TAXI.com

I'm shutting down the studio computer until 2019 in just a few minutes, but wanted to post a few successes with you all and share some numbers from this past year.

First off, I want everyone to know that even though I've been doing this for seven years now, I still miss the target on submissions. A lot. It happens. I finished this year with 92 submissions, and 50 forwards out of those. That's somewhere around a 55% forward rate, not that I really care about that percentage, because all it takes is ONE forward to make magic happen. I mostly just wanted to share that statistic to show people that even us seasoned vets take our lumps just like everyone else. In my case, 42 times, lol.

Okay, now for the fun stuff! Since coming home from the Road Rally, my constant co-writers Marcus Cohen & Terrell Burt have kept me posted on various placements we've landed with vocal tracks we made a year ago in December of 2017.

Marcus and I got two tracks on "The Young and the Restless" (Marcus has been dominating this show lately!). I'm pretty sure that's the first time my music has been used on a soap opera.

Terrell and I got a song we did at the tail end of 2017 on TI's show "The Grand Hustle" on VH1.

A song Owen Chaim and I finished on New Year's Eve last year has been making the rounds on a few reality shows ("Black Ink Crew" & "The Grand Hustle").

Vocal placements are always super fun for me to hear about, because they're much more satisfying than my instrumental placements.... even though I only get half of the royalties, haha. But something about reveling in the success with your co-writer friends is really special.

P.S. none of these songs are streamable, or on the internet anywhere.... and I actually don't even have access to the files as I type this. Maybe I'll come back out after New Years and update this post with SoundCloud links if people are interested.

Happy Holidays, everyone. And here's to a kick-ass 2019 for us all!!!!!

~~Matt

Thanks for the words of encouragement! Have a very Merry Christmas.

Good going Matt

Just so people don't think that you made 92 submissions, got 50 forwards, and those resulted in a hand full of placements, can you give an overall view of how many placements you had in total in 2018 - instros and vocal tracks both? I know you don't have an actual count for the 4th quarter yet, so maybe you could estimate based on Q3.

I don't want to scare anybody who might be thinking, "Wow, that dude has been doing this for 7 years now, and all he got was a hand full of placements."

People who don't know your entire history might be underwhelmed.

BTW, I am still planning to come to Boise this spring to do a TAXI TV broadcast from the shed! Seriously!!

best,
Michael

Great year dude! 2019 is gonna be even better...the year of The MasterMyndz....

Here are the two placements we got on YnR that Matt was referring to

https://soundcloud.com/wewillwriteuason ... tt/s-JvhPP

https://soundcloud.com/wewillwriteuason ... ip/s-l1wir

Good idea, Michael! And dang, I didn't even think how that might come across to people new to this forum. Like the old saying, "a picture says a thousand words", here's a screenshot of my ASCAP homepage this morning:



Last year, I finished with 1,288 episodes, on 168 shows.

So, that means that in this past year, I added 552 new episodes of 74 new TV shows. That's not counting the stuff that I know about which hasn't shown up in my ASCAP account yet - like the vocal placements I mentioned in the initial post. I keep an eye on that stuff with my free TuneSat account, which is just limited to tracking 50 songs. All in all, I've had music on more than 250 TV shows in total now.

For a little more of the whole story, most of the cue sheets I get nowadays show that I'm landing anywhere from 4-8 placements on each episode. Sometimes less (like 1 or 2), but sometimes far more (my biggest is 13). Because of that, I feel confident in saying that I have around 10,000 unique placements of my music on TV shows so far. Now, that number could be off by a little.... I mean, I don't have the time or inclination (or enough coffee) to sift through all 1,847 cue sheets to count individual placements. Maybe I'll get another intern and have him/her do that for me, lol.

And to give the straight truth about how this all happened, well, it's simple. TAXI. Yes, I credit Taxi for ALL of it. Every deal that I have (at least the ones that are worth a damn) have come via Taxi in some form or another. Either from forwards, from meetings at the Road Rally, to meetings right here on this Forum, to introductions with libraries that came from co-writers that I met right here on this Forum.... it's all tied to Taxi in some way, shape, or form. Talk about the best money I've ever spent. Who would have thought that a $300 membership would have eventually turned into a full-time job, and put me on the cusp of cracking $100,000 in a single year in royalties?!?! And some people spend more than $300 annually on cigarettes!

Hope that gives a clearer picture, and helps folks realize that the pot of gold IS out there. And it's a BIG pot of gold, with plenty of money to go around for everyone willing to work for it.

Oh, lastly, thanks Marcus for posting those links! I also found the song I mentioned that I made with Owen:

BTW, I am still planning to come to Boise this spring to do a TAXI TV broadcast from the shed! Seriously!!

Oh, and Michael, this would be sooooooo much fun!! I'm ready whenever you are!

~~Matt

Very Inspiring Matt, Thank You!
2019 Will be a very good year
Cheers

Good work Matt!

Yes, you may of missed the target on forwards.....
But you more than made up for it with placements.
And that's what really counts!!!



Tim

Awesome summary, Matt!! I love seeing your continual progress and working with you. It is an inspiration to us all and reminds me that our goals aren't too far off. Plus, each collab of ours gets better and better!

I thought our song "Red Carpet Moment was posted on Soundcloud but I guess it isn't. That can be fixed for those interested in hearing it.

Wow, Matt!! You continue to kill it and bring tons of inspiration for us all. Can't say I'm surprised though honestly, you're a monster!

Thanks for everything and wishing you all the best!!