TAXI Nashville/Country Panel June 8th, 2009

[cameron]

Jun 2, 2009, 3:44am, claire wrote: I doubt they slept their way to the top. The way to become an established writer is to keep writing great stuff and eventually it kicks in and people are complaining that only folks like you are able to get cuts in Nashville. Sweet!Now move on and have a blast in Incest City.ClaireHmmm, sleeping my way to the top. I never THOUGHT of that!

[jwebbinspired]

Jun 2, 2009, 3:44am, claire wrote:LOL - Warren, I think that categorizing Nashville as the center of the inbred universe is not realistic. I can't imagine that doors and arms are flung wide open to no-name newcomer songwriters in LA or NY any more than they're opened in Nashville. It's only common sense (and business sense) to want to work with successful people. I'd rather write with someone I know and who I know is a good writer than use what little time and money and energy I have to seek out people I don't know. Of course that wasn't a question and of course I don't believe that throwing money at Taxi is useless if you write country. I just get tired of hearing people complain that nobody but the established writers can make it here. Not one successful country writer, not Rivers or Craig or Jeffrey or Keith Urban or anyone else who's an A-list writer today, walked into Nashville and was an immediate success. They all struggled to get their music accepted but they kept at it and believed in the dream and even if they were ready to give up, they didn't. They worked their craft every day, not three times a year on a trip to Nashville. They moved here. They networked here. They made a life here. I doubt they slept their way to the top. The way to become an established writer is to keep writing great stuff and eventually it kicks in and people are complaining that only folks like you are able to get cuts in Nashville. Sweet!Now move on and have a blast in Incest City.ClaireI want so bad for everyone to be complaining about me!!

[jchitty]

You wanna know what the REAL me thinks? I very rarely reveal it, but a lot of the country cranked out today seems souless and vanilla to me. Now does that give me the right to criticize it? No....folks are making money off it, and that's fine. Many people LOVE it, and who am I to say what's great or what's not great? I write contemporary country, but I don't really care for it. It's not what jazzes me or makes me think, 'damn, I wrote a good song.' If I've written something I think Nashville might want, I've had to do it by compromising myself a bit. And that's hard for me to do sometimes. The 'country' song I'm MOST proud of on my TAXI page is "Leaving Out of Atmore." I wanna write about all those eccentrics out there, people on the edge, and I just don't think Nashville has any need for that.....country has become the music of the suburbs now, not really country any more. Yet, I'm a product of the suburbs, but I don't feel a part of that either.I have great respect for this panel....I just don't think I fit the mold to write the way I should write if I wanna get a cut, but that's starting not to mean so much to me anymore...that used to mean the world to me, but sometimes the very thing you think you want isn't really what you need. (I hear a Rolling Stones song in there somewhere)Even if I had a cut in Nashville all of a sudden, I'd probably still feel this way....like I was writing something I didn't really believe in. Oh well.I'm not feeling well today.....I guess this cold has left me reflective and maybe I'm just tired or something. I'm on the low energy end. "Red Light" doesn't sound as good today as it did yesterday.

[claire]

I want so bad for everyone to be complaining about me!!You and me both

[mojobone]

Not so easy to write about the edge, if you ain't out there on it. You shouldn't envy that, Chits. You should write about the warm, fuzzy things, and maybe the darkness that lies just underneath. I think the best art blossoms in the juxtaposition of light and darkness. Y'know, like photography.

[jwebbinspired]

...my wife complains about me sometimes.......does that count? lol

[jchitty]

Jun 2, 2009, 9:06pm, mojobone wrote:Not so easy to write about the edge, if you ain't out there on it. You shouldn't envy that, Chits. You should write about the warm, fuzzy things, and maybe the darkness that lies just underneath. I think the best art blossoms in the juxtaposition of light and darkness. Y'know, like photography. Hmm, writing about warm, fuzzy things and the darkness that lies just underneath.....sounds like a David Lynch movie...I like DAT, Moj.

[heinsite]

yes chits!and mojo, like always, your posts has more to it than meets the eye...yes claire!wh

[claire]

it's all about tension and release - tension leading up to the hook, release when you hear the hook. good writing moves you. life and death, love and hate, freedom and chains, all about light and darkness, tension and release. fun stuff.

[jwebbinspired]

I'm stoked about this!Andy