I see your point as well brother, completely. I don't think you should alter your game plan one bit on this and you are correct, we're both right based on our experience with this. Honest when I tell you, I wasn't trying to give you or anyone else a hard time that believes in Taxi. I just felt in 3 years, the price of the membership, all the songs I sent and what the final outcome was, it didn't earn me any recognition and it cost me a pretty penny. Granted, maybe I wasn't what they were looking for. I can accept that, I'm a big boy...but I just found it all hard to believe after how things panned out for me. I'm sure if you were in my position you'd feel the way I do. Then add in that I wasn't the only one that felt I was taken for a ride and it seemed to make more sense.
I really do hope this works for you and something spectacular happens from it. I truly do! Especially since I know you too have worked really hard on your stuff. That's the thing really....we work so hard on this stuff all our lives for the love of it and most of it is either done for your head or in vane. There comes a time to where you have to say "you know what, I'm busting my butt on this stuff and I'm worth something." The answer to that is you have to find "who" you might be worth something to and then really search for that organization. You're right man, there are so many ways to make a few bucks in this, it can spin your head around.
I owned a business with my family and drove a truck for many years. Though owning your own business has its perks and can definitely assist you in honing your craft, once you move on from working a day gig to making money with music full time, you have to exercise every possibility that comes your way. What sucks is, sometimes you have to separate your love from the business aspect. You have to sort of keep the hobbiest "fun factor" in mind as well as the business aspect if you want to be successful in this. If you start really climbing the ladder too success (and that success can just mean you make your money solely from this field without the need for an actual "in the trenches" day gig working for someone else) sometimes the fun factor we all know and love has to take a back seat. It goes with any business really. It starts out as fun, then it's survival....and in this economy, anyone that can make a buck doing it is truly blessed.
Haha thanks for the props on that tune. I wish I would have saved the work files for that to do a better job. Believe it or not, that song was the first song I had ever done using Cakewalk. I used it off and on to jam with backing tracks, midi etc...but never a full song from start to finish. It was done strictly for fun for a guy in the Netherlands who had really done a lot of promoting for me. I did a show in England and he showed up to see it. That night it was his birthday and he asked "when you go home, do you think you could play a little happy birthday to me and sing for me?" I was like "sure man, as soon as I get home I'll do it for you!"
But, the traditional B-Day song just wasn't cutting it for me, and I wanted to make it special for the guy since he was really a great friend and supporter...so it turned into that thing you heard. LOL!! Hahaha I should redo that song with the stuff I have now and maybe change the "Fred" to "friend" since he has his version. We used to do the song live and insert the name of the person or people in the audience when we did it. Was a fun tune...glad you liked it, thanks a bunch.
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with all this stuff, Continue on that path you're on. You won't know if it's going to work until you see it through to YOUR standards. It matters not what anyone tells you no matter how experienced they may be. That is what worked or didn't work for THEM....it means nothing in your world, ya know what I mean? I always like to listen to other peoples experiences and log them in my head. Then I sort of come up with my own game-plan and improvise a bit. Sometimes I've even taken chances on stuff where those higher up in the food chain than me were against it. Sometimes it works and you find your own way, other times it doesnt.
Just keep this in mind which I feel is important. I'm an 80's rocker...shred guitarist, blues guy, commercial song writer. That's what I love, who and what I am and what I enjoy. I've accepted who and what I am. I have had people down me my entire life for that telling me I would never amount to anything. "Cut your hair, change your style, the 80's are gone dude". The only people that have never turned their backs on me were my parents and a few relatives. All my friends laughed at me, all the real rockstars that I knew told me "it ain't gonna happen kid" and I was really depressed and nearly gave up because of people trying to crush my spirit. Let me tell you bro, they got the shock of their lives when they heard I was touring all over Europe making money doing this. I'm not and probably never will be a big star at anything. But to be able to tour and write while selling albums world-wide doing music everyone said was a loser says is all. If you can live comfortable doing something you love, that there is success. The measure of that success is all on you. No one has to have Lady Gaga status to appreciate success. To me, it's all about acceptance for what I do, loving what I do, cool record labels that love what I do and money to pay the bills and live comfortably while meeting some of the coolest people on the planet and sharing my music with them. Pretty simple if you think about it, yet effective. :) Best of luck man, from the heart.
-Danny