History, a thing of the past.
The Genesis
I've always been a massive music geek. An avid collecter of complete discographies, bootlegs and any rarities I could get my hands on. Aside from occasionaly wishing I could help support some bands more than just buying their CDs and going to a couple of shows here and maybe there, starting my only label never properly crossed my mind. That is until one day I saw an interview with Jay-Z who said that when he started making his music, he sent demos to every record company he could find but no-one was interested in signing him, so him and Damon Dash went to the library and got out a bunch of business books, started their own record label and released his music themselves. This got me thinking...the next day I went to my local library and picked up a whole bunch of business books and a few jars of coffee. A lot of allnighters and several library fines later, King Dave Records was born.
Whilst surfing around the internet looking for new music, I found a blog called 'You Ain't No Picasso' which at the time was showcasing a Brooklyn based singer/songwriter Ivana Xl. Have a listen to her lyrics, that amazing voice and delivery; and I'm sure you'll hear why I was instantly hooked. At the time I was working full time at a supermarket where every little hurts, so I could save up enough to put down a deposit on a morgage on a place in Worcester. A bit of long-term security, ya know. Once my bank balance reached £10,000 I made the move to Worcester to look at possible places and stayed at a friend's squat which was filled with musicians. I ended up moving in and going to gigs every evening and house parties/gigs/all night jams every night and then a friend said they were going to New York with their family and I should go with them. I was young, naive and loaded, what do you think happened?
Whilst surfing around the internet looking for new music, I found a blog called 'You Ain't No Picasso' which at the time was showcasing a Brooklyn based singer/songwriter Ivana Xl. Have a listen to her lyrics, that amazing voice and delivery; and I'm sure you'll hear why I was instantly hooked. At the time I was working full time at a supermarket where every little hurts, so I could save up enough to put down a deposit on a morgage on a place in Worcester. A bit of long-term security, ya know. Once my bank balance reached £10,000 I made the move to Worcester to look at possible places and stayed at a friend's squat which was filled with musicians. I ended up moving in and going to gigs every evening and house parties/gigs/all night jams every night and then a friend said they were going to New York with their family and I should go with them. I was young, naive and loaded, what do you think happened?
I took a bunch of her demo tracks, got a friend to knock up some artwork and took it all to The Session and asked them to put it all together. The friend backed out of the holiday due to family commitments quite late in the day but for me there was no backing out now, I was armed with 10 CDs, £10k an idea and a whole lot of naivity...plus it was my 27th birthday!! I figured if I was going to die a rockstar death, this would be it.
There's a section on here where I've written about my hard times in New York so to save repeating most of that, she didn't go for it. I don't blame her to be honest, it must have all seemed a bit mad, some random British guy flying 3,600 miles to New York City with $17,000 (is what it worked out to) offering to pay for however much studio time she wanted in whatever NY recording studio she wanted. | 
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