DAY - 14

Last night me, Sue and my brother-in-law, Mark met up with some new friends to see the Jake Owen summer block party concert.  The concert was FREE and was held behind BMI in celebration of his new #1 hit, "Anywhere With You".   The place was MOBBED!  From crazy, drunk, college students to under-age high schoolers, to middle age music lovers.  It was hot, sweaty and packed.  Truth be told, we never ended up staying for the concert.  We sat in line for over an hour. When we got in, we stood and listened to a bunch of industry pro speeches. Then, we sat through another hour and a half of a DJ playing music and left literally right before Jake hit the stage.  We decided to listen to some of the concert from the street and grab a beer at the air-conditioned Irish pub next door.   I have to say, for me, the coolest part of the night was when the publishers and Jake Owen gave respects and the spotlight to the songwriters.   Ben Hayslip, David Lee Murphy and Jimmy Yeary, after being thanked, all took the time to say a couple words, thank their families, and thank the crowd.  It is amazing to me how Nashville truly celebrates their songwriters.  It was just as much their night as it was Jake Owen's.  Inspirational, indeed.  

Yesterday I had a great session with Kirk Penney.  We dug into a really cool idea with a killer melody and a fun vibe.  The sess was a blur...we pretty much finished the whole song in 4 hours.  Now it's time to look at what we did and see about editing, tweaking and polishing.  Looking forward to this one.  

This morning I reached out to 2 industry pros.  The first was producer, Michael Lattanzi.  I was randomly referred to Michael a while back while grabbing mojito's at a tiki bar in Long Island, NY.  Michael is originally from NY and has worked with major labels and artists like Jewel, Guy Chambers, Wilson Phillips, LL Cool J, Ryan Cabrera, and Russell Crowe.  He now resides in Nashville and owns/operates an incredible studio called Lattitude Studio South.  We've been in touch today and are planning on meeting hopefully next week.  

The second person I reached out to was Celia Froehlig, VP of Publishing for Black River Entertainment.  I emailed Celia a few weeks ago but haven't heard back.  Being that we've already been in touch about meeting and potential co-writes, I figured I show a little polite persistence, hopefully it doesn't come off as annoying.  I think there's a fine line between professional persistence and just plain annoying.  I try my best not to cross it.