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Hey everybody, welcome back.
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This is fans of Power Music.
My name is Taylor Williams.
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I'm the host of the podcast as well as the writer for our blog that reviews independent
and unsigned artists from around the world.
And we're getting deeper and deeper into the podcast space and I thought it would be a
good idea for me to introduce myself a little bit and talk a little bit about my background,
but also give you an idea as to what I believe to be true about the industry,
some things that you cannot control, some things that you can control,
and then talk about the future with respect to Web3 value for value, lightning.
All that fun stuff that's going on with websites like the podcast index and wave lake and things of that nature.
So briefly, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
So I've been playing in bands professionally for about 40 years now.
Sounds crazy, but it's good.
Lucky enough to study piano composition in college,
lucky enough to study jazz piano, jazz guitar,
lucky enough to spend about four years on the road, literally four years out of a suitcase,
a couple thousand gigs, probably 20 major studio albums.
Really lucky to work at some great recording studios at an L.A.
Capitol Ocean Way Hollywood sound.
And then I was in Los Angeles from the transition from tape to Pro Tools,
so that was fascinating to see how that changed the whole industry.
I was never able to sign a major deal myself, but I definitely signed distribution deals,
licensing agreements, things of that nature for my compositions.
And even when I stepped away from the industry, I continued to play in bands around town just for fun
and all over the country.
And I've been really lucky to live in a bunch of different parts of the country.
If you read the blog, hopefully you are a regular reader to the blog,
you can tell, okay, this guy's got some pretty good knowledge with respect to music theory.
And I'm very passionate about songwriting.
And more importantly, I had so many people that helped me when I was coming up through the industry,
people that supported the bands that I was in, people that put us up when we were on the road,
that I really feel a responsibility to kind of mentor younger musicians today and help them out.
And I have found myself in a lot of situations giving advice to younger musicians,
things you can and can't control.
People to look out for best practices, methods, albums to listen to, all that kind of fun stuff, right?
And it's given me a lot of joy because again, I had so many people helping me out when I was young
that I really feel responsible to give back in that regard.
So as I get deeper and deeper into the podcast world, I wanted to jot down some thoughts and
share them with you so that you know who I am as the host and hopefully you'll like it.
Hopefully you'll kind of appreciate my take and want to keep subscribing and take it from there.
So having said that, I'm going to read off nine things to you.
Six of these, you have no control over.
And I really hope that younger artists, artists that are in their 20s will kind of pick up on some
of this stuff and I think a lot of the veterans out there will will identify it with this.
The number one reason why the industry is so hard is there's no barrier to entry to this.
Yet you and I have no control over this. There's no test of skill, there's no license, there's really
no experience necessary to start releasing music and to start playing gigs.
This doesn't exist in the professional world, right?
Like I can't just go out and call myself a structural engineer because I think steel buildings are cool.
I can't call myself a chef just because I make a kick ass chicken keev.
I don't call myself a master plumber because I swapped out the disposal.
All right, there's no barrier to entry into this.
And the rise of technology and cheap recording and free software enables anyone to call
themselves an artist and release music, whether it's good or it's not. Now don't get me wrong, there's been
some fantastic successes in this realm, right? Billy Eilish, Bailey Zimmerman, Lil Nas, I think
Post Malone and some respects that, you know, a lot of hip hoppers have come up on SoundCloud and
Bandcamp and I'm not knocking that, but what I am knocking is it's so easy that too many people
are doing it. And quite frankly, the majority of the music that's being put out is crap.
It's poor quality. And I'm not, don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to bag on the artist.
What I'm saying is the quality of the songwriting is not there. The quality of the recording is not there.
And you guys that are bust in your ass to put out good music, you see this all the time.
You'll go around town, you'll see a band and they're like, how the hell they get that kick man?
Like they're not tight, they're not paying attention, they're drunk on stage, whatever it is.
Like, or you listen to stuff on Spotify, that's just garbage. Spotify doesn't care, right?
For the 200 blogs that I've written on Musso Soup, I literally, I probably went three,
three or four thousand songs on Musso to find 200 that I liked, right? Like there's so much garbage out
there. So, you know, and as a result, there's millions of songs out there and thousands of artists
who believe that they are good enough to do this just because they figured out garage band and
K-Clock and they've, and they've got a couple of SM57s, right? So, and we have no control over that.
There's no barrier to entry to this. That's number one, you can't control that. There's no barrier to
entry. Number two, your aunt Karen is an idiot and you can't control it. The general public with
respect to music, there it is. Yet, you can't control it. And I don't, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying
to be mean. Here's what I mean by that. False praise feeds the beast.
And Karen, who is lovely, is, is tone deaf and your aunt Karen can't tell the difference between
your crappy cousin, Kelly and Taylor Swift. Don't confuse activity with results. And remember that
the general public knows nothing about the difference between mediocrity and mastery when it comes
to music. Just like you and I don't know the difference between mediocrity and greatness when
it comes to those professions that have a high barrier to entry, right? Like there's a lot of four
core, I call them four-cord trust girls here in Nashville that cannot play a barcord to save their
life. They know four chords, they move the capo up and down the neck. They can't write a song by
themselves and they rely too much on trust money, on their looks or whatever. Somebody else is
going to write the song for them. The general public doesn't know the difference between people who
have incredible talent and are bust in their ass and somebody who is really mediocre because the
general public doesn't have the ear for it. And I'm not, please don't misunderstand me, I'm stating a
fact. I'm not trying to bash the people who are tone deaf and who don't know the difference.
I'm giving you a straight fact that there's a lot of mediocre bands out there that aren't blazing
any trails that are just regurgitating old tropes in the public life, laps it up, right? It's a fact
and we can't control it. But there's so many mediocre bands out there and it's so, and artists
and it's so easy to record stuff that there's more garbage than there are gems, right? I firmly
believe, I firmly believe, there's another band out here in the state somewhere or in London or in
Europe or in Australia. Somebody else has recorded another white album, another dark side of the moon.
And we'll never hear it. We'll never hear it just because there's so much noise out there and we
really can't control it. Number three, here's another one that you can't control. Record companies
make burritos. They don't make art. Record companies make burritos. They are not interested in how good
the burrito tastes. They're only interested in how many more they can sell with the fewest and cheapest
ingredients. You as an artist, you are a commodity to them. You're not a treasure and you can't control
it. It is what it is. It's a fact, right? Now, here's part of it that you can control that's also
ugly and that is number four, art is a business and it's the ugly truth. Like as much as we all want to
be touchy-failee, lovy-dovey, or art and it's all about community and moving the ball forward for
all of humanity, you know, that's the ugly side of it is that it's a business, right? And it contradicts
the art, the artist in you, but you do have to be aggressive on the business side and try to find
something that people will relate to and you can do both. You can be good on the business side
and still be an artist. Actually, understanding business is the easier equation than it is to
understanding how to be a great artist and trying to be a great artist. The business side is easy.
There's a lot of aspects that you can't control but you can certainly understand it a hell of a lot
easier than you can understand why in the hell have I not written a good song? Why was this
band off tonight, right? Like there are so many mystical and mythical things that go along with being
an artist, but you have to be good at business because you've got Aunt Karen who's tone deaf,
who thinks cousin Kelly is amazing, but we all know that cousin Kelly sucks and there's a lot of
crappy cousin Kelly's out there. So you've got to be good at business to succeed at this and art
is a business. We wish it wasn't, but it is. There it is, right? And you can't control it. Here's one
that you can control and this one's gonna, this is like the hard truth of being an artist is that
for the most part, most artists out there that are trying to make it, they're not digging deep enough
and they haven't found the message that resonates yet and many respects they're lazy, right?
You know, whenever you have a song that's done, a song you've written, a song you've tracked in the studio,
you really need to ask yourself honestly if it's good enough to release. If any part of it should be
redone, if the time is right to put it out, if it fits in with the message or whatever your
mantra is, or frankly, you know, if you should throw it away and all of those things should happen
well after you have tortured yourself through the writing process to make it as absolutely good as can be.
And you do have control over this part of it. Like, are you, are you being lazy? Or are you digging deep
enough hard enough to be the best artist that you can possibly be? Are you reading books and ideas
that you don't agree with to expand your thought process and maybe get some ideas? Are you practicing
your instrument, learning new scales and chords and extensions and dissecting songs and what not
to be a better player? Are you writing songs in different genres for other artists, artists, solely
for the enjoyment of writing and in the process getting better? As a little sidebar, I thought,
Megan Trainor, I thought I heard something more her dad as she was coming up, her dad's a musician
and her dad used to say, all right, this week you're going to write a Motown song or this week you're
going to write a country song this week, you're going to write a blue song. This is that and the other
thing like this, you know, don't just stay in your lane of what you're comfortable with. Yeah, if
you're going to be an artist study all aspects of the art, right? So that's my fifth point
and that and that one you do have some control over. So let's go back over the top five real quick.
Number one, there's no barrier to entry and you can't control it. Number two,
Aunt Karen's an idiot. We love her, but she's an idiot. She's tone deaf and she's part of the general
public and you can't control it. Number three, record companies make burritos. They don't make art.
You can't control that. Number four, art is a business. You can control the fact that you understand
business, but art as a business, it is what it is, right? And then number five, are you digging deep
enough to be the best artist you can be? All right, here's another one that stands out to me with
respect to the state of the music industry today. YouTube and your church band are absolutely awful.
They are poor collaborators and they are teaching you the wrong way. It kind of relates to the
previous idea, but I see a lot of musicians on YouTube and in church who are great in that setting,
but when the red light is on, when they're in the studio, when they're on, when they're doing a club
gig or even when they're on tour, they suck just because you can riff like Metallica or a McQuay
tiner on YouTube does not mean at all that you can play with a band. A band is going to live in
breathe. Even if that band is playing to a click, to a click, it's going to, the tempo is going to move
a little bit. The band is going to move a little bit. You got to be able to think on your feet.
If you're just sitting there playing with YouTube, shredding, yeah, good luck. I have absolutely no
interest in playing in a band with you. If you can't play in a band, you shouldn't be doing this.
Number two, and I'm not knocking religion, churches are terrible places to learn how to play in a band
for two reasons. Number one, it's a safe space. It's not about whether or not the band is any good.
It's about God in community, right? So you can suck and still be accepted as a great musician,
which relates to that false praise narrative that I was talking about earlier with respect to
Aunt Karen. By the way, has Aunt Karen told you about this amazing singer at her church? Well,
trust me, that singer sucks. But that singer is in a safe space as well as she should be in the church.
That's what it's about, right? But it gives a sense of false praise. And number two, church music
directors, nine times out of ten, they're going to beat down dynamics. I should know. I was in a
Catholic church band for years, right? And you have to shed a lot of those bad habits coming out
because live bands, live music, it has to breathe. And you can control all of that, right?
Don't put people in your band that have only played on YouTube. You want to hire church musicians?
Okay, just know what you're going to get and work with them to become a better artist out in the
live space. I cannot tell you how many young musicians I've run across who can shred, but they have
no sense of timing, no sense of community, no sense of playing in a band. And that's because they've
spent their entire "career" in YouTube or in church. There's no substitute for playing with a band.
None. Just like there's no substitute for playing on a team if you're in basketball or baseball or
football, you know? Just because you're great at throwing the football around the neighborhood does
not mean the Titans are going to, you know, draft you, right? So that's one that you can control.
That's that you can control. That's number six. Number seven. And I don't think you have a lot of
control on this, but timing has a lot to do with it. Whether or not you're going to be successful,
timing has a lot to do with it, all right? The Beatles were in the right place at the right time.
Were they amazing writers? Absolutely, but they busted their ass over in Hamburg for a long time,
right? And right place at the right time. Would another band have popped up out of England at the time?
Yeah, possibly. But they put in the work said that they were in the right place at the right time.
Metallica in many respects is the same thing, right? Right place at the right time. Like they
busted their ass, they created their sound. You know, LA was all about the hair metal band and here comes
four guys down from San Francisco, like band who knew that there was an audience for this. Like we
were just doing this because we loved it ourselves. And we had some Bay Area people that loved this,
but you know, and they had to fight for their fan base, but it was a hell of a lot easier than most
because right place at right time and talent, right? Beatles talented Metallica talent, Taylor Swift
talented, right place at right time, you know, in the 2008, 2009 when the industry when my space
had really propped up and the industry was looking for a young female artist, right place at right time.
Now you can say what you want about her background and what her dad's position has been with respect
to helping out a career. Absolutely, but the song stand for themselves right place at the right time.
If she didn't have the talent, she wouldn't be where she is today, right? Don't mistake what I was saying
about her about her place in the industry. And I don't and but but there's so much of that that you
can't control because there's more artists that are like, you know, let's go back through some of
these things I was just talking about. Like I fully believe there's another dark side of the moon out
there that will never hear because that band was just wrong place, wrong time.
There's amazing singers around Nashville around Seattle around New York,
wrong place, wrong time. You can't really control it in many respects. It it goes to my next point,
which is and this is something that you can't control and that is life is not fair. The world
owes you nothing. You know, I mean terrible accidents killed beautiful people.
Plains crash, kids die of cancer. It's awful. It's not fair. It's life.
You can't control that in many respects. You can't control the time of where you're at in your
career and where you're at geographically. You just can't, you know. And by the way, I will say that
if you're depressed because you're not quote unquote famous, then you should really check yourself as
to whether or not you should be doing this because you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
The last one and you can't really control this one either and this is more of kind of like a smart-ass
comment from me is that the final stinger in all of this is that a lot of people will look down
you for taking this path of trying to be an artist and the world needs artists, the world needs you,
by the way. Keep fighting. But a lot of people are going to look down you and dissuade you from doing it
and then they're going to kiss your ass if you get successful. Just know that that's going to happen,
right? All the people you've been begging to come to your shows that don't show up and then
and then you pop and they're the ones who come out of the woodwork, you know. Yeah, you know where
that's going. I've seen it time and again with my friends who have had some friends who are very
active in the industry and they've been very successful and that's one of the things that just
absolutely pisses them off and I don't blame them, right? So those are nine points about the industry.
And six of those you don't have any control over three of them you do.
Right? Who you hang out with? That relates to the one I was talking about with YouTube and the
church band. You have control over that. How hard you work, you absolutely have control over that.
How much you understand about the business, you absolutely have control over that. The rest of
it, you don't. There's no barrier to entry. The general public doesn't know the difference between
mediocrity and greatness. Record companies make burritos. They don't make art. Life's not there.
Timing sucks. Right? Okay, so but I still love the industry and I still
want to see people succeed. So here's where I was going with all of this.
There are some amazing things happening for artists on the internet right now, specifically in Web
3. And if you don't know what Web 3 is, it's the latest version of the internet. Like think about Web
one is like way back when when it was just very simple, you could go online and you could see
something but you really couldn't have any sort of interaction to it. Web 2, which is what we're
coming to the end of right now, that is, you know, that includes Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, where
there's more interaction. Of course, there's a lot of high-guard and walls. There's a lot of video
content, things of that nature. Web 3 is just the next version of all of it. You want to consider it
to include AI, chat, GPT, IoT, all of those things. Yes, absolutely. Another huge factor of this,
frankly, is what is going on with cryptocurrencies. And there is a monetary model
called value for value and you should look up value for value.info so that you can understand what I'm
talking about here. It is a monetization model. It's a content format and in many respects,
it's a way of life and I'm reading verbatim off of this website. It is about freedom and openness
and connection and free speech, sound money and censorship resistant. The largest success to date
of applied V4V is podcasting 2.0 and what that is is the content creator can receive money
directly from the listener. You've already seen this on the reviews that I've posted on
fountain with our podcasts. You've seen other people start to do it as well. You've seen it on the
top 10 show. Hey, here's this song from Amber Swini or Joe Martin and I really like it. I'm going
to send them some money right away. And let's be honest, it's Bitcoin. We can have a whole other
podcast about Bitcoin. We'll get to that later. But this whole thought process of value for value and
the consumer sending money directly to the artist is going to up in the industry. There's always
going to be a couple little transaction fees, right? Like you might have a host take 1% of this or
2% of that. But at the end of the day, the artist is getting like 90 to 95% of the income.
And if the song is awful, do you think that that artist is going to get
sats is going to get money? And by the way, sats are like pennies of Bitcoin, right? Just think
of it that way. That's not a great explanation of it. But if you're new to cryptocurrencies,
just think of Satoshi's or sats as the pennies of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is a dollar, sats are pennies.
And I'll just leave it at that. But the value for value model allows for the listener
to pay the creator directly. Now, if you're a songwriter and you get 90 cents on the dollar,
that's a hell of a lot better than the typical 12% that you would get if you signed a
major label deal. And for those of you who have your music on Spotify, you know that you would not
getting 12% of a dollar every time a dollar is generated on Spotify, which hasn't turned to profit,
by the way. So let that sink in with respect to how this will change artists' life.
And how this could change and end artistic poverty.
And let that sink in with respect to what is it going to do to the middleman in the industry?
Oh my goodness gracious. It is going to change everything. The other thing you should think of if you're
a songwriter or an artist, a visual artist too is that there is a mantra, a way of life, a thought
process called 1000 True Fans. And you should look that up online as well if you go to KK.org
or if you just Google 1000 True Fans, you're going to come across this site that looks like it was
designed in Web 1, right? It's kind of an older looking site, but the idea is simple. If you had a
1000 True Fans and every year those 1000 people gave you $100 for your art, that's $100,000 income.
That's a great income. And for those of you who are out there struggling, I'm sure you would love
to have that option compared to what you're dealing with right now with respect to playing gigs
down on Broadway or playing gigs up in New York or Seattle and how hard you're fighting. So take
the 1000 True Fans thought process, read about it, take the value for value, thought process,
and think about it. And understand how the tide is changing for unsigned artists and understand
why I'm so excited about all of this. Technically speaking with respect to value for value,
what's going on is there's a lot of technology that that came about this summer, the summer of 2023,
with specifically with respect to lightning enabled wallets in the Bitcoin world that allow
micro payments to happen instantaneously. Somebody likes your song, hey man, here's 50 bucks or here's
a hundred bucks or here's one dollar, whatever, but you're going to get that money right away.
You're not going to have to wait three months for distro kid or Spotify or your agent or whomever
to cut you a check. You get it right away. This is really exciting stuff that's going on.
And it's part of the reason why we have jumped in so hard into the podcasting thing because
I really didn't feel like I was helping artists out with just my blogs as much as I could,
but now I really can. And now I'm passionate about trying to get as many artists as I can
over into this world, getting their music hosted on Web3 sites that are podcast 2.0 enabled
that allow this technology to happen. You know, the record industry, the entertainment industry is a
$43 billion dollar juggernaut, right? And oh, by the way, last time I looked at Bitcoin,
the total valuation was like 456 trillion. There's 44 million paying subscribers
to Spotify in this country right now, which incidentally is roughly the same amount of people in
America that are holding Bitcoin 44 million. Does that cause a couple of light bulbs to go off?
What about somebody in Europe who's listening to your song? I'm like, oh, that's dope, man.
Yeah, I doss a squit. And I'm going to send him some money right away. Or as an artist, you're
typically a more empathetic person. You're typically a more philanthropic person.
Getting involved in value for value in and this Bitcoin space will enable you to support other
artists around the world, to support causes around the world, to support the people in the world who
are unbanked, meaning they don't live in a country that has the resources where they can go out
and get a bank account. And they're not tied to a specific currency because the currency in their
country is just so awful. It's another reason to really study up on this stuff.
Now, think about this as well. I'm going to list some companies for you and tell me what happened.
Sears, Blockbuster, Kodak, what happened? They went under, right? That's not fair. People don't
plan for the future. They get whacked. Do you think this is going to happen to Spotify? It could.
Spotify has not turned a profit. What is going to happen to them when more and more people get
involved in value for value and get involved in these lightning-enabled wallets and get involved in
Bitcoin and start paying artists what they are worth. These DSPs and these labels, and when I say DSP,
you know what I'm talking about? iTunes, just are good. Spotify, Deezer, right? Those companies are
going to be in a world for hurt once this takes over. And it's going to take over because the only
thing that is constant in life is change. So this is why we're so excited. Those nine things that I
mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, you know, six, you can't change three, you got some hand in,
but this is massive and it's going to change the industry. We are already seeing this happen.
It is happening this summer. We've had artists on Wavelake, crossover, a million Satoshis.
This summer with one song, we have artists that are making close to a thousand dollars a month
in Bitcoin while they're getting robbed on iTunes and Spotify.
Great stuff, man. There's a lot to complain about in this world, but there's always something great
to look forward to as well. And this is one of those things that you should be looking forward to.
This is why we're so excited. So I really hope you guys take the time to
lean up on value for value and to read up on a thousand two things. I took, by frankly,
read up a little bit on Bitcoin. It's not that hard to understand what's going on and it's
certainly not that hard to get a wallet and jump into this. And I really hope you put your music
up on a Web3 enabled site that supports lightning enabled payments. And if you like this podcast,
I hope that you support it with a lightning enabled payment.
You can follow us on fountain. You can follow us on phantompowermusic.com where all our blogs are,
where our socials as well. And we hope you'll check it out. Thank you guys so much for listening.
That is my first rant. There is going to be more. And yeah, that's it. See you later, smile for the
mug shot.
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