Jim,

As far as demo companies, most studios are demo companies.It is just the level of the demos they are working for.

A few years ago I was in Washington DC with Micheal Lascow of Taxi, the president of that company. I asked him "I don't know what I should tell these people when they ask about you. I have never used you and have my own contacts, what would should I tell them?"
He said: "We are based in LA so we do better in the film and television industry. Nashville is very cliquish. But it is totally incumbant on the songs and the quality of demos we get."

The real deal is that people who do this for a living or are very serious, make inroads, write inside the circles you have to be in, don't need these pitch services. They have their own contacts. They write with up and coming artists to get on ground floors. They write inside the publishing companies and work their way up one song at a time.

So that means that the songs are going to come from people who don't understand the complexities of the business, don't really understand the market or level of demos, because they are far removed from it. None of this is a "Mail it in business." So the songs are overall going to be very weak. You hear that with almost everyone who works with Taxi, are that they never get "forwards." That should tell you something.

I hear stories of placements, film or TV stuff, and I don't have a reason to doubt it, but I know how inside that business is as well as our business in Nashville. The song placement agencies are going to be WAY down the list of people that can have songs heard.

A cottage industry has opened up like Jim has said, of former publishers, former song pluggers, former people who were once in the business, making claims that they can do this and that. They do make pitches. They do send out songs. But to my knowledge very few have any real success.

The thing I have always liked about the TAXI idea is that it instills a sense of purpose and discipline in writng songs. If you want to get activity, you have to supply songs, you have to supply decent demos. If that makes you write more songs, do more song study, get better, that makes sense to me. Most of the people I have met that have worked with those type companies, at least have more product and have some knowledge.