JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum TAXI--Billboard chart success (or lack thereof)

Marc
What in God's name does what I do or who I am or what I've done or sold or not sold have to do with the point I made about how Mr Carroll was all about the story. You are throwing a hissy fit because someone challenged you on the following which is what you wrote.

"Get yourself on Fox News, CNN, all the talk and news shows and you can get all kinds of press. Ask Susan Boyle. 278 million hits. But that does not always transfer into sales.
Great to get press. Great to get views. Doesn't always translate into sales."
That is a specific comment that reeks of envy because it didn't happen to you. He's leapfrogging you through sheer creativity and talent while you slog away on the old model that obviously isn't working or you wouldn't have to post 800 long winded posts (and counting) about Nashville Nashville Nashville.

You are obviously coming from a Nashvillecentric point of view with a specific model for success IE if it doesn't sell it can't be good. Do you really believe the world only revolves around Nashville. Attacking the messenger for tweaking your nose speaks volumes.
Whom the Gods would destroy they first oversell.
Sam

Hi Guys and Gals:

Well, at the risk of being "chastized" again... the only Taxi I'm taking will be one of those yellow things being driven by someone who likes to drive like a bat from Hell. I can do my own pitching and use the $300 bucks for postage... as the price of postage continues to rise... LOL!

Marc... why is it that we keep reading about the "dire straits" the radio world has entered lately? Almost every blogger who dabbles in that arena seems to be saying that the iPod has killed Radio. I sure don't listen very often to Radio any more. Too many commercials and music from la la land. Then there's the plight of the newspapers... being killed by the internet and bloggers.

I wish my crystal ball was not quite so hazy... it sure makes it difficult to predict where we are headed media wise. You are absolutely correct on the "free music" attitude... and that does not bode well for any of us.

Best,

Dave

Unless it's solicited Dave, I think mailings are a waste of time and money.

The only times I send a package out in the mail is when it's requested, or I give them a phone call first, to okay it. Otherwise, no.

John

Hi John in the Cage: (LOL!)

You are absolutely right. No I don't send or "broadcast" my work through the mail to unknown folks in the Songwriter's Market. That's a real "crap shoot." I only send songs to publishers, artists and producers who participate in my inner circle... and fortunately, most of that is done via the net. (Yippee... no postage!)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this thread. I have a great deal of interest in what you bring to JPF, my friend. That goes for Colin and Marc, also. Ya' gotta enjoy all the viewpoints, opinions and ideas here.

Best,

Dave Rice

http://www.ShowCaseYourMusic.com/DaveRice

Last night I had a guy at the studio he was finishing his song. He is an older gentlemen in his 70's who now has the time and money to focus on his music.
He has recorded one song that is very traditional like and in the vain of say "On The Road Again" But even mellower, small band with accordion and 2 vocal part.

He said to me I'm thinking of joining Taxi.. what do you think?

Now I know this guys "knows better" he's not a star struck kid. But STILL he has thoughts in his head of hearing his song done by a big star on the radio. How do I know? Please lol... We ALL do! But I have discussions with him during sessions so i know what he's thinking.

I told him -
1 - First you have only this one song recorded and Taxi will send you listings sheet. Your first job is to look through it and see if anything in your catalog matches at all with any of the listings. You have one song, that's not good you may not find a match for quite some time. You really should have a little bigger catalog.

2- Your song is nothing like what is on the radio today, not even close. He agreed.
And even if it was Keith Urban ,Taylor Swift and George Strait are not getting songs from Taxi, They are not "looking for songs" they have people that are sitting right next to them right now as we speak with songs to show them. Loads of inside people to go to. Besides who writes there own etc... Okay so now he gets that idea into perspective, go play lotto.

3- Many of the listings are for film/tv but through music libraries. It's always "Music Library seeks -
And 90% of the time it's to be a sound alike of a current band or artist. A few years ago i remember clearly it was - "In the style of Modest Mouse, Hoobastank etc...
His song is very dated and or traditional, you have just pinned yourself into a corner
You have one song, and it's in a style very few to no one is looking for.

A broader as well as a bigger catalog would be much better for you. But you write what you write so there... however collaborating can help you GREATLY there.
For example - look at all the collabs here. People with similar to very different backgrounds hook up and create a new tune and product. So you really DON"T have to be pinned in the corner completely. Look at a collab with Mark Kaufman & Couchgrouch, or Wendy D and Tom Franz, Niteshift & Letha etc.. etc...

Now that catalog of STYLE has just expanded.

4- Good point - Your song could find it's way into a film situation directed towards it's set style. And now we have a Broadcast Quality Recording which is a 90% MUST for Taxi.
-------------------

You know folks you can put in a 125% in this craft & business and get basically no where.
If you put in 25% to 50% your pretty much guaranteed to get nowhere. Then you get the wonderful feeling of blaming yourself.

Taxi is not for everyone and in my professional judgement my friend is NOT ready to join. But he said he would anyway... Why?

He said to me exactly what I said here two days ago... WHAT ELSE am I doing to do with my songs?

There is so much talent that never gets "discovered" due to the overwhelming number of people all trying for the same brass ring.
You've seen those toothpick holders shaped like a little bottle..when you turn it upside down all the toothpicks fall toward the neck but only one or two will come out at a time. I sometimes think of songwriters all trying to go through the same opening but are crowded out by the "toothpicks" that got there first. There are only so many spots on an album, so many spots on the charts and so many spots on a radio playlist. Many wonderful songs get rejected every year for reasons that have little to do with the actual quality of the writing or production.

Mike, you gave that gentlemen some excellent advice. One non-commercial song (no matter how well recorded), 99.99% of the time is going to bring in $0.

In order to be successful in film/tv, you need to have a large cataloque of broadcast quality tracks. One track doesn't cut it.

A song that doesn't sound anything like what's on the radio has virtually no chance of being signed. Heck, we have writers right on this forum who have great songs who have trouble pitching them.

You have to ask the question - why are you writing music? What makes you think that your song is going to get through the many gatekeepers who screen music, be put on hold, be on the short list, be one of the few of 5,000 or so songs considered that is actually recorded, and then make it on the CD, which is successfully released and gets on the charts? On a CD with 15 or 18 songs, most of which are written by the artist? What are the chances?

I'm all for believing in dreams but I'm also all for getting educated about the business and understanding how to compose/produce, market/network effectively to build relationships and grow your chances of success in a very competitive industry in a huge state of flux.

I think you gave very good advice, Mike. Currently there are more country listings on SongU, than there are on Taxi, no bs.

I joined Taxi primarily because I have the ambition to produce pop/rock tracks for tv/film, believe I can do so in my homestudio, and are working on that every week. Most listings are for people who can do just that. I might have joined too early too, but I can use the feedback from them to improve. Anyway, anyone can see the listings on the Taxi website for themselves here: http://www.taxi.com/industry.php

Any advice out here in wannabe land, states that pitching for country artists is better done with a subscription on Rowfax, rubbing the bone & sending snail mails, using a songplugger in Nashville and ultimately, get there yourself. I think even SongU is a better shot at that.

This says it all.....

Magne

About seven years ago myself and friends/co-writers were doing our thing,
Now even though I have written different kinds of songs, and did session work etc...
And had been recording and producing my own stuff for about 15 years at that point.
I still come from a BAND background. So does most of my friends. I mean way back,
I started my first band when I was nine years old.

So as soon as we started working we could already play and play pretty darn well.
We could record and produce ourselves and only needed to hire a few singers to fit certain songs.

As songwriters shopping songs we realized that 80% of what we did sounded like we were the artist or band it was band orientated. And since bands and artist singer/songwriters don't do ANYONES music but there own we were pinned into a corner.

So I started thinking back then, we are too old to be signed with a band.. We can't compete with the top 10 because it is 90% Hip Hop/Rap 5% POP Country and 5% Rock Bands. Even if we could easily humiliate more than half of them in any studio or any room with any musical instruments in it. It means nothing to the public or the business. We are OUT

So I switched my focus onto my recording & producing skills a little bit more.
I always go round & round with the various things I can do anyway.. but now we would have recordings that could stand up on there own. And our place was FILM, TV etc... That was our goal starting around 2003. So we joined TAXI and a few other things.

By 2005 we landed 4 of our songs into one movie... AS IS
We were building a strong diverse catalog and the thing was not write a 100 songs it was write one or two really cool ones... play them really well, produce them well,record them well, master them and pitch em were we could.
In 2005 we had a song ALMOST land with a band signed to a major major label.
They were reluctant because BANDS don't do outside material.. but our connection was very strong and would have sealed the deal... God rest his soul.

But the idea is this.. i wrote this song we put it through all those steps I just mentioned. It was a DEMO and the one that this producer/manager & band heard. We were far better from top to bottom than the signed band was that was considering it. But more imporatntly they were YOUNG.
Our version landed in the movie anyway....

So by working this way we covered ALL BASES!
This angle would be good to cover on the demo thread about basic demo's,rough demo's etc...

Sounds like your moving into this same direction,very cool very smart. Still tough but hey what isn't?

Mike, it's really fun for me to read about your trajectory. You've been blessed with great talent and some opportunities to do some great session work! Hopefully you can now concentrate to write some great songs..

I started playing guitar and writing songs at 16 (Im 39 now). I did play in a couple of bands, blues, pop/rock and a jazz combo playing standards for dinners - but my heros was the session musicians. Studies took those time and opportunities away, though, providing others.

So, I was already writing and playing, and when I realized that it was possible to build a homestudio and produce broadcast quality music myself, I started educating myself in the tech stuff.

These days Im almost there, working on music everyday, just hoping for the muse to be generous. Still feel I need 10-20% to reach broadcast quality, but any day now. I think the Taxi experience will give that.

So, at this point, I bet on both the writing for artists, as well as working up the chops for getting music in tv/film. I love both things, as I like the versatility from playing different stuff.

Hi Vikki,

Brian Whitney kindly alerted me to this thread this morning. You know me personally and therefore know how many hours I work and why it's nearly impossible for me to get involved in ongoing forum discussions - even our on our own forum. So, would you please do me a favor and post this on the JPF thread? And please relay my sincere regret at not having the time to answer each and every post, thought or opinion on the thread. Actually, feel free to post this note :-)

Thanks!
Michael
************************************************************
Hi everybody,

First, let me express my deep appreciation to those of you have posted the truth. Truth is good :-)

I'm always curious when these threads pop up that nobody ever refers to the TAXI website or the TAXI forums as a way to show what IS true. The very first thing they would see in our brochure and on our about page would be:

"The Best Way To Get Signed
If you're trying to land a record deal, nothing works better than hitting the road, playing hundreds of gigs, and selling thousands of CDs from the trunk of your car. If you're a songwriter, moving to Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville and 'paying your dues' is often the best way to go." Click here to see the entire page - http://www.taxi.com/about.html

My staff is trained to "Never sell a membership to anyone who shouldn't have one." The gentleman who only has one song would be a great example of somebody my staff would gently try to discourage from joining. He might not a get a lot of value from TAXI.

Then again, a really big part of what we do is help D writers get to C, and Cs get to Bs, and finally, get the Bs to As so they're ready to GET deals and be in position to make money with their music.

We provide motivation, structure, expert feedback, REAL opportunities, community and a convention that by most assessments sets the pace for all others to follow.

It's true that ninety-some percent of our deals and income generated for our members is in the Film and TV market. We were WAY ahead of the curve on getting Indie musicians in to that market. We've been doing it since 1992, and now virtually everybody us is following us because they see what we saw nearly 18 years ago.

Illegal downloading has nearly killed the record industry. Opportunities for existing hit songwriters have dramatically dried up. How many of the hyper-talented songwriters who live in Nashville, network well, pound pavement, have pluggers or publishing deals have songs on the Billboard charts every year. Every FIVE years?

Marc Alan Barnette is a pro writer lives and works there and is extremely active in the Nashville songwriting community, right? He's a good guy. He is active with NSAI. He teaches songwriting and collaborates often, right? He's doing all the right stuff and presumably knows all the right people, and is very much 'boots on the ground.'

Marc, would you please tell the folks reading this when you had your last song hit a Billboard chart? And I don't mean that in ANY untoward way! I'm just trying to show what the odds are and what the frequency of success are like in reality land.

The two TAXI-generated publishing deals that led to Country cuts, and ultimately two #1 Hits were both for writers who lived elsewhere. Buy Me a Rose came about as the result of the writers (Erik Hickenlooper and Jim Funk) meeting a publisher at our convention, the Road Rally. Elliots Park's #1, I Loved Her First, resulted from me taking his material to Nashville, getting him a ton of meetings with publishers, signing a deal, leading to a co-write with Walt Aldridge, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It's not likely that either of those hits would have happened without TAXI connections, as the writers lived in Ogden, UT and Clyde, TX respectively and had zero experience or contacts in Nashville (to the best of my knowledge).

Doubters also overlook the incredible success that has come to Adam Watts and Andy Dodd. Because of just ONE TAXI Forward, their songs have been on 40,000,000 (yes, forty-million!) CDs and countless TV shows and movies in approximately 4.5 years. Their first hit was Beautiful Soul with Jesse McCartney, which led to Disney Music pub deals for both, and NUMEROUS cuts on High School Musical 1,2,3, Camp Rock and a gazillion other Disney related production and entities (as well as others).

Take a look at their credits and know that the vast majority of their cuts, productions and hits from 2004 to date have resulted from just one TAXI Forward.

http://reddecibelproductions.com/credits.htm

Will every TAXI member have those kinds of successes? No. Will every TAXI member get Film and TV placements and earn money like thousands already HAVE over the years? No.

But it's NOT a lottery. A lottery is purely gambling.

Successful TAXI members aren't gambling. They're writing every day, listening to our expert feedback, using it, networking with our successful members on our forum, learning and making critical industry connections at our free convention (the Road Rally) and much more.

Our successful members aren't playing the lottery at ALL! They're busy EARNING the success they're willing to WORK for. Ask any successful TAXI members what they think of TAXI, and then check out the songs and the work habits of the people who have used us and haven't found success yet. I think you might start to see a pattern.

Speaking of our successful members, can I please ask you guys for a favor? When threads like these pop up on forums ANYWHERE, would you guys kindly direct the participants to these pages?

http://taxi.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=success

http://taxi.com/abouts/successdeals.html

It might also be a good idea to look at our current opportunities in both the record and film/TV markets. Click here to see our Industry Listings.

http://taxi.com/industry.php

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to read this. Thanks to Brian for the head's up. Thanks to Vikki for posting it, and thanks to those of you who have pointed to facts and not fiction on this thread. I appreciate ALL of you. Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,
Michael Laskow
TAXI

P.S. My favorite post on this thread (thank you John!):

"Humans are a strange breed when it comes to spending money. They have their priorities.

I know people that spend over two grand on cigarettes a year (and double that on beer and booze). People drop a hundred a week on fast food, and think nothing of spending a grand a year on lottery tickets (talk about odds).

Anyway, my point is that TAXI is a very inexpensive treat to give oneself. And a delightful treat it is.

Best, John
John Lawrence Schick"

Thanks Michael, Brian & Vikki

One thing is not a debate or a concern - "Caring"

1- You either understand what Taxi can do for you or you don't. Or perhaps you don't need what it offers. Which I'll never understand that.. What? you don't need "work"?

2- Are you prepared and ready on your end of things for it. How good is your material and how good does it sound? How much catalog do you have & how diverse is it? From day one Taxi has never promised more than it could actually offer. Like me you join to find out the deal and then you study the angles of how things work & play out. I learned!


Again thanks for chiming in and thanks for "caring"