Right, so a few updates, I've finished my song for round 1 of the NGADM and that's here;

I also got one of my old Skanky Mojo E.P.'s uploaded, so here are the tracks from that;

Oh and I lost my NG collab V to the wonderful @Alyctro and we produced this together;

So yeah, I've been productive but I've had some shit go down too and rather than explain again for the 100th fucking time, I'm just going to copy my facebook post here so you can read that;

I’m not 100% on how to start this but here goes; last Monday I joined the ranks of the unemployed. I’d rather not get into the specifics here because it’s a messy situation, needless to say it’s totally rocked me.

I am now in the situation where I have £2225.71 to my name and I’m estranged from my family, so I don’t have the luxury of falling back on them for help. I’ll be honest I’ve been finding it hard to keep my mind from going to some very dark places. People who know me well, know I’ve spent a lot of my life struggling with depression and a number of schizoaffective symptoms and at the beginning of last week I was utterly ready to end it.

Once I’d managed to overcome the blur of emotions from the beginning of the week, I sat down, wrote a CV and started looking for jobs… and I’ve not applied for a thing, I’ve been working since I was 14 and I’m fucking sick of barely keeping myself afloat with dead end jobs, that ultimately make me want to slit my throat. So asked myself; “how long can I live off the money I have?” and I did the calculation (Rent + Bills = £263 a month and I can survive off £100 a month for food) so I’ve got 6 months before I run out of money to live. (I’m not claiming any benefits while I’m doing this)

“So this is it.” I thought, “this is the time to go for it.” so I’m just going to put everything into my music. Initially I was going to jump full force into trying to get some bass students and start teaching (the one thing I’m properly qualified to do) but as I’m guessing you all know, we find ourselves back in lock-down, so “one to one privet bass teacher” isn’t looking like it’s going to be an option for a while now…

So then I really thought; “fuck it, I just need to invent a new modal for the music industry.” So that’s what I’ve spent the last few days doing. I mean, "Could I use Patreon like a fan owned record label?" is something I've been thinking about for a while but I couldn’t quite see how to do it. Then when setting up a Patreon page out of panic and desperation it all came into focus.

Historically the music industry has worked like this; a Record Label invests money into an Artist and in exchange the Record Label, receives ownership of a percentage, of the copyrighted material they funded the production of. I want to take that modal and replace the Record Label with YOU.

In other words YOU invest money and essentially become my record label executive and in return, YOU will get; 3% of all the streaming, sync licence and royalty revenue made by music you've funded the creation of, FOR LIFE. (With the guaranteed minimum of a single a month being released.)

For this idea to work it has to be high tier, limited to 9 patrons (to be known as “The Council of Nine”) sharing a 27% stake in the equity of my music copyrights. (3% each)

Obviously as well as this, I’m going to stick to the standard Patreon model offering a £3 a month subscription “Official Patron” tier where you get early access to all Akio Dāku content, for a month before it’s released on other platforms. That looks like this;

Early Access to the following monthly output;

1. A single every month.

2. Posting at least one companion/making of/bass lesson videos for the monthly single.

3. Producing a monthly solo rant style podcast with the intention of having guests in the future.

4. One streamed performance a month.

5. One patrons only hangout stream a month.

(It’s the price of a coffee a month, if you consider yourself my friend, please god do this for me. If I can get 133 people to sign-up, then I can live solely from this revenue stream!)

And if your interested in a place on the “The Council of Nine” this is how the rewards break down for that;

1. You will receive an "Executive Producer" credit on all Akio Dāku music released under your patronage. (With the guaranteed minimum of a single a month being released.)

2. You will get a return on your investment; 3% of all streaming, sync licence and royalty revenue made by music you hold an "Executive Producer" credit on, FOR LIFE. (royalty payments are typically released on a 3-4 month delay)

3. Access to the privet "The Council of Nine" Whats App Group (so you'll have a direct line of communication with me 24/7)

After all that, I have to say thank you for taking the time to read everything. Even if you don’t sign up to my Patreon, the fact you even read this is wonderful of you. However, if you are interested, please follow this link to find out more; https://www.patreon.com/AkioDaku and if you could possibly, please share this post that would mean the world to me.

Thank you and much love,

Bo Marcus (Akio Dāku)

Xxx

(also sorry if there are any typos/spelling errors I’m dyslexic as fuck)

So yeah, that's where I'm at right now. My parteon has had a good response so far and that's really given me some hope. Also I've managed to get a student for guitar lessons. So fingers crossed I'll be able to actually sustain myself with my music if I keep on track.

Thanks for taking the time to read all that if you made it through. I like NG for just being able to vent post so yeah, cheers for indulging me.

Much love

Bo Marcus (Akio Dāku)

Xxx