Caaron, you have misunderstood nearly the entirety of my post.

While Steve writes hundreds of songs per year, very few are written for the purpose of submitting to TAXI. Steve writes for the joy of it, and if there's something that piques his interest on TAXI that he thinks he can fill, he submits. It's a very small fraction of songs that he writes. Last year, he wrote a whole bunch of songs about Minecraft - for the fun of it.

He might do 10 submissions a year through TAXI - why not ask him yourself? He's had placements in commercials, TV shows. He has a very wide variety of styles. Here's his soundcloud page, you can contact him through there: https://soundcloud.com/newcoolnowmusic

Now, let's get to how TAXI works. It's purpose is not to connect music supervisors with ARTISTS, but rather to connect those folks with SONGS. Songs to fit a particular mood, style, purpose, etc. etc. etc. https://www.taxi.com/industry.php

Just like the paint chip displays at Home Depot give one choice of thousands of potential colors. Once you get a color that you like, you don't even have to use the brand of paint that posted the color. In reality, TAXI is even more like taking an object in to Home Depot to be color matched. The paint chip analogy is more like a music library or licensing service like Tune Society and the like. TAXI takes it one step closer to customization - music supervisor posts a listing looking for a whispery male vocalist with ukulele backing and twee glockenspiel melody doubling, with hand percussion rhythm tracks - and you as the supervisor will get to pick from a bunch of different artists submitting songs fitting that description. Your next placement might be needing a dark symphonic bed with an Enya-like haunting vocal over top.

Music supervisors have little reason or intention to deal repeatedly with an artist - that would be akin to going and picking the same color each time you go to paint your living room, then bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, exterior, etc. This isn't saying a relationship building experience isn't possible, but it's not the main role of music supervision.

Steve is pretty darned versatile as it comes to indie/pop/rock and when he sees a listing like that, he strikes - if he has time. Learning how to correctly match the desire of a listing is one of the things Steve has talked about in the past.

Here's his TAXI page: http://www.taximusic.com/hosting/home.php?artist=sguiles

Take note of his placements on ABC News, Fox network's The Mindy Project, MTV, etc.

I know Steve through two very different channels: 1. I did a review of one of the albums his band, Pushstart Wagon did back in mid 2000's, and then a few years later, we both participate in the February Album Writing Month, and we even did a silly collaboration song about Cheese Pizza, and came to the realization that I had done a review of his band's album a few years earlier.

Quick, anyone reading this thread - name a songwriter you know personally and would consider a friend that makes the bulk of their money writing songs. Very small college of folks that can claim that. The fact that his main paying gig is being a teacher shouldn't be taken as any kind of criticism of his success or failure using TAXI. Steve loves being a teacher. Would he rather have been a rock star? Maybe, but he is pretty passionate about his role as a teacher.

Perhaps TAXI's biggest fault is calling itself an A&R company. Artist & Relations. Not sure it works that way in a traditional understanding of those departments at record companies.

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