Wow. All skepticism about whether or not TAXI is a legit player in the music business and the quality of their conference was destroyed this past weekend. I almost regret doubting them. For someone like me, who is an established musician and songwriter that is looking to get into writing and pitching songs for the country market (or any mainstream market), this conference was invaluable. Not only did I get to hear, first-hand, examples of songs in demo form that became hits, but I also got to hear hit songwriters like Ralph Murphy, Danny Wells (”Check Yes or No,” George Strait, “These Days,” Rascall Flatts) and Jason Blume talk about writing, re-writing, demoing, publishing, what makes a hit and a little bit about the process and politics of getting that hit song pitched and cut. Also, I realized that I’m really good at writing and recording already. Armed with some of the tools and info I picked up at the conference, I can see no reason why I can’t have a hit song on the radio after a few years of working at it. I won’t be singing it, but that’s just fine with me; there are artists out there whose voices are their gift from god—a unique, trained and expressive instrument. And having those voices sing my songs will allow me to focus on my gifts of writing and producing great songs for the public.

I met a handful of other independent artists at the conference, too, and it was fun to talk about the differences and similarities in our experiences looking for an outlet for our musical compulsions. Overall the conference was extremely educational and pretty motivating. I’m ready to get to work writing and re-writing. Exciting!

After years of getting emails from TAXI—“The World’s Leading Independent A&R Company”—about why they think it’s a good idea for me to join, I’m still skeptical. Why is there a $300 registration fee? It seems like it could easily be a bad scheme to rip off struggling artists if you ask me, especially with other options for getting song placements popping up by the minute. And why is it called TAXI?

However, in their most recent spam, their “Road Rally” program caught my attention. It seems like it could actually be good, and $300 for a good conference seems fair. And then I can check out what the rest of the membership benefits are, too: song listing submissions, critiques, etc. My curiosity got the best of me, so I signed up and am flying out to L.A. on Thursday to check out the conference (and visit my homies Blake and Doug).

I may not have time to keep you posted here during the weekend, but I’ll definitely follow-up with my thoughts on the conference, my better-educated perception of TAXI and hopefully an interesting story or two.

And in other news, here’s another take from my video experiment. It’s weird not knowing where to look, etc. when making these. I’ve always thought singing to the camera was a little too cheesy, but maybe I just need to get over that. Maybe I’ll get Doug to give me some video performance pointers. Anyway, this song is called “Off My Mind,” which I wrote and recorded with Just Guns.

In case you’re on a mobile phone, here’s the audio version: