DAY - 351

Homework, homework and more homework.  Final's week is coming soon here at University of the Arts with a blizzard of presentations, performances and exams...bring it on baby!  The sooner I get through it, the sooner I can enjoy a nice, long, winter break.

Alright, last one... I swear....

Today I reached out to Julie Moe at (you guessed it) Ole Music Publishing.  Julie is another creative director at the Nashville office of Ole.  I figured I'd have to finish the list.  Haven't had a response back yet but we'll see.  Even if no one responds, the upside is I found a very cool publishing company to keep on the radar.  Like I was saying a little while ago, Ole is big... with offices in Nashville, LA, Toronto, etc. they handle publishing and pitching for all types of music as well as TV & Film.  Now, if only I could get a foot in the door.

Back to doing homework.  More to come.  Cheers!

DAY - 349+350

And down the line we go...

Yesterday I reached out to another Ole Music Pub rep named, Matt Turner.  Just so happens, Matt Turner is country super-star, Josh Turner's brother!  I decided to reach out to Matt, introduce myself and send him "Saying Yes" (the song Kirk Penney and I wrote with Josh Turner in mind)  Let me just make a point to say that I did not pitch Matt the song by saying "Hey!  This would be great for your bro, Josh!!".   I didn't even mention pitching Josh Turner in the email.  I figured that if he thought it'd be a great song for his brother, I'd let him make that connection.  Sure, it's wishful thinking...but who knows.

Yup...you guessed it, today I reached out to another Ole Music Pub rep...hey, it's a big company!  Debra Delshad is in charge of the Film/TV Licensing department. She also used to work in conjunction with Dreamworks.   I sent Debra "Heart On A String" and "Start of Something Good".  We'll see if she digs.

DAY - 348

Hope your Turkey Day was fantastic!  Mine was a power-packed weekend of good food, family, homework and rehearsals.  I've got a big recital coming up for school on December 7th and it's taking over my life for the next 2 weeks.  Speaking of which, it's an open recital/concert so if you happen to be in center city Philadelphia you're welcome to come watch.  I'll be singing and performing everything from Italian Arias to Pop/Rock to Jazz.  Pretty crazy, I know, but UArts wants you to be as well-rounded a musician as possible.  It'll definitely be a fun and very diverse show so feel free to email me if you're interested and I'll send you the details.  mynameisaugust@yahoo.com   Anyway, back to the grind...

Going right down the chain...today I reached out to yet another Ole Music Publishing Creative Rep.  His name is Arthur Buenahora and he is the GM of Creative at the Nashville chapter of Ole.  Figured I'd go down the list until someone gets back to me.  Haven't heard a word yet.

DAY - 347

Following yesterday's lead I found another rep from Ole Music Publishing from the LA and Toronto branch.  His name is Chad Richardson and he handles pitching and placing songs in predominately the pop market.  I decided to reach out (thinking along the lines of the Canada connection) regarding pitching Avril Lavigne, the latest song I wrote with Scot Sax.  We'll see if I get a response on this one!

Tomorrow and Friday will be a days off in honor of the Thanksgiving Holiday and no company's being open.   Hope you get your fill of Turkey and have an amazing Thanksgiving!

DAY - 346

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams.

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory

Productive day.  Kicked it off with an early writing session with Sweet Angeline co-writer, Liv Devine and Nashville hit writer, J Fred Knobloch.  The session was great!  We finished a brand new song.  A beautifully sparse ballad, driven by finger-style acoustic guitar and hauntingly sweet vocals that tug on the heartstrings and open the tear ducks...in my humble opinion :)   This one is truly special...one of my favorite ballads I've been a part of writing.  We finished the session by planning demo logistics.  Fred is going to be starting a track this week.  Hope to have this one for you soon.

Down to biz.  Today I reached out to Ole Music Publishing Chief Creative Director, Gilles Godard.  As you may have noticed, I've been making a point to reach out to every creative director I can.  I did some digging today and found a couple more contacts that I'll be reaching out to this week.  Stay tuned!

DAY - 345

20 days left.  I feel like I've hit a little bit of a lull.  Been digging up great contacts and sending out solid emails/phone calls, but not getting anything substantial in return over the past few weeks.   It's actually crazy to think that this is the first time in the past 345 posts that I've felt like I haven't been getting much traction.  I can definitely say I've been blessed throughout this process.  This leads me to believe that I need to spice things up a bit.  Today I had an idea.  Since I don't want divulge my idea before it actually happens, I can't give you all the details yet.  I CAN say, however, that it is an "outside-the-box" idea for pitching a song.  Might turn out really cool, might be a flop.  Either way, when I get it together I'll tell you about it...better yet...I'll show you ;)

Besides starting to work on this new pitch idea I went through the listings on Taxi.com and found one that was pretty interesting to me.  The one thing I dislike about Taxi.com is that you're not guaranteed that the listing agent will actually hear your song.  It has to go through the "TAXI Screening Process" first and then the screener (who is supposedly always a music industry pro, don't know if I totally believe that..or better yet, what's your definition of pro?) decides whether the song or songs will be forwarded along to the rep.  Obviously, I understand this is for quality assurance purposes.  For example, if a major company decides to do a listing with Taxi and Taxi forwards them a ton of crappy songs, they'll probably never list with them again.  The only issue I have is that music is so subjective.  Maybe one screener will think my stuff is PERFECT for the listing and another screener hates it!  I have a lot of forwards as well as returns through Taxi but some of the returns just drive me crazy!!  I got A LOT out of the yearly convention they hold in LA but as far as the listings go, I'm still debating how much of a tool they really are.  I guess it's all part of the game though.  Anyway, here's the listing I submitted to...I'll let you know how this one goes when I hear back...

A LEGENDARY SONGWRITER is looking for CONTEMPORARY POP SONGWRITERS to sign to his BOUTIQUE PUBLISHING COMPANY. He's looking for songwriters who can write in the stylistic range of Bruno Mars, Maroon 5, P!nk, and Taylor Swift. QUOTING THE SOURCE: "Songs must have HUGE and IMMEDIATE CHORUS HOOKS like 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' by Taylor Swift." They're looking for CLEVER lyrics -- avoid cliches and cringeworthy rhymes. This writer has had numerous cuts with MAJOR ARTISTS, so PLEASE send only your best material. They want to hear songs by artists who "know what they're doing" and can hold their own among the music that is currently topping the charts. MID-to-UPTEMPO. ONLY

DAY - 344

Apologies for the belated blog post... this is for yesterday, Friday Nov. 16th.

Woke up early from a dream about meeting with NYC publisher Lisa Johnson hah.  I actually met Lisa and her husband Doug (A&R for Curb Records in Nashville) about 2 years ago at the TAXI Convention in LA.  We shook hands and spoke briefly, but I've sent a couple emails over the past 2 years to keep in touch.  It's probably been about 6 to 8 months since I reached out, and since I had a dream about it, I decided to send over a little update :)

I told Lisa about what I've been up to and gave her new links to my stuff.  I also mentioned that I'm interested in co-writing with anyone on her team that she thinks would be a good fit.  We shall see.

Alright I gotta get going to teach some lessons (yeah I know, 9:45 on a Saturday morning)

Have a great weekend!!

DAY - 343

My writing session got cancelled today so I decided to take the extra time to do some work in the library here at school. (University of the Arts)  The home stretch of this blog project has been difficult for me in many ways, but most of all, finding NEW contacts.  The past couple weeks, I've literally been spending hours at a time digging up names and contact info for new people I want to try and connect with.  I've been scouring internet sites like Music Row Facts, NSAI, BMI, ASCAP, etc to find names and info on music industry reps that would makes sense for me to reach out to.  It's not an easy task, but it's what I set out to do... so I'm going to stop bitching now and tell you about what I found today... ;)

While checking out the NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) website,  I noticed that this week's guest speaker for the Thursday night pitch session will be industry veteran and owner of Green Hills Music Publishing, Woody Bomar.  I remember co-writer, Fred Knobloch talking to me about Woody Bomar in passing so I think that's why the name stood out to me.  Anyway,  I found some contact info for Mr. Bomar and decided to reach out.  I wrote pretty much the same spiel that seems to be working lately (short introduction, interested in development for long-term career in songwriting, love to meet next time I'm in town...yada yada, you get the point)  Go Fish.

DAY - 342

Today I reached out to creative manager at Creative Nation Music, Julie Stuckey.  Creative Nation is a Nashville based publishing company that has teamed up with Pulse recording in LA.  From the looks of it, Creative Nation is really interesting to me specifically because they seem to have their hands in both the Country AND the Pop markets.  Why is it interesting to me?  Because I write both country and pop music.  My ideal publishing company would be one that handles both country and pop music!  This is really the first smaller type publishing company I've found so far in Nashville that does both AND has great success in both, boasting songs like Little Big Town's "Pontoon" and Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream".   I'm sure there are other companies that pitch both,  I just haven't stumbled across them yet.  Google it for more info...there's a lot on Music Row Facts.

I found Creative Nation after reading through some of co-writer Jason Blume's past BMI workshops.  *Side note,  if you are a songwriter, living in or around Nashville or make trips to Nashville, I highly suggest checking out Jason Blume's (FREE!!) BMI workshops.  He is not only an amazing songwriter but a gifted and passionate teacher.  His workshops are incredible masterclass style sessions and he often brings in industry reps that will either critique your songs or listen to your song as a pitch!  Can't say enough good things about it*

Anyway, I saw that Julie Stuckey had made a guest appearance at one of these sessions so I decided to try and connect.  Now that I'm learning more about Creative Nation, I'm getting even more pumped about trying to make a connection!

DAY - 341

Long shot, Hail Mary, type of email today.  I reached out to world famous artist manager and owner of Azoff Music Management group, Irving Azoff.  Mr. Azoff handles clients presently and over the years such as Christina Aguilera, Journey, The Eagles (just to name a few) but, most importantly for me, Avril Lavigne.  Referring to yesterday, I had mentioned that I reached out to Avril's management.  Well, today I decided to take it one step further and personally reach out to the owner of her management company, Irving Azoff.  Like I said, shot in the dark, but who knows!

I merely wrote a very brief email with a quick introduction and the fact that I think the song would be perfect for Avril. (refer to yesterday)  That's all she wrote.  We'll see if I get anything back.

DAY - 337, 338, 339, 340

My apologies for the delay in posting from Wednesday-Sunday.  Just got back from a little trip to North Carolina.  My fiance Sue and I went down to meet our wedding photographers and have an engagement shoot.  We decided to extend the trip to make for a bit of a getaway.  We were on the go most of the time...enough spare time to shoot some emails out, but not to sit down and write.  One thing I have to mention about the trip (besides the photographers being a super awesome couple AND amazing at what they do) was the fish tacos we ate!!  If you are ever in Charlotte, NC you NEED to stop at a little Mexican joint called, "Cabo Fish Taco".  If you like fish tacos as much as I do, this is the mecca!  Trust me.

Anyway, here's the abbreviated scoop...

-Sent email to songplugger, Chip Hardy
-Sent email to head A &R rep Noah Gordon at Average Joe's Entertainment
-Confirmed Nashville demo session with co-writer, Eric Schwank for December 10th (recording 3 songs)
-Scheduled writing session with hit songwriter, Scot Sax for this Thursday.  We'll be writing a song for  an up and coming Australian pop singer signed to Atlantic Records!  Super pumped about this.

Which brings us to today... it took me AWHILE...but I found contact information for Avril Lavigne's management.  I'm still trying my best to get the latest song, I wrote with Scot Sax "I'm Not Practice" to Avril.  I guess since Avril is such a mainstream celeb it's harder to her people.  Well, we'll see if contacting her management gets me anywhere.  I'm SO confident the song is an obvious slam-dunk for her, I just need to get it through the door and on to some speakers.  As always, I'll keep you posted if it works!

DAY - 336

Today I reached out to McDaniel Entertainment in LA.  McDaniel is an entertainment company in charge of representing songwriters and producers.  Their focus is predominately on the producing and songwriting end of representation unlike most management firms who typically work with artists only.  I thought it would be worth reaching out to see if I could get a response.  I let them know a little backstory and that I was shopping a publishing deal.  If they dig what they hear they might really be able to help not only its shopping a deal but also with setting up great collaborations with other songwriters and producers that they represent.  As always...we shall see.

Alright time to quickly finish my Panera soup and head out to start teaching.  Have a great night!

Ps...it might get a little hairy the next couple days because I'll be traveling to North Carolina...I'll be doing my best to keep up to date.  Cheers!

DAY - 335

I am proud to say this blog post is coming to you straight from my brand new iPad!  If you know me, you'll know I'm never up to date on the latest technology.  I don't have an iPhone or any kind of smart phone for that matter, I still buy CDs and I don't own a GPS.  So as you can imagine when my amazing fiancé Susan surprised me with the iPad for my birthday I was floored!  It is truly an incredible piece of technology and I've only begun to scratch the surface.  As you can tell, I'm still excited.

Anyway, back to business.  Today I heard back from super talented producer Scott Stallone.  I emailed Scott in September, reaching out to possibly work on some projects together. I thought he just never returned my email. Turns out,  I forgot that I had messaged him on the social network LinkedIn.  I usually never check LinkedIn because if I ever get something from it, it usually comes straight to my email.  For whatever reason, it never did.  Scott actually ended up emailing me back  right away and I didn't get it til yesterday lol!  Long story short, he gave me his contact info and said he's inserted in talking about some projects.  Needless to say, I emailed him today.  Hoping to potentially make some great music together!        

Today I did something I don't normally do...I made a phone all.  Ok ok I make phone calls all the time.  What I mean to say is that I made a direct phone call to a music industry rep without sending a email first.  Just decided to go out on a limb and see if I get a response.  I called universal music group creative director Whitney Williams.  She didn't answer but I left a brief message asking if I can send her an email with my stuff.  Will it warrant a response? We shall see!

That's all for today.  Time to get back to teaching, then off to a recording session later tonight with co-writer, Eric Schwank.  Cheers!

DAY - 334

TGIF!  Just reached out today to the owner of Big Yellow Dog Music (refer to Day 331) Carla Wallace.  Same spiel.  Just figured I'd try going straight to the top Hah.  Also, I was able to do a bunch of research on new contacts to get a head start for next week.  I can't believe it...only 30 days left.   Gotta make 'em count!!

That's all she wrote for today.  Time to get some Mexican food!

DAY - 332+333

Happy November!  Songs are piling up.  Been spending time grouping songs and trying to figure out demo plans for each of them. Contacting demo studios, searching out new producers, scheduling dates, etc.  It's getting a little hectic so I spent some time yesterday beginning to map it all out.  Here's a glimpse of what's happening on the new song front.  I've got 5 new ones with long-time co-writer Eric Schwank...3-4 of which, Eric will be demoing in Nashville later this month.  Also, got a couple new ones with hit songwriter J Fred Knobloch and the Sweet Angeline team.  Just scheduled a skype session with Nashville artist/songwriter Megan Redmond (I wrote with Megan on my last trip) for next week to put the finishing tweaks on our song and plan for demoing.  The song is super catchy and definitely something we're both pumped about.  It's definitely a Pop song, but since the lines between Pop and Pop/Country are so blurred at this stage of the game we might produce it leaning on the pop country side...closer to Taylor Swift's newer stuff.  I also have 2 demos that are being produced right now.  One pop song with Sweet Angeline and another pop song with Indiana songwriter, Bill Gue and Sweet Angeline co-writer, Liv Devine.  If that isn't enough, I have a couple new My Name Is August singles on the way as well.   All good things!  Can't wait for you to hear some new stuff.

Today I reached out to VP of Sony Music Nashville A&R, Jim Catino.  I kinda got a little ballsy today and emailed Jim a brief message with a song attached.  I sent him the song, Boots with a quick message.  It was definitely a confident, "cold call" email... but.... I think that song would be a smash for Carrie Underwood or Miranda Lambert and they're both on Sony's label.   Chances are the email will go straight in the trash but there's also a chance it won't.  We shall see.

Today I also reached out to hit songwriter, Craig Bickhardt.  small WORLD!  If you've been following along you'll remember that I've been filming a mini-documentary about the blog.  Well, one of the heads of the production team, Paul Simeone has been telling me that I need to contact this great songwriter named Craig Bickhardt from PA.  Just so happens, while I was in Nashville and writing at Fred Knobloch's studio, I stumbled across a promo poster of Fred's old band SKB.  SKB stands for Schuyler, Knobloch, Bickhardt.  I asked Fred, "what's Bickhardt's first name?"  When he said, "His name's Craig" I couldn't believe it.  It IS in deed the same guy!  Turns out Fred and Craig go way back.   To make a long story short, I emailed Craig today to let him know the small worldness of this and to introduce myself.  Hoping it spirals into a co-write!