Everything is on track

So it has been a full seven years now that I have been hitting my head against the old Ableton box and if I could say one thing about the journey. Everything is on track. There were many ups and downs to get here and there is still a huge road ahead, but since the beginning of this thing I call a music career I knew two things. Ill.gates was going to teach me music, and help to make my career possible.

So rewind to seven years ago, I go to Snowglobe music festival in Lake Tahoe California, see Bassnectar and  instantly that January go buy Ableton, a computer, and an Akai APC40, an absolutely huge investment for me financially. Time to realize how little I really know.

Back in my “How the hell do I even get a kick drum on the timeline” phase I would illegally download anything ill.gates that I could off of these sketchy free mp3 downloader apps (sorry Dylan lol) …. also totally not cool of me, but you live, you learn, you grow. Anyways this is how I became familiar with the illmethodolgy workshop (as heard in my song “Chocolate Cake“) and I begin to learn a few things about making music.

Couple years go by, I’m making tunes that I know suck, but I’m still 100% sure of this internal need to make music, its much more than EDM to me, music is how I say the things I cant say, its legit therapy, medicine. I must push forward past the sucky phase, all the greats sucked once to right?

Fast forward a little bit and I see Dylan post about private 1 on 1 lessons and this Patreon thing. I leave work early, go put literally all my money in the bank and sign up instantly…. I am now being taught music by ill mofukkin gates!

“There is nothing in life that I can’t achieve” – Bassnectar – ill.gates Boombox

More time passes, private lessons are coming to an end, I am making tunes I’m proud of Dylan is about to open up producer dojo. I remember being on top of a ladder, just day jobbing my ass off building a deck when I get a phone call from Dylan seeing if I would do tech support for his new record label and music school. The 2nd part of what I knew deep inside at the start of the journey was complete as well. I not only learned from ill but he had pushed my music in front of his entire fan base and given me a job… my career and in turn my life has direction and purpose.

This brings us to 2019 – Remix Your Life – Sign up For 2019 Today

Things may be right on track, but it’s not enough and it is time to ramp it up! By April 20th I want to have my EP “More Black Rain” finished and released. This means a lot more of doing the hard less fun tasks that it takes to me a professional music producer and less of the “I’ll do it tomorrow” attitude by October 31st I want to have my 2nd follow-up ep finished and ready for a label to pick up.

This year I am going to work on getting more gigs, I will need to release a mixtape when “More Black Rain” comes out. On top of a mixtape I will need to “Play the industry game” a bit more a go out and network. Although I am a very friendly and outgoing person, networking for the sake of networking makes me feel like a douche and is just plain awkward. So to counter that feeling I am going to strive to bring value to the scenes I am trying to break into rather than the typical “check my SoundCloud bruh” method.

Also in 2019 I want to make an income on my terms. meaning not a day job, but something that fulfils me and I am legit excited to wake up and do…. eh hem cough cough dojo ;). I would love to make this a full-time gig…every time I wake up and have a huge list of stuff to do for the dojo it seriously makes me so happy, like I chose to do this and its right where I wanna be.

All year I will be dropping sample packs on the producer dojo market place, giving private music lessons, selling beats, making music videos/visuals, and doing anything else I can to scrape by.

Lastly I leave you with a list of things I invite you to join me in this year, feel free to hit me up online and add to the list 🙂

• Be better to myself
• focus on self-love
• focus on self-worth
• focus on being happy
• focus on traveling more
• focus on saying yes to life
• focus on being present in the moment
• focus on being focused
• focus on being patient & watch your seeds grow into trees
• don’t rush the journey
• lyfes a garden, dig it ✌💚💜💚