(upbeat music)
Hello, all you happy people.
Nice to see your smiling faces once again.
Welcome back to the Phantom Power Business Hour.
Today, I wanted to bring in one of the guys
from the valueverse, from all of these podcast shows,
who's got some legitimate radio and record industry background.
And so I call up my buddy Cody Christopher,
who hosts a great value for value music podcast,
music value cast called The Sidestream Music Podcast
that you all should definitely check him out and listen to.
He's got another one too, called Smash My Records.
Sidestream is definitely the leading one that he puts out.
But he is a legit DJ.
This is a dude that's been in the industry for 30 years now.
And we had a great discussion of radio and independent radio
and record labels and the history of record labels.
And then we dive into V for V and why it's important,
why it's such a great opportunity for musicians.
So if you guys know any musicians who are interested
in what the hell is going on here
and how musicians are getting paid in Bitcoin
and all of the great opportunities that are bound
in value for value, this is a podcast for them.
Please share this with them.
I'm gonna split this show 50/50 with Cody.
If you like the show, if this show brings value into your life,
I would ask that you give Cody and I some value back,
V of V for V.
So with that said, I'm gonna shut up
and let's bring on Cody.
Everybody ready?
Got your popcorn?
Here we go.
Ah, welcome everybody.
Thank you for joining us for another edition
of the Phantom Power Business Hour.
I'm really excited to talk to Cody Christopher today.
Cody's down.
Are you in Texas?
Where are you?
Are you in Texas?
I am in Texas.
Actually, of course, of course, because you and Adam are tight.
But the reason why I'm excited to talk to you is because
you're one of the few podcasters, value casters,
industry professionals in this space
that really is old school radio.
Like, you've been in the industry for years
and I thought it would be fun to talk about
how the record industry has changed from when we were kids,
how the radio industry has changed from when we were kids
and then get into value for value and all that kind of stuff.
So with all that said,
hi, introduce yourself, sorry.
Hey kids.
Hey man, thanks for having me.
Hey buddy.
I appreciate it.
I'm not always the goober that you hear on side stream.
Yeah, you've got side stream and smash my records, right?
Yeah, and smash my records.
We tried to launch that.
And once I got inside and started feeling my way
around the valueverse and checking out some of the bands
I noticed that we had a pretty shallow pool to choose from
as far as the stuff I was aiming for.
You know, good, good content that I was comfortable
with pushing out to listeners, man.
I'm a stickler for like, I've been picking hits
for a long time, you know?
Yeah, you got in the airport.
Yeah, got in the airport.
Yeah.
And I want to, I want to present,
you know, every morning on the air, I try to present
a wonderful show to my listeners, you know,
to get them cranked up and ready to tackle the day.
And that's kind of what I wanted to do with this show.
I wanted it to translate as like a radio show
and I wanted to be a good quality and fast paced
and you know, moving with like a morning show type feel.
Yeah.
And that's what we're trying to accomplish here.
Now, how long have you been in radio?
Like when, when should you get your first gig?
It's a summer of 86.
Yeah, I know.
30, 38 years.
I was going to say, what were you like for?
Oh, it's 12.
(laughing)
Four years old.
And he out-asked at the, the ash trays.
Yeah, these days, man, that would probably fly.
I mean, yeah.
Damn, you've been in the business 30 years.
Yeah.
Wow.
When did you get your first disc jockey gig?
12.
Yeah.
When you were 12?
Yeah, when I was 12.
So, and that was my introduction to radio.
I, around town, I was, I wanted to be a disc jockey.
So people could hire me out for like weddings and class reunions
and stuff like that.
And my setup was like a CD player like from JC Penney's.
Well, that came later.
But my first setup was one of those realistic mixers
from Radio Shack and two cassette decks.
And that fed into a guitar amplifier.
(laughing)
That was my, that was the, was it a PV?
No, it was not.
It was like some knockoff brand
and it had one 15 inch speaker in it.
And it was, you know, gain and high low mid and a master
and a big glowing light.
(laughing)
Fantastic.
That you bought from Radio Shack or Sears, Sears and Robuck
or whatever.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, so that first gig that you had,
I'm assuming that that was an independent radio station,
correct?
Yeah, yeah.
Radio station KKAP FM and Floyd Data, Texas.
That's where I was born and raised out in West Texas.
It's a hop-skip and jump away from Lubbock.
Lots of red raiders fans out there.
Lots of wind turbines out there.
Yeah, man.
I mean, it's just, you know, it's cotton and corn and, you know,
that's just, it's West Texas, man.
But that's where I got my first radio gig.
I would sneak in, well, not really sneak in,
but I would go into the radio station,
my grandparents lived about a block behind the radio station.
I would go into the radio station a few times a week
and fill out applications that never called me.
And so once upon a time,
this was in a building along with like in a praisel office
and insurance and so there were several businesses
that were there, but there was one central Xerox machine
and I could see it and it was way down the hall.
And so once upon a time, the secretary left the room
where the lobby and there was a glass door
where you could watch the disc jockeys.
And so that's what I would do.
Set the lobby, watch the disc jockeys
and listen to them over the intercom.
And so this gal goes down the hall of the Xerox machine.
I sneak behind her desk and look at the numbers
that are on the wall, get the owner's number,
I call them at home, then I get the gig.
Paul Zee, love it.
- Long story short.
- Yeah.
- So when you were doing this in the 80s,
when you started coming up in the 80s,
there was around 300 independent radio stations
in America, roughly, maybe a little more.
Now there's less than 100 independent radio stations
in America.
You have a really good insight as to why that is
from everything from the Telecommunications Act of '96
to Bane Capital, all that kind of stuff.
Give us an overview.
You have been watching this industry come down
since the day you got in.
- Yeah.
So tell us what the hell is going on with radio
in America right now.
- Wow.
Okay, so when I stepped in the studio,
we were playing 45s and 12 inches.
And along with the technology progressing
and delivery methods for me,
I'm gonna fast forward through a lot of years
because it was really grassroots record-no-able.
- Yeah, we could get myopic,
but let's try and keep it 35,000 feet, right?
- Yeah, record labels used to call you
and used to push records for you.
Every once in a while,
you might have a record rep to show up at your place
and they may have an artist with them.
Those days, unless you were one of the big conglomerates
of one of the huge, you know, eye hearts
or one of the large stations in metros,
you don't get that.
- They're a channel more.
- Yeah, what, they're a good, yeah, clear channel.
- Yeah, they're untouchables, you know,
for the smaller guys.
Now, I happened to work for one of those
less than 100 independent radio stations in the United States.
I work for a company called Jam Broadcasting
and it is one of my best friends
who I've known for 30 years.
I got him his first gig in radio
and now he owns radio stations and I happen to work for him
and it's a great gig because, you know,
we've been through all of this stuff kinda together.
We work for all the assholes
and so we kinda know how to do it, right?
And we're very independent, man,
we don't do it like, you know, like the big guys do.
But, man, so much has changed since those days
that's been in the 45s and the technology getting to
the point where we can go and with a few clicks
can download the new single.
And the thing that sucks, man, is the communication
between the labels and the artists,
all of that stopped when this, you know,
when we got to the point with digital delivery.
And those phone calls from your record reps stopped.
And you didn't get tickets to concerts anymore, you know,
that was kinda the pay all of it.
- Yeah.
- That we didn't talk about, you know, they never said,
"Hey, they never said, "Hey, I've got a few tickets
for you if you'll play this."
But they would always say something like,
"Hey, man, if you don't mind, give that new Blink 182 spin."
And, "Hey, man, if you ever need anything, let me know, you know?"
If you're ever in town, any shows you wanna go to, let me know.
- Yeah, so I got a couple of Omaha stakes in the trunk.
You want them?
(laughs)
Yeah, so talk a little bit about the pay,
like for the younger musicians that we're trying to onboard
who we want to listen to this podcast,
to give us some examples of payola back,
you know, from before, when you got into radio
to what you saw,
you know, since you've been in the industry.
- Yeah, man, and we've all heard the stories, you know,
coming up from all those old jocks, man,
the vets in radio that were, you know,
that were playing like Bill Haley in the comments
for the first time, man.
I got to, you know, to talk to some of these cats along the way.
And, yeah, they talked about payola,
somebody walking in with the record
with a little bit of cash in there,
and they would give it a spin or a play,
or they did have tickets to a show,
and maybe they'd give them a limo ride,
along with the big record label.
- Exactly.
- You know?
- And it ate out aag of Columbia and fairy dust.
- Maybe that might fall down.
- Maybe, something.
- You saw that, maybe that happened.
- Maybe that happened somewhere.
- Yeah.
But those days are long gone, man.
But there was an exchange where,
you know, the label was trying to get something,
they were trying to get ahead.
And of course the label was always gonna come out ahead.
So, a little bit of payola didn't hurt,
but totally illegal and against the law,
and I never really saw that stuff happen like that.
No one ever slipped me any cash.
But like I said, there were ways around it.
If you ever need it, hey, man, you ever need backstage
to whatever, give me a call.
Let me know.
We can make it happen.
- Do you think it still happens today?
- Yeah, it probably does in some form or fashion.
It doesn't happen to me.
- Well, what is like as an independent label,
or excuse me, as an independent radio station,
if I'm a band and I wanna get on your radio station,
what are the chances of an independent artist
getting on an independent radio station today?
- Well, if you sound, if you sound,
it's the same thing that I'm after on value for value.
If it's a good song, and sonically it sounds good,
and I'm into it, man, I'm willing to give it a play.
I have my listeners to give me suggestions all the time,
and sometimes I roll those for the first time
and then go, hey, we'll throw that into rotation.
We don't do regular rotations around here,
like you would find at the big metro stations
where you hear the same songs every two, three hours.
We're completely independent.
We do what we want.
I always have publications reaching out to me
that want us to report our plays to them,
our spins to them.
And once you start doing that,
then you are inundated with a bunch of emails,
usually not a lot of phone calls in the rock world
for some reason.
But your email is usually inundated with a bunch of pitches
for records and download now, going for ads now.
We're going for number one.
And you have those promoters,
those independent promoting firms
that are hired by either the label
or the artist or the artist management,
that just inundate you with these things.
And sometimes it's really bad,
and sometimes you find some gyms in there,
where is in value for value,
I have to go and hunt for it.
There's not anybody feeding it to me.
And that's the thing,
I don't want anybody feeding it to me.
So we don't report to these publications
because I don't program for the masses and the metros.
And we really program for our community.
- Yeah, I mean, we could split off
and talk about value for value now,
or we could,
but I wanna stay on radio
and remind me to talk about the quality of recording
before we wrap up this conversation today.
But I also wanted to talk about
the Federal Telecommunications Act of '96,
the Clinton signed.
And the goal of that was to,
court and court increase competition
by lifting station ownership caps,
like one company couldn't own more than three or four.
The goal of it was to increase competition,
but it really had a back
of backwards effect.
It really did the opposite
because you started to see this massive consolidation
of the radio industry of all these radio stations
around the country, which then dictates playlists.
And now you have, and correct me if I'm wrong,
but you've got only a handful of program directors
around the country that are literally telling these stations
what they can and can't play
and they're programming the shows for them.
- Yeah, they're consulting.
- Yeah.
- They just got some local guy like here in Hendersonville,
it's like, well, it's 52 degrees.
Look out over on Nashville Pike, the tornado.
It's still wreaking havoc.
- Yeah.
- Is that fair?
- Yeah, it's very fair to say.
I mean, they consolidated.
They bought up all these radio stations.
They got rid of, we'll say most of their personnel
because they were using same staff to voice,
same guys that were out in San Diego were voice tracking shows
for folks in Idaho and in Kansas.
And you know what I mean?
- Yeah.
- I gotta say, really pisses me off.
Really pisses me off.
Like when I hear the same voiceover guy in Nashville
that I heard in Seattle, or that I heard in Tampa 15 years ago.
It's like really?
- Yeah.
- The same guy, Dylan Bumpers, who's sitting
in the studio in Burbank doing it.
Like there's no local connection anymore.
- Yeah, and that's the thing.
Once these stations started consolidating
and they were using that core staff
to voice track every where radio became less community
oriented.
And man, that's what radio is about.
It is really about community.
And you know when we came to the town where we're at now
when my buddy bought these radio stations,
there was another group here in town
and nobody was really doing anything for the community
except for the really big events, nothing else.
We came to town and dug our heels
and our hands and everything.
Yeah.
And you know, just started getting involved in the community
and my friend that I worked for,
he's one of the best solid human dudes that there is.
He doesn't know how to say no.
But that has led to the success of our radio stations
becoming very community involved and without that man,
we would not be here.
I have guests in my studio every morning.
It is just a round robin of guests
and a revolving door of folks moving through here
every morning and they're all community people
and each one of them has something different to offer.
Yeah.
Well, you guys live and die off of local ad revenue too.
Yeah, you know, you're not into that.
Yeah, you got it.
I mean, you're not getting any handouts
from the corporate office, you know,
and over in Santa Monica or, you know,
or Madison Avenue, you guys are local.
We are not.
Every once in a while, we might get a Dr. Pepper
or a cooers line ad, but.
(laughs)
Yeah.
Well, okay, so I think we've kind of described how radio,
I mean, it was kind of a weird little history,
but it went from being a large system
with a weird system of payola and some back channel garbage
to being in very grassroots promotion though.
Let's not forget that.
Right.
To down to just a handful of major corporations
and a handful of independence around the country.
So we have witnessed the centralization,
the monopoly building of the radio industry.
Correct?
Over the past 40 years?
Okay.
Yeah.
So I think we can say the same thing about the record industry.
And so now that we've talked about radio,
let's talk about the record industry
and then we'll merge it all together into V3.
But the record industry,
nowadays, we're really only sitting on three or four major labels,
right?
EMI's the only UMG in Warner.
Whereas when we were coming up,
you had probably 12 majors and 50 legitimate.
Miners, subs, everything from stacks, polygram, sub-pop.
You know?
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Yes.
My life would not be the same without island records.
I mean, you did get grown up, right?
Yeah.
So what's been your experience with record labels
over all these years as you've gone on your disc jockey journey?
I guess we'll go back to record labels actually having staff,
A&R people, record reps that would make phone calls
or that would arrive at your radio station
like we talked about before.
They had gone from that to with digital delivery again
and having the luxury of the internet to downsize staff.
We no longer, when we would call, we would get,
it was just an electronic system of being tossed from this menu
to that menu until you're just fed up
or you finally make it to leave a voicemail
and there's never a return or you find out
that that rep no longer works for the company.
And it's this person that's taking care of you
that is from the country division that has moved over to,
you know, and it was just a huge cluster, fuck.
That was beginning to happen.
I became less and less interested in charts.
I became less and less interested into whatever was being spoon fed to us
because we were being andundated with emails
that this was coming, that this was on our desk now
or there was a digital delivery system
that we could take advantage of and get all this.
So a disconnection again from the record labels
and with the downsizing the record labels
that meant downsizing a promotion for the artist as well.
You didn't have those promotion departments
and you hear these disasters of these bands
that had these budgets to record these records
and then when it came for release time,
there was no promotion behind it.
And so they lost record deals
and some of them just became disenchanted with the music industry
and put their guitars and cases and didn't pick them up again for, you know, 12, 13 years.
And now we're seeing some of those guys do that.
Yeah, it's fascinating.
We've seen, we've gone from fewer gatekeepers,
or excuse me, a lot of gatekeepers.
And we can sit here and debate the merits of the record industry in the 70s and the 80s
to having fewer gatekeepers and more people coming into the funnel.
There's more artists out there now than there ever has been.
Burtugrees. Number one, just procreation, you know, simple math, right?
But I also think that, you know, it's been overglamourized, you know, being a musician
and as I have said before, there's no barrier to entry into this industry.
You know, I mean, if you and I wanted to become doctors,
we've got to go through X amount of school to get there, you know, if we wanted to become real tours,
we had, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a test.
There's a license you have to acquire, you know, any moron can pick up a guitar
and record into garage band or cakewalk or pro tools and throw it up on, on Spotify
and start, you know, clogging the pipe, so to speak, you know, I mean, any, any
novice can, can put music up there.
So that's part of the reason why we have such a hard time with, with discovery is the
amount of people who, who are in it. And the fewer independent radio stations,
the fewer record labels, the fewer gatekeepers. So that's my take.
And that, and, and that to me points to just the beauty of where you and I met,
value for value, yeah. And getting your music up in a more decentralized
fashion and having that direct relationship once again, or for the first time, for many artists,
having that direct relationship with the people who are consuming your art.
Yeah. This system is probably, and I don't know what we call it, still, the value for value
community and, and music in the form of a podcast and we're able to, to play those,
and, and dig and mine and, and find all of this, this new material, I think is rejuvenating.
Like, like I talked about the guy who put his guitar up for 13 years and is finally starting to see
some value being deposited into his lap, instant gratification like Adam talks about, you know. Yeah.
And I think that that's rejuvenated and, and, probably, spark something in some of these guys,
because I know that some of these old dogs that have stuff out on value for value are now starting
to put together new projects. One of those being John over at rubber factory records, man.
I love that guy's stuff, man. He's got a new thing called drift current.
Tell me. I'll have to send you a link. Maybe you can get that up to, to put in here, but,
yeah, John over at rubber factory up at rubber factory records up north.
He has a new project called drift current and this is probably with some of the, some of the,
the guys that were perhaps in some of the bands on the label as well. And they just played the closing
of a variety store in his neighborhood. And there's a really great video.
I love the city. Yeah. He said the variety store had been there, you know, since he had grown up and
it was closing and there's a real punk rock crowd there. So it's, it's very cool to see
this spark and something in these guys that maybe set their instruments down and had to take on real
jobs because, man, along with all this technology and Spotify, like I ran a small record collective
myself and had a recording studio that I actually had artists to come in and pay the record records.
And we went from before the introduction of Spotify, we went from recording, you know,
three, four, four full links and, and a handful of EPs a year to going to just recording some EPs
a year and maybe a couple of EPs a year and then artists were coming in and saying, hey,
can we record a single and maybe if we have enough time, we'll do a B side.
Yeah. Because,
Spotify and these other platforms had now said to all of these independent artists, you have to
release your music for free as well because all the big guys are. Yeah. You know, they, they dictated
that they would have to release their music for free and so selling music is hard when it's out there
for free. So you would have to go and you would play shows and you would sell t-shirts and you would
sell keychains or whatever you could do to make the money, but it's hard, especially if you're
in the rock industry. It's a little, I think it's a little different for each genre, for each
circle, I think, but I worked with primarily punk rock and alt rock guys who were going out and
playing shows with six other bands. The way that that would work is when they were on stage,
once they got off stage, they could set up their merch after they played for 15 minutes. They
could set up their merch and sell it for 15 minutes until the next band was done. And it was just,
yeah, it was a rotation, you know, because they may make $17 a night and then they have nine hours
to drive to their next gig and that doesn't compute, you know. It didn't work. So artists were
starting to become just really frustrated and they were broken down knowing that there was maybe not
any future in this other than they were, they were doing what they love to do, but not being compensated
in a way where they could live as a human, you know, sleeping in in vans and being homeless,
is doesn't work, especially if you have a family. So, you know, they had to take on full-time jobs
and go drive a van for UPS instead of driving their band around the country. So
so much has changed in the digital realm, but I think we're starting to get to a point. I also think
that TikTok, all these other mediums of sharing music, I mean, we've seen this all of our Anthony.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Another example. What if one of those guys would come over to value for value? I know
we've all said that. And I do, I think that we need someone like that to come over to value for value.
There's good stuff, there's good stuff out there, man. And we can get into that later.
Yeah, I think I've said this a couple of times now. I think that, you know, we're going to have an artist
break out from here or we're going to have a household name who is no longer on a label, who maybe
has, you know, and can make the decision who owns the masters to go to say, you know what, I'm not
doing this Spotify thing anymore. If you guys want to find my new release, it's over here on this new
platform. Yeah. I think that's coming. And the guy that first made me think about this is Hunter Hayes.
I went to go see Hunter Hayes with my daughter a couple months ago here in Nashville and he's
freaking amazing. But he's independent now. And I'm like, wow, the hell is that guy independent?
Right? Like, I mean, this is a platinum selling artist. This is a guy who's had number one. How is he
in? How is he an independent? But I think the same thing could happen with like a major household name.
Like it's not, it's not out of reach. I don't think to see somebody like, maybe it's like a
wall flowers. Maybe it's like a matchbox 20 somebody who is no or a Cheryl Crow, maybe even who's no
longer associated with a major labor who's an independent who could say, you know what, I still
need to make a living and there's still value associated with my art. I'm going to put it over here.
And if you like it, you can give value back. If you don't like it, that's fine because everybody
else has to give away their stuff for free anyways. So that value, that exchange of value that happens in
this world because of Bitcoin because of the lightning network is game changing. And I
think we're going to see some massive societal shifts in the music industry in the next two to
three years because of it. No doubt. I think if we play our cards right over here, I think that we
can lose some faults over. It's a little, it is tough to onboard artist, you know? Because it's
another task for them. They feel like it's you're pitching them another task to take on. But
I've also had the advantage, I know a lot of these artists and I've had the advantage of
of saying, hey, let me just upload a single for you and let's see what happens. And the response
has been receptive that way when I said, hey, I'll do the task for you. Yeah. And we'll see what happens.
And the response I've got is great. It's like, hey, man, these songs are just as much as yours as they
are hours because a lot of these songs I worked on with these bands that I'm onboarding. I figured
that those are the guys that I go after first. And name some of the bands. Name some of the bands
that you've brought in. Corey Keller. Yeah. All Kings, all poets of love. That's one of Corey's bands as
well. Boys home, a door. Yeah. Captains of moderation. Nice. For arm, shiver. Oh, I love those guys.
Yeah. Yeah. Now let's be honest. We both have kids in this space, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So my kids are in both boys home and a door. Which both of those are inactive right now.
A door is still kind of a working project, but my oldest son, Christian, this is his first venture
outside of any bands with his with his brother, Lenin, but he has a new band called Honor Choir.
And they're based out of the Oklahoma City area. I love that name. I love that name.
Yeah. So something hopefully, I know that they have Studio Time booked in April. And so I'm hoping
that by summer, we'll see something from those guys. Yeah. Well, as far as onboarding musicians
goes, I mean, I know you and I were talking a little bit in the green room about, you know,
some of the tech tech challenges to onboard musicians. I like your approach of saying, hey,
let me put it up for you. Yeah. Let's get you know, um, and that's similar to the approach that
that that that I'm taking. It's it is, it is really hard to decipher whether or not you should or
you shouldn't lead with Bitcoin because a lot for the majority of the response that I get from
people when I talk to them about onboarding is don't lead with Bitcoin. It's just going to,
you know, they're just going to glaze over. And even if you were listening to the to the V for V
round table that happened the last week, which MeeV and Adam and a whole bunch of guys, you know,
it's like, ah, don't lead with Bitcoin, right? And and and I think that that's viable in a lot of
respects because most people aren't technically minded to jump off the deep end like that. Like most people
don't go like, Oh, Bitcoin. Okay. I'm going to go run a node. You know, it's like, whoa, you know,
there's, you know, there's some technical challenges there that a lot of people don't that a lot of
people don't understand. For some, that's their path in and God bless them. That's great. You know,
yeah. Um, for others, I think, um, what what I'm telling them and yet you tell me if I'm
if if if I should adjust my pitch at all, but is I say, look, what whether or not you like your
loves of, you know, you, you love or hate Spotify and iTunes and all that keep doing that keep doing
TikTok, keep doing Instagram, keep doing all your co rights, keep doing all your gigs, but here's
in a here's a another revenue stream. Add this into your business mix. I can, I can help you upload.
I can help you get a wallet and then and then let's let's get some sats flowing and then and
then let's have another conversation about your what about what your next steps are. That's kind of
my approach and that and that approach is entirely based upon what their goals are and who they are
as an artist, right? Yeah. Because if you're some legacy, but you know, like like my old band,
local zero, you can find that stuff up up on the up on these sides. You can find it if you
search in the podcasting index, you like we haven't played together in 20 years. We're not going to do
another project. We're not going to tour, you know, we might show up at somebody's backyard in the
Los Angeles, you know, two years from now and play a really terrible set, but we're not going to do
anything publicly anymore. Yeah. So our needs are completely different than somebody like FM rodeo or
daddy, Nat or you know, Abby Neuer or whatever, who's, yeah, who's trying to get up there. So, you
know, I think what you tell artists to do in this space, first of all depends upon where they're at in
their career, what they want to do with their music. And then how hard are they going to get in here
and promote it because you and I both know you can't just throw your shit up here and expect to make
anything right? Right? Like, well, you mentioned FM rodeo, okay? That's another band that I onboarded
for God to mention those guys. I love those guys. Dude, Johnny is one of the hardest working dudes at
promoting that I know promoting that band. And look, he has his, he owns his own business. It's very
successful, but his heart is that music man. And he is always out there promoting FM rodeo or other
bands in his circle. You know, I love that. And he's out over here. Well, and like, man like Quex,
that dude of in Tanzania, he is killing it in the noster space and killing it on X.
Like, I mean, that's a big reason why he keeps doing well because he's in, he's in the space promoting.
Like, if you, if you're going to come into this space because you see all these artists doing
well, if you're going to come in here and you're not going to promote, you're not going to,
you know, it's like Adam says all the time, if you don't ask, you're not going to get anything back.
Correct. You know? So I'll, I'll make the ask right now. Like, if you guys are digging this podcast
and I'm going to split the sats with Cody on this, if you're digging it, boost it. Please do.
Yeah, I could sure as I'll use it. Yeah, I mean, I, I love doing the stuff, but you know, as you can see from
my setup, I could use a new microphone. I get, I'm not the professional DJ like you are with that.
I might know that arm and whatever. I mean, like, you got a hot tub in your studio, dude. How'd you pull that off?
I do. Very comfy over here, man. You look good, by the way. Well, thank you. You don't look so damn bad yourself.
So let's go back to the onboarding. I think that you're right, man. And I think the guys on the round
table are right. You can't approach it with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is like saying back in the day that you
were dating someone online before that became a thing. You know what I mean? Like you, you would say
that and then people would go, Oh, wow. Weirdo. You know, automatically. And so I think if you approach
it up front, you get raised brows or they, it's like, Oh, man, I don't want this pitch, you know, I don't
need somebody to tell me how to handle my financial future because that's what you get with some,
you know, some of these days that are very, very passionate about it. And that's cool. But the thing is
with onboarding, let's get these artists in and let's get them earning and on board them like you said.
I think that that's some, some etiquette that you could follow if you're trying to onboard an audit artist,
just as Jim said, but let's get them in and let's get them earning. And once they start to see that
they're earning something because keep in mind that some of these guys never, you know, never received
a check from Spotify or band camp or they never know. Right. Even if there's stuff's amazing, they'll
never get it. Right. And so this and and keep in mind also when we talk about bands like
Wobbity who've put 25 year old music out there and it sounds like it could have been delivered to
my mailbox here at the radio station last week, you know, when we're getting, we're getting stuff
like that. Some of these artists are starting to see stats sack up, stack up, they're starting to see
real return for them, you know, that didn't see anything before. And this digital thing wasn't around
for Wobbity back then at all. So maybe when they start to see these stats stack up and
it heaks some curiosity in them to start digging in a little bit to value for value and maybe they
get interested in Bitcoin, but it's just enough, you know what I mean? It's, but it's just enough for
them to know because they have another thing to do and that is create music and to entertain. And
this, you know, if they have to go back to freaking college to learn to learn things, then it's a turn-off
forum, you know, if they think they have to go back to class to learn all this stuff in order to
have their music there, then that's a turn-off. But I think like you said, you onboard these artists
very similar to what you said and everybody's probably going to have their own flavor for that,
their own hook. But when they get here and when that happens that they do become interested in Bitcoin,
then I feel like that maybe these guys that are passionate about teaching that thing, that maybe
we need to have some kind of educational protocol to teaching these artists about value for value
and podcasting 2.0. And of course, that's tailored towards musicians and artists because you know that
we are a different breed man. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody that has to relate to the artist and musician,
someone who gets it, you know, on both sides, not just the business side of it and trying to make
someone understand that because typically artists that get to a certain level have people that take
care of those things for them so that they can create and do. They can't spend all of their time,
you know, in their on their phone or in their computers, they need to be out creating and playing
shows and entertaining and doing what they do. So, and I feel like they'll learn enough, but we need
to have, I feel like there needs to be some system. If they do become interested in it, we can show them
that it's enough and it's not over their head, you know. Yeah. I think to, I think like
showing people how the earnings can compound, right? Like if you were to say to somebody, look,
like, you're, I love your song. It's got 30,000 spends on 30,000 streams on Spotify. You and I both know
you didn't make anything on there. So let's put it over here and here's what I want you to do. I
want you to engage a little bit on fountain and podverse and engage in in in some of these settings.
Just get in there and say, thank you. Thank you for streaming my stuff. Thank you for streaming my stuff.
And then let's, then let's talk in like 30 days and you come back to them in 30 days and you say,
okay, how much did you, how many stats do you have? Well, I have this amount of stats and I'm like,
okay, that's 10 bucks. That's 20 bucks. Whatever it is, that's five bucks. How much have you made off
of saying thank you on Instagram? How much have you made by engaging with your audience on on X on
TikTok? Most of them are going to say nothing. How much have you made with a hundred thousand streams
on Spotify? Most of them are going to say nothing. All right. So what do you think's going to happen if
you really start to pay the same amount of attention that you are to the traditional social media
platforms and you put that effort over here in this community. What do you think's going to happen?
That five bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks is going to turn into a hundred bucks a week or 200 bucks a week.
And that is not a pipe dream. I am seeing that happen. Man like Quex is a great example of that. Joe Martin
is a great example of that. Yeah. And when you start to think about it, uh, it's salty, uh,
brought it to my attention the other day that when Adam started Booster Grand Ball at the end of July
of 23, Bitcoin was like a $29,000 or something. Yeah. And uh, what was the last week is like 53.
Right. You know, so those sats that they collected back then, those sats that Cory Collector Keller
was collecting back then are worth quite a bit more today than they were back in in July and August.
You know. Yeah. I'm looking up. I'm looking up where it's at right now. What is it today? Let me see.
Today it's 51.5. Okay. Double almost. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So well,
that part of it is exciting. And I think that that part of it becomes exciting to the artist as well.
Like what? It's worth more than what, you know, oh, you mean if I would have made $100 in July,
it would have been worth $200 now if I just held it in that wallet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they go,
oh, well, maybe I should study up a little on Bitcoin. Yeah. You should, you know, because
well, man, I'm learning this stuff too. Yeah. What's cool is I can, I can tell these artists that I'm
learning this stuff too, but I have my, my own podcast. It's out there and people are listening and
artists are, are seeing that in the form of boost. Well, you and I, you and I have a lot of shared
history because we've, we've both been musicians and engineering and producing other people. You have
more direct experience in radio than I do. I, and you probably have more direct experience with
labels than I do, but we both share a passion for songwriters and independent musicians.
And one of the things that I thought would be help of is if you and I have a quick discussion
about some of the ugly truths about recording songs, quality of songs, and putting your best stuff
up on the internet, or just submitting your best stuff to the radio station.
I am, I admit, I am a bit of a, of a purist. I admit, like as much as I love tracking things and
pro tools and cakewalk, I still love, I still prefer tape, just because of the sound of it.
Yeah. Do you have that luxury, please, please track the tape? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I mean,
nothing will show you your weaknesses as a musician better than playing to tape. And I always,
and I always believe as a musician that you should, you should be the worst person in the band.
And you should always be trying to improve. That said, one of the things that drives me
absolutely nuts that I wish musicians would do better is really take the time to get some
honest feedback from other people about their writing and the quality of their recording.
I have heard a lot of great songs in this space that are poorly recorded. Yep. And I cannot
tell you enough in many respects, I kind of feel like a Simon Cowell in this regard. Like if you
don't, if you don't have anybody around you saying, Hey, man, let's have somebody else record this,
or you could do this better, or even better, you're a great writer, but you're not that strong of a
singer. Have somebody else sing this for you? There's no shame in that. Like I think, you know, the,
the low barrier to entry really bothers me, the, the, the lack, there's so many great bands here,
but you got to, you got to weave through so much crap to find them. And, and, and, and I think that every
artist would do, do themselves a huge favor by just getting it, surrounding themselves with people
who are, who are not afraid to say, this sucks, or you could do this better. Yeah.
Well, and I think that, that we, no matter who it is, we are not doing an artist or a band any
favors if they do a half ass set and we say, that was great. That was good. Or they pitch us a song,
that's horrible. And we say, yeah, that's great. I'm, I can't, I can't do that anymore. I,
yeah. And I'm not like brutally honest, but it's like, hey, you know, this is good, but go back and,
and work on, on it and, and come back. Classic story with, no doubt, Gwen Stefani and Jimmy Isleveen,
you know, for years, no doubt was, was after it, you know, they want to Jimmy Isleveen to look at them
and he just said, keep on working, keep on working until they got to that point. If you go back and listen
to that. Yeah. Jimmy, Jimmy Isleveen was right, man, keep working, keep, keep, you know, go back to the
wood shed and then come back with something better. And, and I think that we have to be honest with
some of these folks and, and some of the podcasters out there need to know, it's not about just playing
whatever comes out there first, you know, I'm not about jumping on whatever comes out first and I
want to be the first guy to play it. If it's shit, I'm not playing it, man. If it's not, not, uh,
sonically, uh, to perfection or, or broadcast quality, I would say, then I'm not playing it, man. Uh,
and it might be a good song and you may have to say, this is a wonderful song, but this recording is
horrible. Yeah. Don't get it done somewhere else. Bring it back in. I will play this, you know, there's
three big things there that every artist needs to understand. There is the quality of the song
itself as it's as a, as it's composed. Correct. Which is completely independent from the quality of
your performance of the song, which is completely independent from the quality of the recording,
not just the mic choice, but the mic placement, the instruments used, complete, you know, it could be,
hey, this sounds great as an R&B song, but have you ever thought about having a band like FM
rodeo, rip it to shreds and play it differently, right? Yeah. You know, I think that we get, and I,
and I had a funny little conversation with Michael Rhee from Wabelake last week who's,
yeah, who's lovely, the guy is so, he's such a good dude. And we were just kind of joking about, you know,
the, about what we hear out in the industry and I said, yeah, you know, I, I'm not going to put on a
song that I don't like in artists that is bad. And I said, you know, there's a, like that, that
sarcastic asshole in me thinks that like a hit show would definitely be, well, here's why you're a song
sucks, you know, and our, and the way, and it's sad because the, the way our culture is today, like,
that show would just definitely get, would get it up, and probably go to number one. It's like,
oh, what does he think sucks this week? Right. You know, so I would just, I really think that it's important
for every musician out there to be honest with yourself and have the courage have not only have
the courage, but, but believe in yourself enough that you can share your art with other people before
you release it and go, all right, man, what do you think? Yeah. And I know, it's a, I know a lot, good,
yeah. And I know a lot of bands out there that may be listening or artists that may be listening,
go, yeah, man, it's easy for you guys to say to get into a studio and do it because it costs money.
You know, and I understand that, but man, at least get one good song. And what I love about the value
for value community is I feel like we're going to be able to open up, we'll be able to find
recording engineers and mix engineers that want to help you that want to, you know, maybe producers that
want to help you cut the best version of that song. And they may be willing to do it with some
digital handshake, you know, it may not be something on the front end that you have to come up with.
But, but here's the thing, it has to be a good song, right, a composition. And it has to be something
that that that producer or recording engineer is into. So, you know, and I will put this out there,
like if anybody wants to send me their unreleased material for an unbiased opinion, I will give it to
you straight, man, I'm not going to, and I'm not going to worry about hurting your feelings. You
want an honest opinion? I'll give it to you. And you can think I'm an asshole for telling you that
that's fine. You're not going to hurt my feelings either, you know? I got actually got asked to be a
part of a project recently by somebody in the V for V community. And I'm like, dude, that's not my
genre. I love you. I love what you're doing, but you don't want me on that. Like that, that's not my
strong suit. Like you got to be able to say that as well, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well,
this has been fun. Yeah, it has, man. Is there anything you want to add?
Man, so I have made tons and tons and notes since I've been doing this and listening to some of
other podcasters, but man, the the ecosystem of the value for value music verse, I want to know how
this is all going to work because we were talking earlier about record labels and, you know, and I know
that at some point in time that the main stream dudes are coming because the buzz is already out
there, but in terms of, you know, how do we operate? How do we promote within the system? Are there
folks out there? No, I don't want it to turn into record label central, you know, but I feel like
maybe there are some folks that are passionate about promoting music and street teams and maybe we
go back to grassroots. I don't know what it is, but I feel like there needs to be some system.
And nothing to dictate what you play, but when a band does spin that money to go out and make a
damn good recording of a damn good song that we can play, we won't know about it unless there's
somebody out there promoting it because I feel like, again, I feel like there's a rush for some
folks to play something first and once that's played first, then then then it becomes like,
"Ah, somebody's already played it." Right. No, we need to keep playing.
And yeah, that's it. We need to keep playing it. Yeah, if it's a good song, get it up there, you know?
And I think, like, I like what I'm seeing so far, like, people are grabbing onto the genres that
they're familiar with the most, right? Sir Lebray over in California who does lightning thrashes,
like he is the metal guy. That's his genre. No doubt. And if I run across new metal,
I'm going to send it over to him. I think, I don't want to speak for Alan C. Paul, but I think he is
seating, like, trying to put together a jazz thing and that makes total sense. He is a
brilliant piano player and his music is amazing. That's his genre. Like, I think that we should all
be helping each other out. Like, hey, if you're a metal guy, go talk to Sir Lebray because,
you know, he's going to be your champion in the space. Or if somebody comes in and their jazz,
like, hey, talk to, like, you know, I brought in, I brought in an Osh, but talk to me or talk to
Alan C. Paul, like, and I think we're going to see hip-hop guys come in here. Like Adam says,
we need more shows. We need somebody who loves and identifies with hip-hop to come in and do
a hip-hop podcast. We need somebody who loves and identifies with electronic music, who identifies
with the real Richards of the world who was on my artist hour last week. We need that dude to come in
or that gal. Come in here. We need the people like homegrown hits. We need the updates. We need behind
the schemes. We need all of these shows. All of us should be looking out for each other. All of us
should be filtering in as many people as we can and referring them around to all these other shows.
But what we also need to be doing is we need to be telling Bitcoin holders around the world.
Please listen to music on these apps. Please start listening to music on fountain, on podverse,
on curiosity, on true fans. Take a little bit of your money on the Lightning Network,
which they'll understand because they're already Bitcoin holders. Please come over here. Start listening
and start sharing. Start growing this community. Yeah. And consumers are of the music. You have to
remember sometimes they're just fans. The Bitcoin stuff is a plus. But here's a cool thing on my FM
radio show. I started promoting my podcast and saying, hey, I have this podcast that I do. And if
you'd like to check it out, then check it out. So then I had guys that started messaging me via our
texture here at the station or on message or saying, hey, man, how do I boost? You know,
there you go. And see? Yeah. And that's it. And so now these guys are are buying up sats so that
they can distribute them because they it's like it's like freaking candy crush. They are
bottom tokens with the intent to spend the tokens. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. You're
game of buying it in some respects. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like buying tokens or whatever it is that you
do to throw at tick tockers or influencers while they're doing their their live stuff. It translates
the same over here. They are buying those tokens with the intent of sharing them with getting
nothing but entertainment and some some type of satisfaction in return. Yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And in turn with that handshake, the artist instant gratification. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, listen, we've been chatting for about an hour. You've got