Colby Odonis Interscope Records

What a great debut album by Colby Odonis. Sophisticated Bad Girl is my favorite of the bunch but the first single, “What You Got” is a throwback that has a great vibe. Produced by Akon this record is going into heavy rotation at my wifes car. The kids will be singing this in a week. Thats how I know its a hit these days. My three and five year old starts beating the shit out of the back of my seat kicking and hitting to the beat.

College Marketing

last month I get a  call from  company called Digital College Network. The President and CEO Chris Esposito has a very unique business opportunity targeting the highly fragmented 18-24 year old market. You se the kids today are not like they used to be. They may not be smarter than those of yesteryear but they are getting information quicker and have answers faster than ever before. They are trained differently, they are relaiant on the computer and not their brains. They dont study anymore they simply google. They feel that is studying. They can do so much research that it appears they have spent weeks preparing for stuff when in actuality they have shortcut the system. By knowing where to look they can find stuff. By knowing how to keystroke they can expedite stuff faster than someone who can not do computer shorthand.

 

I have been watching my 3 and 5 year old children as they send text messages on my iphone to their grandma. I get an email from my son with all 18 of his classmates names written on a stickie note that he sends to me almost daily. The names are in order like in his kindergarten class. Alphabetical. He writes his name and his sisters name on every email. From Hudson and Ella to Daddy. I love you. Then he lists all the kids. Thats it. Been doing it for a month. How he knows how to spell all of his friends names still amazes me. 

 

Which brings me to my nephew, who at 15 has created a music video, recreated a song and generated awareness. To the tune of over 80,000 people. EIGHTY THOUSAND people know my nephew Jamie? His youtube video got so much attention that kids were copying and making their own. It was again -amazing.

 

Which brings me to the DCN. They have a platform that is a no brainer. Students have to go to school. They have to buy books. There are specific books for each school, and they have to be purchased at- The bookstore. So DCN cuts a deal to put LCD screens in all the schools. At the Bookstore. In front of the cash register. WOW! Why try and find the kids when you can go where they already are- School. Having a HD LCD TV in front of you asking you fun contest questions, showing you the hottest trends, Music Videos, Film releases, sports and other related news while you wait in line – makes time go by faster, makes waiting more enjoyable and makes DCN a homerun for advertisers and content owners to broadcast to the youth market.

The ability to access this ‘don’t bother me’ group of college students is a godsend to brands who have a very difficult time penetrating this group. You cannot force feed these kids. They dont like big business. They like to be notified from trusted friends on whats cool. They don’t like being told what to wear, how to think, and what to do. They would rather hear about a group from a friend tan from the radio. They would rather see a youtube video than a music video. Its not just youtube BS. Its a fact. And others are taking notice as well. ManiaTv is right on the heels of YouTube, and gaining popularity by the second. College kids converse with friends on other continents all day long using SkYPE, for free.  I used to have to ask my parents to call my friends in the next city. That cost more money than it does now. Its probably the only business in the world where the prices have dropped. So whats next for these kids? Who knows? The group changes their minds on whats cool every 5 minutes or so.

 

Street teams, Viral marketing, Social Networking, blogging, all are relatively new ways to catch up with these kids. They are spending less and less time on sites. They are jumping around, with multiple screens open looking at everything for a second, Bookmarking stuff they like and making quick references to things on the fly. Sending text messages and status updates to their friends. Thats what they do. Thats what they like to do. They best way to contact your friends is by posting your status and have them notify you when they are close or when they notice you are available. No more leaving messages and waiting for a response. Now you can go on facebook, see where all of your friends are by the second and hook up.  Its simply – Amazing,,,,

Janet Jackson – a free agent

Janet Jackson is a free agent. Who the fuck cares. She hasnt made a hot record since Rhythm Nation. I worked that record when I was a rookie at A&M, I remember Charlie Minor telling me one night at Roxbury when I had “Black Cat” banging from the system, “Ev, you make sure that everybody knows you work for A&M. Get on the Mic in that booth and let them know A&M is in the house. Sure enough as any good street promoter will tell ya, if the Djs are supporting you in the clubs and the people are dancing to your shit – Its a hit. And sure as Charlie was the master of promotion, this was the hottest promotion playground in LA, and the last time janet was bumped in a club. check out lastfm info”In 1990 with the release of “Black Cat” from her “Rhythm Nation 1814” album, Janet Jackson became the first, and only, artist in Billboard history to score a #1 hit on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, R&B chart, Dance chart, Adult Contemporary chart and, Rock chart. When “Black Cat” hit #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock singles chart as well as Billboard’s Hot 100, it was the first time a song hit #1 simultaneously on both of those charts.” Yeah, I worked this baby…

She had a little buzz when she went to Virgin but she never had the streets or the people behind her like Rhythm Nation. Hanging out with the Tribe doesnt make you cool, and doesnt make you hip hop. Qtip, Phife and Ali Shaheed are hip hop, Janet jackson not hip at all. It was a cool attempt to get to the kids but janet had a hit with, “Thats the way love goes” and the rest of the album was a coaster at my house. 

So the fact that Dimitja Jo is a free agent is no surprise, She was the biggest of  them all back in the early 90’s, now she is just the biggest – literally the biggest, and its a shame.  Bad management, bad A&R, and a Huge Ego led to her wack ass albums. Fact is she needs Jimmy and Terry not Jermaine and hip hop. She needs a treadmill, some slim fast and a fucking writer.

The only place for her is Live nation or with some Dubai Prince that will bail her and her brother out and let them do shows around the globe taking 50% of the gross. Because after the Jacksons pay off all of their fringes, there is usually only enough dough to cover the costs of a cup of coffee. Any label head willing to give her any dough without a 50-50 split on everything should be fired. She’s done. Well done… She needs to call it a wrap. Thats wrap with a w, not Rap with an R…

Street teams 102

What is the right time to drop a record? When the streets are calling thats when. People waited for Snoop, waited for Eminem, 50 cent and the Game. And they waited for Lil Wayne. The record business isnt over. But the people running the business have been dead for a while. Doing dumb shit to fool the kids, wasting money to bullshit retailers and paying money to artists that dont deserve to be in the studio in the first place. My suggestion – Dont pay the artist until you know if they are really committed, really focused and really talented. Dont waste my time. Concentrate on building platforms before wasting $$$ and wasting our time. All the artists that have become big starts today have built platforms before they dropped a record be it Jack Johnson or Lil Wayne. Both spent time in the streets or at the beach…

Guitar Hero

A few months ago I went over to one of my bro’s offices and he brought me out their latest smash release, ‘Guitar Hero’. Now I am not a gamer but I was blown away by this video game. It is awesome, just one more reason to understand that the music business is changing – fast. 

Not for nothing, but this game could change people’s lives. And here’s why.

I put the game on in my recording studio and my daughter Ella picked up the guitar and started hitting the cords and jumping up and down like a rockstar. She then picked out a song and became a rockstar. She played the game for hours and posed in front of the camera in her black and white leggings, her rockstar tshirt and her pigtails shaking back and forth. I couldnt stop laughing. My friends were on the floor, but she wasnt done.

She climbed up on my desk grabbed the mic and did a better performance than half of the people that walk into our recording studio. She really thinks she is a rockstar. and thats just half of the story.

The next day we went into Hollywood for lunch at this great Italian joint inside Fred Seagals. As we sat down my luantic daughter grabbed two knives and started banging on the table, ” I am IRON MAN, dadadadadada dundadadun. the people started to look over as I said Ella chill out, we are at a restaurant baby. The waitress came over and couldnt believe it, so did a bunch of other customers. But thats not all. Ella decided it was showtime and busted out her version of our favorite song, ” Momma told me, yes she told me, Id meet girls like you, She also told me stay away you’ll never know what you’ll catch….” in the middle of her verse this guy looks over wearing black leather pants with a boa around his neck and a bandana around his long black hair. He was in a business meeting at the next table. He hears this version of Surrender and says, “You gotta be kidding me?” I said nope, she does this all day long. I said to him, ‘you want to hear her sing one of your songs? He said which one? Depends on her mood but maybe she’ll give you “Train kept a rollin, or Walk this way” You see the guy was Steven Tyler the best rock and roller of all-time and my kid was rocking the house – all because of Guitar Hero. And because her daddy is a really cool daddy. She stopped singing after all the applause to say, “daddy I gotta go peepee’ You see my daughter, Ellabelle Rose Forster is three… yes 3.

Nelly

Just saw Nelly perform his new single on the Leno show. Wow! It just goes to show you that he is truly one of the best there is, time and time again. His flow is so smooth, his hooks are so memorable all the time and he doesn’t have use profanity to get his point across. His beats are club joints that get your head bobbing and you start singing the hook. On every one of his songs!

Hot In Here took hip hop to a whole new level. It combined an uptempo, club jam, with that southern rap style that just rides the beat to the fullest. Whether Nelly is dolo or with an entourage like Ashanti and Akon he is by far one of the best hitmakers there is today.

When Nellyville hit the airways back in the 90’s and Country Grammar was riding high on the charts Nelly had brought a new flow to radio. Sisco soon followed and you had a grip of hip hop artists that were really breaking in the clubs more than the street as traditional rappers usually do. It was the fact that these artists were really “hook based” hip hop artists and not just busting lyrics and trying to focus on their 16s.

I am glad he is back, and I’ll be buying his new smash record.

Street Marketing 101

How to get to the hipsters. Thats the question being asked at every major ad agency in the world. How do you get to the most elusive group of highly motivated consumers that cant be pushed, pulled or harnessed by traditional marketing tactics. The answer – Stop trying so hard. 

Thats right. Stop the barrage of bullshit. Most kids are followers, but they dont follow big business. They follow the hip kid. The kid that is their age, that has insight to what is going on in the world, that has friends in other places not just their school, team or neighborhood.  You have to drop little gems that they can find when they are searching for other stuff. Its almost like finding a hidden message or a magic trick. You never really see it coming but when you do figure it out, you want to share it with others.

 

A great street promoter knows whats hot almost instantly. With a record for instance, if you set the groundwork, you can almost chart the course of how the record will evolve. The process of regionalization first emerged in the early days of record promotion. Artists and their managers would get into their cars and drive to a stick. An Antennae. Any antennae that they could find. That was a potential spin. So what they would do is pretty elementary. They would surround the station with promotion, hit the soda shops, highschools, anywhere kids would hang. Same thing today. Except now things happen faster, and there are more things. More ways to gain awareness, more things to present to the audience, more ways to build fans.

As one of the founders of street teams it was essential to connect to the hip kids, the alpha males and females that are on the pulse of whats happening. So how do you get to these kids? Here is a quick list of some tips to get into the in-crowd.

 

1. Go Where They Go – The problem with big business is they think they can steer them in a direction by bombarding them with ads. This barrage of information usually turns kids off. Instead of doing TV ads and spending millions on widespread marketing, NIKE realized that its better to spend money online in microgroups, and thus have diverted the majority of their TV campaigns to the little screen – The Computer. Through groups, meetups and social networking NIKE found that the kids want what they want, If they are into Mountain biking or extreme sports then why not spend money there, instead of widespread blasting during prime time television. Even though they might get a much bigger audience on TV, that does not necessarily mean they will buy the product NIKE is pushing. But if they are marketing a new soccer shoe to a soccer mom website, the buzz will be quicker and much more effective. Soccer moms buy everything to make their babies happy. 

2. Four wall the market with stuff that the kids like. For example, if you are marketing a hip hop project you need to do several things before putting it on the radio.  You need to hit the clubs, the mixers, the chatrooms, the malls, the highschools, the colleges, the lifestyle accounts. Then you need to hit the video outlets, and then radio stations and press outlets. Its a lot of stuff but unless you build a base, the project will be baseless and there wont be anything to support the project from the ground up. This is the fundamental reason that most records do not make it. Mind you the music must be competitive, but it needs all the other stuff to be successful. Throwing dollars at radio has never been the best money spent on a project. Getting kids to talk about a record before the radio stations even have it, now thats money well spent.

3. Create an experience, Captivate the audience – By designing unique and fun ways to communicate to the consumer you can build a relationship, trust and loyalty. The fact that people can participate in games and contests means they will come back in order to play and hopefully win something. This event marketing has been instrumental in building brands for years. The Pepsi / Coke competition and the new Mac / PC campaigns have been some of the most successful campaigns ever. Its much more fun to play than to watch, this holds true in marketing as well. Enlisting brand ambassadors and street team members has been best way to penetrate the college market for years. Students are deciding what they want to do for the rest of their lives in college; becoming a street marketer is their first entry into corporate culture. They get hands on experience and are privy to inside information, corporate philosophy and vision and in some instances the work experience as a street team member is like being an intern, except you are onsite instead of in the office. This hands on, peer to peer interaction and the information gathered, is the most valuable a brand can get.

Estelle

Estelle is one of the best records I have heard in a long time. The music is great, she sounds so sexy, and Kanye delivers as always, rounding out a great “American Boy”. The first time I heard the record I was driving with my babies Ella and Huddie. We were headed to malibu and the song came on and their legs started kicking in their car seats against mine. I looked at them in the back and they were jamming. This has always been my sniff test. If my three year old and my five year old start dancing to a song its a hit. And sure enough this one is is a smash. Instead of playing records for programmers to gauge a hit, we should be playing records for preschoolers and seeing if they react. They will give you real honest feedback not some bullshit remark like what does their myspace look like or what is the commitment from the label.

Entourage

I think Vinny Chase is the coolest guy on TV. He’s a guys guy, chicks dig him. He is always calm, collected, and really depicts what a young star should be. He should be doing more movies, like Emile Hirsh The rest of the cast is also exceptional, Drama is such a great big bro and although I really never liked E, he is starting to grow on me. I think his coming out moment was when he got in Billys grill in last seasons Medellin piece. Turtle is a great slacker best bro and Ari, who I have known for a while is the best agent in the biz. As a former UTA alum, Ari Gold is a mix between a bunch of guys who really believe that they are the stars and everyone else is just filler. One person I do miss from the mix is Debbie Mazur who really kicked it up a notch as the publicist and sometimes mother figure to Vinny and the boys. The first two episodes have been just what I expected, great fun for everyone. It was good to see Mark in tonights episode. One of my bros, Lukas Haas has been added to the mix which is great. Looks like its gonna be a great season.

Beautiful Day

As I sit in row 4 aboard flight 26 from Miami en route to Los Angeles listening to Anita Baker’s, “No One In The World”, I listen to each word as they flow eloquently off her lips. “Every time that I’m with someone…, I wanna run back to your arms again… Please take Me back… Nobody loves me like You Do…” ring out and hit a chord in me.

 

My trip back home to New York was fantastic, I took 16 of my cousins to the Mets game, saw the Yankees, saw a bunch of friends, met a girl and went to Little Italy in the ten days that I spent there. However, it was my enlightening experience in Miami that lead me to believe several things about myself and even more about others.

 

The phrase, ‘allow my self to introduce Myself ‘, are not as corny as they might sound.

 

Have you ever asked yourself “Who am I?” Have others ever told you – Who they think You are? Are You a friend? A foe? A lover, or a fighter?

 

I sit aboard this jumbo jet and I start to think about the people in my life. This has been a very tough year – mentally and emotionally. The money thing comes and goes but people – they can make or break you.

 

Have you ever sat down and pulled out a pen and pad and said to yourself, Who are my friends? Can I depend on them when times are rough; or are they just fairweather friends that you hear about in songs.

 

Every year I go through the same ritual. I take out my pad, or most recently, my cell phone and laptop and delete the people that have taken up my time, depleted my bank account and broken my heart. I erase the names from my screen so I can pretend not to think of them. Even though I try I can’t let go, I see the people in my dreams. Whether asleep or awake. But not anymore. I am tired of trying to work things out with people that don’t deserve my friendship, I am tired of talking to people that waste my time. I am tired of caring for people that don’t give a damn about me. I am tired of loving people that don’t deserve my effort. I am tired all the time.

 

I have spent the past few months connecting with my spiritual side, sort of. I have noticed an attachment to G-d that I feel really good about. I can no longer look at my friends and business associates as people who have let me down. I can no longer look at relationships that have failed, and complain to my friends and family that these women are all fucked up. I have no one to blame but myself. Trusting others to better my life – Forget it. Trust no one. Forget that too. Thats no way to live either.

 

I just spent 5 days with a woman I barely knew in a place I have never been. IslaMarada, Key Largo Florida The Moornings estate has to be one of the most romantic places on earth. There are hammocks that swing over the ocean, Palm trees that bend into the water(think Bruce Webber or Tommy Hilfiger ads.) My cottage called the TreeHouse was a private escape surrounded by palms and coconut trees with Mango and Papaya growing wildly all over. The resort was

a coconut plantation until recently and has housed the President and numerous celebrities, Mellencamp, Madonna, Brando, Pacino and Deniro to name a few. The sunsets were spectacular, the sunrises even more incredible. The most incredible thing about retreats is of course the people. Nobody on the island gave a shit about Prada and Gucci, cared about Rolexes and Cartier. Nobody cared if you Iced Out (Diamonds) your watch or drove a Bentley. What they did care about was each other. You see – I was there for a wedding. My Friend Jme and Ana Paula, are both Supermodels. Both Rich. Both Famous if you know the modeling business. Both- my friend.

 

As I look at the people who gathered to celebrate their wedding I cannot believe my eyes. This is not your typical event. Usually at weddings you see a lot of your parents friends. A lot of family you never met looking for a free meal and the wedding party looking for a score. Not here. Not my friends. First off, EVERY ONE there was gorgeous! Models after models came from all over the world to see my friend walk down the aisle. From London to Brazil I made new friends and learned more about what’s important than maybe ever before. My friend Jme, made the aisle in which he and his wife would walk with his bare hands. Out of bamboo, lined with roses and sunflowers, the eighty foot path to the ocean was spectacular. Each table had a fishbowl filled with water and sea shells they had both picked from the beach, with a sunflower inside. There were no tuxedos at this wedding. Ana wore an amazing white chiffon gown that flowed off her body so amazing I cannot describe it in words. Jme looked so handsome. There was no makeup artist, no craziness, They didn’t care about the nonsense. They cared about each other and the people with them. Thats it.

 

It was at that moment when I saw them walk down the path that I began to think about what really matters. Its not about what you have or where you live. Its about who you are and what your about. I look at the helplessness I feel sometimes because I cannot help my best friend as he fights a battle with Cancer, or my cousin as she faces the same fate. I get so angry that my business seems to never run as smooth as I’d hoped. Just as I think of all these tragedies I start to daydream, of my nephew and hearing his voice, or my brothers yelling at me for wearing their clothes or taking their cologne, or my dogs running through my house mud on their paws, jumping on my bed to kiss my face and at that moment I realize – This is my Life…

 

I cant say that I pray every day or go to temple on the regular, but I do thank G-d every day for allowing me to experience my nephew Jamie, my brothers Brian, Darren and Jonnie, my mom and dad, my cousins and all of my close friends. I thank him for giving me my dogs: Tango, Maddie and Shayna, Coco, Tribbbie and of course Butkus for they have brought me so much joy in my life. I am glad that I have loved, that I felt love and shared love with others. I have experienced a lot in my 35 years. One song constantly comes to mind when I think of my life: Bill Withers’, “Lovely Day” the words, “Then I look a You, and the worlds alright with me. Just One look at you – and I know its gonna be… A lovely day”

 

I hope I get married one day, have a family of my own, kiss my Wife as JME kissed his, tell her “You are the Sun, you are the Rain, that makes my life a foolish game… You need to know I love You so. And I’d do it all again and again.”

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