Recording - January 2020 - 59

JANUARY 2020
TAXI Road Rally 2018

10 Reasons Your Song Will Get Used or Not
Part Three

Moderated by Michael Laskow
PANELIST:
Beth Wernickbegan her career in the music
industry as a publicist in New York City, working
with iconic recording artists like Tom Petty & the
Heartbreakers, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Ambrosia,
Judy Collins, Tanya Tucker, KC and the Sunshine
Band, War, and many others. After moving to
Los Angeles, Beth worked at Rhino Records and
later on co-founded Imaginary Friends Music
Partners with singer/songwriters Stacy Robin &
Donna Rawlins. Imaginary Friends is a one-stop,
exclusive song catalog, which licenses the music
of unsigned, Indy artists to TV shows, films,
commercials, etc. In 19+ years of pitching songs,
IFMP has had a wealth of placements, including
regular uses on CBS's daytime drama, The Young
& The Restless; ABC's Nashville and American
Crime; Hallmark Movies; NBC's Nightshift, MTV's
Siesta Key; the film The Bleeder; plus numerous
reality series and films. Beth gives full credit to
the truly gifted artists, bands and songwriters
whose music she is honored to represent. We
give credit to Beth for finding many of those
artists through TAXI listings, and landing lots of
placements for them. Ladies and gents, please
give a warm welcome to Miss Beth Wernick!
Michael: I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that
probably 80% of the stuff that doesn't make it past
TAXI's A&R team is for that reason - it doesn't match
the request that came in from the music supervisor
or music library. And there's not a person in this
room that would listen to what our screeners hear
and disagree with their decision as to whether it
matches the request or not. And you wonder why
people would spend a five-dollar submission fee to
send something that doesn't fit. Do they hear it differently than we do? Do they think that it's just so
great that somebody is going to hear it and say, "It
doesn't matter. It's not what we asked for, it's not
what we need, but it's so awesome that we'll use it
anyway." It's mind-blowing.
Beth: Well, you know, I say all these things, but

Beth Wernick taking time to meet some TAXI members after her panel.

there was a time... I can never remember the
name, but it was a big CBS TV show. The music
supervisor on the show called me up and said,
"Do you have anything like James Taylor?" And I
said, "Yeah, I've got a guy who sounds exactly like
James Taylor. And I go into the closet and pull
out a CD, and I stood there and I went, "Why do

"When you get a placement, come
from a place of gratitude."
-Beth Wernick
they want James Taylor? That's '70s, really." And
I go, "I've got this guy named Brad, not the same
kind, but he's got his own little vibe." And I sent
both. This was back in the day when people got
CDs and they'd put them in the mail, which wasn't so fast. And I get the phone call like 24 hours

later: "We love this Brad guy. How much money
for the song?" I continue to tell this story because
I'm talking about bringing your A-game. The
song was fantastic, and they only used one song
in every episode, and it was over a closing scene.
You could hear it loud and clear. People were
playing cards, and this great song was in the
background. So I used that one time, you know. I
just thought I'm gonna think a little out-of-thebox, maybe they will find him interesting.
Well, just to tell you, I think that when you get a
placement, you should really, really, really have
some sense of gratitude, because the odds aren't
that great-it's tough. And the sweet guy that got
that placement got interviewed by his city newspaper. And what most people don't
know-because I spent many years in
Continued on page 60
RECORDING January 2020

Recording - January 2020

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