In this episode, Mike TV discusses his relationship with the Internet. From the early days of his first .mp3 distribution site, Yrecords, in 1998, to his days streaming on Twitch in 2023. He explains why some services were great for musicians and music and some were significantly less so. This episode features brand new recordings of Mike TV compositions, Disconnected, My Wasted Life, Mean, The Great Indie-Rock Swindle, and Ready for War.
Episode Introduction: 0:00
Cold Open: 00:37
[song] Disconnected: 5:14
Main Title: 8:34
My Wasted Life Lead-In: 9:02
[song] My Wasted Life
Mean Lead-In: 16:31
[song] Mean: 20:31
The Great Indie-Rock Swindle Lead-In: 23:45
[song] The Great Indie-Rock Swindle: 30:09
Ready for War Lead-In: 34:39
[song] Ready for War: 36:27
Episode Summation: 40:31
END: 41:51
Hesitation Cuts, Season 2, Episode 4: Mike TV vs The Internet!
Episode Intro:
Hey, I’m Mike TV of the band, Get Set Go. And on today’s episode we discuss the Internet. And how from 1985, when I set up my very first Prodigy account at 12 years old, to 2023, the Internet has radically changed the lives, revenue streams, and audience access for artists all stripe. And it continues to change and evolve almost on daily basis. But, the one artform I can speak on with the most authority, of course, is music. But really, only from a very independent, DIY perspective. But, because I’ve been on the front lines for 30 years, I think I can offer you a perspective of significant value. Particularly if you are just now starting to explore using the Internet for your own business.
Cold Open:
So, let’s take the way back machine to 1998. in the very beginning days of the Mr. T’s scene, my roommate and friend, Caron Levy and I, were discussing MP3’s and MP3.com and our little rock and roll community.And we decided it would awesome to have our own mp3 distribution site. Just for our bands. And fortunately, my sister was a coder that had graduated from Stanford. And so, the three of us figured we could create a website that distributed the music of all the Mr. T’s bands via .mp3’s.
Teresa was gonna handle the heavy lifting on the HTML and the website design. Caron, who was super-tech savvy, was gonna focus on all the encoding of our cassette tapes to .mp3’s and I was gonna be the fellow that gathered all the music, wrote a lot of the site text, and also coordinated and got permission from all the bands to use their music.
And the website was called Yrecords. The letter Y instead of the word why. Now unfortunately, we launched this site at a point in time where most people still had dial-up modems. Which meant, it would take 20 minutes for the average Internet user to download a single three-megabyte mp3. So, alas, we were a little bit ahead of our time. Because, who wants to wait 20 minutes for a three-and-a-half-minute song.BUT, it was huge for galvanizing the bands into something that felt like family. We were bonded by Yrecords as our defacto record label, and then having a physical space where we could meet regularly at Mr. T’s, these two connections created a stronger bond than would have existed with only one in play. And this led to more hanging out. And eventually, we were holding backyard shows, and a festival at Griffith Park, and barbecues, and went to movies and rock shows together.
So, this was a pretty unique moment in time where a website that didn’t get an enormous amount of traffic had a huge impact on a bunch of local artists. Artists who felt continually more tribal, particularly as we kept adding new bands to the YRecords line-up. Oh, and, as a side-note, Yrecords was often our friend’s and our audiences first introduction to mp3s. AND it was, also, often many of the bands first presence on the Internet. So, Yrecords became our online calling card. You know, people wanted too know about us online, we’d point them to Yrecords. And the site was easy to explore, each band had a cool little bio and a bunch of songs on their own personal page. Very much a predecessor to MySpace, except we were all connected. So, just going through the site, for a newcomer, reading and listening, it really felt like these bands knew each other and liked each other. You know, a nascent scene. Which is exactly what it was.
So, let’s jump in time ahead a little bit. Because I’ve talked about Mr. T’s and the scene and the impact it all had on early Get Set Go. But, I don’t think I’ve really gotten in-depth into the role that MySpace played for Get Set Go. During the height of, what I would call the second era, of our Mr. T’s scene. You see, I was a pretty early adopter of MySpace.I joined Jan 1, 2005. And one the amazing things about the site, just like Yrecords, is that they let us feature our music on our page. So, someone stumbling upon Get Set Go’s My Space page could listen to our music right there on the page. Now downloading, just give it a spin. And this was huge.
Sad to say, somewhere between the rise of the Mr. T’s scene and MySpace, Yrecords eventually became an epitaph site.Where it just stood testament to the early days of the scene. You can still find it on the Internet Archive. It’s a pretty fascinating little snapshot of the early days of our community.
But with Myspace, there were two strategies that I employed that allowed us to grow pretty quickly on the site. The first was, every day, I would find 400 people, all friends of bands that I knew or liked, and I would send them a personalized message. I would look at that person’s page, see a band that they liked, often the band that led me to them, and I would reach out and say something to the effect of, “Hey! I’m Mike TV. I saw that you love band X and I love them to. One of my favorite songs of theirs is “Song Y”. And they’re a big influence on my band. And so I figured I would say hello and invite you to check us out. And I’m always on MySpace so feel free to message me if you wanna chat.”
And every day, I would send out these 400 personalized messages, which was MySpace’s limit. And then, when I got responses, I would respond to every single message.And there were a lot of them. And this was an hours and hours long process, every single day.
And then, the number 2 strategy I used to grow Get Set Go’s group of MySpace friends, was that I would post a daily blog. Just to keep the conversation going. And to give a little silly fun for my daily readers. And I always signed off with a closing statement like, “with sparkling underpants of love”, Mike TV, or “With furious hedgehogs of delight”, Mike TV. But it was always something silly and lyrical and a bit bizarre. And just those closing lines became pretty popular. I would receive messages where people would close their comments to me using the same sort of silly closing statement I did.
So, it was a TON of work but it was awesome!And we grew and continued to grow from 2005 to 2007. So, when, somewhere during this period, everyone started jumping ship to Facebook.I was like, fuck. I have to do all this work again? Really? And Facebook was, back then, and still remains to this day, absolutely terrible for bands. So, I was just broken.
Disconnected Insert 1:And just like that, years and years of work was just, up in smoke. (after first verse)
Disconnected Insert 2:And that’s the problem, right?When things go up in smoke, how do you start over?
Disconnected Insert 3: The heartbreaking thing for me is that when I get this despondent, sometimes, I don’t see the forest for the trees.
Disconnected Insert 4: So, I just spent a couple years licking my wounds.
Disconnected Insert 5: Now, if I had been smarter, I would have, as people were leaving to join to Facebook, I should have said, “hey MySpace folk, we’re all reconvening on the hot new social media site. Come on let’s go!” But I didn’t. I did not.God dammit. I just walked away from the tens of thousands of hard-fought connections I had made. Was I an idiot? Am I an idiot?
Disconnected Insert 6: Hind-sight, right?
Main Title
Hey, I’m Mike TV and this is Episode 4 of Season 2 of Hesitation Cuts! The show where we jump feet-first into the wild and wicked raging torrent that is independent music, dashing ourselves against the rocks in the hope that perhaps, someday, we’ll become unbashable. Today’s episode is about the Internet, and how it has changed the face of music forever. For better, for worse, only you can decide.
So, MySpace was a complete bust. And Facebook was and still is just a total shit-show as far as bands are concerned. For myriad reasons but I’m just gonna focus on one.
So, Facebook has billions of monthly users, right? And every user has many things that they are fond of. And because so much is on Facebook, there’s a huge probability that the things you like can be found, and followed. And when you follow someone that you like, it feels like you’re opting in to hear everything they have to say, right? It’s social media. It’s about being connected. BUT, liking something, following something on Facebook isn’t gonna get you all of their posts, perspectives, and the thoughts from the people that you follow. If they have a public facing account, say, your favorite band or writer or celebrity, then in order for you to hear from them, unless, of course, you’re always checking in on their feed, keeping your activity with your said favorite whatever super engaged, then they, a person that you follow, in order to reach you, they have to pay for their message to be placed in your feed.
So, basically, except for your most absolutely engaged fans, and even then, it’s still a crap shoot because I have some hard-core, hard-core fans say, sometimes, that they didn’t receive a recent post. But, basically, Facebook is a for-pay, audience farm. It’s not a place to stay connected, it’s not a place to form strong relationships with fans, or just shoot the breeze and be friendly with them, because they’re your people, because they’re folks with whom your art connects -- if you wanna approximate that, as an artist, you have pay. And that, for my money, is heartbreaking. Because, Facebook from the friend side is where you can stay connected with people that maybe you don’t hang out with anymore.Or maybe, you went to school with 10, 20, or 30 years ago. And it allows you to stay connected. Not very well, sadly, but it does allow you to keep up. But, Facebook on the business side, on the public-facing side, is a very, very different beast.
And it’s crazy, because I did, for a while, I did actually have a Get Set Go personal Facebook page. It was created in 2006 and it just survived for years.I don’t know how. Facebook just overlooked it. So, I had the Get Set Go page and a me, Mike TV, Facebook page.And the personal Get Set Go, not a business page, but a personal friend page, was where all my music friends lived.The bands, the promoters, the bookers, the owners of venues, they all lived on my Get Set Go personal Facebook page.I certainly had a lot of crossover.Lots of the same friends on both pages. But the conversations were very different. The Get Set Go page was for discussions regarding music. And the Mike TV page was for my family and friends.And it was great. Until Facebook decided that they wanted me to use their service the way they wanted. And I was opted out. Against my will.
Which, I get it. I don’t own Facebook. I didn’t pay for my profile. I would think that the money that they ge t from datamining what I’m into, what I click on, and the ads they put on my page would be enough of a trade-off.But that’s the thing about business, right? It’s never enough. It’s gotta grow and keep growing or people get fired. Which, again, I think is heartbreaking.
But, the crazy thing is during this period, where my MySpace footprint was eroding to the point that it had effectively been erased, and I hadn’t truly set up a Facebook presence, Get Set Go was still going strong. Unfortunately, in a pretty terrible way. I mean, there was still a lot of activity. Because there were a lot of services that were giving our music away for free. They started off as peer-to-peer sites, back in 2003 when our first album hit stores, and then eventually evolved into torrent sites. But it was crazy, man.
I would hop into places like Limewire and Pirate Bay, just out of curiosity about the sort of traffic Get Set Go was getting. And on some sites, there were tens of thousands of downloads. And, my record label knew that we were being stolen from, but they just didn’t understand the internet and didn’t have a plan for how to combat the stealing, which, of course, no one really did at the time. But, what kills me is that TSR Records, my record label, didn’t fully metabolize the idea that thousands and thousands of people were stealing Get Set Go’s records. Thousands and thousands. That maybe putting a little more love; a little more attention into the band; and maybe finding a way to make it easy for people to actually buy our record, maybe THAT was best way forward. But, instead they saw underwhelming performance and just kept hitting the brakes. So, again, hind-sight being 20/20, if everyone had played their cards differently, Get Set Go could have been way, way, more financially successful. But they didn’t. And we weren’t. So, I went from poor, to even poorer, watching people steal my music in real time.
And the sad thing is, through my record deal, I made one dollar per album sold. So, every album download I saw on a torrent site…that was one 1 dollar stolen straight out of my pocket. Which made how much I was losing, how much money I wasn’t getting paid, very, very easy to understand. 11,000 downloads, $11,000 I’ll never be paid. So, all my work, all my effort. Just wasted time.
My Wasted Life Insert – Yeah, right?Like? Aren’t we all the same team? I’m writing the music, I’m doing everything I can to promote, I’m working myself like a pack-mule, every day. So, what no support? The bare minimum?
My Wasted Life Insert 2 – Now, I’m not laying my career woes at the feet of TSR Records, or Facebook, or Myspace, or even the sites that made stealing my music so easy. I mean, yes, each of them did, ultimately, make my struggle more difficult. But they weren’t thinking about me. They were thinking about what was best for them and their business. And, this is one of the pitfalls of growing up in what is tantamount to the Wild West. The Internet is the new great frontier. And the rules are always changing.
Mean Lead-In
So, being stolen from, being underpaid, knowing that people are profiting from your efforts without you participating financially at all, like that has become so baked into what I do that I don’t even sweat it anymore. I mean, it’s fine. Right?So long as I can pay my bills and keep working the way I want to work, it can just be considered a cost of doing business.
And that was fine for a long, long time.But, now, I’ve got a family. And my partner is from another country. So, while we are sorting out her immigration stuff, I am the sole bread-winner. Which, finally, after 20 plus years of doing this professionally, forced me to sit down and really pay attention to how my revenue worked.
Now, I’ve been live-streaming since 2010.I started live-streaming on Ustream.And I don’t recall actually integrating tipping into the Ustream performances, and if I did, it was never really a big thing. But, I got other amazing benefits from live-streaming in the early days. I started doing song commissions for a few hundred dollars a pop, and I would use the live-streams to vet new material so that the band could figure out what songs to prioritize for albums. You know, so much of my music career, literally from the outset, has been informed by audience reaction. And I didn’t want to let that go. I mean, Get Set Go was still playing out in Los Angeles quite a bit and I was doing the Thirsty Crow and other residencies. But, I also just had so much music to put in front of audiences, I just needed more stage time.
But, when I chose to move to Austin, I realized that I was leaving my home base. I would have a much smaller physical fanbase. And so, the idea of playing live, playing in live venues, seemed like it would involve starting over. More networking, more evenings out in nightclubs as I am familiarizing myself with the Austin scene. And that was just more work than I was willing to put in. Because I was in the process of writing 100 new songs, that would eventually become Here Be Dragons, Furthermore, The Pleasure of Being Sad and so much more. So, I decided to instead focus on recording and putting out records.
But, it wasn’t long before I realized, I still need a live audience. That’s how my music develops. So in October of 2015, I started live-streaming on Twitch. This time with an emphasis on THIS being my predominate way of performing. Live shows were gonna take a back seat. And, as it turns out, I was able to develop a really wonderful group of regulars that felt and still feel, to this day, very much like family. And, on top that, I was making pretty decent money from tips. And, eventually, Twitch introduced subscriptions and bits and suddenly Twitch revenue came to be one of my three most significant monthly revenue streams.
Which was great, until, of course, the pandemic hit. At which point, you would think, people being locked in their homes for months on end would be amazing for an Internet streamer, right? More people at home, surfing the Internet to combat the long hours of pandemic isolation. What’s not great about that? And certainly, there was a huge influx of people. But, there was also a significant influx of live-music streamers.
And because I only play originals, and because Twitch never, at any point, came up with a way to distinguish between artists playing original songs and musicians playing covers. Suddenly, Twitch was inundated with the best songs by the best artists in history. Right?Because, when you’re competing with people playing covers, you’re not up against the person actually playing the song…you’ve literally thrown your hat into the ring with the Beatles, and Nirvana, and Oasis, and Janice Joplin, and Taylor Swift, and John Denver, and every other artist that has songs that have been played billions of times over the past decade. Because most people would rather hear a terrible cover of a song they know than listen to a compelling song, even mind-blowing song, that they don’t.It’s just the way most music listeners are built. And I have personally experienced that thousands of times.
Now, I have manifold issues regarding Twitch. How their Affiliate and Partner programs work, issues with TwitchCon, about their artist outreach, etc. And many, many other things that I just won’t get into unless I hear from you, my audience, saying you really want to hear about it.
But the most frustrating issue, is simply the fact that Twitch took half my subscription money. Every month. If I made $400 in subscriptions one month, so did Twitch. And at first, I didn’t even really think about it. Right? I was busy working on albums. And touring the planet. And putting together this podcast. But, then, come 2022, I’ve now been non Twitch for 7 years, and I’m thinking about the family, and I’m trying to understand where the money is going, and what I am doing for my “Partners”, and man, doing the math, the money that all these third party sites were taking, Twitch, Streamlabs, Ursalive, etc, it really added up. Like, a brand-new car’s worth of money. And, I’m figuring you might already know this, but as a working class musician, I have never had enough money or revenue stable enough to even consider buying a brand new car. Ever.
Mean Insert 1: And when you work this hard, for as many decades as I have, and make other people lots and lots of money while I make nothing. While people steal, and underpay, or, such as this podcast, just enjoy for free because that’s the business model of today. You get bit a tetchy.
Mean Insert: Like, have I been this beaten down? Am I this whipped of a dog that I feel like losing is my birthright?That I will just be taken advantage of and that’s the way of the world? Like, really?
The Great Indie-Rock Swindle Lead-In
So, Twitch, I think takes way more than they should for the services they provide. I mean, I’m doing all the work. They just built a site and provided some Internet gee-gaws that effectively swiped a large fraction of my revenue in exchange for some emotes. Pretty fucking shabby. And I think that them getting this oversized portion of revenue, without any significant pushback from their performers, 99% of which are amatuers, has made them hungry for even more. And we’re seeing this play out in the Twitch-o-sphere right now. And, boy, if this episode wasn’t running so long, I could really drill into this much deeper.
BUT, at least, Twitch saw that what I did had some value.
But, Spotify, man, let us unpack the fury-provoking chaos that is Spotify. Now, first, there is a lot of controversy over their business practices.Practically, since the beginning, they have been accused of underpaying musicians. Which is 100% true. In fact, they don’t pay musicians. They pay rights holders. They pay the record labels, they pay publishers, and they pay the underlying copyright holders, such as the songwriter. Now, I don’t know about you, but if you give a record label a big lump sum of unassigned money each month for access to their catalog, I just don’t imagine them racing to divide that money with their artists. Oh, and also, not everyone is paid equally. They’re paid on a deal-by-deal basis. Which is predicated on the market share that each artist holds of the total number of songs listened to in a given month.
However, Spotify controls the market share that each artist holds by controlling the editorial and algorithmic playlists. They’ve have already gotten into hot water by allowing record labels to buy placement on these playlists that guarantees listeners for their new releases. And they disclose these payments. Which is tantamount to payola. Which is currently illegal for radio stations broadcasting on the public airwaves. But not the Internet. And this is something that significantly, unfairly, unbalances the playing field.It’s not based on the merits of the songs or the songwriting. Or even how carefully marketed something is. It is based on relationships and how much money is spent. So if you’re a poor indie-rock band from Des Moines, you’re fighting an uphill battle no matter how amazing your songs are.
Also, they’ve been accused of creating fake bands or AI propelled bands that offer “quality control” for their playlists.Now Spotify denies this unequivocally.But, Music Business Worldwide, a leading information service for the global music industry, listed 50 such bands that had no internet presence, no affiliated record label, no social mediapresence, no footprint anywhere else but on Spotify that had millions and millions of plays. So explain that.
And the list goes on and on.
And Spotify is another company that I’d like to dive into at greater length if I hear from my listeners that they want me to. Because, there’s so much that they do that is just awful. Including shadow banning me for months and months because I had music with lyrics their algorithm thought was pro-violence and pro-extreme sexual perversion because it couldn’t determine that it was instead, comedy. Dammit. It cost me 22,000 monthly listeners. Now, there are some things that Spotify does exceptionally well, like music discovery.But, there’s a reason why they’re good at this, in my estimation, and it’s not as benign as you might think.
Let’s just talk numbers for a moment. So, the average Spotify listener, right now, listens to the service for 25 hours a month.So, if you assume a song is, on average, around 3 and ½ minutes, then that’s about 450 songs a month. So, trying to understand your ten-dollar Spotify subscription and what percentage of that gets paid out to the artists is a big point of contention amongst a lot of musicians. But, I think the math is incorrect. And I, also, don’t think it’s just underpaying artists that is the true damage that Spotify is doing to the world of music.
Now, everyone has heard that Spotify pays an average of about $.004 per stream. Which is less than half a penny.
Now, Spotify is actually pretty opaque about how this works. Because, according to their website, they say, “Contrary to what you might have heard, Spotify does not pay artist royalties according to a per-play or per-stream rate; the royalty payments that artists receive might vary according to the differences in how their music is streamed or the agreements they have with labels or distributors.” Which, again, is horseshit. Because, Spotify certainly isn’t saying, “Oh, hey, look at these poor independent bands.Let’s kick them down a little bit better royalty to help even the playing field.” Fuck no.
But, back to the half penny. Everyone else on the planet seems to agree that they pay around $.004 per stream. So, let’s assume that’s close to true, on average.
So according to the math that everyone seems to agree, for your 10-dollar subscription to Spotify, your 450 songs, only equals $1.7 dollars going to paying the artists. But Spotify says they pay 70% of their revenue to the artists and labels. They say they pay $7 dollars of your $10 subscription to the rights holders. So, where’s the disconnect?
And the more I thought about it, I suddenly came to the realization that, oh, wait, wait, wait.We’re thinking about this all wrong.Because Spotify really isn’t in the business of people listening to an entire song. Weird, right? They’re a music streaming service. But they pay out for 30 seconds of listening. 30 seconds of play equals one listen on most, if not all, streaming services. Which, of course, is absurd. If you’re a musician. Should we all just be writing 30 seconds songs? That’s much easier. But, if you think about it, it works to Spotify’s benefit, because they want to keep you scrolling and actively engaging with their app. They would prefer if you were to listen to, say, 30 seconds of 20 songs before finally sticking with one, over listening to one song all the way through right out the gate.
And, why would that be? And the answer is, for the metrics. I don’t think they give a fuck about people falling in love with bands. I mean, I certainly think they don’t think that Spotify employees think of themselves as draconian, music-subverting, attention-killers. I just think they like the metrics. I mean, who doesn’t like metrics? It’s how companies raise money, increase share-holder value, and convince people they’re growing. Metrics. And if listening to an intro and verse counts as a full listen, then they’re able to count way, way more engagement. Everybody’s numbers go up. People aren’t actually listening to the songs, which is terrible, ultimately, for the musicians, but everyone’s numbers go up. Pretty awesome, considering metrics are king right now.
And this would make perfect sense as to why they shadow banned me. Because, they want your music browsing experience to be consistent. Consistency is king. Which is why they created those AI bands. For, “quality control”. So, if, for instance, you’re listening to a song that has a similar sounding vibe to my song, Paleophile, and then Paleophile comes on, with it’s hilarious but certainly arresting lyrics, it’s gonna conflict with that consistency thing. Because, I literally like writing songs that force people to pay attention. That pull them out of whatever they’re doing, like a record scratch, and go, “wait, what did he just say?” And that impulse of mine is gonna likely change people’s engagement behavior. And, that, I believe, is the thing that Spotify does not want. They want people scrolling and listening and pushing buttons.It’s not about the music. It’s not about the songs. It’s not about the artists. It’s about engagement with the app.
So, that’s my theory.
Swindle Insert 1: So, bringing it back to the math, and the metrics by which everyone qualifies success, you know songs played, hours listened, it makes sense that Spotify would be gaming the numbers. Certainly, they are taking advantage of the AM Radio Impulse, as I call it. -- I don’t know if many of you remember having a radio that only captured the AM bandwith, but if you were music listener back in the day, and only had access to AM radio, you just kept spinning the dial til you found something you liked.
Swindle Insert 2: So, let me tell you this. I just released my newest album, Juggernaut, and made it available exclusively through Bandcamp, where, after a limited number of listens, they encourage you to buy the album. For $7 bucks.And I made about $2,000 in sales in the first six weeks or so. In contrast, I make about $1,200 each YEAR from ALL my streaming revenue. Look up Get Set Go’s numbers on Spotify, and tell me something’s not broken.
Swindler Insert 3: So, Spotify doesn’t seem to be built around listening to an entire song. From beginning to end. So, no wonder they’re not gonna pay a fair wage for a song.They don’t care about the song. Otherwise, they’d pay more and ask people to listen longer. Instead, they’re leaning into that Am Radio Impulse that keeps people searching. And in that environment, it’s the bigger bands with bigger budgets, that are more familiar and ubiquitous, that are gonna dominate. So, fair market? Hell no.
Swindler Insert 4: And in this, as in every time I use the word dumb in my songs, I mean speechless. My voice is not heard. There is so much white noise, so much distraction, I might as well just shut up, lay down, and take my lumps. And that is something I refuse to do. So, I keep writing, recording, taking my beautiful, hand-crafted musical children and throwing them into the abyss. Hoping that something’s gonna change. So, what’s the definition of insanity again?
Ready for War Lead-In:
So, here I am. Fifty years old. I hold the IP for hundreds and hundreds, more than likely, one to two thousand songs.I’m 14 episodes and 70 brand-new song recordings into my very first podcast. I have 23 albums in stores. Number 24 is in the can. I have licensed 20+ songs to film and tv. And I keep finding myself running out of money. I’ve borrowed from friends, from family, I’ve maxed out my credit cards. And I’m fucking sick and tired of it, man.
So, I’ve decided to double down. I left Twitch. And I only use music-streaming services as a way to promote one single from each record, that’s it. I’m trying desperately to walk away from all third party participation in my financial livelihood so I live or die off of my own efforts and also, I don’t have to discover that I’ve been getting robbed for years. Even if I signed up for being robbed. Ala, Twitch. Which, of course, is silly. But, hy, it’s a silly world.
So, the thing is, I am going it alone. Well, at least from the work perspective. And, as such, I am increasing my workload. My already absurdly intense workload. But, I think that the only things we truly value in life are things that we have to work hard for. You know, it’s the effort we put in that creates the value. It’s the doing, and the struggle, and the obstacles we overcome that create the sense of intense satisfaction when you finally arrive at your destination. It’s why people climb Mt Everest. And why we went to the moon. So, for me, when I’m finally able to put my financial burden down, doing it my way, on my terms, by the sweat of my brow, and the fire in my belly, and the fury in my heart, well, that’s gonna be a good day. If it ever comes.
You know, and I have to reconcile myself to the fact that the very way people digest and think about music has been eroding since mp3s first became readily available with mp3.com back in 1997. You know, I climbed onto a sinking ship. And I don’t’ know if I can save it. But I’m damn well gonna try. Because music is my everything. Well, music, my family, and my dogs. But, you know. Music is life. It is my life.
Ready for War Insert: And if that doesn’t have value in this world. In this place. At this time. Then, fuck it. I’m just suiting up and going to war.
Ready for War Insert 2: So, this is the fire I feel, in my belly, every fucking day. And I share this with other people that struggle against a world that is more about profits and metrics and success than genuine human connection, friendship, and kindness.
Ready for War Insert 3: And I’ve been asking people for a long time to pay attention. Hell, I’ve been trying to yank my musician friends into doing things differently so we can, all of us, focus on music, and performing together, and taking our shared love of one of the only perfect things I’ve ever known, and making it happen. You know, but a person can only ask for so long before they just say, fuck it. I’m out. Now, I have still got gas in the tank, man. But, boy, people getting fired up about what I do, sharing it, supporting it, giving back a tiny fraction of what I have given. That’d fucking save my life, man.
Episode Summation: So, that’s the episode. I’m not certain if you caught the lyric, “up, up, hoist your petard” in that last song. It's great because a) it’s a reference to the Underachievers March and Fight song by one of my favorite bands in he world, definitely look it up, and b) getting hoist on your own petard means you were hurt by your own plans or strategies. But, that’s what’s gotta happen if you’re out the weeds trying to carve a life for yourself that follows no roadmap. Sometimes you make bad choices. Sometimes you choose bad partners. And when you do, you course correct, and head in a different direction, a little wiser and always stronger for the experience.
So, I really wanna say something about Patreon and about my new streaming service Launchpad and about how you can support me. But, I think I’d be doing you and me disservice if I did. You like what I do, come find me. And support me the best way you can. That’s all I can ask. Think about it. You can be a barnacle on this ship. Or you can be the wind in its sails. Your choice.
Be well. Eat your veggies. Live forever.