A couple of months ago I was reading through a chapter on Andreas Antonopoulos' excellent primer on Bitcoin, "The Internet of Money." It's a short read, but one I keep revisiting because of the concepts contained within.

One of those such concepts is his chapter titled - Money as Content Type. In a nutshell, he explains that Bitcoin (as protocol, not currency) has essentially liberated money from it's underlying medium of transport (e.g. American dollar, British pound, Japanese yen.) He underlines this by, and without getting too much in the weeds, detailing a couple of instances of verifying Bitcoin transactions via alternate methods. The first is transmitting via Skype (this talk is from 2014, so substitute Skype for your favorite chat service) as smileys (or emoticons), the second is via shortwave radio. Admittedly, he's extreme with the examples, but it's to prove the point that shutting down the transactions would be impossible. Whether you believe in the validity of the Bitcoin protocol or not, it can still be used today to send currency directly from one person to another without any third party involvement.

He goes on to provide similar examples in history. He talks about broadcast TV being the primary medium for the longest time, and how it constrains and influences the message that is being broadcast. Then Youtube comes along and flips the whole script (no pun intended) on its head. He also goes back further in time and mentions the invention of the printing press, then zooms forward in time to talk about how Twitter (again, replace with your social media of choice) essentially changed the game and freed the message from the medium.

Right about now, I'm probably losing you. What is the point of all of this? Why take the time to summarize a 2014 talk on Bitcoin? What does this have to do with your art and creativity? Just stick with me for a bit.

Well, Andreas makes clear that for each of these examples, those engrossed in the medium being replaced (e.g. American dollar, broadcast TV, the printing press,) had a less than favorable attitude toward the new medium into which it was evolving. They laughed at it and ridiculed it, especially because the first attempts to use the new medium were used for things that seemed to have low value. He goes on to say:

We often put our message too much in service to our preferred mediums, whether it's Spotify, Instagram, Substack, or movie theaters. I speak with artists all the time and I find all too often that strategies are built up to be heavily dependent around one or two mediums, yet they leave all of the value within the medium that they are using. They don't have processes in place to extract the value they obtain from the mediums they use, to be able to transfer it elsewhere. This signals an overreliance on those particular mediums.

If history (even recent) has taught us anything, mediums don't have our best interest in mind, mediums evolve, mediums change their terms of service, mediums get replaced, mediums get shut down. Where does that leave you and all of the value that you've stacked up within Spotify and Instagram? If you haven't been connecting with your community elsewhere, or building up your email database, it now means you have to start from scratch in a completely new space.

I view social media as my top level interaction with my existing community and any potential additions to that community. I need to do more work in this area, but it will always be the place where I'm trying out smaller things or sharing quick updates. I provide value there, but I also have a clear path to a deeper level. This newsletter, and my calendar link, are both examples of this. It opens up a door of opportunity to be able to engage more deeply with my community, to connect in different ways. I'm always thinking of new ways to connect more directly, to not depend so much on third-party platforms. More importantly, these pathways and the messaging are always in flux.

Disintermediation is the name of the game. It's also the word that jumped out at me in this 2019 article by Cherie Hu that speaks about musicians starting their own podcasts. To disintermediate in this context would be to get rid of the middle man wherever possible, and go straight to the fan. She lays it out when she says -

This is why many artists began creating their own podcasts (as stated in the article.) To be able to tell their own story at their own pace. To be able to go deep with that story and engage with their community at a more profound level.

Now, don't take this as advice to start your own newsletter or podcast, or to pull all of your music off of Spotify. What I'm saying is to never forget that the mediums we use influence and constrain the message we're sharing. The mediums we use to get our message across also have their end user in mind to a lesser or greater degree. We own the message, but not the medium. We should always extract the most value from these mediums with an eye on being able to easily pick up where we left off no matter which future mediums we choose to utilize. It's your world to create for your community!

A Pace That Honors Your Community

I've kept returning to my interview with The Bul Bey from the previous edition of this newsletter, and there is something he said that I couldn't stop thinking about -

This idea of finding peace with the pace at which you create, and balancing this with an awareness that a community of people exists at the other end. It's not a sense of frenzy that is intertwined with your creativity, but a sense of honoring your community's efforts in still being there, patiently waiting for what you'll create next.

This small change in perception makes a huge difference in the outcome. There might be this frantic rhythm that subliminally pushes you along because you imagine your fans growing tired of receiving nothing. This is a rhythm that you've grown used to not questioning, because... well, because the algorithm says so. It influences how you create, what you create, and when you decide it's ready to be shared with others.

Except, if you begin to imbue your process with a sense of appreciation for your supporters, then this gratitude seeps into the spaces where anxiousness would once take hold. This transformation of how you imagine your fans to hold that negative space while you quietly create, is a key component to finding that balance between "…moving at your own pace, but also the urgency of executing…" as The Bul Bey put it.

September Sensations (aka Updates)

Lucesca Publishing updates in this (almost) fourth quarter:

• Fvck Error releases "Yoritomo," a tasteful trance club banger, after a long five year hiatus. Also, this one was mixed and mastered by me!

• Le Montro delights their fans with a quiet release of their own take on the Depeche Mode classic “Enjoy The Silence.”

• partywatcher kills it at his Schubas release show for "AMOR DEL BUENO", while also prepping for the release of his new single "AQUI ESTAREMOS" on September 24th, a romantic collab with Mexican artist, Rosalba Valdez.

• DJ Pho makes an appearance on The Lot Radio with an all 45s set.

• Check out some of the latest picks from our Lucesca Sampler playlist on Spotify (other platforms are in the works) - Sampler link

Art I Think is Cool Enough to Recommend↴

• I've brought this one up before, but I recently finished the podcast and I think it merits a repeat mention. Quiet Part Loud is a fantastically produced audio-only horror podcast brought to life by the team at Monkeypaw Productions (founded by Jordan Peele.) Though, calling it a podcast seems incorrect to me, as that elicits imagery of real life people having conversations or interviewing someone on a topic. That's not what this is. This is a fictional story with strong storytelling using only audio, which is extremely challenging to pull off in an effective way. Go ahead and try supporting a story with no images to support it, only audio. Unfortunately, it's only available on Spotify.

• Since I brought it up in the intro, and if you're even slightly interested in Bitcoin or the Bitcoin protocol, "The Internet of Money" by Andreas Antonopoulos is an easy intro. It's 125 pages or so and if you want to go deeper on any of the concepts you can just check out one of the Youtube links in the book, which share the complete talk. What interests me is not necessarily Bitcoin (because maybe that'll be replaced by something else in the future,) it's mainly the ideas that are being shared. They tend to widen my perspective and make me think in different ways.

• Thanks to The Tonearm, Craig Mod and his creations, with a focus on walking around Japan, have entered my paradigm and there's no going back. I read this interview with him and was instantly hooked. I'm currently listening to this same interview via The Tonearm's Spotlight On podcast because it's the complete conversation and I want to pick up on everything that Craig and Lawrence spoke about. Well, I was rewarded for my completist actions because somewhere during the conversation Craig namedrops Robin Sloan and that instantly set off a lightbulb in my head which sent me down another rabbit hole.

  Months (or maybe even years ago,) the Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care (RDoLC) newsletter linked to this note by Robin Sloan which took me on a wild audio trip that spirals (or loops) into itself. These are my kind of stories! There are so many connections that I'm realizing as I'm writing this. The RDoLC newsletter is (was?) written by Michael Donaldson, who also happens to write The Tonearm's weekly recap newsletter and he's the main editor for the website. In a way, you could say I encountered my own kind of real life loop. So, a big thanks to Michael, Craig, Lawrence, and Robin for making hours of my day much more enjoyable with your wonderful worlds of words.

We’ve arrived at the end of this one, but lets not forget I also create some pretty cool stuff outside of this humble newsletter. If interested in my audio engineering and/or artist development services, whether it be music publishing, distribution, consulting, or anything in between, please DO reach out to me. If we follow each other on social media, feel free to send me a DM. You can also book a date on my calendar HERE or send a few words to [email protected].

‘til next time! Abrazos!