Recording - January 2018 - 72

FadeOut
A TRANSFORMATIVE WEEKEND:
THE 2017 TAXI ROAD RALLY
Guest editorial by Aaron J. Trumm
Two disclaimers. First, Recording Magazine and Taxi have
a great relationship, so I understand if you expect a bit of
bias. Second, I personally was a Taxi member for a short time
15 years ago, and not since.
Now that that's out of the way, go to the next Taxi Road Rally.
I went this past November for the first time, and I started
the weekend with at least a small amount of skepticism. I've
never liked paying any kind of membership fee for anything,
and I've always especially distrusted anyone who asks for
money from artists. So although friends were telling me how
great Taxi was, I was really only going to the rally to network.
Boy, was I wrong. I haven't been this excited, juiced, and
sparked since my first National Poetry Slam (which, if you've
never heard of it, is 5 days of the 300 best performance poets
in the world going head to head). Like the Slam, the Taxi
Road Rally is one of the most intense, beautiful and
transformative experiences you can go through.
First off, take the breakout sessions. Four
time slots a day, with at least five different
options for classes from industry pros-
and I'm talking people who will melt
your face with their credits, and then
melt the rest of your body with the depth
and clarity of their knowledge-on topics
spanning from how to reverse-engineer an
instrumental cue to how to deal with stage
fright, to how to master with new LuFS loudness
standards, decipher music business contracts, and
achieve balance and success without messing up your
marriage. That last class, taught by Jill and James Kocian,
revolutionized my career in a single hour and is easily the
best thing I've done for myself in 20 years.
Next let's talk feedback. One-on-one mentoring sessions
and group mentor lunches where you can bend the ear of
producers, sync agents, radio promotors, other musicians,
and so on. Not to mention several listening panels with industry
pros who will tell you in no uncertain terms what's right and
wrong with your music (from their unique industry point of
view), and do so in an empowering way that truly helps.
You know all this, though. You can see it in the back pages of
this magazine quite often, and you can read it on the Taxi website.
What you may not know about, and what made me want
to go back next year and rejoin Taxi ASAP, is the incredible
community of like-minded, supportive and positive dreamers
that Taxi members are. Members lift each other up, encourage
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RECORDING January 2018

each other, collaborate with each other, eat together, laugh
together ,and make the big bad LA music industry feel like a
huge beautiful slumber party-with millionaire mixers and hot
shot producers in the next sleeping bags.
Not once did I hear a piece of feedback that didn't start
and end positively (I call that the sandwich method). Not
once did I witness any sort of competitive vibe or see anyone
stepping over each other to get up. The whole tone of the Taxi
Road Rally, to borrow from Marc Smith (the inventor of Poetry
Slam), is "pull the next one up." The result is a collaborative
energy that has clearly resulted in success and happiness for
countless members, and a level of overall quality that was
frankly mind-boggling.
I got to walk around with a guy who mixed and produced
Christina Aguilera and Will Smith (Rob Chiarelli) and the
guy who wrote "Every Which Way But Loose" (Steve
Dorff)-not to mention men and women who
have written with, produced, mixed, played
with and known almost every artist I've ever
heard of. To hobnob with great people in
the recording industry and have it be not
only not intimidating, but absolutely invigorating, is, to me, high achievement.
As to whether I would recommend you
join Taxi, I couldn't say. That depends on
what you're trying to accomplish and where
you stand in your career. Taxi, like any such
company, can help you a lot, but only if you're
ready to utilize that help. If you've got a good-sized catalog, or you're good at writing or producing music quickly and
to spec, and if you have the right attitude about feedback and
being willing to grow and change, then Taxi could be great.
If you're not willing to change or your skin is too thin, or maybe
you're a beginner starting out, I'd say you might want to wait...
but I encourage you to get on the Taxi mailing list and check out
the listings they send out for free. That alone can teach you a lot.
And when you're ready, get yourself out to Taxi's Road Rally-
maybe as a guest of a member, like I did-and bring your tunes,
your good vibes, and a notebook. A really big empty notebook!
In the meantime, you can go check Taxi out and see if you
like the vibe at www.taxi.com.
Aaron J. Trumm (trumm@recordingmag.com) is a singer,
producer and once-and-future Taxi member. Contact him on
social media at @AaronJTrumm or aarontrumm.com.

http://www.taxi.com http://www.aarontrumm.com

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