Dave Patten's University of Entertainment

Best Review of Dave Patten Yet

Shout out to the heavy supporters at FABTASTIC! Music for one of the nicest album reviews of my life

READ IT HERE

Get my album "Exposure" free from www.DavePatten.com

"How Good" on MTV!!

You can now check out Dave Patten's "How Good" ft. Meek Mill on MTV.com!!  Check out some of my other videos in the related section as well.  This is not the first ;)

http://www.mtv.com/videos/dave-patten/624266/how-good.jhtml

Dave Patten - New Music - More Music Videos

Failure Has To Be an Option

Taken from The Lesfetz Letter, James Cameron (yes, the Avatar JC):

"...But what James Cameron said was:

"'Failure has to be an option.'

"Whoa, isn't this what killed the major labels?  They wanted to eliminate all the failure!  You can't trust the act you sign, you've got to hook 'em up with famous songwriters, you've got to use the name producer, you've got to buy insurance.

"'Failure has to be an option, in art and in exploration.  Because it's a leap of faith.  And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk.  You have to be willing to take those risks.'

It hurts to fail.

But if you come to bat more than once every two or three years, you're gonna get better, you're gonna learn something, your odds of success increase."

Read the rest of the post here.  I think Lesfetz has said everything I could say.  Cameron doesn't wait around for producers in Hollywood to present him a script and a budget -- he goes out and writes his own (Avatar, for example), invests in his own equipment (3D Cameras, which was like a $70MM+ expense), goes out there and gets it done!  I'm doing that now and will continue to do it until I reach a similar level of success.  It's not always about money, but I do believe it's always about succeeding.

"Failure is an option, but fear is not" -- James Cameron

You can watch James Cameron's video here too (2:45)

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

F Samples

IMMEDIATELYYYYYYYYYY regretting ever recording over a sampled beat haha re-recording this Wham! song and re-laying it has been the worst time of my life -- I'm almost done and can't freakin wait.

I'll have to post the audio of the sample I recorded haha it's pretty funny.  The beat is a bit tweaked now but that was the plan.  I like the sample version better but... this new version is growing on me.  And when I see it up on MTV I won't be complaining haha

FYI to anyone out there looking to really blow up on a song, do yourself a favor and don't pick a beat with a sample in it.

Re-Recording Wham!

My song "Believe Me" with Meek Mill is a sample of the song "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" by Wham!.  This is a prime example of why you should avoid using samples at all costs -- because it will always come back to haunt you haha.

MTV can't play the video until we get the sample cleared.  Radio can't play it until we get the sample cleared.

I spoke with an entertainment attorney about getting the sample cleared.   $4,500 in legal fees, and Wham! has the right to demand 100% publishing on the song.  For those of you who don't know what publishing is, it's basically where all of the money is made.

So I'm going back into the studio to record essentially a cover version of the original song by Wham!, and then I'm going to re-sample it and add the beat back over top.  Hopefully it'll sound kinda close to what we've got now.  The important thing is, it's now MY ORIGINAL WORK -- aka the publishing and copyright splits are now between Meek Mill, Sap DBM and myself.  No one else.

And then we can get the video up to MTV and onto the radio!  So here we go, I've got my work cut out for me.  80's George Michael is not exactly what I'm used to recording but believe me, I won't stop until I get it perfect.

  

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.

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.

Album #7 Begins

Had a full day in the studio on Tuesday, and was in the writing mood, and as a result album number seven has begun!

The song is definitely a darker one, and the lyrics are pretty intimate and revealing.  Maybe more so than I had originally intended for them to be... but I sometimes get carried away in the moment haha.  It has a similar tone to my song "Think!" off my latest album "Exposure".  Personally, "Think!" is my favorite song from that album, but that's mostly because of what I was going through when I wrote it.

All of my songs are essentially markers in time/my personal history.  My middle of the road favorites are ones that were written in good times (or leading up to), but my all-time favorites are the ones that were written during the super-low points of my life.  By super-low I'm referring to like heartbreaking moments when I'm miserable about a relationship I screwed up.

Long story short, this new song "I Won't Let That Happen" digs pretty deep for me, and thus has been on repeat for the past few days.  My habits of repeat-listening must really annoy whoever lives in the apartment above me haha I had it blasting for I think two hours last night before I realized it and put headphones on.  Ohhhhhh well

The Greatest Practice

I have never in my life walked out of a band practice not-miserable.  Probably part of the reason why I haven't performed live in about two years. 

I have had the worst experiences with live shows -- people unable to pull their weight, not truly interested, unwilling to dedicate themselves, quitting... haha a lot of quitting actually.

But today was the first and greatest live show practice I have ever had.  The vibe was there, the energy and the performance.  Steve Duffy is on bass and is arranging the show, and Pudge (whom I met for the first time tonight) is one of the craziest drummers I've ever heard play!!

I can honestly say I can't wait to get this show on the road -- it's going to blow people away.  It blew me away and I wrote all the songs lollllllllll ok ok ok I'm not trying to overhype it... I'm just pretty dang excited.

PLUS + tomorrow I get to spend all day online looking for new equipment :)  Life is good

live show rehearsal 2/7/2011 photos by D Ricks