played all of my videos, checked out the new album, etc., and then he passed on me.

The main issue is that my songs aren't "hits", so there's no way he or anyone else at the label would walk my music up to the Chairman to check out.  By "hits" he mentioned Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Katy Perry and other such similar joke artists (in my opinion).

And so the line was drawn.  This is the difference between the old generation and the new.  Why do you think the Best New Artist at the Grammy's this year was the jazz cellist chick (Esperanza Spalding)?  Not Drake?!  Not Beiber?!  omgomgomg.... this cellist woman won #1 because she's an actual musician and that's what the Grammys are supposed to be celebrating and #2 because a statement needed to be made.  Everyone is sick of the bs we're being fed.  I'm sorry but the majority of Young Money songs on the radio are NOT GOOD lol but after hearing them 100 times/day we naturally assume other people must like it, and that it MUST be good bc it's being played so many damn times, and so we go ahead and start bobbing our heads to the beat.

I dunno, I'm not going to just rant about how the industry sucks and my music is the greatest and no one understands great music like I do haha bc that's not at all my mentality.  Obviously I think my music is pretty good or I wouldn't be here.  What I can't stand is the labels and how risk-averse they are.

If you read between the lines, the guy at Warner basically said he and the label won't be interested in me until I have a #1 hit on the radio and 100k fans already in the bag.  Sure, then they'll come a-knocking and want me to sign away my masters and publishing and give up everything I've worked for!!  That's like me saying hey, go out and start up a small bookstore.  Once you get to the point where you are looking to franchise and have as much profit as Borders does... come to me, and sign over the company into my name :)

I just don't get it.  But it's cool with me because I'm just more motivated than before.  My team is going to takeover and become the next record label.  I've never been one to depend on others... Just wait til a year from now.  6 months from now.  Yall will see!!!!! haha I'm feelin extremely tough and empowered right now

Warner Bros Records Building, LA

Mitchell & Ness

The good dudes at Mitchell & Ness hooked me up via their clothing line yesterday.  Huge shout out to Brandon Kamin (www.BrandonKamin.com) for introducing me to everyone and setting things up.  Representing our home town big time lately haha!

I'm going to def represent philly allllll weekend out in LA.

Scope - Part 2

I just got back in from Chickies and Petes with Courtney -- we had to go out to celebrate the wrap of the music video documentary project we shot earlier today, and just to go out because she's up here from SC.  I'm legit in the best mood ever right now haha it was an awesome time, there was an awesome 9-piece cover band going hamm the whole time, and the crab fries almost changed my life//although I def am running my 5-miler tomorrow lol

Anyway the reason I've titled this post Scope part II is because that's what it is.  Part 2.  Tonight I had the opportunity to clear my head and re-align.  Re-assess and really take a moment to appreciate where I'm at and what's about to come.

I've been hung up like crazy over this one girl lately, and although she's one of those girls I know I'll never quit thinking about, the point is there's more to life than the tiny scope we sometimes get caught up in.  For me it was thinking about her.  Obsessing about what I did wrong or didn't have or said or didn't say.  It was destroying me -- like, depressing the shit out of me every day all day -- making things that I should have enjoyed miserable...

Life's too short to be spent miserable.  Chase after what makes you happy and what you want, but don't let it bring you down [I say this as though I didn't let my own chase tear me down for the past few weeks haha but I think yall know what I'm talking about].  No one likes a pessimist ;)  No one likes the kid who talks about his/her depressing problems the whole time.

So f-it I'm going in.  It's 2011 and it's time to get the hell to work.  There's so much out there that I want to taste and experience and I'm not going to let anything get in my way.  Embarassingly cliche but it's ok.  I'm going to do it for myself and for my team and for the people in my life who actually care, because heartbreakers really are just out for themselves.  And if you just took offense to that, or felt a slight pinch in your heart it's probably because you've screwed someone over in your past and you know you did it because you had something better lined up, looking out for yourself and nooooo one else.  I guess from a business standpoint it makes sense, you want to better yourself wherever you can.  But I don't think that will work too well as an explanation haha

I digress.  Let's make this music thing happen.

I Seriously Can't Wait for Summer

That's all that needs to be said.  Good thing I'm out to LA on Thursday :)

Music Video Documentary Project

Starts tomorrow!!  The idea is this:  I have a lot of music videos out.  I also have a lot of cool behind the scenes footage and a lot of fun stories about each shoot.  Soooooo how can I make use of this?

I'm going to put together a little documentary -- a showcase of what it takes to make a music video work, what goes into making it happen and the benefits of having them done and released!

My girl Courtney came up from the south the host the whole thing.  She's prepared a bunch of questions to ask me for an inside look at all of the music videos.  We'll probably walk around my offices, head outside for a minute and maybe hit up a cafe for lunch while the interview goes on.

On the distribution side of things, I'll toss this guy out on the festival circuit when I get it done and let it ride out.  I'm sure it'll get accepted to a bunch of festivals.  Not to be overly confident, but there are a lot of terrible films that get made, especially in the documentary genre, so I'm not too worried about it haha.  After a nice run on the circuit I'll toss it up On Demand on Amazon.com and see if I can land it on Netflix.  That would be huge.  Netflix is like the iTunes of movies.  I have a good friend out in LA who's a major film producer and director -- meeting with him next weekend when I fly out -- I'll be grilling him for some insight on how to run a successful campaign like this.  If anyone knows, he will.  Dude is a boss!!

Filming starts tomorrow morning.  I'm about to head downtown and grab a drink with Courtney and set things up for tomorrow.  Jason the boss is coming out to do sound, and Ricks will be on the steady.  Keeping the crew tight and costs even tighterrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Future of Mimosas

So at the moment I'm down at batcave studios with Meek Millie and the whole dang crew -- when I say that I'm talking entire fam, cousins, uncles, brothers, and the boys that have been around for the long haul.  We're all celebrating Meek's signing to Maybach Music Group (Rick Ross, Wale) earlier this week -- and just celebrating life in general.  It's a rare damn thing that someone from Philly really makes things happen, especially within the hip hop community.  I dunno I'm super hype and happy as hell for Meek and everything he's done.

If there is anyone I aspire to work as hard as, it's Meek.

The future is pretty much limitless.  As evidenced by Meek.  So this post is essentailly a "cheers" or "here's to" the things that are about to happen.  I'm fortunate as hell to have such awesome people surrounding me and helping out.

Shout out to Ricks, Meek, my pops, Steve, Med, Jenny, DC Kev, Coon, Phil, Pudge and everyone else who is contributing to the effort.  We'll all be toasting mimosas out in LA 6 months from now, I can pretty much guarantee.

Last Day in DR

I've been missing the weather since the minute the plane touched down in Philly!

 

EMI dies

Again, I am here to promote and gush over Lefsetz, who blogs on the music industry for a living.  He is a cynic for pretty much one reason:  the music industry is changing (as any other industry changes over time) and the label heads refuse to accept and adapt.  So we have this growing separation between new music and the old heads at labels, leaving tons of room and creating plenty of example situations of innovation within the industry. 

The labels are dead.  They don't want to adapt, and so they fall.  There is no denying this.  Last year over 40 A&R guys were fired (don't quote me on that, it's what my lawyer told me the other day haha).  Good!!!!!!!!  The majority of A&R are bitter pricks mad at the world that they couldn't make it as an artist themselves, so they get their kicks by becoming a gatekeeper and denying everyone else.

EMI just sold to Citigroup (aka declared bankruptcy and their bank took over).  So Citigroup will sell what's left to one of the remaining labels and converge down.

Check out the aritcle for yourself here:  Lefsetz Letter

Here's a sneak peak:

"...Don’t blame the consumer.  Don’t say Apple wouldn’t be successful if people stole their products.  At least people want Apple’s products!  Ha!

If you don’t think that the Internet is the best thing that ever happened to music you don’t have a connection.  Suddenly, the history of music is available at your fingertips.  And it’s only free because the rights holders refuse to embrace a model that comports with consumption.  It’s like Verizon insisting everybody keep their landline and demanding that people still pay a grand for a cell phone and a buck a minute for calls.  I thought music was about innovation and change.  Not at the label level..."