After many moons, the final mixes of our demo are in our hands ... for the most part. There's still a little tweaking to be done on one song, but for all intents and purposes, the tunes are done. Two of those final mixes can be found right here on our MySpace profile. I will get them up on our Web site -- www.howtovanish.net -- very shortly.

The best thing about this news is that I finally was able to join TAXI, the independent online A&R service. Here's the deal: You join TAXI for a fee, and then you get access to specific lists of what record companies, films and studios are looking for. For instance, a label will say it's looking for a pop/rock band with a sound in the vein of The Killers or OK Go. And so you submit your demo. But by being a TAXI member, you're not sending in unsolicited material. They represent you, in effect, and they screen all submissions. So some submissions get forwarded to the labels, who have come to trust TAXI's judgment. It's a pretty successful formula. Just ask Columbia's own Crossfade (formerly Sugardaddy Superstar).

So we'll see what, if anything, develops. I was encouraged after I attended a demo critique at the Atlantis Music Showcase in Atlanta last month. I sat down for a 15-minute session with a three-member panel. They had good things and bad things to say, so I left feeling a little unfulfilled. But a few days later, I got an e-mail from one of the panel members, saying she dug a lot about the demo and that it had promise. She also happens to do some work with TAXI, so it just seemed like another sign that I ought to join up.

As I said, you can hear two of the completed demo songs here on MySpace, and if you want to find downloadable versions, you can purchase them from www.broadjam.com for 99 cents, the same way you'd do on iTunes.

That's all for now.