Radio Detox Episode 3: Abel James

Radio Detox: Abel James on Music, Health and Digital Freedom

Abel James, New York Times bestselling author of "The Wild Diet" and accomplished blues musician, recently sat down with Heather Larson on Radio Detox to discuss his journey from corporate burnout to musical freedom in the value-for-value ecosystem.

After following conventional medical advice led to declining health in his twenties, James rejected the standard American diet and mainstream health recommendations. This experience of questioning established systems would later draw him to Bitcoin and value-for-value music platforms.

"The Fiat system is completely broken," James explains. "That's not obvious to most people, but it's becoming more obvious as time goes on." This realization extends beyond finance into music, where traditional streaming platforms often leave artists with mere pennies while algorithms and walled gardens control what listeners discover.

James found a new path forward through platforms like Wavlake and Fountain FM, where artists can connect directly with fans through Bitcoin micropayments, sometimes called "zaps" and "boosts" interchangeably. After uploading his soulful blues tracks including "Swamp Thing" and "Thank God for the Blues," James was amazed to see real engagement from genuine music lovers.

"In terms of the satoshis I've gotten from Wavlake so far and Fountain, it's a few CDs worth," James notes. "What's more fun is all the boosts and zaps I've been sending out because it's just so much fun... introducing this whole new way of exchanging value with other artists."

The impact goes beyond money. On legacy social media platforms, James has 28,000 X (Twitter) followers but finds minimal authentic engagement. In contrast, his posts about music to just 60 followers on Nostr, a decentralized platform, generate immediate meaningful interaction through comments, shares and Bitcoin micropayments called "zaps."

This emerging ecosystem was on full display at recent music events in Nashville, where James connected with other value-for-value artists. "There's something super magical about meeting people," he says. "Then you can carry on that relationship and hopefully meet up again, be on Nostr together and get each other's backs."

For James, who spent years playing up to 150 shows annually in Austin while building his health podcast, The Abel James Show, this new model offers hope. Rather than grinding out wedding gigs or chasing streaming pennies, artists can build direct relationships with fans who value their work.

"It feels super early and I'm really excited to see where this goes in the next few months and years ahead," James says. "With enough people coming in, we could do it the right way again."

Through his music and advocacy, James exemplifies how creators can thrive outside traditional systems, whether in health, finance or art. His story suggests the future of music may not be found in Silicon Valley algorithms, but in genuine human connections enabled by Bitcoin and the decentralized nature of Nostr.

For more "value-for-value" (V4V) music discovery, subscribe to Radio Detox on Fountain.

Radio Detox Episode 3 Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01.708)
The guest on episode three of Radio Detox will be a value for value artist who's also a New York Times bestselling author and all around cool guy. He was at the vinyl lounge with all the cool kids who weren't hanging out at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville. And you know what? The value for value Nashville August residency at vinyl lounge continues all month long.

This Monday, August 19th, what can we do? Can we do 819,000 sats for the artists playing at the Vinyl Lounge or the Blue House Band? Can we do it? Because on Monday, August 5th, they got 444,000 sats. On Monday, August 12th, they got 724,000 sats. Of course, during bands at Bitcoin, the sats were in the millions, right? So who's tuning in? 7.30 Central Time on Monday, 8.19. You're going to hear lots of

great artists with the Blue House Band. How do you get to hear this if you're not in Nashville? At toonstar.io. So toonstartunestr.io. Start an account. You're to start a Nostra account and see what this is all about. And if you're able and ready, start zapping. And now I want to start off this podcast with a song I fell in love with this week on Wave Lake.

The song is called Not On The Radio. It's by Jeff Smith. I think this could be our value for value fight song.

you

Speaker 2 (01:40.77)
Somebody told me you're in San Francisco. said you're working in a box, yeah, a cubicle. Somebody told me that you're not on top of the world.

You're probably walking down the street with your earbuds jammed so deep in your ear. There you go in depth. You probably found this MP3 for free.

can play this, not on the radio I made this, just so I can let it go Does anyone around here still have a radio? Anyone here at all? Anyone here at all?

Speaker 2 (02:43.246)
You should go and see a mountain cooper and see no It's way cooler out there, yeah I think so But maybe you just like it in your cozy little world

can play this, not on the radio I made this, just so I can let it go Does anyone around here still have a radio? Anyone here at all? Anyone here at all?

I'm just bitter won't you save me from my hell Maybe I just like it if you turn it off now Turn it off now Come on

Speaker 2 (03:43.534)
That's right.

Speaker 2 (03:54.51)
Get about a sound wheel in West Virginia We can make it on our own and we're doing just fine I can't afford your record but it's out of sight

You can play this, not on the radio I made this, not for the radio Hey now, switch off your radio Off your radio You can play this, but not on the radio I made this, just so I can let it go Does anyone round

still have a radio anyone here at all anyone here at all anyone here at all

Speaker 1 (04:56.888)
Guess what? Nobody has a fucking radio anymore. Welcome to the third episode of Radio Detox, and we are so glad. This is a value for value podcast to detox you from the mainstream and get you on the road to musical and monetary recovery. Hi, I'm your host, Heather Larson. I spent 21 years in radio with a front row seat to a lot of shows and radio and records dysfunction in the industry. The time has come to try something completely different.

I got into Bitcoin in 2020 when I was producing TV news to say it's time to detox from traditional media, business models, and all that Fiat has done to us. What be an understatement? In this value for value podcast, I don't have to do a bunch of bullshit to satisfy an FCC requirement. There are no ads, no screaming EAS tests, just music, bringing the artist to you the way it always should have been.

We're bringing the orange and purple revolution to you. Interviews on this podcast will center on how your detox from the mainstreams go, what's value for value done for you lately, and what's your Bitcoin story. Radio Detox covers the culture that is springing up and what matters in the orange and purple world. And I'm going to dedicate this episode number three to someone who meant a lot to me, my dear old friend and coworker.

at 98.5 K-Fox in San Jose, California, who has just passed away. The late great, always amazing, great on the radio, great on stage. And he also wrote some pretty good rock and roll horror novels too. Greg Kin will always remember you and love you forever. Now let's get into Radio Detox, episode three. We talk with Abel James and he's a blues artist in the value merge. His music is on wave leg fountain.

Ellen Beats, and he's a New York Times bestselling author of The Wild Diet and an all-around interesting dude. And I think he's the perfect guy to help us detox off of the food pyramid, fiat music, and more. We have a lot to talk about today. So I don't, I don't even know where to begin. My brain's like ready to explode because I know that you're in the brain science too. So we're going to talk about a lot of things today, but I've long.

Speaker 1 (07:09.652)
not accepted the standard American diet, aka the STAD, for my own reasons, which we're gonna do, but I think you may understand this, but I wanna hear your story, because it seems to be like one of the, you have so much to your background, but the food aspect is a big part of it.

Yeah, the food for sure. Let's see. I'll start when I was in college, working hard, trying to get smart. And most of us don't get much education around food. It's just like follow these government recommendations that you hear about in health class. And then you see posters and so you do the best you can to avoid the most obviously, terrible foods. The ones that are just pure fast food or drink it soda all the time. Most of us know that's probably not.

a good idea. So I had always been doing that, but I was hitting the orange juice. was going after the whole grains based upon mostly after I graduated from college, I had these hefty college loans. And so I got this big old fancy job to try to pay them off. And that was the first time I ever had like real health insurance. And so like I went to my doctor every couple of weeks and

Thanks

used it as much as possible because it was exciting. I could pee in a cup and get this print out of all my biomarkers and just ask him, Hey doc, like how do I be as healthy as possible? So I was excited about it. The problem was after following his advice for about 18 months, I basically developed all of the problems that we were trying to prevent with a family history heart disease or whatever you want to avoid dietary cholesterol, dietary fat, yada, yada, yada. And so my triglycerides went up.

Speaker 2 (08:40.918)
My thyroid basically stopped working after 18 months. had gained about eight, about 30 pounds. I was basically like a middle-aged man, hopelessly out of shape, even though I was like in my early twenties. And it was by following my doctor's advice that all of that happened. And all of sudden I'm on like four different prescription medications. So.

Yeah, they want to keep us sick. is my absolute belief.

Yeah. And that was the conclusion that I came to back then because looking around at my friends who were still like goofing around, we're in our early twenties, going to happy hours and they're slamming cheeseburgers and having all this fun. I'm like trying everything I can to stay healthy and dial it in. And I'm getting fat and sick and pale and like moon shaped face and like just feeling terrible. And it wasn't until I just took a big step back when I came home one night, long story short, lost everything in an apartment fire, all my instruments.

The that I was working on, just my life was in absolute shambles, like rock bottom. And I looked in the face and I looked myself in the mirror and at my big fat face at the time. I'm just like, man, this is not working. We got to try something different. It got burned down. Yeah. I don't know if it was some cosmic thing that I probably needed. It certainly changed the trajectory of my whole life and which direction I was going in for sure. But once I stopped turning that particular doctor into my guru.

I it down, really.

Speaker 2 (10:02.958)
And put my brain back on, turned that back on. It did a little bit of research around. I've always been a runner and really interested in that. And so I grew up being an athlete and, um, working out was never my problem. Even when I was like getting fatter and sicker, I was still running a lot. I was just fueling completely improperly. was eating the wrong foods and I was avoiding the right foods. So specifically I stopped being afraid of meat anymore. I had been vegan and vegetarian for a time. Didn't work well for me. And so I re-embraced.

red meat, like started hitting the protein. I wasn't afraid of intermittent fasting anymore and started doing like one or two meals a day and moving them around in different directions. And all of a sudden it's like all of that extra fat went away. Like my biomarkers got dialed in within a few months and I had lost more than like 20 pounds in just over a month and started hitting all of these like personal bests in my running races. And I'm just like,

This way of doing things does not work. They are trying to keep us sick. And I was so pissed off about it that I started up a blog and then later a podcast with a goofy tongue in cheek titles, fat burning man. And all of a sudden I just got a pretty quick critical mass and I've been doing it as pretty much my main gig for 13 years ever since. So it's been an unexpected wacky adventure.

Yeah, so radio detox is all about detoxing off of the things that don't work. So I love that. And I wanted to pick your brain for just a second, because I know that on your podcast, I think, you've talked to Dr. Terry Wall. He was one of my personal heroes in neuroscience. Terry's amazing. I think I had her first book, and I gave it away to a friend who didn't know what was wrong with them. Like she had maybe MS or something. I don't think she ever figured it out. It was one of those things where...

yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:53.038)
You go down a rabbit hole in the medical system because you've got health insurance and you use it and you think you're going to get better. then they just give you drums and then they tell you, you just, you need to lose weight. And it's okay. How do I do that? And now their way of doing it is we're going to give you, are those things called the GP or the OZembeck.

Deceptor Agnes, yeah.

Yeah. So I have friends who are taking those now and it's actually shocking to me. The people who are taking it are not the people who I would suspect to take it. Because a few years ago when those things were, they were already new and they were in demand, a friend was taking it through the VA and it was hardcore. And I was like, are you sure you're going to stick with this? She was throwing up and this was a person who is a disabled veteran.

who had no other way to lose weight, who was extremely overweight and just would not be able to exercise and physically get a couple hundred pounds off. So she was determined and stuck with it and it has worked, but she had to get off of like medications that she needed, like her ADHD med. And that's an extreme case and I think that's probably the person those things are for. don't personally believe in them. I've read a little bit about them giving people kidney disease in the long-term, but there's no, not really long-term research. Of course not.

I'm telling them to everybody. So I have friends who are pretty normal size, like overweight and probably have a high BMI in the thirties. I think that's a lot of us. And my backstory, I'm still losing weight from my COVID bout where I was just pumped with steroids. I've had these friends who just, they're being given these GLP ones and they're, it's like, you try to change your diet first? Did you try to go to the gym first and maybe re-architect your lifestyle?

Speaker 1 (13:34.592)
around being able to maybe go to the gym. get it. Everybody's busy. People have jobs, spouses, career things. Maybe you had a business, maybe you have a baby. Okay, cool. But you still have to take care of yourself. And it's like the magic shot now. So I don't know. Have you studied these drugs now?

Yeah, absolutely. And I've had a few people on my podcast who have really studied these drugs. That's what I try to do. I'm more of a generalist, but I try to go down whatever rabbit hole the specialist author or physician I interview is interested in. from all that I've gathered and all the folks that I've talked to and the books and that sort of thing, it's just basically par for the course. in terms of modern medicine and that the whole way that is set up, the burden of proof to say that this is work.

that this works or this is safe is not really as vetted as most people would probably imagine. And so if there's any sort of substance that pops up that could help people look better, lose weight or achieve X result, they're going to jump on it and they're going to spit it out and sell as much of it as possible. And the government is probably going to through backdoor contracts, stockpile hundreds of millions of dollars of all of these drugs before they know.

that they're safe. And in fact, they might already know that they're not safe, but they'll do that just because the system is a little bit goofy at this point. So yeah, from everything that I understand, there's absolutely a use case of people are struggling with type two diabetes, for example, in a medical context, these peptides and these various forms of medicine and air quotes achieve ends. But the problem is a lot of times like the doctors and the scientists who use them or develop them.

don't actually know how it works. They know that sometimes like people will lose weight, but they don't know from where or exactly how. And if that's true, then what are the other follow on effects that happen? If you look back at the long history of lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry, they have a ridiculous track record for putting out things that are completely unsafe as the solution and marketing it heavily for a few years before eventually they're found out and they get sued. But the amount that they get sued is so much

Speaker 2 (15:43.51)
less than the money that they've made hurting people in the process, that you've got to be really careful. And so if you're doing it for vanity reasons or for reasons that are outside of like type two diabetes or in a medical context, then I think you're signing yourself up for who knows, could be totally cool. I'm going to guess that it's not, I'm going to say as far away as I possibly can from any of that. Cause the truth is it's like you were saying, if you, if you eat and the way that our grandparents might've eaten real food, that's not ridiculously

processed and obviously terrible for you. If you do that and you get out and move, even if it's just walking from time to time. No, you might not look like Jennifer Aniston in her prime or whatever, but neither does Jennifer Aniston to be fair. It's always a moving target. We all do the best that we can and using this newfangled stuff can get you in loads of trouble down the line. So you got to be really careful.

Yeah, I think most people don't understand anatomy. They don't understand how their body works. They couldn't point to their liver. They don't know how everything works together. don't have hormones work together to make you hungry. People just don't know. And that's, I wish we actually just taught basic anatomy. People are like, where is my cervical spine? I'm like, what? You don't know this. So I think we could solve a lot of problems if people understood a little bit more.

about anatomy, but I really talk about food all day. Let's get into one of the songs since we are here to talk about the music and about getting out of the fiat music. The first song I want to play is Swamp Thing is a song of yours. Can you tell me about this?

Yeah, Swamp Thing was an incredible project that came together actually through my podcast in a strange way. So I had been doing my podcast for a few years and I got this message over LinkedIn, I think, from a man named Denny Hemmingson. And he's just like, man, like I play with this band. I'm a full-time recording and touring musician. And the whole band is like listening to your show and getting into it. And we've lost all this weight and decided to go sober and really dial things in. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. Then it's like,

Speaker 2 (17:40.878)
What band does he play with? wonder. It's like the Tim McGraw band. He's the leader of the Tim McGraw band. Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous. But anyway, you're a med- Yeah. So eventually that kind of turned into being mentioned in the book, but Denny has become a very good friend. In fact, I brought him to the value for value concert in Nashville when we were hanging out and he got to meet Ainsley and a few other people in the crew. But anyway, so Denny and I decided to jam and put a project together and we co-wrote that song with mutual friend.

This is in your book. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:10.562)
Dino, who also plays with the Tim McGraw band. And for the whole project, I basically had about a dozen songs that had a swampy New Orleans type feel. And we wanted to start off the record with something that was a song that was way longer than you'll, which you'll appreciate than most other songs are designed to be, especially in this day and age and really just lays everything out there and tries to create this New Orleans Southern feel.

And one of the ways that we achieve that is not just the guitar playing and the way that it's composed with the goofy lyrics that explore those subjects, but also I got to dust off my old saxophone and play a lot of honking horns. And so that's one of my favorite parts of this song. And the whole record was just screaming on the tenor sax for awhile. So I hope people enjoy.

Speaker 2 (19:06.551)
you

Speaker 2 (19:43.758)
Buzzy

Speaker 2 (19:57.038)
Green eyes and

Speaker 2 (20:03.118)
The break can't start the whale

In the shadows of the street lamp

Singing for some time

And everybody say, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Speaker 2 (20:33.868)
Can everybody say

Speaker 2 (20:54.094)
Steamy knowledge there.

Speaker 2 (21:01.41)
into the gold man

Speaker 2 (21:07.384)
He don't even care.

Speaker 2 (21:25.602)
Dodging, Beats and Bourbon

Speaker 2 (21:31.202)
You know that small things dig the rain

Speaker 2 (21:38.05)
Yeah, everybody say

Speaker 2 (22:11.576)
Hair is black as coal

She said I'd live forever If I let her see my soul

She leaned in and whispered Absinthe on a bread

Well, I'm living proof you gotta live your truth and let the hoodoo do the rest. say, ooh, ooh.

Speaker 2 (23:44.014)
you

Speaker 1 (24:20.202)
You've been in music a very long time. Where and how did this come into your life? How did you get started?

Yeah, it started young. I was always really shy. I still consider myself relatively shy. And it was the, when I started playing the clarinet for the first time, playing for family and playing for friends, like I could see their faces light up because I was doing something and that had never really happened before. And so like for a little kid to experience that and like you realize that people are smiling or laughing or dancing around, maybe there's something here. And so I started dressing up like,

a little elf and playing Christmas songs during the holidays at like out on the street or at local malls. Like I'd put my little elf hat on and elf shoes and like people loved that and I loved it too. And then that turned into, as I grew a little older, getting into playing guitar and singing and gigging really heavily from like basically 10 years old to into my twenties. And so all throughout school and throughout college, that was my main job and I was doing.

a heck of a lot of gigs, some with bands, some solo, acoustic and singing and exploring all sorts of different styles. My brother is a great drummer. And so we had a lot of different projects together and that kind of led to both of us falling in love with Texas style rock as well as New Orleans music and kind of this syncopated, strange, lilting beat.

that where we're from and up in the Northeast, like that's not really the normal music that most people listen to. And I'm not sure why we fell in love with it, but we did. And now like I actually moved down here. And one of the reasons is, is because of the music. have a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan in the middle of our park on the hiking bike trail. This is the place for me. I love the music culture of all this. And so it continues, but it's always changing because the business of music is something that

Speaker 2 (26:09.902)
to me in some ways is separate from the art of creating music and participating in it in a communal human atmosphere. And oftentimes the business of music is completely at odds with that. So you have to balance that very.

Music wasn't your main breadwinner. It's obviously your probably first love. It was not a way to support yourself outside of college with student loans and such.

Yeah, basically it was before I had the student loans. So it's like being young, single, not needing that much money, playing gigs for 75 bucks, 150 bucks here and there and playing a lot of them as well as selling my CDs was a fair amount of money that out earned like potential summer jobs that I would have worked back then, for example. As well as this was the, to date myself a bit here, this was the late nineties, right? When I was

a teenager and mp3.com existed back then. don't know if that rings any bells for you.

yeah, I remember. think we're close in age and that's late 90s is what I was getting into working in radio broadcasting in the San Francisco area.

Speaker 2 (27:14.978)
The early dot com days were incredible for music and the proof of concept existed back then where you could upload a song and you could get paid. I think it was even a few cents a stream back then on mp3.com and sell your music. You could sell your CDs that way. And so with a few thousand plays and like enough attention, you could actually start generating some legit income. And I was getting like

fan mail from Australia and all these other places, even though I was like 14, 15 years old, I'm like, this is the most amazing thing ever. Then mp3.com was bought out by CNET, I believe. They basically just shut it down, made sure that the musicians never got paid again for their actual music. So that made things difficult, but it was mostly just, you can make money playing music, but as soon as you like also have to pay rent and you also might need a car,

You're done.

Speaker 2 (28:05.806)
or you have like responsibilities, family responsibilities, whatever it is, then all of a sudden, and I've heard Jim Costello talk about this as well. It's like, you can use all of your skills that you've developed and all the talents and funnel them straight into music and work so hard for less than a hundred dollars a day on the gigs that you're actually playing. you like just sprinkle that out over time and average it out, it's a little bit of money compared to 300 or $500 a day for.

applying those skills in a different direction. so for me, it was like, soon as I had to pay off my loans, the mute trying to pay off my loans by playing gigs was just math that wouldn't work unless you, you had some giant record contract plopped on your desk, which is a whole different can of worms, which I'm happy to get in.

I've seen that too. That guy when I worked in Bay Area Rock Radio, there was this great band that called, they don't sound the same anymore, but they were called Systematic. And being in the Bay Area, of course Metallica, a part of the Bay Area, and Lars Ulrich is like, oh yeah, we're going to sign this band. They're amazing. We'd have them in the station and we'd have play shows in the studio, outside the station and stuff. then Lars signs them to the record label. And I'm like, oh my God, how much money did you guys get from Lars? And they're like, $48,000. I'm like, and it was in advance.

Okay, there's five of you to split the 48 grand and you actually have to use it to to gag and travel around like this is a goat screw. Like, yeah, how much money did Lars Holbrook add? That's what he paid you guys. What? And they're still playing, but the music's, I don't know. It's a lot more electronic than new metal, like 90s new metal. It's just like the look. And this is back when record labels had money. Sure. And everything changed. Like you can't sell CDs now. gotta.

It was funny with the bands at Bitcoin, everybody's like, how do we find you? How do we find your music? it's I'm at the value verse or follow me on Instagram. And then Monday night, I don't know if you've had the shows Monday night on Toonster as we're recording it. This it's Wednesday, August 14th. And so all the artists were saying, follow us on Instagram or I'm this name on all the social platforms and it's let's get you on Nostr. I'm at the Pina gallery and I get people on Nostr. Like I got Chris Nichols on Nostr and I'm trying to get everybody to follow him. Cause I'm trying to validate that, Hey, our musicians.

Speaker 1 (30:19.436)
in the value verse, they're on Nostr, please follow and interact. Because how much longer are we all gonna be on Nostr like this? Where we can interact with each other. And I think I found you because you boosted radio detox on Fallon. So this is a great little gold rush happening now of people getting into the value verse.

And we actually can just go up to each other and be like, hey, I like your music. Want to be on my podcast? Hey, you want to be on Toonster? Want to do this thing? And we're just all, it feels cool. Like we're all collaborating and there's no walled garden keeping us all apart. Like we can just do what we do. So how did you get into the valueverse? Cause I know you've got an entrepreneurial streak and is that kind of what led you to, I don't know, Wavelake, the valueverse, et cetera?

Definitely. So I'm a laggard. came late, but I got an early heads up to it. And this was like a few years ago when, cause I've been podcasting for a long time. And so that has started to collide with an overlap with kind of the music universe on, Noster and alternative ways of publishing it, like wave Lake and fountain FM and all the rest of this. remember like someone had gotten in touch with me and he's just, man, you should put your music out there in the value verse or.

I don't think he even used that term because this was a few years ago, but he was talking about, I think it was Abel and the Wolf and a few other, which I'm just like, what, like another Abel? There aren't too many of us out there. But I said, I saw it as just like a breadcrumb to follow a little bit. But I went to a bunch of these like janky websites and it wasn't even clear like where the button was to play the music back then. I'm just like, I don't, this doesn't feel ready. But then earlier this year, so Austin has a big Bitcoin community. The Bitcoin commons is downtown.

We've got a whole bunch of different meetups. I've been into Bitcoin since like early 2017 and just dabbled and tried to get into it to learn more about that. Alternatives to the fiat system are fascinating to me because the fiat system is completely broken. That's not obvious to most people, but it's becoming more obvious as time goes on. And so like the foaming at the mouth fervor that a lot of the people have in the Bitcoin community is contagious. so hanging out with a bunch of them at the Bitcoin having party and previous to that, a couple other

Speaker 2 (32:30.412)
meetups here in Austin. A few people had mentioned the music and the podcasting aspects of this and the use case for Wave Lake, Fountain FM, and a few other things. One of my friends, John Gordon, here in town, we were getting coffee and he mentioned Joe Martin and Ainsley and a few other people to look into and see what platforms they're using and how they're experimenting in this new world. And once I did that, I happened upon a few weeks later, your podcast with Ainsley.

which was just like so incredibly informative. Some of the things that she said, the lingo that you both were like sending back and forth and all these things. like that learning curve. There's a lot when you're new to this, you're just like, what is a nostrich? exactly. How does this make any sense?

So.

Speaker 1 (33:16.622)
Why do they call it Dalmatian? Yeah, like all the weird lingo there. know that's the one thing I worry about. Am I too in it to where somebody comes along and listens to the podcast and goes, what the f*** is she talking about? That's the one thing I worry about. But you were a Bitcoiner first and they brought you in. You hear my podcast and then, you were on, when did I first hear SmallThing? I'm trying to remember now.

I uploaded Swamp thing on a whim, like not expecting anything and not even promoting it like at all to my newsletter or online back in, I think it was like late June. So pretty recently. And I just uploaded it just to see what would happen. And normally if I'm like going to do something like that with a podcast or a book that I have coming out, it's like, I'm getting all the ducks in a row and really doing a big promotion to try to make a splash and try to get it out there. And I just didn't really do it with this because I figured

I would just upload it and it would be there and people could listen to it if they wanted to. And then some of my friends sent me screenshots of the top 40 a couple of days later. And it's like Swamp Thing was up at number two or like number five. And I was like, wait, what? They have a top 40? I had no idea. And then learning more about the whole ecosystem of how it could be discovered by people who have their own podcasts, their own music shows, and that could be registered as a play and help it move up the list. And then more people could find it. I'm like, what? They're actually in...

incentives that work for the artists and the people discovering music. This is amazing. And so ever since I was just like, it seemed a little bit too good to be true at first. And I was like hesitant to think that there was much there. And then all of a sudden, once it started taking off and real, like I could tell that real people were listening to real music that was made by actual humans and that unique and novel these days, because it's mostly just like a race to the bottom with all this.

is

Speaker 2 (35:07.732)
AI shlop that's out there and all these platforms that are taking advantage of the real artists and the whole thing with Spotify making fake artists so that they don't even have to pay the real ones and putting them on playlists instead of the real. It's like so gross. It's so I was, yeah. When I found this whole strange little world of Nostre of the value verse and especially the musicians and some of the builders coders and people producing the shows.

It's so gross.

Speaker 2 (35:37.078)
in this whole world. I, to echo your earlier point, I'm like, these are real humans who are collaborating and want to build something together. then it's the sharks haven't found it yet. Right. It's, it's early and you can tell.

And if they do, it's not gonna work. Agreed. Which is, the ethos and pathos are already laid down. Like we have our own little community and our own little roles. So let's get into another shalom. This is one of your picks. So Winds of Change by Urbivore. Urbivore has been hot lately, so tell me why you love this song. Yeah.

It's been so much fun to have a way to also find new music for me because like on a personal level, Spotify hasn't done it for a long time. Apple music is okay. You're outside of school. You're not with your college buddies anymore. it's like, after that happens, you don't, you're not like tuned in the same way that you used to be to, getting, to hear new bands. And herbivore was one that I saw just like pop up on the top 40 and also like

The way that I found some of these tunes was I would listen to the whole show. If I saw on wave Lake that like one of my songs was posted, I'm like, where is this show? Who's posting this on? And once I tracked it down, I would listen to their whole show. Here's some of the other music and bands on there. And I was curious, do they, are they going to suck? Is this whole thing just smoking? And no, in fact, they don't suck. They're fricking awesome. Herbivore was one of those bands. And I love to see, especially as it's been harder and harder for bands to monetize.

That there are bands getting after it, playing great music and doing it their way. And so this was one of the tracks that really stuck out to me where it's a jam that you can sit back and just listen to. And you know that it's not AI schlopp. It's real people making music for you. And that's cool.

Speaker 2 (38:21.71)
She says, she says I'm looking for no trouble and that's all I get from you.

Speaker 2 (38:42.23)
you

Speaker 2 (38:46.38)
you

I said no, no,

Speaker 2 (39:00.366)
you

Speaker 2 (39:26.798)
Please listen to these words You've got this hold on me so tight that it hurts And I crave, I crave for the moment that I wake up to the time I go to sleep And still I can't escape because she's even in my dreams And I never thought I'd feel this much of a shame

Speaker 2 (40:22.286)
you

Speaker 2 (41:26.122)
Speaker 1 (42:04.718)
you

Speaker 1 (42:18.19)
Let's play another one of your tracks now. This is one I really live while I'm alive. What's the story behind Live While I'm Alive?

That's the story of quitting my corporate job after I finally get my loans paid off, being happily broke basically for the first time in my life and taking this crappy old Mercedes diesel on a road trip full of all the stuff that I owned, which was almost nothing. Just drove it around the country, trying to look for the next place to live. And that's eventually how I visited New Orleans for the first time and drove through Austin and decided to upend my whole life and move there for good. And so this story is the Cliff Notes version of how all that happened.

Speaker 2 (43:24.814)
show her everything I got, I ain't worth a dime that said no you won't, no you won't, boy you must have lost your mind.

Speaker 2 (43:41.292)
Said I just found a ride for me, an 85 Mercedes Benz. Couple screws loose, need some TLC, but she found herself a friend. They said no you don't. No you don't. Son, you must have lost your mind. You must have lost your mind. Said I'm going to live while I'm alive.

Speaker 2 (44:09.314)
change my mind.

Speaker 2 (44:14.952)
I said bye bye baby

Speaker 2 (44:23.17)
Yeah

Speaker 2 (44:28.482)
Good.

Yes, I do

Speaker 2 (44:53.582)
You must have lost your mind. You must have lost your mind. I said I'm gonna live while I'm alive. Ain't nobody ever gonna change my mind.

Speaker 2 (45:11.318)
Now I'm gonna drive across the country, have myself a time Gonna grab my girl and my guitar, draw that old band into the night They said no you won't, no

Because you lost your mind

I said I'm gonna live while I'm alive Ain't nobody ever gonna change my mind No they won't So I said bye bye baby

Speaker 2 (46:27.598)
I said, ain't nobody ever

Speaker 2 (46:36.222)
change my mind

Speaker 2 (47:45.287)
ever gonna change my mind?

gonna change my mind

change my mind

Speaker 1 (48:09.006)
much money, if you're comfortable sharing, have you made in the value verse from just a couple months of having your music out on Wafley?

heck of a lot more than Spotify and Apple ever paid me. Maybe not ever paid me, but certainly in the past few years. And so it's not an extreme amount of money, but the proof of concepts to me is absolutely there. Especially once CDs went away, it's like you could sell a CD and make 10, 20 bucks a pop. And now since it's so fragmented and there's no real way to grow that's obvious. Once your music has been on Apple or it's been on Spotify for awhile,

And it's after the initial release date. There's not much hope of you getting like thousands of dollars from any of those platforms. Cause people aren't purchasing it. They're just streaming it. And it's just infinitesimally small in terms of the amount of satoshis that I've gotten from wave Lake so far and fountain and that sort of thing. It's a few CDs worth. I haven't actually added it up, but what's more fun to me is that like all of the, the boosts and the zaps that I've been sending out, which has been like,

fair amount of them since I've come in because it's just so much fun. Like I haven't put any of my own money into the accounts that are zapping and boosting all these other artists and even like zapping or sending whatever it was like 10,000 Satoshi's to Denny after the first week because like we did this project together. That was his very first time ever experiencing Bitcoin. I'm like, you're a crypto bro now, dude. You've got to get into it. So introducing him to this whole.

of course

Speaker 2 (49:45.134)
We're not shit coiners here, but getting to explore that new way of exchanging value with other artists, the people who are producing the shows as DJs or podcasters and that whole thing has been absolutely amazing. And in terms of like the money that it could generate, the way that I see it is that right now it's really small, what, like a thousand artists on WaveLaker or something around there. so it's easy to believe that

But yeah, that's-

Speaker 2 (50:14.638)
If this continues its trajectory of growth that you add a zero or two to those numbers and all of a sudden, like this totally works. But here's even more than like the money that directly came from wave Lake. The thing that blew my mind was, so I've been on social media for a while, mostly with the podcasting and stuff. I'm not fluffing my own feathers. This is just to illustrate a point on Twitter. think I have 28,000 or so followers.

And on Nostra, I had at the time after Nashville, like 60, not 60,000, like 60 people, right? Or 60 account. And so I, and I think you saw this, like I posted a little recap with pictures of going to Nashville of Joe Martin playing and Ainsley and just loud and had this little write-up and just thank to Jim for putting things together and open mic and a bunch of other people. And so it was just like a thank you post and a recap from show. so I posted it to.

zero.

Speaker 2 (51:11.928)
Twitter and 12 people liked it or 15 people liked it or something like that. There were a couple of comments. Yes. Welcome to Twitter. So that's the 28,000 people on Twitter who was supposedly following me and getting my stuff. I posted on Nostra to 60 people and I get like immediately 20 shares and like people are zapping in all these sats, all these comments, and it's clear that a bunch of people are seeing it and they're reposting it. And I'm just like,

That's better than I'm doing on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (51:38.604)
Man, if this isn't a proof of concept, I don't know what is because I would take 60 real people all day compared to 28,000. I don't know if they're real people. don't know if they're bots. Maybe they are, but the platform has just inserted themselves in between. They make sure that little people like us can never access our actual community, our actual followers. And that's a huge problem. So I'm really excited about Nostr.

In that use case, because if we all of a sudden have the ability to communicate freely once more and we aren't censored, we aren't shadow banned, which I've experienced a lot of that, especially in the world of health in the past few years. Like you persona non grata pretty quick. you say the truth about anything in that world. so that also applies to music. Like creative freedom is super important. And Spotify is just like, that, that song says something that we don't agree with. They can just make sure that no one ever finds it or take it off.

It's bizarre. Sarah Jade was talking about that in your last show. Not that it was necessarily censorship. It was just like, hey, we said that you did something that you didn't do, but you're gone forever and you won't recourse anyway.

Spotify and it's like, yeah, you're allegedly trying to do that. And then like last week I make, after I do the podcast, I make a playlist because people ask for it, but can you make me a playlist of just the songs from the podcast? So I put them up on Nostrum and traditional legacy platforms. I do social media marketing for a living. I work with tech startups and I work at an agency and then I also have like my own freelance clients as well. So I spend a lot of time online. I do write a newsletter weekly for one company that's about.

social media changes. I am in that world and one night last week I make this playlist look fountain from the second episode with Sarah Jade of all the songs and I'm like, I'm share this and I put it everywhere and I put it on Facebook and I log back in later to Facebook again. And it's taken the link down. It's taken my post down, called it spam.

Speaker 1 (53:29.582)
And I'm like, why is this spam? So then I find, what's going on? I message, I message, because you can do things openly on Nostr and then people will actually respond to you. So I'm like, hey, Oscar found, hey, is this the thing that's happening? And Ainsley heads me up on Instagram. She's like, yeah, I get it. This always happens to me with Meta. And I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. I can't post found. So then I find a story yesterday, working on the newsletter, and UMG, Universal Music Group, has got a deal going with, a licensing deal going with Meta. So I'm like, oh, this is probably.

We followed the money. is probably why I'm not spamming. also recently, like before that, I had actually posted a link to one of your songs on Wavelink, tagged my dad because he loves the blues. I'm like, oh, you're going to love this song. So it's like I posted a Wavelink link and then a little while later I posted my Fountain link, but it's the Fountain link that they have a problem with. think maybe Wavelink's not on their radar yet. So maybe we'll stay off the radar for a little while longer with what we're

think before that, Mountain's been around a little bit longer, I think, than Wavelake. I don't know exactly when each one was born, but that is not going to be the place to promote music. Same with TikTok. They've got deals with Universal Music Group and that's pretty much all the main, as big artists and it's hard to compete with that as an artist. It's hard to compete with algorithms too.

Yeah, it's impossible to compete in that world, you might argue. So we have to build our own parallel way of doing this that's more friendly to the creators, the artists, makes it so people who built the platforms don't ultimately have the keys to everyone's fate. Because clearly that's not working. The internet used to be fun and experimental, like years ago. It hasn't been.

I remember. Like back when we had ICQ and Netscape and that. I think on groovradior.com, was like, let's just listen to music. I'm like, I was working in radio then and I was like, this is better. And then it didn't take off at all in a way, but now it's all on your phone. And let's do another song. This is, okay, here's the question.

Speaker 1 (55:29.528)
There's two versions of this song and I really like the new live one, but I don't know if you've heard that one, The Hard Way by Martin Grooms is another one of your picks. Do you want the original or do you want the live?

I've, I have listened to both. I like both versions, but there's something about the original that really got me. And when Sam means, I think he's the one who put the video together of the Bitcoin record that came out like right after Nashville video referencing that plays the hard way song. It's just like that instrumental intro combined with those cool retro visuals and the spinning record with the real, the reels in the background. It's like, this is so amazing. This is total bliss. Where has this been?

my whole life. Yeah. If you don't mind, I love the original version mostly for that instrumental intro. I also got to sit down with Martin for a minute and JL and a few other people when we were in Nashville. So it's really cool to meet and hang with these people in person.

Speaker 2 (56:53.578)
and right and better judge

Speaker 2 (57:01.388)
Sweet nothing

Speaker 2 (57:07.168)
still i can't forget the emptiness i

Speaker 2 (57:22.478)
you

Speaker 2 (57:26.938)
me with those empty arms inside your hollow

But you never meant it when you told me that you loved me I had to find out the hard way

You said that you'd never put someone else above me And I'm pretty sure that's what they all say You were talking when I tuned out Your timing's never right Excuses always seem to glide right out your mouth

Sweet nothings to nothing Faded all those nights I watched us fuck it up as bottles bottomed

Speaker 2 (58:30.462)
Couldn't brush them off in perfect disarray

Speaker 2 (58:53.548)
And you never meant it when you told me that you loved me I had to find that out the hard way You said that you'd never put someone else above me And I'm pretty sure that's what they all say

Speaker 1 (01:00:17.556)
This is my one of my favorites. don't can I have a favorite? I don't know. It's hard to pick sometimes, but I God for the blues by yourself by Abel James. This is the one I'm like, I got to send this to Pops. Pops is going through it right now. He's done. He literally got the blues, got some health stuff going on. So instead of the music, but tell me about thank God for the blues.

Yeah. So that's another one that kind of came together with Denny where we wanted to, the whole album has a gospel feel that, that comes in and out of certain songs. And this one definitely does. And we wanted it to be something that was a tribute to the God of music, to wherever music comes from, right? Because there is this unspoken, sometimes it's spoken, but cause idea that when you're writing songs or when you've developed a certain level of skill or mastery in the craft of playing

music, writing music, that sort of thing. At some level, you just need to open yourself up to whatever is bigger than you and channel that straight through you. And so this song is about that. It's about how music comes from something bigger than us. And when we play it outside of our own egos and outside of our own, the mess in our heads and all the rest of that, we just get out of our own way and jam and play. It's absolutely healing. It's medicine for our souls.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44.811)
man

Speaker 2 (01:01:49.326)
heavy troubles I can't carry very far so I said

salvation at that old back door backstreet smokey bar

Speaker 2 (01:02:08.834)
Just need some sanctuary When that cold cruel world has knocked me to my knees Then you'll know just where you'll find me I'll be right here singing songs of sweet relief

Speaker 2 (01:02:38.702)
kill my soul and set me free. Now sing it with me if your heart's been blue. Thank God for the blue.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57.038)
the flash on that dusty musty case raise that ragged lid and smell the year

Slide my fingers up those trusty rusty strings Let that old guitar cry my tears And I thank God

Speaker 2 (01:03:27.576)
That's all it set me free. Sing it with me if your heart's been bruised.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19.246)
Set me free

Sing it with me if your heart's been bruised. Thank God.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51.694)
So let's talk about Nashville specifically, cause I don't know if you know this, was watching, I wasn't there obviously. So I'm watching online, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. And I see you get up on stage and like that's evil. Look at the guitar. I'm in Toonster, I'm in the chat, I'm like, no, everybody ignored me. You didn't at least get dragged up on stage to do stage announcements. So there is that, how did all that go down? How did you get suckered in and be the guy doing some of the work on stage?

You're the-

Speaker 2 (01:06:18.22)
Yeah, that was awesome. Mostly I was just hanging out. went to a few of the events and then I think actually the first one that I pretty much went to, I still had my luggage was a friend of mine, Sam from Austin. I knew was going to stop by the Bands at Bitcoin event. And so he was basically the only person I knew. I had met with Nick from Fountain, but just through a zoom meeting a few weeks before we had gotten in touch. so aside from that, I didn't really.

know anyone, certainly not in the meat space in the real world and showed up there and all of a sudden like I'm hanging out with Nick and Oscar and meeting Sam Means and meeting Ainsley and JL and Andy from Rock and Roll, and just like so many people were there at the same time. Joe Martin, like being able to hang out with them and talk for a little bit was amazing. Jim had, Jim Costello had played

one or two of my songs on one of his shows a few weeks before. And we didn't immediately realize who the other person was. And we're like, it's like you're Jim, you have this podcast and do all these things. And he's like, you're the swamp thing guy. And I'm like, And so it basically was just this thing where he's like, but you also have a podcast. I need to run out. If there's a cancellation or something like that, would you just like go up and play a few songs or could you help us out? I'm like, yeah, whatever you need, as long as I'm here and just like, give me a shout. And so he.

Had to run out for some technical thing and like him and Julie were just like running out for a few minutes. And I was in between the higher low and Alicia Stockman. And it was cool to be on stage with them, just asking a few questions. And then later for, I think it was a day later, JL and Just Loud like were asked by Jim to do a 30 minute, I think an extra 30 minutes to their set. And they hadn't prepared like a bunch of songs that they had written for those extra 30 minutes.

And so JL decides to write this song on the spot and is asking the crowd for ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17.006)
That was awesome.

So that was wild. He's just like, Abel, can you come help us out and just throw out some random ideas? And I was happy to.

told you. That's awesome. So you got to meet and hang out with JL. Let's play everybody's favorite JL song. Shrooms. You look with a little bit. It was the first song I think this year, like back in January, getting into Nostra, getting into Wave Lake. And just seeing behind me on the wall, the culture shock. Then Phoenix, we have Nostra Phoenix. That's where Sam is based. I think if he's ever here, this is called, he makes shirts.

We all love-

Speaker 2 (01:08:51.068)
yeah, sweet shirt. I'm just noticing that now.

Yeah, the famous Satoshi shirt and the sand. Let's see, they put on the show, this is how I met everybody. So like I'm new to the space too. I, this started for me in January, just going to the Nostra Phoenix meetup. And that's where the same time I'm getting into Wave Lake, because I just moved to Phoenix and there was family stuff going on. So I had extra time to get on my phone and get into Wave Lake and get into Nostra. And I started converting to.

Going to the gym with Apple Music to like going to the gym with Wave Lake and like listening to shrooms while I'm working out. And that was like the entry level drug for me. But that's my experience. What's your thing with Just Loud Shrooms?

I had only listened to a little piece here and there of Just Loud music before I went to Nashville and saw them in person and met them and hung out. you listen to some people and there, you watch them play, you're like, wow, they're very competent and that's a well-written song. Like I'm enjoying myself. That's great. And then you listen to other people and you're like on Mars for a second. It's like, in this complete universe. what's not Just Loud and JL, completely different universe type thing.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01.878)
incredibly talented in so many different ways and so many unique ways. And it's funny too, cause I was sitting down with him, think before he went up on stage and started to think, it's like, he's so like soft spoken and quiet and then goes up on stage and the whole thing blows up. It's just like, can't ignore what's happening there. It's so much energy and so exciting. And so I think this song, shrooms really covers that well where you listen to it and you can't help, but

get completely psyched and want to go out and party when you hear that tune. So, it's certainly one of the.

Gotta run.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04.366)
Turn you into a believer Tonight I feel it going down

Speaker 2 (01:11:50.75)
I was born to be wild I was born to be wild

Speaker 2 (01:14:07.351)
to you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20.27)
You

Speaker 1 (01:14:52.61)
Next up we have Black and Blue by Homeless Moses. Tell me your love for this song.

Yeah, there's so much diversity in the sounds that I've been finding or happening upon in the value verse. Like you can expect that they're all going to be in the same genre or the same type of music. And I've really been impressed by finding some stuff that is like in your face rock and other things that are retro or a little bit more technology based. And this one is just so syncopated. You can tell that the musicianship is there. I love listening to the rhythm of this song.

And I think it's just a great illustration that these songs can be different and they can also coexist on like the same music show that features new music. For example, it's like, maybe it's not precisely the same genre.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24.43)
.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50.478)
you

demonstration

Speaker 2 (01:20:17.998)
Bye

Speaker 2 (01:20:21.966)
I'll shelter in my arms My love will warm you

Speaker 2 (01:20:45.518)
I don't think Spotify would drip these songs out maybe like in this order or next to each other. But in this world where the whole point is discovering new great bands and highly talented musicians, like I think that these songs can happily coexist and everyone can rock out together and be psyched that their music is different instead of this kind of like everyone doing the same cookie cutter stuff because it meets the formula. This isn't that.

That's one of the things too that needs to fall away from fiat music. There's the, I don't know, stay and believe that you can have only so many types of music in a format. you listen to AAA, so you only want to hear the wallflowers and whatever it is. And then you also don't like, you like that music, you don't like hip hop and you don't want to hear Journey if you like hip hop. That's one of the ideas that needs to fall away.

And also, and I know this statistic and now I'm at that age where I am the statistic, but they used to always tell us in radio, women over 40 don't like new music. Now that I'm like 85, 40, fully ensconced to the 40 something life, I listen to new music every fucking day. I'm finding music, but you were saying earlier, the quality of the music that's in the value verse is amazing. And I actually, cause I flip back and forth. listen to music all day.

because I'm at home, I write for a living out of music going probably for 12 hours a day. I might recharge my powerbeats two or three times a day and have a Bluetooth speaker. So it's always on unless I have an easy... It's a sickness, right? So I'm finding new music every day and I'm listening. Sometimes I forget what I'm listening to and I'm listening to my Apple music one day and it actually feeds me something I like. And I'm astonished. And it's some group that I've never heard of and the music's really good. And I'm like, my Apple music. This is like a Wave Lake quality.

This was like value version music. And I was like, my God, this is the first time I've said that. I've never said that before to where I'm starting to lean into the quality of the music is actually, think, starting to feel better to me when I'm listening to the artists in the value verse. find new ones every single day. I found a bunch of new people from bands at Bitcoin that you guys were doing on Tootster. And then I forgot about it. And then somebody told me about an artist last night and I'm like, my God, I forgot about this. I was going to look this person up.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59.348)
and forgot about it because there was so much. And so now I'm seeing, I'm feeling a shift and I'm, what is it, August? I've been listening hardcore to Waverick for eight months. And so it's just this audio, like, why is it just, the shift is there. I'm not making songs longer yet, but the music is better. And it's, is noticeable. Look at another one of your songs, Voodoo Queen. Tell me how Voodoo Queen came into being.

Voodoo Queen goes way back. It's that feeling where when you first fall in love or when you're young and you fall in love and you realize that the powers of whoever you fell in love with are stronger than you. There's some sort of like addictive quality to it. And sometimes it's not wholly positive either, but it is exciting and it's something that you're like processing. so Voodoo Queen comes from that fiery passion for better or worse. it's

For me, it's always been a really fun song to play on this album. It's funny because we did it a lot different with my voice in a lower register, which we could do because the mixing is so great and it was well produced in a studio. When I do it live, I do it completely differently. It's really guitar heavy and I'm seeing in a much higher register, but I love this version of it because I can really sit back and get into the meaty part of my voice.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41.72)
Cold sweat is clinging to my bones She's like a tiger and I'm trembling Cause I know she's sharpening her claws

Speaker 2 (01:24:59.246)
Can't escape this tango web-suee

Speaker 1 (01:25:09.742)
But now I do believe

The end.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21.682)
red my body wakes up bruised and blue she can't be tamed there's nothing I can do when she's stirring up that witch's brew

Speaker 2 (01:25:52.366)
Now I do believe

Speaker 2 (01:26:21.934)
Sarah bedroom with a voodoo queen. This cold sweat is clinging to my bone. She's like a tigress and I'm trembling. Cause I know she's sharpening her claws.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56.27)
you

Speaker 2 (01:27:06.446)
Magic

Speaker 2 (01:27:11.916)
Now I do believe. Now I do believe.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27.918)
asked you, this is one of the, I think one of the best bands out there, The Retrograde. So one of your picks is The Itch by The Retrograde that I couldn't, I'm really into a couple of their different songs right now, but I've forgotten about this one. So tell me why you love The Itch by The Retrograde.

This was one of the first ones that I found, like, it took me a minute to figure out even that, like, when I posted to Wave Lake that other people were taking that song and then putting it on their podcast show. And so this was one of the first shows. And I don't remember if it was Sats and Sounds or Upbeats or like Lightning Thrashes was another one. And even some non-music shows like This Week in Bitcoin put Live While I'm Alive on there. But this was the first one that I heard and the retrograde

The itch was like right next to one of my tunes. so I was like listening to that whole show once I found it and trying to decide if this music was going to be good or like fit with mine, like what this whole world was like. And I was just so impressed with pretty much every other song that I heard on this show. But the retro grades, the itch was my absolute favorite. I'm like, I would go out and see this band for sure. This is amazing. In your face rock just like gets you fired up really well produced the musician.

Ship is completely on point. The singing is amazing. This is max level music.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09.134)
I I got a feeling gets me to the ceiling. It's got me in its demons well. Tell you baby what's been on my mind. Tell me honey, do you think about the past? Don't you know you could just come and ask?

I got the edge! Son of a bitch, gonna blow my little...

Speaker 1 (01:33:22.498)
We did Culture Shock with Sarah Jade, obviously, and that was in February here in Phoenix. You're, are you gigging? Are you playing around Austin? Are you, what's your deal? Are you playing shows, touring? What's going on?

Yeah. So for a long time, when I first moved to Austin, was doing 50, 100, 150 shows a year on all sorts of different instruments, playing with all sorts of different bands, like sometimes four or five at a time, as well as doing my own solo stuff with my own band and playing a lot of duos and that sort of thing. And playing a hundred plus shows a year for many years on end, I burned myself out pretty hard after doing that. And also found that I was, even though I was, it was

air quotes, successfully moving up the rungs of kind of the different gigs that you can play in town and getting paid more money. All of a sudden I'm playing like weddings and private parties and like doing too much of that started to make me realize this isn't the direction that I really want to go with all this. And interestingly around that time, this is like 2012 or so when I started getting really into podcasting. I'm like, what if I have a spoken word podcast and put my music on that?

Instead. instead of just playing for people live and trying to grow that way, but getting 50 or a hundred or a couple hundred people to my shows here in Austin. What if I like put it on the internet so that anyone anywhere can listen to whatever I'm making and the podcast got, it grew so quickly after I launched it, that it was this kind of overwhelming thing that stole my focus away from.

having all these residencies where I'm playing three or four or five nights a week, but I can never leave because if I leave, then someone else is going to come and scoop up my residency at whatever that venue was. And so being able to create online really opened up the freedom to record from home again, to spend more time like working on the in-studio stuff. And so ever since I haven't been gunning hard and doing a bunch of my own gigs in town, but I still play a lot with other bands. SOB and the Dangs is one.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23.47)
that is we have a big show coming up next month. There's another guy named Luke Daniel in town, which is like outlaw country. And I play lead guitar with his full band and duo stuff sometimes. And then I still, for a long time, I was playing saxophone with a ton of different bands because no one needs another guitar player, but everyone wants a saxophone. Sometimes I'll dust that off and go out and play with different folks. But there's, yeah, there's still a lot of music, but I'm not doing like 200 shows a year like I was for a while.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how we can get you to do it at Toonster shows. I don't know, maybe I'll- I'm ready.

Oh, I'm down. I'll totally do it. More just like. The thing is, and I talk about this with a few of the people I play with in town. It's just like, we will not play shit gigs. We're over. We've played enough shit gigs. We are done with the shit gigs. But it's tricky, right? Cause like even if you're getting paid six or 800 bucks or even close to a thousand bucks for a gig, that's a little bit out of town. If it's a full band, like you were saying before, and you got to split it four or five or six different ways, you got to drive an hour each way and it's.

going to take at least a half day of time. Then when you do the math, it's like, those things can turn into shit gigs pretty quick. So you have to be careful. And I would absolutely do a tune, tune, street gig. I've been talking to open mic. like, you guys need to all come through Austin, bring the value for value tour here and we will fill it up with cool people who love this music.

I'm down. I'm talking to him later today, so I'm not really able to float that. I might've vol- For some things that he doesn't know about. So since you mentioned it, SOB and the dang. Okay, you mentioned that. Try to get Stacy to join the valuers. Okay. So we've gotten you in this place where you're like, yes, I'm down. We're a Bitcoiner, brought you to the valuers. You're down for the valuers. You're down for the cause. And now you're sucking in new people, which I think is once we all get a taste of this, we're like, yeah, come get on Dostrik.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45.773)
sick, yes, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:10.35)
Come join the Valuers, come do the value for value thing. Come get online, watch a Toonster show, like experience live music and zapping artists and like we look like the guy with the red string and we sound crazy. Cause I try to tell people like, oh, Bitcoin, you have value for value. And everybody's like, you're a nerd. We don't know what you're talking about. So like, how is your experience trying to get people's hips up first? Is it going okay? Orange and purple filling people.

It's like totally, it's different with each person. I know that I won't even bring it up with some people because I know they like wouldn't, their ears would not be open. Whereas, and it's funny too, because like sometimes you would think that musicians would be extremely open-minded, especially if there's any chance that more people will listen to their music because they do something. Like normally they would totally go after it, but there is this kind of friction with some people and it's that coin word or the world of crypto and they've heard all of these.

strange things about that and it's, you're a criminal if you even dip your toes into thinking of or sight. So.

Maybe a first MLM or whatever, yeah. It's like, have weird ideas about it.

Yeah. But so if you can tell that some people are a little bit more open-minded as far as that goes. Stacey, for example, we were just at band practice a few weeks ago. She was like, Hey, what's new? And I was telling her that was like right before I went to Nashville. And I told her about what happened just uploading my tunes to wave lake. And I'm just like, a bunch of people are listening and they're sharing. And it's like going on these podcasts and people are like intentionally.

Speaker 2 (01:38:41.056)
outside of the algorithm, trying to find good music, but this is new and this is really interesting. But, and as soon as I brought up that it's involved with Bitcoin and lightning network, it's like, I don't know if that's involved. But anyway, she on a whim also uploaded some of her tunes, probably about a month ago now. And at first, like she, there were a couple of hurdles, technically speaking, like she couldn't get past one page of the upload while I was in Nashville and she's like, Hey, I'm having like this technical problem. And I'm literally like,

next to Michael and Sam who built Wave and founded it. And I'm like, Hey, Michael, like she's having this like weird issue. And he's like, I see what happened there. we're totally going to change this. I, I wouldn't have expected this to be a hangup and now we're going to make it different because this totally makes sense. And so she got past that, put her tunes up there and they hit the top 40. Like I think two of the tunes were just on the top 40 and a couple from Swamp Thing at the same time. so

I'm not on those recordings, but I am playing with a live band there. like last rehearsal I came in, she's just like, yeah, 23 and 24. It was like totally psyched. And the thing that excited me the most is that not only that she hit the top 40, but she very quickly learned how to use her wallet. And I had sent her some boosts and she's not on Nostra yet. That's another whole like step to this. I figured that we should probably start with wave like.

then go to that. But she started boosting other artists immediately. She totally understood that and started spreading it around and sharing it. And I'm like, this is exactly how it should work. She's finding new music. She's finding new bands and they're exchanging value and they're also helping her music get out there at the same time. And it's a very human experience in a way that I haven't run into on social media or Spotify or Apple.

Speaker 2 (01:41:18.968)
Field made of thousand dollar suits you cause the whole lot of trouble

Do you?

Super You

trouble. So when will mama catch you with your hand in the cookie jar?

Hey there big boy, how many teabones on your plate? Hey there big boy, how many times you gonna skate? You still want more? It should come as no surprise. You've got to have your bread buttered on both sides. You cause the whole lot of trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:42:24.664)
You know you've got to fly

Speaker 2 (01:42:33.496)
Trouble So when will mama catch you with your hand in the cookie jar? you

you

Speaker 2 (01:43:54.51)
Good to you, may I have some greenbacks, please?

Speaker 2 (01:44:05.774)
you

Speaker 1 (01:44:18.67)
you

Speaker 1 (01:44:26.766)
The cool thing is there's the baked in relationship with your fans and from fan to artist there is this instant relationship. You can see who's boosting the tracks. You get to actually interact with the artist in Wave Lake for sure and Fountain for sure where you can comment, you can leave a boost, you can leave a zap. And you actually, you're seeing your audience where...

You're not getting that if you're on Spotify. You're not seeing, you don't get the visibility into who is actually listening and what they think. And if they think your song is a 21 sat zap or a 2000 sat zap, not that it matters. If people are boosting, it doesn't matter how much it is. And I think over time, one of the things I think about a lot now is over time as this thing grows and there's maybe 2000 artists and everybody who comes in brings in more people and this little

social graph as the ecosystem grows, there's going to be a lot more of us who are zapping 21 sats at a time or whatever. And so the money is only going to, the Bitcoin money is only going to get better. that's one thing that's cool about that. And then as you were talking about Stacey's experience, and fortunately you were there to help her with Sam and Michael, who are very helpful and spend a lot of time helping artists get started on Wavelake. One of the things that I have no idea what the link is, but we do have a telegram group, Wavelake does.

So when you have technical difficulties, can get in the telegram and be like, Hey, what am I doing wrong here? And that's how Sam and Michael figure out what needs to be changed. And Michael's really good at that. And Sam's always in there to help people go, Oh yeah, you need to do this and this. Oh, okay. Cause this is the cool thing about being in this space right now is that everybody is still trying to figure this out together. So like, there's really no, just, there's no bad question for sure. There's no bad suggestion. It's fun. So whole lot of trouble by SOB in the day with Stacey.

Now we know the story behind the music and then it's brand new on Wavelake. So everybody go boost and zap and have fun with it. We've got one more so long. This is an able pick. It's called You've Got a Lot of Nerve by Rock and Roll Break Heart. Tell me about this song.

Speaker 2 (01:46:32.088)
Seeing Andy of Rock and Roll Break Heart in Nashville was so much fun because he just like rolls out and it's so punk rock. He's got this like bass drum with a janky bass drum pedal and he's like using the other foot with all these other pedals and he's crawling on the floor and just like in your face rocking hard and just like completely owns the stage. And then when he gets off the stage and he's like sitting at the table.

We sat down and chatted for a while. And once again, just like so soft spoken. like really, and I love that dichotomy between like artists who are so often, that's just the story. It's like introverted and very thoughtful and quiet in day-to-day life. Not a hundred percent of the time. And I can relate to this too. And then as soon as you're on stage or as soon as you're like behind the mic, like this magnificent persona emerges and like it's contagious and everyone's, it fills up the whole room.

And so that's what I experienced with Andy. And he was talking about too, he's just like, my rhythm is shit. It's not that great. It's like, doesn't even matter, man, because what you're bringing is so hardcore and so amazing that it like fills everyone else up with the spirit of the music. And so this tune is a lot of fun to listen to and even more fun to see live.

Speaker 2 (01:49:47.059)
And know it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53.111)
single man.

Speaker 2 (01:50:05.07)
now

Speaker 2 (01:50:09.71)
It's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15.918)
you

Speaker 1 (01:51:26.862)
you

Speaker 1 (01:52:02.2)
Great songs. Okay. What have we not talked about? We talked about getting off of the standard American diet. We talked about how you got started in music, how you got started in Bitcoin. I feel like I missed something in the value verse. What did I miss talking about? What did I miss asking about? Anything?

there's so much like the Nashville experience was, was so important and I wasn't even planning to go. was just, got a couple of invites from a few different people to a few different things. And, and another like friend joined me from Austin. We're just figured it's only three days. Let's go and check it out. And the conference itself was not, particularly amazing. And even the people who spent a lot of time there, at least from what they told me, it's not like.

that changed their lives or changed the way that they thought about this technology or even the monetary system, that sort of thing. But to me, the satellite events such as Bandit Bitcoin and the the Wavelake Toonster concert and some of the other satellite events that I went to, that's where I really found a lot of the people who were stoked on the technology, understood Bitcoin in a lot of the cases and how

The Fiat Fund Coupons is hopefully going to be in the rear view mirror soon enough and how there are these alternatives. But mostly it was this incredibly collaborative community where people are helping each other out. They want to connect authentically with each other, whether it's musician to musician and the collaborations that can happen there, or some of the people who are coding different technologies and all of this. I was by far the most impressed and excited by that community in Nashville.

and how it relates to music and saving art in general, then just like people saying, Bitcoin to the moon and like all these politicians climbing over each other, trying to say, I'm the Bitcoin guy or I'm the Bitcoin gal. And that was a whole circuit. this music stuff, yeah, this music stuff is so exciting, especially when you combine it with the technology that helps to liberate people outside of these walled gardens and algorithm.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08.302)
driven kind of race to the bottom platforms that everyone's been stuck on for a long time. Like suddenly I have a lot of hope again. And there's so much magic that happens. I'm sure you can relate like being in Phoenix and meeting Sarah and some of the other musicians and Sam and the people who are building the technologies. There's something super magical about meeting people, even if it's just one time. Because then you can carry on that relationship and hopefully meet up again. like also

be on NOSTER together and get each other's backs or help promote their message in a different way moving forward. So it feels super early and I'm really excited to see where this goes in the next few months and the years ahead. Cause I think it'll be a lot different and a lot bigger.

Yes, I agree. I think everyone I've met is very down to earth, very gifted, very passionate, working on this thing. I've watched, know, Mike's gonna be on the next podcast, because it's like, in February, I think Mike showed up with a laptop. then you saw what was going on in Nashville, like, shit, he's upgraded the...

hell out of the experience. He's got lights, he's got screens, he's got people working on Toonster now and it's wow. Okay. This thing is really upgrading. We're, doing, think pretty well getting people interested in it. I think, I asked him about that for sure, but we're in a place where you got a small group of people who are very dedicated and committed to doing this thing and we're not going to give up and it solves a problem. And I think that

Over time, a musician who could make maybe 60 bucks this month direct to a Bitcoin wallet. That's better than waiting for checks two, four times a year coming in for royalties where get like, Sarah Jade was like, yeah, I got like a dollar 30 once from a royalty check. it's like, That's so, it kills your energy and it like, you get to go to Nashville and see this group of people what this group is doing. it's like, you get energy again.

Speaker 1 (01:56:11.202)
You feel happy, you get the hope, you get the optimism. It's the amazing thing.

It's totally, and it's like the 60 bucks that goes into your wallet, if it were 600 or 6,000, that from a technical standpoint, it doesn't really change much from Wave Lake side or Noster side or fountain, whatever it is. And it doesn't really change much from the musician side in terms of what you have to do to get there. You upload your music and then it's shared and hopefully it's promoted. And so this is already working and with a little bit more attention and a little bit more interaction from new people hopping on board.

this could actually work, especially if it's not like everything that you're living on. But it's another thing for podcasters as well. Like it's really turned into an ad based medium. didn't start off that way. And the longer that it goes, the more it just turns into everything else. And it doesn't have to be that way. These new technologies. Yeah. With, with enough people coming in, like we could do it the right way again. And so it gives me a lot of hope in that sense.

Yeah, that was one of the things where I had a podcast before and it didn't take off and I was like, I need to make money off of it if I'm going to do it and I'll have to do ads or sponsorships or something. And I really don't want to do it. I really don't want to deal with it. And I tried to do like the influencer marketing thing where somebody sends you some shit and then you try to hawk it and shill it. like, this is stupid. I did this in radio.

I did the thing where they send me the toothpaste and you do the commercial about the toothpaste and you do these endorsements and things. it's, there's gotta be a better way. don't want to do this shit anymore. did this for 21 years and I don't want to shill toothpaste and lipstick or all the dumps that go to car dealers on a Saturday morning. Live broadcast from Chevy Kia, blah, blah, blah. And it's terrible. There's no entertainment value. it's like the only industry you could work in where everybody continually tells you this sucks. I hate what you're doing. I hate screaming car ads.

Speaker 1 (01:58:00.374)
I hate that you guys play the same 10 songs over and over. I hate that you don't talk over the music. I hate it. And then we're like, yeah, we never, we get a little. And we never change. Right. And there you have it. Episode three of Radio Detox with me, Heather Larson interviewing Abel James playing his music and his picks and one of mine, but it doesn't matter. So thank you for listening. If you listened all the way to the end, bless you.

and HA HA HA!

Speaker 1 (01:58:24.398)
And since you listened all the way to the end, here's the little Easter egg for you that you get. There is something to look for coming up with Ainsley Costello and myself. And I can't tell you what it is, but it's coming. And next podcast that comes down will be with Open Mic from Toonster. And on that subject, don't forget to watch The Vinyl Lounge live from Nashville on Toonster Monday nights in August.