TAXI Road Rally, NEW Duck Dynasty placements, 100lbs and more!

I'm extremely excited, honored and humbled to announce that I've been added to a panel in the Main Ballroom at the upcoming TAXI Road Rally in LA next month! I'll be taking part in the "5 Year Plan" panel on Friday morning just after the main keynote interview with songwriter extraordinaire Diane Warren. If you don't know her name, I am certain you know her work ("Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", "Because You Loved Me", "How Do I Live", "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing", "Un-Break My Heart", "Rhythm Of The Night" just to name a few). I'll be joining fellow composer/songwriters,  Matt Hirt, John Mazzei, Dave Walton, and Dean Krippaehne, that are not only my colleagues, but friends as well.

Quite honestly, I look at those guys and I think to myself "Why did Michael ask me to be up there with them???" You can ask my wife, any time I mention someone in this business that I'm trying to model my career after, those names are the first four names that come out of my mouth. There's a book I've been reading by Dani Johnson in which she says, if you want to be successful, find someone who is doing what you want to do and do what they do. Well, those four are the ones that I've been modeling my career after for the past three years. So to be on that panel with them is extremely humbling to me. I honestly can't say enough how grateful and excited I am to be on that panel with them.

Last week was another good week of placements for me. I had a few new cue sheets show up for Access Hollywood, the Dr. Oz show and Monster Man, as well as a new series for me, Big Rich Texas. But the placements that I'm most excited about are Duck Dynasty! I absolutely love that show and would watch it even if they weren't using my music! But since they are using some of my music, I like the show that much more! In the two episodes that aired last week, I had 2 placements in the first episode and 7 placements in the second episode, granted a couple of them were VERY short but a placement is still a placement in my book!

Truck Commander - http://www.aetv.com/duck-dynasty/video/3591235578

My track "Pesky Beavers" was used starting at the 5:15 mark and the 10:08 mark.

Si-Yonara - http://www.aetv.com/duck-dynasty/video/#3411011514

My track "That's Right Jack" was used at the 0:24 mark and 0:40 mark. Then my track "Give Me An Offer" was used starting at the 3:15, 3:35, 5:27, 5:37 and 5:50 marks. That track was originally written for Auction Kings but made it's on way on to DD instead.

And finally, I'm very proud and excited to say that I have achieved my weight loss goal of losing 100lbs in under 6.5 months. I reached my goal with one week to spare. It still hasn't sunk in yet but I imagine it's just a matter of time before it does :-)

Well, that's it for now. Until next time...

Music Placement Update for 8.13.12 - Monster Man, My Big Redneck Vacation, Hollywood Treasure and more!

Time for another weekly update of new music placements and last week was a good one! I'll start with some shows that my music has previously been in... one episode of The Dr. Oz Show (syndicate), three of Interior Therapy with Jeff Lewis (Bravo), and SIX episodes of Rajin' Cajuns (Discovery)! Then as for new shows... one episode of Guiliana and Bill (Style), four episodes of Saw Dogs (Velocity), two episodes of My Big Redneck Vacation (CMT), one episode of American Digger (Spike), three episodes of Hollywood Treasure (Syfy) and finally, two episodes of Monster Man (Syfy)!

The cues that were used on Monster Man, Hollywood Treasure, American Digger and Rajin' Cajuns were written specifically for those shows. It's always a nice feeling of accomplishment when the cues you write and pitch for a specific show end up actually getting used by the music editors. Great feeling actually.

This past week I've been writing some blues cues for the show Duck Dynasty on A&E. I only had a chance to write one cue for the first season and it got used twice in one episode so this time around I've tried to write a few more than that. Hope they find their way on to the show too! But I'll be watching the show regardless as it's one of the few reality TV shows that both me and my wife ACTUALLY enjoy. I've got all of season one still on my DVR and not just for music research purposes :-)

Until next time...