A music label project starting in '07 that has built up a catalog of over 100 tunes from artists across the globe. We are very proud of all the work we've accomplished here over 12+ years of running our passion project on blood, sweat, and tears alone.
Ok, so you want the story? ...It all started one day at The Dropshop...
OG 'DROPSHOP' LOGO:
A VERY NECESSARY LOGO RESURRECTION:
The Dropshop in Orlando, FL was where it all began. Started DJ'ing at 15, and was shopping here regularly within the first few months. This is the hub of dance music culture in Central FL. I was lucky enough to score employment here after graduating HS, and for 4 years of my college life I worked the counter, shared music with hundreds of regular customers, and even sold records to the legendary Magic Mike every single week.
Enter: The homies... Francis, 'LT. Smash' (circa The Simpsons '01), and Dan, 'Dank1'. We hit it off as friends mainly because we all enjoyed the same style of music, equally loved to scratch, and oddly enough found ourselves living in adjacent complexes. Soon we began recording and broadcasting sets on the shop's internet radio station, using the name 'Future Flavaz'.
Eventually our little outfit made 'Future Flavaz' into a thing, started broadcasting on college radio WPRK Winter Park, and also had about a 4 year run on Bassdrive.com. Dyer & LT. Smash played up and down the entire state and then some, to the sounds of hip-hop, classic soul, and drum & bass.
At some point in the Orlando days ('05-'06), we wanted to start throwing our own events under the same name, and began booking acts we loved from overseas. Being residents at the local weekly, it wasn't hard to link with booking agencies representing our favorite artists. We won some, we lost some, but we didn't lose sight of a how to have a good time.
So we'd made a few contacts booking/promoting shows, and thus decided as a group to launch a label effort under the name 'Prestige Music Group', as a nod to the legendary NYC jazz music label (sans the 'Group'). This is because in our eyes, Drum and Bass music was the new jazz of our modern era.
In 2007, we ran this add in both premiere industry magazines 'Knowledge' & 'ATM'
This was our inaugural advert, our coming out. Ultimately a label in our genre coming out of the US was rare and noteworthy. We scored with a P&D deal (Press and Distribute), in partnership with Load Media, a distribution company out of London, England. They agreed to manufacture our records, for a fair percentage, but did not deal in digital distribution. Serving as label curators (A&R) we supplied the music and the artwork, they got our product on to shelves.
Move ahead to 2009, I relocated to Los Angeles, and Load Media dissolves without paying out on our statement, and our imprint having not compensated a single artist outside of advances. We were left with a broken dream, and no choice but to watch it die. Not accepting this reality, we were persistent enough to score another P&D deal, this time to re-launch our label efforts with Triple Vision Distribution - Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Upon relaunch with new distribution, we were able to finally publish a website with some help from a buddy doing code for the low. (Wordpress + WooCommerce).
This was my first shot at establishing a website, and perhaps it was a big ask. I wanted to be able to offer digital downloads along with a physical product purchase all in the same cart. It worked for a while, but ultimately the site lasted about two years before finally getting hacked by someone eager to sell fake Jordans (Literally embedded links in the blog copy). Another set back for sure, since we'd built up quite an archive of blog material consisting of event listings, coverage, music reviews, new release details, etc.
But alas, It was time to relaunch and get serious with digital distribution. We sought to establish a digital-only catalog, in order separate our discography from 12" vinyl releases still being a priority.
In getting back to the releases, we sought to increase our output onto two separate catalog numbers. It's at this point I start to realize that working with various designers to produce our needed assets wasn't going to cut it anymore. In this next set of releases, you can see the point where I ask for a bootleg Illustrator copy, and pay for the template file so I can just plug and play myself.
The solid P's above are right about when I decided stop paying others for graphic design work. As a label that doesn't make much, art is always the biggest cost next to advances and mastering. Plus the quality was inconsistent, and needed alignment. So the next set of release assets had to essentially be my introduction to Adobe Illustrator, out of a complete necessity to save money in running this label project.
Moving ahead I played with a few different label orientations, focused on applying clip art to supply a color theme. In all cases, each release requires multiple asset files including product labels shown, but also a variant circular product label (mimicking vinyl release), along with promo banners in a variety of shapes and sizes to supply a variety of channels.
Ok, so we got hacked. So what? Move on. Now we're on Shopify, probably since the day they supported digital products in the stock cart (no app). Now, just in case you didn't click the 'Visit Site' button at the top of this story, you can see what our website looks like today. No blog this time, which I'm a bit sad and nostalgic about. Missing the days when I was more on the scene.
Speaking of staying active on the scene. I did manage to score a few gigs on the west coast in my late 20's and 30's. Here goes a few highlights to complete the picture of DJ Dyer.
12 years later, our first various artist compilation releases, showing just how far we've come.
In a not too distant future, this will be the website redesign for Prestige Music Group. All webpages designed in Illustrator, to include homepage, artists, product detail, and blog summary. Below you can see digital wire creation from initial pencil sketches.
