I'm naturally very nosey. Fact! So, I thought you might be too and maybe, if you're like me you'd be interested in what some of our favourite music industry people get up to when they're not updating Facebook or doing Charts for Beatport and the rest. What would it be like to see what they got up to in an average week?
London-based Pete Dafeet is a producer and co-owner of deep house label Lost My Dog Records for the last 6 years and DJ'ing for 12 years and producing for 8. He's sold more records than I've ever managed to listen to, releasing and remixing for Shaboom, Robsoul, Detour, Toolroom, Lost My Dog, Uniform, Artizan, Headtunes, Southside Shuffle and more – music that’s been supported by household names like Mark Farina, Danny Tenaglia, Groove Armada, and Laurent Garnier. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. As well as co-owning and running one of the finest and most consistent labels around he also holds down a proper job (as my Dad would say) working as a social marketing consultant at Metia, a digital agency based in London.
It makes him a very busy man!...
It makes him a very busy man!...
Monday
Struggle into work to start preparing for a big pitch we've got coming on Wednesday. I got into social marketing through our experiences with Lost My Dog – my passion is definitely music marketing, but I enjoy transferring the same logic to bigger companies in different industries.
Pick up new booking for the summer, for a new night starting at Vibe bar on Brick Lane – a fun venue to play so looking forward to that. Last played there 3 years ago for Bosh Records, and impressed with this new night's schedule: they've got Tom Middleton, Shonky, Aki Bergen, Ed Davenport penciled in for the first few months.
Spend evening working on new Lost My Dog record, get fed up and throw most of it away. Like the core drums so keep them to start a new track when I've got a bit more patience...
Tuesday
Stuck in a meeting room at work all day, ideas coming together slowly for the pitch – the company does a lot right in isolation, so its mainly just a case of starting to connect some of the dots (got to love the marketing speak eh?!).
Spend the evening working on a brief for our designer Tom to create a booklet reviewing the last 12 months of Lost My Dog - we did a lot last year, so want to get it all down on paper! Will be sending out to industry people to help push the label and hook some new gigs.
Struggle into work to start preparing for a big pitch we've got coming on Wednesday. I got into social marketing through our experiences with Lost My Dog – my passion is definitely music marketing, but I enjoy transferring the same logic to bigger companies in different industries.
Pick up new booking for the summer, for a new night starting at Vibe bar on Brick Lane – a fun venue to play so looking forward to that. Last played there 3 years ago for Bosh Records, and impressed with this new night's schedule: they've got Tom Middleton, Shonky, Aki Bergen, Ed Davenport penciled in for the first few months.
Spend evening working on new Lost My Dog record, get fed up and throw most of it away. Like the core drums so keep them to start a new track when I've got a bit more patience...
Tuesday
Stuck in a meeting room at work all day, ideas coming together slowly for the pitch – the company does a lot right in isolation, so its mainly just a case of starting to connect some of the dots (got to love the marketing speak eh?!).
Spend the evening working on a brief for our designer Tom to create a booklet reviewing the last 12 months of Lost My Dog - we did a lot last year, so want to get it all down on paper! Will be sending out to industry people to help push the label and hook some new gigs.
Pete Dafeet mix for Homegrown
Pete Dafeet - December 2003 Homegrown Hotmix by Lost My Dog Pitch day at the day job – not a big fan of the prep, so am happy once we're in the room and can just talk. Fish and chips for lunch, then chat with Ian (one of my partners in Lost My Dog) briefly to arrange a label meeting in London for later this month. He lives up near Newcastle so we don't get too many chances to do things face to face.
Spend the evening buying new downloads on Juno and burning Cd's ready for weekend gigs. Honestly prefer buying music to getting promos, nice to support the labels and so much easier to find the music you want to play.
Thursday
Quiet morning catching up on the day-job, gym at lunch then an afternoon of meetings. One is a demo of a new online monitoring tool that looks quite fun – enjoy keeping up to date on the geeky stuff, tends to give some ideas for the label too. Home on time, in bed by 10 as up early tomorrow.
Up at 3:15 for flight to Lithuania from Stansted. Painful. Standard Ryanair experience – spilt coffee, abusive passenger, bag ends up 20 rows away from me. Arrive just before noon to lots of snow, picked up and driven for some local food and beer before heading to the hotel to relax. Manage to fit in 3 big meals and 2 naps before gig. Awesome. Play for 90 minutes at Pop Star Bar, it's a young crowd so play a few house classics they know. Nightcrawlers anyone? Head to promoter's new whisky bar for carry on, get to bed around 6.
Feel a bit tender after last night, don't leave hotel room until 4pm thanks to promoter organising late check-out. We grab some food then drive to the capital Vilnius for second gig. Eat at a great restaurant in the old town, learn about some of the history, grab a few drinks, then head to Tarantino for the gig. It's an older crowd here, and they like it deeper – play a couple Shonky tracks to start which they love. Someone makes my weekend by requesting Susan Cries (out recently on Lost My Dog), play the Rhythm Plate mix which gets the best reaction of the night. Bed around 5.
Bang Bang - Susan Cries (LMD038) by Lost My Dog
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| Anyone else keen to go to Pop Star Bar on this evidence? |
Up at 8 for journey home. Fly up to Riga first in an old Fokker 50, love planes so this excites me. Make my connection by skin of teeth, watch Four Lions on the plane home – so funny. Get home and start working on that aborted track, before collapsing on sofa to watch the footy and catch up on some sleep.
As I'm sure you're all dying to know, Pete supports the mighty Middlesbrough (as do I before you start!), so I can only assume he was catching up on some real footy based on our current form!
Links:
Website
Myspace
Resident Advisor
Lost My Dog
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