TAXI RALLY IN NASHVILLE -please use this thread

[hookstownbrown]

Quote:...It takes tremendous know-how and persuasiveness to bring it all together......I just don't see what the advantage would be for Taxi. They already seem to have pretty good lines of communication established with Nashville.On a serious note...Sorry bud, I have to disagree with your comments.First of all, if any company has the know-how to pull off an event like this, it is Taxi. No question.Secondly, Michael does indeed have strong connections in Nashville, but Taxi, as an A&R service, has relatively few success stories originating from Music Row.As I've said before. If you have no constant, physical presence in Nashville, you have little chance of success on any level. It's a cold, hard fact of the culture there.Someone once said, "If you want to catch fish, you have to go to the lake."I am always aware that by constantly harping on this issue, I'm probably not making many friends within the Taxi organization. However, I didn't join Taxi to kiss up to the Taxi family. I joined Taxi to make a career of songwriting within the genre that I've been chosen to write.As a songwriter, I get frustrated and I rant. Sometimes I get irritated with those who are afraid to speak their minds --> for fear of upsetting "The gods"...When I'm frustrated and struggling, I make waves, stir things up... When I make career progress, I celebrate.It's how I deal with this business.Business... Not to re-float a dry-docked boat, but I was once a successful businessman and then a business consultant, until I chose to leave the profession. When I voiced my opinion, people listened, they learned and they earned... Customer service, marketing... I spoke my mind and got results.After some songwriting success, I recently told one of my co-writers that I should probably 'shut my mouth' because it may be hurting my career. She advised me to kill that thought and continue being me... I believe she is right on. I'll continue my ways... At least until I get the big #1 hit... Then I'll ease off... Maybe... Hehheh!PS: Even though I still keep my cheesy Broadjam website, they still suck!

[horacejesse]

Hook, don't the companies in Nashville listen to the stuff Taxi forwards to them? Explain how Taxi would use its presence in Nashville to get more cuts for its members. I am not so good at such an exercise, so I need help seeing it.

[hookstownbrown]

That's a very valid question, horacejesse. By all means, the Taxi forwards get listenend to.But to really understand Music Row -- I'm assuming you haven't worked the pavement along 16th Ave. S -- you would have to go there. It's a total institution unlike any other.I'm sharing this info with you after numerous visits - some longer than a month at a time - and numerous conversations with those who are living, working, succeeding and struggling on Music Row.Friendship and personal aquaintance is the motor that drives the machine in Nashville. If you've ever heard the term, "Entitlement system", well Nashville is the epitome of that notion. I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean that as a realistic fact.If you live there and hang around the right places, sooner or later, you will meet the people who can help with your career. With any luck, you might become friends with some of those people and they might, in turn, introduce you to other movers and shakers, and so on. You live there for awhile, blend in with the culture, folks want to get to know you more and folks start talking about you -- It's really like a very small town...Once I was having lunch at a deli and one of my favorite songwriters - Tony Lane - was sitting in the next booth. We struck up a casual conversation, ate our food and then said goodbye. It was cool, but I left there thinking I might meet him again in a year, or two? If I lived in Nashville, I could go back there a week later and over many weeks, possibly make a friend? The Music Row culture is all about personal relationships, personal trust and favors to friends. Songwriters who are adept at their craft want to write with others who they trust are on the same level. But, they also want to write with someone who has the same interests... Someone they click with... Fishing, hunting, gardening and whatnot...I've been introduced to quite a few hit songwriters in Nashville, but only once. I know where they eat lunch. If I was a constant fixture, I might even get to know those folks better.So to bring in the analogy and answer your main question, the friendship thing extends to music companies, too. The constant presence means everything. It's a marketing strategy that major corporations wrap their arms around.To become successful in a closed market, you must become a part of the market. You must assimilate and perpetuate the values, traditions and mechanics of that market, rather than try to change the motor.It's an unfortunate fact for those of us who have the ability, but can't, for so many reasons, move to Nashville. So here I go, determined to prove everybody wrong. I am going to break into Music Row and further my career living five hundred miles away!I love a challenge! Hehheh!!!

[hummingbird]

Quote:Hook, don't the companies in Nashville listen to the stuff Taxi forwards to them? Explain how Taxi would use its presence in Nashville to get more cuts for its members. I am not so good at such an exercise, so I need help seeing it. The thing we get told all the time is to make it in Nashville, you have to live there (as Hook explains above). Therefore, it seems to me that Taxi offices being in Nashville will not assist Taxi members who don't live in Nashville, because they still won't be living there to make connections. But we Dots all have one wee connection in Nashville...her name is Jimi and she is hot hot hot H'Bird

[hookstownbrown]

Wait... Did I miss something, Vikki? From what I understand, Jimi doesn't work for Taxi anymore. Am I the last to know a contrary fact?I am really confused here... She is having the typical tough time making her own roads on the row...Is that a fact? I wonder...

[jeep]

ok I've been wanting to ask this question since I got here What is the first thing I should do join........ I try to write only country..NSAI,Taxi.BMI or ASCAP etc..it sounds like I maybe I'm out of luck anyway cause I'm not moving...

[hummingbird]

Quote:Wait... Did I miss something, Vikki? From what I understand, Jimi doesn't work for Taxi anymore. Am I the last to know a contrary fact?I am really confused here... She is having the typical tough time making her own roads on the row...Is that a fact? I wonder... No, I was just saying that I (we) know one person in Nashville, hee hee. (Well, actually, two - because a student of mine moved there this Fall.) Not that that means anything, cause I'm not there to make those connections in person that you talked about.That's my point, really. Even if Michael pulled up stakes and moved the Taxi head office to Nashville, how would that help any of us who don't live in Nashville? We still won't live there, be there, to create the network/establish the connections.But in any case I gave up writing country for Goth

[horacejesse]

I like Bird's point. Taxi being there will not help those who are not.I still think Michael has the shortcut if you've got the song. I don't see how to make it shorter.

[crs7string]

Vikki,You actually know another "DOT" in Nashville----ME!!!The only "country" music I do is from Japan, China, India, or Brazil.And I'm a jazz guitarist in a sea of country players. I have gotten to know some of the A List songwriters over the years. ( My daughter goes to school with Tony Arata's daughter). I still have the distinct feeling that Nashville is still about hanging out together. As everyone knows by now. people have songwriting appointments in the morning, go to lunch (I think with drinks) and that's the day for some of these folks.It is impossible to do the hang thing if you're not here. The only advantage of having a TAXI office in Nashville is to jump in "the hang" It could take years to negotiate the various paths to hang with the right folks.When I moved to Nashville people were fond of telling me that until you lived here for ten yeras no one would take you seriously. I don't think that has changed much over the years.Chuck

[jeep]

hmmmmmmm so it is who you know?