How to Make a Song Every Day and Turn it in to a DAO Cooperative: Interview with Jonathan Mann
In this interview I spoke to Jonathan Mann (@songadaymann), also known as the Song A Day guy, who has, in case you can't tell, published a new song every day for the past ~14 years. There's a good chance you've heard one of his songs at some point since many have gone viral in the past! He has also turned all of his songs over the years into NFTs which has formed the basis for the creation of a larger project called SongADAO Coop (for full transparency, I also own one NFT of one of his songs ...
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Transcript
I will eat your leftist ass. I born on the cob. I'm ready. I will. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your leftest ass. I born on the cob. I'm ready. I will eat you. I will eat your ass. My children aren't going hungry. I'll do it. I'll drink your blood. And I'm starting to think about having to eat my neighbors. You think I like size it up, gonna haul him a bad chain. Drop his I will eat your leftist ass. I'm ready. I will. I will eat your I'll barbecue your ass flat. I will cook your ass up so fast. I'll tell them, killed a cow. I'll fight, baby. You think Christ would eat somebody? He would never do that. I will. I'm ready to hang them up, gut them and skin them and chop them up. You know what? I'm ready. I will eat your leftist ass like corn on the cob. I'm ready. I will. I will eat your I will eat your I will eat your I will eat your leftist ad like corn on the cob. I'm ready. I will eat you. I will eat your I will eat your I will eat your leftist ad like corn on the cob. I'm ready. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I
will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your ass. I will eat your
ass intro, I wanted to use your the song that you did with, Alex Jones. They're like, I'll eat your leftist ass. Your leftist ass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's great. Do I get a can I get permission on that? Oh, of course. Yeah. Please.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's great. How did I mean, yeah, that one yeah. I'll talk we'll talk about we'll we'll we'll leave that one in. Yeah. Why don't you ask me? I can tell you. I can tell you. Yeah. I mean, for that one, did you because you've only done, like, quite a couple I've seen, like, sort of these remix ones of, you know, manipulating side of what someone is saying into, like, a song. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was inspired originally, like, back in the day, you know, by, like, the Gregory brothers who famously did, like, hide your wife, hide, you know, the the the, they, like, songifying, like, auto tune. And, like, years ago, I, like, would try to do that, sort of mesmerized by how they did it and never quite was able to, but, like, I've definitely, like, found my own groove of just more of, like, a straight remix where I, like, just find find things that, like, people in the news say. And then but Alex Jones, fortunately or unfortunately, I guess, probably, is, like, just really good for it. Like, because his cadence his cadence and the way he shouts and the things he says are just, like, perfectly. And so but then my wife is constantly like, dude, why are you doing that? Like, you're just you're helping him. You know? You're, like, helping him spread his message. And I will say, like, that is one of my consistent, like, consistently most viewed on YouTube. Things sort of go in cycles. And, like, for the last, I don't know, six or seven months, that song just, like, gets a lot of YouTube views and a lot of YouTube comments. And the comments are very evenly split between people who are like, oh my god. Look at this buffoon. What an idiot. Or, like, leftist people who are like, eat my leftist ass Alex Jones. And then and then and then people were like, yeah. Alex Jones. He's hilarious. I love this guy. He's a national treasure. It should be more Alex Jones. I love Alex. And so I'm like, oh, man. Like, she's Yeah. So my wife is right in a sense of, like, you know, I'm really just helping him. And I will say, I hear then for also people from Alex Jones, like, that love him, they'd be like, oh, yeah. They play that they play your remix on Alex Jones' show all the time. Like, they just, like, they, like, lead into segments with it. They lead out of segments with it. There's one other story about this, which is I have this fan that's, like, longtime fan of song a day. And I'm talking, like I've been doing this for fourteen years. I'm talking, like from the beginning, 2009, commissioned many songs from me for his kids. His kids became fans. He is like a very serious head. I looked on Patreon when what debt went down, which we'll get into. He had he had spent something like $600 on me over the court. Like, he, like but he was a huge Alex Jones fan. Just like just like the biggest Alex Jones fan. And I don't know how he could go so long being my fan. And he would often you know, he would occasionally be like, Jonathan, I hate your leftist politics or whatever. And then when I made this Alex Jones thing, making fun of Alex Jones, but then other people loved it. He was like, that's the last straw, Jonathan. I love you so much, but I can't follow you anymore. I'm canceling my Patreon. This is it. And his, like, his kids wrote to me later. They're like, we're really sorry. Like, he's, you know, he's just he's anyway. So so that's my that's my and then I wrote a store and then I wrote a song about that guy, about my fan called called You Chose Alex Jones. Like, you chose Alex Jones over me. That's fine. You chose Alex Jones. That's that's what you chose. Yeah. So then is are are his kids I mean, is it sort of, like, that standard, like, oh, my dad's, like, kind of this annoying conservative and Yes. We can't really get through to him? Yes. Exactly. And and what's wild about it, you know, is that when if you think about it, like, I think they were I'm gonna make these numbers up, but it's something like this where they were, like, six and seven when when when he first became a fan of mine. Right? And now fourteen years later, they're, like, young adults. And so so they've sort of grown up with me. Like, they've grown up with Jonathan Mann in the background or whatever. And so, yeah, they're, like, constantly apologizing. Wow. You know? That's great. He's a he's he's a veteran. That that's main the the main thing I know about him is he's he's a veteran. Right. He's very into Alex Jones. Right. Yeah. Sometimes the
I yeah. I don't I guess I can't really, like, fully grasp why, like, an Alex Jones fan likes the parodies of Alex Jones so much. Yeah. Well, I see it seems to come from, I don't know, like, a very nihilistic, like, worldview. Just like they kind of just enjoy the the entertainment factor of it and then just touching on some sort of, like, you know, things that they're familiar with every once in a while makes them feel like they're doing politics, I guess. My right.
My guess is that, like, yeah, there's, like, there's, like, a couple different kinda Alex Jones fans. Right? Like, I think, like, this guy, Kevin, my fan, who was, like, I think probably seems to really subscribe to, like, Alex's Jones nascent, whatever you wanna call it, ideology. And then and then I do think there's a lot of people who, like, you know, listen to him like they would, like like, you know, Howard Stern or something. It's just, like, pure entertainment. It's just like, oh, this guy is hilarious. He says the wackiest things. And those are the people that I think like the songs because they're like, you know, the song the the song is basically, unfortunately, and this is my wife's point, is is taking the same view as them. It's like, ultimately, it's like, look at this wacky guy and his wacky things that he says. But, you know, ultimately, at the end of the day, Alastair is a fucking dangerous dude with some really, like, vile, dangerous ideas, and, like, giving him any oxygen is the wrong idea. That's my wife's point, and she's correct about that, I would say, ultimately.
Yeah. But what I I feel like I don't know. At least I haven't really come across Alex Jones, like or at least freaking out about Alex Jones as I did, like, I don't know, in 2016, 2015, like, during that time. Like, now it feels like it's sort of past idea what he's I have no idea if even that the the show is still going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know either. Well, he got the platform. Right? It would which is, I think, a case of where, like,
it worked. You know? Like like, people Yeah. People joke about it getting canceled, but you don't hear about him as much anymore. And I think it's he's not on YouTube. He did he get deplatform from a bunch of podcast things? I think he might have. Like, Apple, I think he's not on he like, you think he can't find him on, like, Apple Podcasts or, like, and things like that. So that's, you know it's just an RSS feed, so you can always just get the RSS feed another way. But but, yeah. Yeah.
Well, I guess maybe for for people in case they have been listening, and haven't figured it out yet, I have today Jonathan Mann, also known as Song a Day Mann. And, yeah, he's been he's pretty straightforward. He's been doing a new song every day for now, I think you said fourteen years. Yeah. I'm in my fourteenth year. So it'll be fourteen years complete
at the end of this year. Yeah.
Yeah. And Jonathan, of course, has also been working on some pretty interesting projects like the, Song a Day co op or Song a Day NFT project, in which he's sort of tokenized all the different songs that he's done over the years into, something that you can collect on the blockchain. And, in doing so, you can kind of become a part of this larger, organizational structure. But we'll get into that, I think, as we as we go along. But maybe if you want to, yeah, because I'm sure everybody will be curious to know. And I know you've you've, talked about it before and everyone asked you this, but how did, you know, Song of Day start? Yeah. Yeah. So Song of Day began in 2009,
basically on a whim. And 01/01/2009, I plan to just start writing a song a day for a month. That was the sort of the goal. And, I mean, if you can imagine, like, back then, like, you know, I started on Tumblr, you know, which gives you an idea of, like, of of of, like, where where the web was at that point. And then after the YouTube YouTube had, like, just started around that time, I think. Yeah. YouTube you know, Tumblr, I think, was 2007, if I'm right, and and and, and YouTube was 2005. So it was, like, all very Okay. New still. And then a few days after that, I was like, oh, I'll just start adding video to it. So for for the month of January 2009, I wrote a song a day for that month, posting them, starting on Tumblr, and then moving to YouTube. And then, at the end of the month, I had actually had, like, one song go viral and, which was also in sort of new a relatively new phenomenon at the time. That word viral, I think, had really just been coined. And so it you know? And that had been happening in different ways on the Internet with, like, email chains and things, but, like, there was suddenly this new way for it to happen. And so then I decided to keep going for a year, and I went for all of 2009. And then I was sort of at this crossroads at the end of 2009 where it's like, I was having a good time, and I was still wanting to do it. But it's like, a year is sort of a really good, like, easy to digest. Like, okay. You did it for a year. You know? But, like, once you cross that threshold, it's like, alright. Then how long am I gonna go for? And, basically basically, at that point, it became more or less indefinite. There have been a few times throughout the last fourteen years or whatever where I've, like, considered stopping, but, like, never really, never really seriously.
And so at this point, it's just this it's this ongoing thing that I plan to do as long as I as long as I possibly can. Alright. Yeah. There there are, like, two things in my life that, like, makes me resonate with that story so much is one, is that I became a vegetarian, like, don't know, a few years ago, like, for a New Year's resolution. And I was like, alright. For a year, I'm gonna try eating no meat. Yeah. And then, like, by the end of the year, I was like, well, I guess I might as well keep going. And I just, like, haven't stopped. I did a year. So yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I was like, it wasn't that bad. So I guess I'll keep going. And then, I mean, also with, like, my, blog and podcast, like, I started off with just being, like, okay. I'm gonna make something every Sunday. And I told people when I first started, like, I'm going to make something every Sunday, and it put, like, a lot of social pressure on myself to do it. And now I've, like, I'm not stopped, I guess, more or less.
Yeah. They say that, like, that social pressure is, like, the way is a good way to, like, keep yourself honest. Like, announce your project and then, like, new half.
I I think for me, what's even I don't know if I if I really look back at it, I'm like, I bet there was maybe, like, five people who read Yeah. The first one for me. But Yeah. But that's not Like, I couldn't yeah. I I didn't want to disappoint those five people. Of course. Sometimes
that's even harder. It's like you know? Because you might even, like, you you know, at that point, you could know each of them by name. You know? You're like, I don't wanna upset Bob. Like, Bob is expecting this thing, you know, versus, like, a a faceless mass of people. People.
Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, I still have I have, like, so much more respect for you just because I've also tried making music before in the past, and it's not at least for me, it's, like, not an easy thing. Even though I played music for a really long time, it's like, yeah, it's not easy. I imagine you just, like, kinda dream dream music at this point.
I I mean, I have a very, like, I have a very strict philosophy around, basically, like, the the trick is the trick is to, like, not care. The trick is to, like, is to is to be totally fine with, like, being making something totally horrible every day if I have to. Right. Which which which not everybody can do by any means. You know? That's a really hard pill to swallow for a lot of people. But I do think and I always say this, like, especially when it comes to music or anything really, like, doing it every day for, like, a week or a month is can be can be transformative in that way. Because if you give yourself permission within a certain boundary set to suck, where it's like, okay. I'm gonna do it for a month, and I'm gonna know that some of those days are gonna suck. Like, that's probably an easier lift than do than saying, okay. I'm gonna make a song a day forever, and and many days are gonna suck, and that's gonna be how it is. I just sorta happen to have, like, the kind of personality for whatever reason that it's not it's not like an obsessive thing exactly, but it's just like yeah. It's a lot of different things. But it's just, like, I feel better every day when I make me when I've made a song. Like, that that's really, like, that's really just, like, what it comes down to.
Yeah. Yeah. Even if the song sucks. Yeah. That that that's sort of I mean, I kind of I I felt similarly when I was first starting that, I couldn't just sort of, oh, it needs to be completely perfect before I publish something and Right. You know, if I don't miss, you know, I can't miss these other points because I mean, especially for this particular space we're talking about crypto in in front of leftists. Like, it's notoriously pedantic and notoriously, like, you know, no one is you can never expect everyone to agree with you. So that's, like, a huge problem that I've that I've suffered from as well, and then I just had to, like, convince myself, like, no. Just do it. And, you know, it's okay to be wrong every once in a while.
And I'm sure you found that, like, blog posts or episodes or things that you thought were not your best. You've heard from people who've you've heard from people who've been like, oh, I love that one or, like, oh, that one was a great one or whatever. Like, you never know what people's response is gonna be, which is really For sure. I mean, I it's really difficult for me to listen to, like, the first episodes or, like, any different to read I mean, anything that I write, I get, like, really nervous. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah. And then, like, if I if I think about kind of, like, this fourteen years especially that you were sort of being online and and publishing music Yeah. It's really it's like I'm going through it. I feel like I'm watching, like, the development of, like, millennial culture almost Oh, yeah. Through through music. And it's crazy to me. Like, it's there's so many, like like, there's a song for, like, each day in which there was some, like, maybe somewhat important, like, events in at least American history, during that time.
Or, like, I mean, just Internet history in general. Internet history. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Oh, yeah. Like, things people won't even remember. Like, some people things will some things people will remember, and, frankly, I wouldn't remember them if I hadn't wrote written a song about them probably. But, like, you know, I think a good example when you say that, it makes me think of the dress, you know, like, the blue the what color is the dress? Like, that's something that I I made a song for that or, like It's white and gold just to be Yeah. I can't pray. Right. And and there you know, and then and then, you know, there's things like that people won't remember, but, like, things that were, like, you know, the talk of the town for, like, a week or something when there was, like, a monkey in IKEA. There was, like, a a a monkey in IKEA or something. Like, I was talking about that or, like, a dolphin in the Gowanus Canal. Like, there's a lot, like yeah. Yeah. And and that's, you know, that's purely a function, right, of being on of being, you know, very online TM, but also just needing constantly needing something to write about. And and and so whatever the talk of the day is, like, it made sense to to make songs about it. It's sort of funny now where where actually, you know, now that I'm so neck deep in crypto that that wider Internet, culture thing has narrowed down to you know, I'm writing songs about, like, ETH's march towards proof of stake. Right? Like, like, I did a song about EIP 1559, and I did a song about, like, the kiln merge and these and now just I just did one about the shadow forks. And, like, yeah. So now I'm writing songs, like, very esoteric songs about, like, the ETH history and things in crypto. Mhmm. It's a little less wide. But I imagine, like, eventually, one would look, like, ten years later at those and be like, oh, look. There's all these, like, weird random crypto history things that happened in Sangre.
Well, yeah. I guess I mean, I'd say probably first off, it's maybe because there's so much more Internet now. Yeah. I guess versus the beginning, there is just like I don't know. When there was some when something went viral Yes. It was like that one thing went viral that, you know, for some time and everyone kinda knew it. And then now it's sort of like, alright. There's, like, 14 different things going viral and, like, 23 different sub niches of the internets that are sort of, like, overlapping, but not really necessarily completely looking at the same type of content and in their own little bubbles and such. I'd say that's very true. It's rare now that there's, like,
that there's, like, a a what color is the dress moment where the entire Internet is talking about the exact same thing. Right? Right. And I guess if I think about it, when those things happen and they are more rare now, I I will probably write a song about it it. It just, like, makes sense to you. Right.
Yeah. I guess with with the crypto stuff, I guess that is largely having to do with your already like, you were already interested in NFTs and, like, writing about CryptoPunks. I think it was, like, 2017 or '18 you had first, which is, like, well, before I mean, I I don't even think I knew about CryptoPunks at that time either. Nobody did. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, yeah. I guess we can let's let's have it because, you know, having probably, I guess, gone through, or being deeply entrenched into, like, the YouTube algorithm or, like, being sort of, like, I don't know, victim of it. Yeah. Yeah. Great word. Yes, please. Yeah. Which is, like, this centralized institution and, like, that can if you are, like, a I mean, I don't know how dependent you were necessarily, like, on your money off of that. But if you are, like, very dependent on it, then, like, you know, it can make a a huge effect, on that. So, like, I think what sometimes people or, like, people on the left maybe sometimes forget is, like, how much control, like, this one tech company has for this platform. And, like, there isn't really, I guess, just go you know, taking YouTube but giving it to The States seems like not necessarily, like, the the best Yeah. Answer to it. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And thinking about Twitter too, you know, with, like, the idea of Elon Musk buying Twitter, it's like the alternative or, like, the the the the the farthest alternative one could imagine is, like, you know, which I don't think, yeah, would necessarily be the right way to go either. It could be, but I don't know. Yeah. It's a big it's a big maybe, and it's a yeah. I could think especially,
I don't know, in the American context, it feels very
unlikely to be a good thing. Well well, like, you know, in the American context, like, nationalizing something like Twitter and this is me talking completely ex extemporaneously about this. But, like, you know, one could imagine it would be subject to the whims, right, of, like, the the really, like, far right maniacal thing that that that is taking over. And then it's just like anything else, like, in our in our culture right now where it's like it it feels like Donald Trump and then, you know, over here and over there. It's like if we just get yanked this way and that way, it would be weird Yeah. If if Twitter was, like, literally yanked at. Yeah. Getting yanked as well. Exactly. Yeah.
But I I guess your interest from NFTs, I imagine somewhat comes from, like, a critique based on your experience with these various different online platforms.
Yeah. Completely. I mean, you know, so so so to, like, pinpoint it, it was like it was seeing CryptoPunks in 2017. Like, for context, they they launched in July 2017, and I was introduced to them by my friend Boris, in September 2017. And I wrote a song about them, like, the week after I discovered them because, like, I was like, this is amazing. Like, this is the you know? I didn't know I didn't have, like, a I I can't say that I had, like, a fully formed idea of, like, what NFTs could be or would be. They wouldn't even call that NFTs at that point. Yeah. But, like, but I have this, like you know, I have this notion that there was some kind of new new tool here that could be used by people like me who who made stuff on the Internet to, like, find a way to make money off of it that that sidestepped, you know, all the other traditional ways that one would make money on the Internet by ad revenue or whatever, by making things, as we say, sort of would say at the time, like, digitally scarce, which is kind of a misnomer and is, like, the, actually, the wrong framework, you know, now, but, like, that's sort of how we were understanding at the time. What would Matt Dryhurst. I was just listening to an episode of interdependence with, Holly Herndon and and Matt Dryhurst, and he said this really great way of, like, an alternative to a digital scarcity with something abundance, like like, workable abundance or something like that. Like Mhmm. Like a like a a I totally flipped it on its head where it's like, it's not exactly that it's digitally scarce. It's that, like, for the first time, we can have things in abundance that still gives value back to the person that that created it, which is, like Right. Yeah. Which is Yeah. Which is the main point. It's not the scarcity. That's the point. It's this, like, abundance with value flowing back to the person who who, like, you know, is creating a thing.
Right. But I guess whenever so, like, when you saw CryptoPunks, was it that was it really an interest in necessarily the project CryptoPunks, or was it, like, the the realization
of, like, this one little thing? It was both. And it was and in fact, I know we're not on video, but, like, I I I recently went on eBay because the thing the the thing that the thing that got me was, I used to love these little guys. I don't know if you had these where you grew up. I don't know if you had these. These are called muscle man. And they're just like they're just like they were just I had these as a kid, and they're and they're essentially, you know, they're just, like, many, many different of these little pink dudes. And they just all have these their own little, like, look, and they all look different or whatever. And I recently went on eBay and, like, just bought bought a bunch. But, like, so so from, like, a from, like, a nostalgia point of view, it got me it got me on, like, a on, like, a heart level almost because I just saw them, and I was, like, just a mute I was smitten I was, like, smitten with with the project from just, like, a I don't know. What whatever that is. I just like Like as a co like, as a collector? Yeah. Idea of collecting. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And I just I love the I love the way they looked, and I loved looking at all of them, and I loved it, like, brought back this feeling that I remember having as a kid. And I love I love I love that moment. I've I'm a very nostalgic person, and so I love, like, having these moments where some long dormant thing from my childhood is, like, brought to the fore, and I have this rush of nostalgia. It's a very, like it's very intoxicating feeling. So so that was this feeling that I had. And then when I started to understand, like like, you know, I didn't understand the technology at all. But, like, the way it was explained to me was, like, you know, oh, you know, like, it started with currency. Right? And so you have this, like, you have this coin. You have this coin that is digitally scarce. And now you have this other you have this little piece of art that's digitally scarce. And because of that, you can, like, buy it, you could trade it, and people can own it, and it's this different thing. And so, I don't know, something in the mixture there of this, like, this, like, rush of nostalgia made me love it so much. I even I, like, wrote to John and Matt who are the creators of it and, like, made them take me out to lunch so we could talk about it. I just loved it so much. And then and then but also, like, seeing, like, oh, like, I have all these songs. Right? I have all these song a day songs. There's 10,000 CryptoPunks. At that time, I had, like, 3,500 songs or whatever. I have all these songs and, like, you know, nothing really to do with them. Like, people can stream them. That doesn't do much. Like, people can watch them on YouTube. What if people could collect them as, like, little objects on the Internet? That's, like, pretty cool. Like, that
that's, like, sort of where it started for me. Like, that's a whole other I had never it had just it blew my mind that that could be a that that could be a thing. And I got so excited about it. Yeah. And you and you have this I mean, you shared with me this, like, basically, Twitter thread that you had done, I think, beginning of this year Yeah. That sort of went through the process. So I'll I'll share that, to people in the in the show notes so they can go through it. And then as well, I think it would be interesting. I'll share the if you did, like, a sort of a mini podcast, I guess, Kinda going through your process of making songs where that was really interesting. Yes. Yeah. And and hearing you sort of, like, doubting yourself, you're like, oh, that sounds cool. So I'll play with that. And Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to make a podcast that that sort of answered the question, which is, like, what's your process? Right? Like, do you start with the lyrics? Do you start with the music? And the the answer that I give in this podcast over the course of 10 episodes is basically, like, yes. Like, everything. I I try and I tried, like, in each episode of the podcast, like like, okay. This week, we're gonna start with music. This week, we're gonna start with the lyrics. This week, we're gonna start with nothing. I have no ideas. This week, we're gonna start with an idea. This week, we're gonna start with a, you know, article that I read. This week, we're gonna start with something I found on Twitter. Like, just every different possible way of starting a song, I wanted to showcase, like, and this is how it works.
Mhmm. That was the goal with that podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really I I recommend it. And so, like, from what I understand as well, based on that, some of the things that I heard you say and and that you've written, that's so you're interested in what were later to become NFTs back in, like, '20 starting in 2017, and then trying it out, trying to to do it with something with your songs, but never really it didn't really take off until sometime after, like, once NFTs I mean, really, the the NFT like, the first wave of NFT excitement and, like, the Beeple sale and Yeah. And all these things. I mean, I guess, yeah. I I imagined I kinda I kinda almost wanted to call you, like, the Beeple of music, but, like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if you would you would appreciate that one because No. It's fine. It it it, you know, it definitely, like, frames things. But I will say, and I've talked about this before, but, like,
literally, I can remember this moment because it was a very big moment in the history of this project where, you know, and I talked about this in the thread that you'll link to where I've been working so long on this project. I worked for, like, two years trying to get it off the ground, like, to to no avail, you know, finding a solidity developer, like, there's just basically no interest in NFTs more or less. Like, so so then I it had kinda gotten dormant for a while in my life, and I was laying in bed. It's, like, late December twenty twenty, and I saw and I was like, I follow people on on Insta, and he was like he had posted, like, a little video of him being like, hey. I can't believe. Like, I just made, you know, $2,000,000 selling out my my NFT project, and my heart, like, sank to the floor. I'm like, like, the other thing a day person, like, has done it. Like, they did it already. Like, what did I do? Like, I missed my chance. Like, I felt horrible. But then but then but then, like, but then, you know, my my interest renewed. And and me and Matt Condon, who you you've been on our podcast, Digitally Rare, like, we started our we restarted our podcast back up after, like, a eight month hiatus or something, and, like, I dove back in. And and, you know, and luckily you know? Mhmm. Luckily, it was I I do I think I think it's fair to credit. Whatever else you think about people, I happen to, you know, really respect him and, like, you know, enjoy those images that he makes. But, like, whatever you think about him, I don't think it's, like, out of the realm to say that, like, that sale specifically, and then and then his his later sale, which is problematic in and of itself. Let's just say the other sale is actually kinda problematic in the way that it went down. But, like, really did make NFTs what they are. And and, there's a lot of problems with NFTs, but, like, the all the sort of scheming and dreaming and thinking about it that I did way back when, now at least has a chance to, like, to come to fruition. Now at least has a chance to be something good for Mhmm. People who make things on the Internet. Whatever else you could say about it. And there's a lot else you can say about it, but, like, it at least has a chance now to be something good.
Yeah. I guess for at least I'm at I mean, the obvious thing, I guess, to say is that he probably got it first just because, like, digital art, like, images were, like, the easiest. It's the lowest lowest amount of memory or whatever Yep. Like, type of media to to share online. So He also has a much more gigantic audience than I do, which doesn't which doesn't hurt. No. Okay. Yeah. His I think his yeah. His the the provocativeness of his imagery is something something else. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So then I imagine and then we talked about this probably before, but seeing that wave and then seeing then as well, I guess, the the backlash then that sort of came afterwards, of course, of, like, people that, maybe you liked or respected afterwards when it was something, like, oh, everyone who is interested in it is just in it for, like, some sort of cash grab. And, like, there's some truth to that, but then I guess if you are someone who was, like, in it trying to go do it for, like, years and then it never really worked and then not I don't know. I guess I'm I'm curious what, like, how you were thinking about it. Was it similar to, like, what it is now or what it is, like, sort of becoming? Like, you wanted it more of this sort of cooperative vision?
Yeah. Yeah. The the people the people that that, you know, that that have come out against it, Dan Olson. Right? Like, in his famous video, Let Number Go Up. Like, and and I'll Who you spoke like, you you spoke with on your your podcast. I remember listening to it, like, before that video came out. Before the video. Yeah. I I invited him on because I saw that he was working on that video because I follow him, and we we've been sort of acquaintances online acquaintances for years. Since Gamergate, actually, we were both, like we're both harassed and harangued by Gamergateers, and so we that's when we sort of connected. You know, to see him come out so strongly against it. After years of me, like, working on it and no one caring and then people that I respect coming out at, like, so strong against it, it it was, like, serious whiplash. It was like, woah. Like, what? Like like yeah. Where were you years ago where I was where I was so excited about it and there was no money in it? Nobody cared. To to answer your question, though, like, if I'm honest, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, actually, I've been thinking about, like because it's been five years. You're right. Right? Like like, 2017 was five years ago. And so I think about I think about, like, in those days, the conversations that we would have in our sort of small, nascent, crypto art communities. Like, I don't think no. We we couldn't have imagined what it is now at all. Like, period. End of story. Like, what what it has become, the good and the bad. I don't think that we thought that it would happen the way it did or even as quickly. And that and and just to flip that, I also now I think about five years in the future, and I'm like I'm like, I'd I don't think that I could make I don't think anyone could make a a prediction about what these things will look like five years in the future. If I think about what I thought back then versus now, and I think about what I tried to extrapolate from now to then, it's like, you know what? I'm completely wrong. And all of you know? And so and so all I can do is try to is try to continue to, like, shove it shove the the the what it is now into the direction that I hope that we can go, which is, you know, less centralization, less hype, less sort of bullshit, and more, I don't know, more giving more giving, like, just people who create stuff online, another tool in their toolbox to, to make a living doing what they wanna do. Like, that's always been that's always been, like, my my guiding principle in what NFTs could be. Is this just like you it doesn't it doesn't have to be a replacement for anything that already exists, but it could be just like another thing that exists to, like, help people make a living doing what they're doing. And and and it's become so much more than that. Right? It's become this big hype machine full of moon birds and board apes and and things. And I I I, you know, I'm very cynical about all that stuff.
Do you get tagged in, like, these NFT Oh, yeah. Bot thing? It's it's it it is getting ridiculous. Like, the the spam is getting, like, pretty pretty insane. I'll give you a little bit of alpha as they say on that front, which is I I actually,
got this from Dame, who's a wonderful follow on Scott on, on Twitter if you're not following him. What is he? Dame Dame dot eath, like, all spelled out. They suggested, and it's a great suggestion, you go in your settings on Twitter, and you can say you can you can, like, lock down some of your settings to say, like, block replies for people who have a who don't who haven't verified their email, who haven't verified their phone number, who don't have a, a profile picture. Mhmm. Doing those three things has almost brought it down to, like, zero. I still get it. I still get it occasionally, but do that. That's like a that's a that's a big plus. Pro tip. Pro tip. Yeah. Pro tip. Exactly.
Yeah. It's it's of course, you and I have complained about this before, but, you know, it's the space is very much, like, between a rock and a hard place Right. Where you have it sort of like like, yes, I agree with lots of your criticisms, but it only goes so far. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. And even and even further, there there's a there's a deeper thing too where until until there's some kind of, like, NFTs NFTs specifically, right, until it is cheap to buy them and relatively normal to buy them and to collect them, the space actually does rely on the bullshit to keep it going. Without the bullshit right now, NFTs would not be without the kind of, like, wild rampant speculation and wild kind of, like, influencer driven things, the NFT space would collapse in an instant without all of that, like like, the hype cycle stuff. Because because there's just not enough people to collect them. There's now way more projects than, like, I think. Completely. And it and so and so that sucks. That just like and, you know, the place I would love to get to is, like, where fees on Ethereum and I know there's Solana, and there's all these other things, and I and I really applaud projects that, like, use other chains. For instance, Nina, there's this platform a music platform on Solana called Nina, that allows artists to set their own price, for what they're selling. And because the fees on Nina are, like, cents, you know, it's, like, 10¢ or something, you can set a price of $5 to collect something. And that's amazing. Like, that to me is way more sustainable, obviously, and way more in line with, like, sort of what I imagined. What I imagined song a day NFT, what I you'd like, my wildest dream was that maybe I could sell my song every day for, like, a $100 or something. Like like, maybe there'd be somebody out there who'd wanna pay a $100 every day to me to collect that day's song. And because of all the hype and everything, I was able to do way better than that when I sort of did my big drop, And that's amazing for me, you know, but it's not like the it's not the sort of sustainable
Right. Like It's obviously not a systemic solution that, like Exactly. It's not something that successful in this one thing that it's we've we've solved it. Yes. It's not something that people can replicate, and it's not something that's useful to most people yet. You know?
But things like Nina, I think, are sort of leading the way of, like, that's way more accessible and neat. You know? And and and there really is something that's, like, just different. The thing that the thing that makes me hopeful is there still really is just something different. I and it's it's really intangible, and it's really weird. But there's something different about collecting an NFT of a song on something like Nina, say, for instance, versus buying the Bandcamp, of the song. Could be the same price, could be almost the exact same experience. But just to know I don't know. I I I was gonna say just to know that the NFT is, like, is lives outside of a centralized platform, but I don't think that's it. I don't think it's, like, even that heavy. It's not. There's something emotionally different about owning, like, this this, like, digital object versus
just buying the song? Do you think maybe it has to do with like, for me, what NFTs are interesting for when it comes to collecting, although I'm not I'm not really a collector. I do Yeah. I think yours was, like, the only NFT I really purchased during during the drop. Yeah. But I think the idea that when you when you purchase an NFT, there is always, like, there's always a link between you as a buyer directly to the person who created that. Yes. Yes. Yes. And therefore, like, if you are the creator of that, if you want to do, there's always the option. You don't have to do it. Like, you can always do something with that information. Like, with the people who own your NFT, you can do x y z, which you can't really do. I mean, okay. If you buy a Bandcamp thing, maybe you can give a, I don't know, thank you email to all the people who are, like, in your in your Bandcamp with purchase from you on on Bandcamp. But, like, there's a very different that's a very different thing than, like, I don't know. I can airdrop something to thank all of the people. I mean, with I mean, now might be interesting to to talk about. Because I think that's that's kind of exactly what Songa Te Dao slash coop is sort of doing, which is, like yeah. I think has has not gotten really any attention. And, of course, you know, Dan in his video, I don't think ever even made a reference to to any of it.
No. He didn't. And and and that's exactly right. And and so I'll say this. Like, so SongaDAO, the way SongaDAO works is you buy you buy a song a day NFT. And by the way, like, you know, we're on Ethereum, so the fees are high, and it's sort of prohibitively expensive for most people to get involved, which is why we have a we have, like, a, we have a way for people to join the DAO, which I could talk to that doesn't involve money. But, but you you get a song at a NFT, and then, you join the discord. And when you join the discord, you become what's called a listener. We have, like, basically three classes of ownership within the co op. And, the first one is called the listener. And at that point, you're not technically really in the coop yet. You're sort of I think I sort of think about it as, like, in concentric circles. So on the other side, outside circle, we're in the DAO, and that just means you're sort of hanging out. You can you should you'd, like, you know, chime in on things. But first, you what you have to do is you have to verify with something called BrightID, which doesn't, give us any information about who you are. It just BrightID is a tool for, what's called sybil resistance in terms of, like, just verifying that you are a human being associated with a single ETH address. And once you do that, now you're officially in the coop. And now what you can do is you can you have, like, one that you now you're in, like, the the slightly more inner circle in that you can vote on the treasury. In fact, we've had we've had two votes to date. One about doing stuff with NFTX, which is, like, a whole thing, but also one about paying this artist to make a bunch of PFPs for the dApp for the coop. And then the third concentric circle is called the builder. And at that point, what you do is you sign this coop membership agreement, and then any work that you do for the DAO, you could be compensated for legally as part of the coop because we're this legal entity. We, you know, we have this coop framework where you are now co owner in the DAO. You do work, and you can be paid, not on a token, but basically in fiat or ether, whatever, however you wanna be paid at the end of the year, for the work that you've done. So that's the basic that's, like, the the basic structure of Sonra DAO. And, the way that we have for people to join is we have this, we have this monthly cohort of people who are making a thing every day for a month. And so we had a cohort in February, which is, like three people. We had like four people in March, and now we have five people in April. That reminds me I have to, like, put the call out for May. But, you make something every day for a month, and you're in the Discord, and you're sharing it. And we all sort of verify that you're doing it. It's it's very loose. But, like, we see you we see you doing it every day for a month. And then at the end of the month, we give you a song a day NFT. And then you don't have to spend any money. You've just it's proof of work. You've you've proved that you have made something, and then you can join the DAO by by you know? We talk in DAOs a lot about, like, assigning or, aligning incentives. Right? And the idea is that you own a song of the NFT, and so your incentives are aligned with the Dows because you want your NFT to become more valuable and that way blah blah blah. But in this way, it's like a whole different incentive alignment. It's like you've shown that, like, you know, you're you're down with this idea of making a thing a day, which is a sort of core tenant of the DAO. And so now and so now you, you know, you're part of the club. You're part of the you're part of the coop.
Hey, everyone. If you're enjoying this episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord or Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you're enjoying the interview or find the content that I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist to help me out and join the newest patrons like James, John, Eva, Paige, Andy, and Rob. It really helps since making this stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did and access the bonus content like q and a episodes where you can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer, and I'll give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. In the last bonus episode, I spoke to two other crypto leftists who went to ETHDenver, and we spoke about their experience of being there. Of course, I'll still be making free content like this interview to help spread the message that blockchain does not need to be used to further entrench capitalist exploitation if we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. Yeah. Very cool. Like, this is like I'm really glad you're explaining this to me, one, because I need to do those things because I have an NFT, and I think I need to join the Discord and do other stuff. And, yeah, this is, like, very, very novel and, like, innovative. And, like, you know, when people are talking about DAOs and what the impression that people get about DAOs is that it is, like, a corporation on the blockchain and that the tokens are just, like, basically stocks within share. Yeah. So there is that. And then recently, I've seen people, you know, various left wing celebrities I won't mention, saying like, oh, it's just like an it's just a cooperative. What you made is a cooperative. And then sort of like leaving it at that. Yeah. And then they're like, well, okay, like, yes, kind of. It's a little bit different than that, but, like, you're kinda getting there, like, slowly, but, you know, you're still saying it in, like, a negative way. So I don't really understand what you're, you know, like like, have you ever tried, like, starting a cooperative? Have you ever tried, like, doing all these things? You understand what the problems are with cooperatives? You seem to like them, but then you're, like,
shitting on them at the same time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the problem with it just being a different do you not want there to be more cooperatives in the world? I thought that was our whole that that that's part of our whole thing, isn't it? I mean yeah.
Yeah. I I I don't get it. But, like, so then now here, I think it's really interesting where you're showing clearly, like, the the the upside or, like, the the benefits of, like, having the DAO as well as a cooperative as sort of, like, interlinked entities or just, like, you know, having a, what's the word? Just being able to interact with one another and having, like, this, like, clear relationship.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, our pal Austin Ruby, like, wrote a great blog post about about this where he basically said, like, what co ops and DAOs can learn from each other. And I would highly recommend checking that out. But, like, you know, another, like, novel feature of Song of DAO is that and this is something that I really strongly believe in as a leftist and just in general. I think it's doesn't make any sense that we would do it a different way. Like, most DAOs are based on the way the voting works is based on your token distribution. Right? And, again, it comes down to this, like, alignment of incentives. Like, oh, you have more tokens, which means, you know, you must You earn more. Yeah. You yeah. You must you must have done more on behalf of the DAO, which is which can be true, but doesn't necessarily have to be true. You would just buy the tokens and have a bigger vote. So Song and Dao, we we we actually made, like, the very first, what's called a snapshot strategy. So there's this way that most DAOs use to vote. It's called snapshot, and, it's like a sort of an app. And you create different strategies. So you're like, oh, like, here's how the token weighted distribution of the votes works is, like, how the strategies usually work. But what we did is we created a strategy where it's like, here's my bright ID, which proves that I'm a human, a single human. Here's my NFT, and you get one vote. One person in the DAO, it gets one vote. Doesn't matter. You might own you might like, Pranksy, who's this, like, NFT influencer who's a a fan of mine and a friend, like, owns a 100 NFTs. He still just gets one vote just like everyone else. You know? And does he care? I I wonder, like, for him Yeah. Is he, like, okay with that? I mean, we haven't talked about it, and I don't think he's he's, like, he's technically not in the DAO yet. But but the people who are in the DAO who own you know, one of our guys in the DAO is, one of the he's the founder of BrightID, and he owns he owns a ton of songs. And, like, he's totally down with it. Like, he's he's he very much, appreciates the and I and I think that to me, that's a really important, sort of co op thing of, like, one person, one vote is, like, really important to the Yeah. To making it fair. The ethos. To the ethos. Exactly.
But, I mean, this so, like, this setup completely flies in the face of, like, all these sort of, like, surface level criticisms criticizers who talk about, like, oh, it's just, like, you know, it's just like a you're just making a cooperative but with a speculative token or, like, it's just like a stock and it's just like a company. So, like, it's, because I think there is, like, the surface level critique where, yes, a lot of DAOs, especially the first ones, have this token governance that looks a lot like a a stock basically or, you know, just lives allows them to vote. And it comes from a very libertarian idea. Yep. And then but, like, with if you just have, like, a tiny bit of, imagination maybe. I don't know if there's a better word, but, like, the imagination to, like, to adjust some of the things a little bit because you under if you understand a little bit of the intricacies, you can know where the things can be tweaked, then you've completed something, like, quite different. And that does does does not follow this template of, like, you know, what is essentially decentralized autonomous corporation is now like a, along the lines of, like, a a cooperative ethos and is taking advantage of the,
of the functionalities of smart contracts and and on all these things and having a global substrate for all these. And and and what's wild about it is that is that is that and I I think you and I may have actually talked about this before, which is there's this kind of almost, like, libertarian to, like, leaning socialist pipeline that happens where they get they get socialized by, like, by crypto because suddenly they're like suddenly you have these, like, libertarian people talking about, like, cooperative ownership of things. Right. Right. Yeah. Almost accidentally, they sort of back into it where where now you can start that conversation and be like, yes. Let's talk more about this cooperative owning things. You know? Like, that's one side of it. And then the other side of it is that I think about is, you know, there's a there's a fair critique to say, like, there there's a pretty fair critique that one could say about something like song and that, for instance. So I'll say that as an example where you could say, like, well, do you really, really need the blockchain for this? Like, you could sell your sell your songs as, you know, sort of centralized database and NFTs. Right? You could do that. You could have the collectors of those NFTs join a coop. Like, the coop there's nothing about the the, the coop nature the nature of the coop that has to be sort of blockchain based. You know, one little wrinkle is that, like, a lot of like, everything within the blockchain ecosystem is composable and could work with each other. So you wouldn't get any of that. Okay. That's fine. But, like, you could basically do this without the blockchain, which is true. But even beyond the composability argument, I think, like, the strongest argument to me is, like, yeah, but I didn't. And, like, yeah, but people aren't doing that. Like, if people were making co ops and doing it with those things, that would be an argument. But, like, no one is. No one's Ask they need ask yourself the question. Like, when you say that, why is no one else doing that then? Right? Yeah. Exactly. If they were, they would be, and that would be great, and we could talk about that, and that would be another way to do it. And and by the way, you know, there are a lot of things that are on the blockchain that don't need to be. Right? There's a lot of things that, like, it doesn't make sense to have on chain, and there's a lot and there's and there's tools now coming online. We had a great podcast on Digitally Rare about this with, Evan. Her name is Evan. I forget her last name, But I think her her Twitter handle is proven authority, talking about many different ways of having sort of, like, off chain verified things, which is great. But what it comes down to is, like, what are people actually doing? Where is the excitement? Where is the energy? Where are people willing to try these experiments, these wild, weird experiments in co ownership? It just happens to be in the space. So, like, so poo poo it all you want, but, like, this is where it's happening. And if you wanna do it in a different way, I would love to see someone do something similar to Sonoda with no blockchain. And just, like, I like, genuinely, I would be curious and interested and fascinated to see someone try that. And, like, what would that look like and how would that work? And, like, you know Yeah. That would be great, but so far, no one has. And I think that they would have trouble unless they had a really big audience. Like, I don't have a big audience. I don't have a huge following. Like, I'm able to make this work because of the excitement and energy around this stuff already. You know? Mhmm.
Yeah. Like, sometimes I want to say that, like, Blockchain is not really a technological solution Yeah. To majority of things. It's, like, actually very it's very limited. Yeah. Very limited. And but it is also, like, these limitations that are good things about it in the sense that's, it is, like, very secure. You know, it's very, resilient in certain ways. Like, there there are just trade offs. Like, it's kind of silly. People keep saying, oh, well, you know, well, we just put it on like a more efficient centralized database. It's like, okay. Yeah. Well, okay. Do that. See what happens. Like, it's it's not really happening. Right. So I like to I like to think of Blockchain as really, like, I mean, probably the most political technology we've seen in a very long time. Right. Because it's, like, meant for solving more political solutions. If you think of even the original intent of it, which I think wasn't really achieved of, like, digital cash. Like, yes. We already have digital cash in the form of, like, bank cards. Yeah. And, like, even by PayPal, you know, we already have digital cash. But Right. You know, there was, like, this political desire for, wanting this but, like, outside of, you know, state authority or or bank authority or whatever. Yeah. And I think that kind of logic could be applied in other places.
Right. Yeah. Totally. And and I think, like, it would have been nice if that had worked
too. It would have been Yeah. It would have been interesting. But so if if you're correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're a member of the of the DAO or the co op and remember, you are also like, you get to take part in the governance around, like, the shared pool of resources, and maybe you get as well, like, a portion of, like, the the revenues raised from,
the selling of the songs. Yeah. So, actually, we're, like, right in the midst of of really hammering all this out. And so we've we have retained is that the right word? We've retained the services of a of a of an accountant who specializes in co ops and who happens to, now be interested in DAOs. In fact, I sort of joke that, like, you know, he's, like, he's been interested in in DAOs for, like, the last three months. And so, like, as a co op accountant interested in DAOs for the last three months, he's, like, the world's foremost expert in Yeah. And co ops. Yeah. But we actually just had a meeting with him where, you know, he we had a whole discussion where he's, like, having a really hard time wrapping his mind around. Okay. Like, what does the DAO do? Like, how does it work? Like, what are you creating? Like, what because from his perspective, like and he he represents a ton of, agricultural co ops in The US. Right? So he described, like, a bean co op that he represents, where it's like, you know, the lima bean growers and the black bean growers and the, red bean growers, they pool all their resources and The beans. They pool the beans literally. Right? And and they and they, they, they collectively pay for the processing and the packaging. They collectively pay for all this. And then the way it works is at the end of the year, there's some accounting that happens And, you know, based on how many beans you provided and, the price of the beans versus these other beans, everyone gets a cut of the entire pie, right, that the that everyone puts all their resources together and everybody gets a proportion. Yeah. So we're doing essentially the same thing with with SongaDowt. And what that what's it what that's looking like it's going to look in practice is, you know, for instance, we have some developers who have been doing various projects for the DAO. We have my friend, Matt, who's been running the cohorts for the thing a day stuff. You know, these are people who have been providing their labor to the DAO, and we now we just have to figure out, basically, and this is a tricky thing. We don't know how we're gonna do this. Figure out how we're going to compensate how the DAO is gonna collectively compensate everyone for the various things that they've done on behalf of the DAO. We don't know yet. There's a there's a there's a, a protocol called coordinate Yeah. Which you may have heard of. It's a kind of fun idea. Basically, you are distributed a bunch of tokens, kind of just like valueless tokens. They just, like, they they're just to be used within your community for this explicit purpose of, like you know, we give everybody who is a builder, right, who has who has both verified with BrightID and, signed the membership agreement, given us their full name and address and everything for tax purposes. We give all of these people, say, a 100 tokens, and each person allocates their tokens to the people who they think, you know, oh, I'm gonna give, like, 20 to Matt because he's been doing such a great job with the with the, the cohorts, and I'm gonna give 20 to Alan because he's done an amazing job with this and 20 to this person and just give them to different people. And then based on everyone's allocations, that's how we divvy up the treasury. That's, like, one way that we're thinking about it. We have we have we have few enough people right now that are, like, actually actively contributing. For context, we have, like, basically there's, like, 1,600 people who hold a song a day NFT, which is, like, the you know, if every if every single one of those person went through this process, that's like our that could be our entire membership if everyone went through into the but then we have out of that, we have about 700 people in the Discord and then, like, 40 people who have no. 70 people who have done the Bright ID section. So 70 people are eligible to vote. But then we really only have maybe, like, 11 or 12 people who are, like, regularly doing work on behalf of the DAO. So that's, like, a few enough people that we could just, like, amongst ourselves be like, let's feel it out. Like, what do you what do you guys think? Like, who should get what? You know? But we're figuring that out, but that's the general idea. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think my impression is that DAOs are going to excel in these more, like, smaller groups of people and, like, kind of kind of coordinating together, At least for now, rather than trying to compete as, like, I don't know, giant conglomerates corporations or something like that doesn't seem like a feasible thing not for a long time unless you're, like, MakerDAO or something like a huge just, like, DeFi, like, purely incentive based Right. Institution or whatever.
Yeah. Very you know, and this is, like, my this is where you start getting, like, the five year kind of prediction place. Right? Like, Yuga Labs. Right? Like, Yuga Labs, Bored Apes, their their DAO. Like, like, like, what is that gonna look like in five years? Is it gonna look like anything? Is Bored Apes gonna be around in five years? I have no idea. Honestly, like like, I think that's I you know, it's funny to think about now, but Bored Apes didn't exist a year ago or barely existed a year ago. And it it it'll be very interesting to me to see if these if these if how many DAOs exist, you know, in five years Yeah. Yeah. That that exist now.
Actually, how was it this process of setting it up with, like, as a cooperative one? And also, like, because what is interesting about your project, the Sangha DAO, is that it's, in collaboration with so many other artists that I think, like, the one of the things that that I've gotten from you and following you, like, from afar on the Internet is that, like, a lot of things that you're doing, even though the the song a day stuff is, like, of course, your own thing that you're doing your own, but, like, you're collaborating with people a lot of the time and seem to, like, almost prefer collaboration.
Yes. Ideally. Yes. Totally.
I thought it was interesting. So, like and because I imagine the setup of the cooperative part. I mean, you are probably the first person ever, that I know of who was, like, really doing it and, like, is a pioneer probably in that with the people that you were working with.
Yeah. Well, so I so what's great is that, like, the lawyers that I worked with to set up the cooperative, Jacqueline and Yev are their names. They're wonderful, and they're great. I learned a ton from them, and, they set up so East Denver has a cooperative structure as well. Their structure is much more complicated, and multi armed. But they're in Colorado, and it turns out that and this is a this is a wonderful quote from my lawyers, which is basically, like, Colorado is the Delaware of co ops in The US. So, you know, every company, when someone, like, spins up a start up or, you know, starts a company anywhere in The US, they always start it in Delaware because of tax reasons. There's, like, there's, like, reasons to, like, have your LLC based in Delaware that are, like, good for taxes or whatever. And Delaware is just very friendly to, like, starting a business. Colorado, for reasons that I don't totally understand, happens to just be really friendly to co ops. Like, it's it's like it's a co op mecca of of sorts. And so you can start a co op anywhere in The US, based in Colorado, like, to have Colorado as the base. And and so Yev and Jacqueline are in Colorado and so are at this are really at the forefront. And when I call them experts, I'm actually I'm not saying it tongue in cheek. Like, they really are now experts, I would say. They've they've they helped first Sporkdau, which is which is Ethanver's, one, and then I was the second one. And now they they've been, they've just been helping a ton of different, projects, onboard into the coop place. And it's relatively painless. It's a little expensive. You know, lawyers are always expensive, and that's and that's how it is. But, like, but, you know, it's just like setting up a company. We got bylaws. You get to you you get to make all these sort of seemingly arbitrary decisions that you need to make to, like, to make make this happen. But it's it's it's I really think, like, it's just, like, a little bit more work upfront to do it. And then but then you're like, not only are you not only do I feel like I'm, like, like, aligning with my values, right, but I'm also, I think, like, protecting myself and everyone else involved legally, you know, from whatever, whatever the SEC wants to do right or wrong, in some ways right and sometimes wrong, but, like, whatever they wanna do down the line, I don't think that we're gonna be really subject to any of that because we have this, like, very sort of clear legal format.
Yeah. It's to me, again, just another, like, clear example where, there is this impression people may have of, like, NFTs being a type of technology to basically put more on the individual and it's just like this continuation of neoliberalism and individualism and whatever else other isms. That's, you know, by getting rid of the middlemen, you know, actually this is sometimes like a bad thing because then it just puts more on you as, like, the person who is, like, creating the thing. And so NFTs are just a continuation of that. But here we're seeing it, like, clearly as, like, all these things as actually a part of configuring, like, collectivity. You know, like, emergent collectivity is now able to become, like, a more sustainable collectivity rather than, like, I don't know, sometimes, I mean, if you've, like, tried doing, like, little collective projects with your friends, sometimes, like, they start off and, like, you know, a burst of flame, they they're they're out just as quickly and, like, you don't get, like, the all these other types of guarantees that, like, keep something like that going. Here, we're able to sort of, like we're we're creating a bit of, like, a I don't know. I guess Frankenstein a bit of, like, here you have a little bit of legal technology, a little bit of blockchain technology and putting it together. Yeah. It's something that is like, yeah. Clearly, it looks like it's going to be, like, quite sustainable.
I mean, everything's a trade off. Right? Like like like, yes, with the middlemen, you get maybe a little bit more protections with certain things, but you're also completely subject to the whims of Yeah. The man in the middle. You know? You know, and and in this way By the market or something. By the market or whatever Google you know, like like you said, the whims of the you know, being being subject to the whims of Google's algorithm, is is just not sustainable for anybody, for anything. It just doesn't work because, yeah, people's livelihoods have been ruined because Google, like, made some random or Facebook for that matter, made some random tweak to how they are gonna show things. And you don't have to worry about that with NFTs because I'm just selling them directly to people who wanna buy them. And when I do, that money goes directly into the DAOs treasury, and that's and, you know, that's the money that we use to do things.
Yeah. I guess there's, like, some amount of maybe, like, curation, I guess, is maybe somewhat of a similar function. But, yeah, I think what's interesting at least is that you can you get act you can bring all of your at least you know, I kinda hate this, like, creator economy type of bullshit, terminology, but you can, like, get, you know, get your, like, biggest fans together at the very least, and have that core group of people that support you to, build something that is more more sustainable.
And then you can find fans who, like, who who come at you from a different angle. Like, I'm finding through this cohort thing, people are really maybe they they're not, like, the biggest fans of my music, but they, like but they're fans of the of the project in general. You know? Like, they're fans of co ops or they're fans of Mhmm. Making something every day or whatever. And that's just like giving a different outlet. It's it's it's, yeah, it's pretty fun.
Yeah. I I think this is really I mean, just two points I'm that I'm thinking. Like, one is that, you know, it is interesting to see all these, like, supposed libertarians turning to cooperativists, basically Yeah. Over time. I think part of that is probably the influence of, like, someone like Nathan Schneider. Yep. And that's, like, to me, I think, like, sorely underreported or, like, like, not understood at all. But, like, I see, you know, prominence left wing academics, like, talking about, oh, Blockchain is just discontinuation of neoliberalism, individualism. And then they use, like, you know, one of Nathan Schneider's critiques of the blockchain, world, you know, to, like, to, like, continue their their Yes. Their evidence. And I'm like, don't you know that he is, like, quite well respected in in the blockchain space? And, you know, they just don't know. And He spoke. He spoke at at Schelling Point at ETHDenver. He was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, like, at it was, like, the same day he was speaking at Schelling Point. I found yeah. By someone, I'm not gonna say. But, and then like you said before, where there has been sort of this, like, yeah, underappreciated thing where, like, kind of these maybe libertarian minded at first people are, like, becoming more, like, they're not they may in theory believe that they are libertarian and that they're, like, they believe in free markets or whatever like that. But in practice, it is not a 100% really the case what they're doing.
Yes. Exactly. And and yeah. You know, it's like it's like if you just listen to what they're describing, they're describing collective ownership. So it's like it's like you you just have to it's just like it's just like nudge them a little bit, and they'll, like, they'll get there, you know? Like yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too. Like, something something that, like, as I've been in this space and and I'm actually curious what you think about this. It's like, on the, you know, on the flip side of that as a as a as a leftist, like for for years, you know, my impression basically of like markets, right? Like a like a market has just always become a dirty word to me where I'm like Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a market that's bad. And and so and so I don't know if I don't know if if it's just because now I'm in this space and I'm like, well, is the market, like, inherently bad or, like, or or is there a way or or is, like, the market says they exist bad and there's and it's just a tool and, like, there's a way for it to be fine, you know, or whatever. That's maybe the flip side of, like, of, like, a leftist coming around to the idea of markets versus a libertarian coming around to the idea of collective ownership. It's like it's this weird, like, you know, the the first person that I that I really got that from is, Glenn Weil from, from Radical Exchange and and and all that stuff where, you know, some of some of his solutions to things or whatever or or just his, like, wild ideas about, like, how to solve problems involving markets. And I'm like, oh, okay. That's interesting.
Yeah. I I I don't know if you've ever, so I think before this part before this episode probably comes out, I'll publish an interview that I did with Jaya Claire Breca. It's like a, academic slash works at NIMH with Harry Halpin's project. And she wrote something in the algorithm journal, the algorithm in twenty first century that came out. And, she talks exactly this about she she calls markets three things I'm probably going to forget, but, like, markets as a as a weapon, markets as a tool, and markets as a markets as a, like, gun to my head or something like that. Like and she she talks about openly just sort of, like, the the contradictions or, like, the, yeah, the contradictory feelings of that, you know, when you come from a left wing tradition, a lot of the times the sort of default position, especially in, like, maybe socialist or communist circles, is that, like, the markets in general are just bad or, like, are just, like, hugely, inefficient. But I think there is this sort of, like it's sort of yeah. It shouldn't be, but it's sort of, like, taped over that, like, markets have existed for, like, you know, centuries Right. In various in various forms. But, like, they don't of course, like, they don't they didn't take the, form that they do take today under, like, a globalized capitalism type of markets. Right. Which, like, yes, I would say that, like, handling almost everything as, like, a capitalist market is a bad thing. Yes. But I think that there is sometimes a conflation with, like, if I just exchange something that we're doing market interaction or something, if I if I trade with someone Yeah. Like, if I I don't know if I trade my Pokemon cards with someone else and I'm in, like, the Pokemon card market and I'm, you know, at the whim of the of the free market, whatever, pushing me around. But, like, I don't think that's necessarily like, that's yeah. Sometimes there's, like, by taking, like, such a hard line stance on markets, sometimes that gets conflated, as being, like, the same thing and that there is a bit of this, like, I think coming from probably, I mean, Soviet influence, I I guess, is, like, kind of, like, a very, like, a very rationalist type of thinking Yeah. When it comes to the economy and, of course, like, economic planning. But I think when it comes to a lot of what I think some of the things that Glenn Weil has talked about, so they'll have some critiques, but I'm not gonna go into that. And then, like, some, some of the stuff that some other the different tools that are being built, especially, like, even, like, coordinate that you that you talked about. Mhmm. To me, like, it's, first off, it's not correct or, like, it's very limiting if you think of, oh, there's either economic planning and there are markets and you choose one or the other. Right. But I think here what we're seeing is, like, a bit of we're seeing both where, like, I think that if if we come up with some sort of democratic economic planning, that it will probably look a lot like certain market mechanisms at the same time. Like, if I have, I don't know, if we're thinking of like a we get each get a 100 points and we can sort of decide what we want to make in the economy and then, you know, we get this list of options, you know, and we choose which which things we want to pick. Like, in some ways, it looks like a market. In some ways, it's like, not really a market in the way that, like, you know, leftist get mad about actually what they're actually mad about. Right. So, like, to me, I'm I'm seeing this, like, really weird, you know, Frankenstein mix where we're kind of, potentially building tools around democratic economic planning. And I feel very scared about saying that because, you know, some academic is going to, like, be in my my messages saying that I'm totally wrong about this or whatever. Yeah. That's kind of, like, the feeling that I'm getting at the moment. Yeah. It's fascinating.
I would I've been looking forward to read that that piece.
Yeah. And then,
one question I wanted to ask you just, like, how has your life changed since the sale? Yeah. That's a great question, actually. Because it went very well, Good for you. I understand. Yeah. And,
yeah. I know that before at least like before COVID like you were making your money partially through like getting hired for like singing at conferences or like you're making songs for various companies and things like that. Yep. Which I I from my understanding, some of them you, like, didn't like doing. Another one, it's like, well, on the other side, you kinda have to if you want to make money. Yes. Yes. Yes. So so, you know, I talked to us about this at Schelling Point. Like, the last I performed at Schelling Point at Denver, and the last gig that I did before that, pre pandemic was in was in, like, Bumfuck, Texas, a place called Midland, Texas. There's oil rigs as far as the eye can see. And, I I had taken this gig that I that I felt like I couldn't turn down. It was, like, $10. You know? And, it was for this company that was providing, like, waste like, it was, like, waste it was, like, fracking. It was, like, involved in fracking, basically. It was, like, it was, like, instead of using fresh water for your fracking, use this recycled water. Like, that was the company. So it was, like Green fracking. Yeah. Green fracking. Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, obvious, like, the people are the thing is is, like, people are nice. Right? They're not, like, evil people or whatever. It's a evil idea. Like, I did not support it at all. It was $10. Like, I didn't feel like I got I I could not have turned that down, is the example that I gave. And then and then there's tons of examples like that. I did I did gigs for, like, Novartis, like, which is like a, pharmaceutical company. Come on. Like, I'm so anti that, but, like, I can't turn down $20 when, like, Novartis offers it to me. Like, I it just that's what
that's the free market, baby. Like, there there it is. Well, no. No. No. No. You need to be reliant on, like, you know, what what do they say? Like, you know, $10, like, prints or something like that that people say to, like, a Well, literally. Or something. And so alright. And so and so the
you know, this was always the dream of NFTs. It was like was like, oh, well, here's just another and like I said, I I never imagined that it would be, like, a like, a big thing. I thought, like I said, like, maybe I could sell each song for a $100 or something. And, you know, that's, like, not a ton of money, like, every month, but certainly not enough to fully pay my bills. But, like, that's that would be helpful. Like, that'd be super helpful. So I did this drop, and the drop went amazingly. I made a shit ton of money, more money than I've made in ten years previously. And that has really, freed me up to to not have to worry about that anymore. But then I'm, like, worried about all kinds of other things. Like, now and this is this is a this is just you know, this is inherent in the space as it exists now. Now it's like, the trade off to that is, like, now I, as an artist, have something called a floor price. Now I have I have, you know, I I look at my NFT collection, and I can see how people are valuing my songs. Like like, just like, in in no uncertain terms. Like, this is how much people value my songs versus other people's things. And I'm like, it's it's a nightmare almost of, like, of, like, thinking about that. It's like, why is this project have, you know, have a higher floor price than mine? It's like, so that is uncomfortable. That is, like, not a great feeling. But, you know, on the other hand, neither is seeing, like, low Spotify numbers. It's sort of just like a it's sort of a continuing a continuation of something that already exists. In my ideal world, all the language that we use around NFTs would be completely different. All the language that we use in most things in crypto would be completely different. I don't know why we call them wallets. I don't know why we say minting. I don't know why we call it a floor price. I don't even know why that's, like, a thing that we pay attention to. Like, that's all a function not of anything having to do with inherent in art or NFTs. It's completely having to do a speculation. And the fact that all of this came out of came out of, money. Like like, it start it if there's one critique that I completely agree with, it's that, the fact that cryptocurrency was the first use of blockchain has to a large extent, kind of poisoned a lot of things that have come after it. Because everything is framed within this currency framework. Yeah. Yeah. Financial one for sure. We call it minting because you mint a currency. You don't mint a piece of art. That's never happened before in the history of art making. But, like Right. That's what we call it because that's just the word that we have for it. And by the way, like, we were having these conversations back in the day. Like, we we were like, okay. We're doing this. We need to come up with better words, everybody. Like, we need to come up with, like, a better language to talk about this stuff so we're not stuck with the stupid language from before. NFTs, even the word nonfungible tokens, what the fuck is that? Like, it's what is that mean? It's a horrible it's it's, like, the worst. It's so, like, abstract
now that, like, anything could be an NFT, and therefore, anybody can use
I mean, just very lazily apply the same critique that they heard about, you know, whatever else. And and as Matt Condon, you know, my co host is always fond of saying, like, if you need to explain fungibility, you've already lost. Right? Like, if you have to if you have to explain to people what fungible means, you're already on the losing end of a battle in terms of, like, language to to talk about art or to talk about anything. And then calling them tokens is, like, even worse. Like, what why you know, Matt Matt Matt and I still fantasize. We actually have a little Telegram channel devoted to this of, like, we fantasize about about, like, having a revolution in the world of NFTs where we sweep out all of this old language starting with NFTs, and we call them what he always wanted to call them. He's a great namer, and he always wanted to call them dots, digital object things. Digital object things. That's it. That's all it is. It's a digital object thing. It's not Plea please add me to this Telegram group. Yes. Yes. Anything you're missing. Not anything more. It's not anything less. Just a digital object thing. You know? And, yeah, all of these words. So that's just a long winded way of saying, like, I feel all of that, I think, a lot more acutely now that I have this big collection and that I'm in I'm I'm in the mix in this way that I wasn't before. All of that language is coming down to bear on my psyche in a bigger way than it was before. That's, like, that's the main downside. That's the upside is the upside is the money, which is great. Helps me, helps my family. That's great. The downside is just, like, weird pressure on my psyche of, like, this language stuff, like, just, like, constantly
bearing down on me. So where I understand it, like, every day when you publish a new song, you also tokenize it, and it goes off in an auction for, I guess, twenty four hours or something like that. Yep. That's it. And then whoever buys it, the the money that they they use to purchase or the ETH, I guess, goes to, like, the community pool, I think. Or there's, like, maybe some sort of split immediately. I don't know. The DAOs treasury. All of it goes to the DAOs treasury. Okay. And then they receive they receive they own they own that NFT. I guess has there ever been a time where, like, in a day, no one bought the song? Yeah.
Yeah. A couple times a week, no one buys a song at this time. Okay. Yep. Yeah. I don't have a huge audience. I never have. And and, you know, I try I try every week to get the song. But, like, a big problem actually being on ETH is, like, we use Zuora, a great protocol. They have, like, a they have this auction, sort of protocol that you can just use. But the problem with it is that, when you bid, you have to pay gas every single time you bid. So let's say and I usually I set the reserve price at, like, point o seven. So that's, like, I don't know, $800 or something like that. It's a lot of money. So so so just to begin with, that's a lot of money. It cuts out huge portions of people who would want to participate. And then if you wanna bid, now you have to pay another, like, point o two, point o three, another, like, $100 to $300, something like that. That's prohibitive. That's, like, super prohibitive. I wanna get to a place where now first of all, Zuora is working on a, module for their auction that will be gasless, which I think will make a huge difference because I think people a lot of people if you lose if you lose the auction, you lose your gas. You're get you just, like, you just waste literally wasted $300 to not get something. That's, like, horrible. So they're doing a gasless auction, and then eventually, ETH will get to a point where the fees are gonna come down when this thing called sharding, which is a horrible word again, when sharding comes to pass, supposedly, hopefully.
Yeah. Or if there's peep more people move to, like, these l twos or in these other
Yeah. And if and, you know, and eventually, maybe there's a way that we can migrate everything to an l two or something like that. So, you know, but, but even so, you know, we we the the the the DAO is doing okay financially. We have, like, enough ETH. We don't have, like, you know, crazy amounts of ETH, but we have, like, enough ETH to, like, to do the kinds of things that we're that we're trying to do, to get the kind of things built that we're trying to build. Nice. Interesting.
It's,
yeah. I guess the then does the the DAO own the NFT that doesn't get bought, I guess? Yes. The the those those exactly. Those those NFTs go straight into the DAO's treasury, and those are the ones that we use to, to give to people who do the thing a day, for a month.
So it works out in that way. It's, like, not it's not it's not a bad day. It's not a waste. Yeah. I I think it was interesting that you mentioned, like, again, for someone, like, maybe Dan or whoever else sort of, like, learning about the the the the issues, I guess, will be like, oh, see? You have you have this problem that you cannot solve. Yeah. Yeah. Therefore, it is useless. But it's clearly that, like I don't know. If you just, like, spend a little bit more than five minutes on it, you can, like, see that there are, like, options. But, anyways
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like and it's like, yeah. No. You like, it is too much money, and the gas fees are dumb. And, like, and, like, all this is true. And but but, also, like, let's just see what happens. Like, let's play around and do some stuff and, like, things will get better, I think. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been an hour and a half, so I want to thank you so much for taking the time and sharing, all of this knowledge with us because, yeah, man. It's, it's something that I think deserves a lot more attention and, like, I think will elucidate a lot more people's minds on, like, what exactly is possible with when it comes to DAOs, NFTs, and all these other things in in a more innovative way and in more, like, you know, we could say, like, left minded way as well, more collective minded, we can say.
That's my that's my goal, man. Here we are.
So, yeah, I guess, to finish off, we want to share with people where they can keep up with you and your work, maybe how they can get involved in the DAO if you want as well? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So songaday.world
is where the auctions happen every day. I'm on Twitter at song a day man, and I'm very often just, like, tweeting about things. And, you know, find me on Twitter. Like, DM me at song of day, man, if you are interested, especially in, like, joining the DAO or, you know, getting a song of day song via this thing a day, process that we have. You know, you could do I don't know when this will come out. So people might miss May because we we have a, like, a we start on the first. But if you're hearing this, you know, you can always start on June 1 or July 1. It doesn't matter. Like, if you're if you're in if you're interested, DM me, and I'll pass it along to Matt who who, who heads it up, and, you know, we'll get you involved.
Cool. Thanks. And then I think to to to lead out, if I can, I will use the the NFT that I purchased? Like, as like a What what what song does it do? It's a really good one. It's called Human After All.
It's like a super artistic one. Okay. It was like a I was like, wow. It was like bringing me to tears almost. Oh, I'm so glad. You're good. I'm so glad. That's that's the best. When I hear that people yeah. Because, like, I definitely like people my my my online persona is very, like, almost weird ish, kind of, like, funny. You know? But but, like, you know, most of the week, I'm writing songs that are, like, much more low key and from my heart or whatever, and that stuff doesn't get near the attention that it does. But I'm glad like, more I've heard from more people this way of, like, I collected your NFT. You know, I did precipitating your drop. I got a random NFT. I was like, oh, I really like that song. I, like, mean so much to me to hear that. So that's really nice. I appreciate it.
Nice. So we'll outro with that one. Great.
I'll have to go listen to it too because I don't remember.
Like a tree. He knows just where you're coming from. He stands I was wrong. I was wrong. I was only human after all. I was from. I was from. I was only human after all. Beat yourself up for days. Compare yourself to strangers too. The only path you'll ever take Is the one that's meant for you. I was right. I was right. I was only human after all. I was right. I was right. I was only human after all. You'll never fill the hole you got. So let it come and spend some time sitting next to you and I, batting it just under mine. I was right. I was wrong. I was only human after all. I was right. I was wrong. I was only Humana, Jerome. I was right. I was wrong. I was only Humana, Jerome. I was right. I was wrong. I was only human after all. Oh, after all.
After all.