Hi Everyone,
My name is davey O., I'm a songwriter based in Buffalo, NY... no it's not snowing!!! it's incredibly hot and humid right now. Anyway, personally, I had thought of joining TAXI on several occasions as well as Song Link and I just can't justify the cost. It seems like a carrot in front of the horse to me. As is the music business. We're all chasing a dream that has a different meaning for everyone when it comes to what success is. Actually, I've heard so many different takes of how to be successful in this business, I'd be wealthy if I had the five bucks TAXI charges for each one of them. You hear different things all the time... relentless touring, I sent in a piano/vocal demo, we had a fully finished, mastered track ready for release. So which path do you follow??? I guess the best thing that I can offer is to write, record and put your stuff out and let the public decide. Shouldn't that be the way radio and music should be? You create your art and the people can let you know if they like it. This can determine the size of your audience. I know there are other factors, ie how far you distribute your material etc... I'm speaking in generalities here. It's sad to know that large corporations try to tell the public what's good music by force feeding it down our ears. One of the best things I've done is to use the internet to find leads. There are indie bands, small film makers and smaller labels who are looking for music and songs. You have to dig a little. Build your resume by getting your songs into some small projects. You can't always expect to hit a home run every time at bat. Put out your own CD. There's artwork and labeling software available and just about everyone has a CD burner. Do that, send it to your local paper's music critic and other publications like Songwriter's Monthly and build your press kit. Be your own little industry. Also, a friend of mine and I were talking one night about another trend and this goes along with paying for critiques etc... There is without a doubt an industry within the industry. I have seen countless songwriter's who supplement their income by charging $50-75 for song critiques. That to me is taking complete advantage of someone who doesn't have enough music business knowledge to know they're being taken. In the same vein, studios and some publishers in Nashville do the same thing. My friend know a writer that lived in Nashville for a time and was doing demos for a publisher. Well every time he presented the song it was " well you know if you only had a female singer on it... I know one that would be great for this song" and then it was a string section and the publisher knew all of the string players and so on ... So it was a little circle of people keeping each other in business off songwriter's that don't know any better until it's too late and you've spent $3000.00 to demo one song. Then the clincher; when the demo was all said and done, the publisher told the writer, " well we don't really need anything right now with a female voice on it" It's all a big machine, and you can either play by their rules, or make up your own. Everyone has some kind of advice, or self help book on every topic from songwriting to God. And as I said before, everyone has a different way of getting there. I used to second guess my recordings all the time until I realized that major label artists and producers probably listen back to stuff after it's been released and wish they could have maybe had brought the guitar up a little here etc... and other things. It's the songs you create that matter the most. After all your songs are basically your observation on something. And if only one person or a million people get it, you've done your job. Good luck to all you writers out there. Don't stop no matter how hard it seems. Cheers! davey O.

Davey O. Music (ASCAP)
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