Rounding It Out At 23

Hey! Are you listening? Good. Now that we have your attention, welcome to... Drumroll, please. The Snap! A podcast by me, your host, Katie. And me, your host, Ainsley. Just two girls in their 20s here to bring you a female-centric girl math tone to the Bitcoin, Noster, and value-for-value music space. As artists living in Nashville, we got tired of screaming into the void and tiptoeing around a broken music industry. Looking for a new way forward, we came across this space.

And thought, why not give it a try? In this podcast, we'll deconstruct what traditional success in the music industry has looked like so far. How that definition is changing. And where the space comes in. We'll break down all of the big happenings in both the music and Bitcoin worlds, how they mix. We'll fangirl over our favorite music in the value-verse, as well as prop up amazing voices that have yet to be heard.

We're so glad you're here. So let's get to it. And welcome back. Never really did anything with like, welcome back to the snap.

no literally i mean hey we could we could take it up with jake we could season two launch a season two season two and a half by the time we get our new intro and our new it's okay cover it's great it's fine well how are you i'm good how are you i'm good in between filming episodes why do i keep saying filming in between recording episodes katie started making some rice and now i'm getting hungry like rice sounds good agreed yeah and this rice like rice is a labor a labor of love

truly I thought you were about to say like a flavor of something no that was going no I mean rice truly like I had a rice cooker in college that was my baby it was a pink little rice cooker that I got from Amazon for like 12 dollars yeah okay I was getting the most bag for my book possible that little thing I used until it absolutely conked out on me because I was using it for anything and everything rice eggs more rice almost like every anyways that conked out

on me and so for the past year I haven't had a rice cooker and so I was like I was telling this to my parents they were helping me move in they got me this rice cooker anyways finding a way to use it has been crazy and the first time I made rice very mushy didn't wash the rice I made my error and so now every time I have to wash the rice until the water runs clear that takes at least 20-30 minutes that's a lot I don't wash my rice I might I might get some sort of foodborne

illness but I don't really care at this point but I will say it does make the absolute best rice and you're like well this came out of a restaurant yeah this is so good and so I will be washing my rice because also the benefits of it the first wash you can use in your hair for like a hair mask it has a lot of nutrients right the second wash you give to your plants yeah rice water is a very big very big thing and so i give some rice water to if i have cut flowers i put rice

water in my cut flowers and if your flowers are drooping the next day they'll be oh it's a life you know i put rice water in my plant because she loves it eats it up it's really cool to watch it like filter yeah so it's been a labor of love but i will not go back and you will try this rice and be like whoa okay I'm excited now I'm really excited I had um when we were in London my mom

and I went to this really good Thai place and oh it was so good the rice was so good the whole thing was really good I had um I haven't been posting it but I have this like installment of series I have this like series that I'm just recording for my own personal enjoyment like the baby's first cocktail series so I've done it with the margaritas which we talked about in Vegas which was a whole experience um I've had baby's first mojito baby's first rosé that was another one

that I had um in Manchester for bit fest I sat down you were really a responsible adult and didn't try alcohol until you turned 21 yeah because I'm a goody goody and like who was I talking to like somebody I was talking to I think it must have been in London somewhere and they were like you never did try alcohol and they were like borderline kind of upset with me I'm like yeah because it's kind of gross dude if I'm being so for real a lot of alcohol doesn't taste good

and I mean you're not wrong it doesn't and so I went we went to this Thai place and I had this strawberry daiquiri that was bigger than my head probably enough to kill me if I downed it um it was kind of nice though daiquiris it was it was a smoothie yeah it was a smoothie with a little bit of alcohol it's a very sweet smoothie yes yeah which I was into but um yeah no I don't know if I really even kind of like told you about my London experience it was like my first time

over there yeah your first time in the uk you're a huge london fog girly hello loving bridgeten vibe let me tell you tell me about your experience because i know that this was probably

the most upsetting thing oh people in london continue please that was a great lead up for the most upsetting thing people in london don't know what a london fog is oh it was really it was really distressing the amount of times no here's what happened the first day that we were in london so we flew into london heathrow and then the day afterwards i think you know i we did a pretty good job beating jet lag we made it to 5 p.m uh my mom and i like we got to the hotel after we flew in

just absolutely exhausted because neither of us had ever done that trip before had that big of jet lag so we we made it to about 5 p.m which was about noon our time so we fell asleep at noon which like if you've pulled an all-nighter like traveling across the world yeah it makes sense that if you would fall asleep at noon your time we fell asleep at five woke up at two in the morning binge watched a bunch of how to drive on the left side of the road videos oh no because we were

driving my not we let me amend that my mom was driving I was offering a lot of moral support it was kind of terrifying the did in the first hour of us driving we almost get in a head-on collision yeah but who cares we didn't it's fine and Windsor Village it was great um and so the day after we woke up at two we had our we were promptly at the continental breakfast at 6 a.m. which is never going to happen again because just we're never up that early. We savored it.

We were like, okay, we're going to drive to Manchester today, but we need a sightsee along the way. So we stopped in the Cotswolds, but not before we were like, okay, we need a Starbucks. We just got to go figure it out because we were like, okay, I know they have Starbucks over here and we're Starbucks girlies to our core. That's our, that's our thing. I think everybody has a thing when they're traveling or whatever. Like you give us a Starbucks and a podcast, we're good.

we have our order set we know what each other wants we go to a Starbucks connected to Sainsbury's which I loved the Sainsbury's it was so exciting what's Sainsbury's the grocery store the big grocery store store over there it was like sort of a cross between like Aldi slash it had a little bit of a clothes section in it so it was like sort of a Target meets Aldi kind of situation kind of cool we go to the starbucks connects connected to the sainsbury's and we're like oh

yeah can we get a london fog and they looked at us like we were we had grown a horn off of our heads oh no they were uh-huh and then like we kept like we tried to explain it and they were just like we don't do that here and it's like okay you know what that's okay i'll just take a matcha and then my mom tried to like keep oh no making it happen i'm like mom just give it a rest we're just we're not going to have London Fox here and it's a big travesty it didn't happen so that was pretty

upsetting Starbucks in the UK bad I have to say it really sorry um and that's fine like it can be it's it's good over here in the US but it doesn't have to be good over there because you go and you explore the other like you explore the cafe narrows and the Costa coffees yes Costa

I remember Costa coffees yeah I um when we were in Manchester there was a like an afternoon that like I had off and we weren't doing anything. And so I was like, okay, mom, let's, instead of going to the Starbucks, like, let's go and like try this local little coffee shop. This looks good. And it was a cafe narrow, which are like everywhere. And I was like, that's okay. It's okay. But it was great. No, I mean, overall the trip was so. Did you ever get a London fog in London?

I mean, so some of the Starbucks people after like, we would muscle memory ask for it,

but not before we realized, oh, they don't do that here. But then some Starbucks people would be like oh no that's like an earl gray with some like a little bit of vanilla in it and like it's very milky latte right and we're like you know what that is yes please make that for us if you if you feel so compelled we'll pay you and we'll tip you really well um so we only had a couple they weren't like true london fogs and i was like what how did we even how did this even how did

this drink even get the name of the london fog like what right i was really i was it was kind of distressing so I just settled for a matcha most of the time but then like of course we went to tea and I had my polite little oh gray my my cafe the cafe cafe au lait uh that was a really bad British accent but let me tell you I had my British accent down to a tea when we were there yes I feel like artists can also mimic very well and I get it yeah I get it really I thought like

I they were just like afternoons that I would go into it and I wouldn even realize it You right babe you know i mean like crazy behavior but it was it was such a fun trip we i mean that day that we went from london to manchester uh we drove through the cotswolds which were so cute um had a couple of like we drove through some of those little villages then we drove through birmingham um and that was cool We couldn't find any parking though.

And because our like regular American numbers weren't working, parking was so terrifying the whole time we were there. Cause we're like, we don't have this app where it's going to text us this because we're not getting our codes and it's wild. It's hard. But so Birmingham was cool. Like we stopped and we got a coffee there. And then we finished the drive to Manchester. And there's a funny story that I want to tell you about going to Manchester, but it's not suitable for the podcast.

Uh-oh. No, I was telling you this before we got on. I took myself to dinner last night, and I didn't get a lot. Like, I had a glass of wine. I had some sushi. And all in all, it was just an expensive night between parking and I was like, damn. I concede, okay? I kind of, I'm expensive. I get it. And if somebody else would like to pay for this as well. Can someone subsidize this, please?

Because, geez, it should not, like, it should not be that much to take myself out to not even, like, a steak dinner. Like, this is, this is, like, a nice-ish, like, I'm reading my book. I'm sitting at the bar, having my glass of wine. Nobody's bothering me. But, damn, for it to be that expensive. Yeah. Like, okay, I concede. I give up. I get, fine. Fine. Fine, I'll get married.

Fine. fine I get it and like the funny thing like just one of the little cultural differences that I noticed when we were over there was like America the people who are locals were like yeah it's

really expensive over here but coming from the U.S. and going to the grocery store and getting you know a couple of groceries for under a hundred pounds that does not happen yeah here over over here anymore like we went to the grocery store multiple times and a lot of the time we came out with like under 100 pounds which like again if you probably add for inflation and you convert it and whatnot like it's probably still the same but for us we were like wow this is so exciting it's so

cheap uh Primark the wonders of Primark I told the fountain guys how much I loved Primark when I sat down and like met with them in the in the offices and they were all like they laughed at me they were like of course you love Primark yeah how were the fountain offices oh my gosh they were so cool

it was so like awesome to you know meet the fountain boys on their own turf because they've been to Nashville clearly a couple of times and uh it was really cool like we just went to their offices and we um we chatted about what's next for fountain some of the big things that they're going to be introducing in the next couple of updates and it was kind of like our our quarterly okay like here's where we're at Ainsley as an artist like what are some of the things that you

would want like this thing would this be helpful for you or does this would this be something you're interested in and whatnot and then uh we all went out to lunch and had a really great time and then we went back to the offices and we and we tested a couple of things um that we they weren't able to test on their own because like their U.S. based cash app integration stuff that we were like oh well, you know, we have the U S kind of base thing. We can try it. And so we went back and

did a little bit of that and that was lovely and wonderful. Um, so yeah, no, it was, it was just

overall an amazing trip. We did London, Cotswolds, Manchester, back to London, um, Oxford, Oxford

was so hard. I would like to issue, this is my formal apology to Sam Sethi of true fans, Sam, you know my mother and I have wanted to meet you in person for such a long time we tried to meet Sam Sethi in person twice when we were there and it didn't work either time we went to Oxford um for a couple of different reasons um Claire who is she's so cool she um is within the podcasting realm not like super in the bitcoin stuff but like in the podcasting world which is like pretty

adjacent so she's good friends with Sam and so we were like oh we should get together and have tea with you and Sam and like we'd love to meet Sam in person my mom had met Claire before because she was in Nashville a couple months ago um and so I got to write with Two Ways Home which is um a really awesome country Americana duo that Joe Martin shout out set me up with uh when we were over there and so I wrote with them that morning I said yeah I'm going to Oxford um later tonight

and they were like are you driving there and we were like yeah they were like parking's gonna be tricky and I was like oh it'll be fine it'll be fine it'll be great we spent an hour and a half looking for parking and it was the other thing that was tricky about this trip is so my aunt came with us but a week before we left my aunt um like she didn't break it but she like seriously sprained her knee so she was on crutches the whole time we were there too which added a whole other

challenge of like other layer it would have been fine if like we had found parking a ways away and we all could have walked there but like we had to go and like drop her at places and then my mom and I would have to go find parking because I was the navigator my mom was the driver I would have driven if I could have but you know foreign driving and insurances and whatnot so we had to drop my mom at this place in Oxford to go have tea um with Sam and Claire and I had completely

forgotten that one of my oldest friends is studying abroad in Oxford right now and so I texted her I was like hey I don't remember if you're still there but I'm gonna be here right can we meet up and she was like yes absolutely because she lives in Oxford and so my mom and I are out looking for parking for an hour and a half and we had to drop Jen thinking we would be back in you know 10 minutes or so so my my my sweet aunt had tea with Claire and Sam Sethi of True Fans and my oldest friend

from Seattle Josie the four of them this like gangly bunch of people who never would have met Like, and then us, my mom and I, who are the connectors, like we are nowhere to be found. And so then by the time we get there, Sam had had to go. And we were, my mom and I were so frazzled from trying to find parking that we finally got back to the restaurant where everyone was having tea. And I ran face first into a glass window. Yeah, that's how it goes sometimes.

I left half of my face on this window. Oh, yeah. And like I came up, I finally, I saw Josie sitting there who I haven't seen in a long time. And I'd finally met Claire and my aunt is sitting there and I'm like trying to hug everyone. And the waitress comes up to me and she's like, do you need some ice? Like that was, it was formulated through the restaurant. Oh, yikes. You're like, don't say that out loud. Don't tell me that.

And I've already, I've already drawing enough attention to myself because I'm a dumb American.

and I'm wearing my big pink flowery jacket and I've got the tinsel in my hair and it was a whole thing um so getting to Oxford was pretty tricky and my mom and I were really good together we're a really good team together that was that was a pretty tense moment for us like we're just like driving around screaming obscenities at the ways because it's not giving us the right directions and there's no wi-fi in Oxford apparently there's no service you can't call and then the parking

meter was broken and it was a whole thing but once we finally parked in oxford it was lovely josie and i had a great night out together she took me to a proper pub and i had my first pint and yeah what else tell me about that oh did you guys go to multiple pubs like so what i was like josie you lived here for a while like i'm just gonna follow you around online she was like great so we i just

i just followed her around to um this cute little christmas market they had in oxford i really wanted to see the Bodleian Library. You can go in it unless you're a student, but like we just walked through the main like courtyard of it, which was so cool. Like we got to see the big famous circular Oxford Library. Um, so we went to the little Christmas market and then we just walked around and we stopped at one of those little, uh, candy kiosks. And Josie was like, all right,

you're going to try this British candy. And so we had like a little candy review thing. And then we just caught up and talked about, you know, the, the many boys in Seattle that we, uh, we were like, wow, why are we still talking about these guys? And we're in Oxford, like halfway across the world. That's wild. But then we caught up and then we had drinks at this like cute little piano bar. And then we went across town and we had dinner at a hot pot place where it's like you, like you,

you have the meat and then you put it in. Yeah. It was really cool. Uh, and then we went to a pub

and I had my first pint and then we met back up with my mom and my aunt. And then we drove her back to her dorm and it was lovely like once we actually got there it started an hour and a half later than we would have wanted it to and I felt terrible but um yeah it was it was lovely I mean it was a perfect like cold and like kind of rainy Oxford day which is like exactly what you would imagine it to be um and we were talking about my my crush that I had developed because she had

wanted to hear about that because I was like hardcore crushing on someone for a while and She was like, tell me how that's going. Tell me what's up with that. It's always fun to reconnect with old friends, too. Like, oh, my gosh, tell me about this person. And you're like, who? Who? And they're like, no, no, like, the guy that you were talking about. Like, you were so into it. And you're like, oh, that guy. Like, we haven't talked in a while. Oh, that guy? Never want to talk to him again.

Yeah, yeah. Kind of an asshole. Yeah, and then it goes like, oh, my gosh. She like this happened and that happened and this happened. Like I was on the phone with my childhood best friend.

Yeah. And hearing the things that going on in her world right now it was just we haven caught up in a while and I am so happy that I was in a public space when when I heard a lot of it because I it gave me self it gave me a chance to pause and not go are you fucking kidding me what the fuck yeah yeah yeah yeah what what plot twist yeah so I will forever love the catch-ups that you have with old friends but there's always that

moment that you're like oh my gosh right yeah definitely no and it was it was really great because I hadn't I luckily I was spoiled like I hadn't seen her um in five plus years I saw her I got to see her when I went back to Seattle um in July for my big Spanish ballroom show she was there with her dad so that was the first time I had seen her but I was like I get to see you twice in one year I'm like completely spoiled and it was like I mean I think there's always this element

of like when you're connecting with old friends you're like is it gonna be the same like are we gonna be able to find things to talk about and it does we just picked up right where we left off and it was like yeah that's always the best feeling I had like lost my voice at the end of the night because we were laughing so much and like I had also had three drinks which for me that's a lot she I we tried this like fancy mulled wine thing it wasn't exactly mulled wine it was

like a like a German version of it so that was kind of good then uh we had I had a drink at the piano bar and then I had a I had a pint and I like felt like the room was spinning around me after those three drinks I was like yeah but um yeah and she Josie at the end was like really and I'm like yeah dude I'm sorry I'm like I'm sorry I don't like alcohol and I don't drink it that much I don't have a tolerance to it um but then I I have to say I think one my favorite thing that

we did was I don't remember if I've if I've talked to you about this have you ever seen the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice I feel like I have yes it was one of my biggest bucket list moments

to go to Chatsworth house which is Pemberley which is Mr. Darcy's house in Pride and Prejudice and we went and it was spectacular like I got to see the angle of the house that you see in the movie and I spent a hundred great British pounds on a on a bust of Matthew McFadden as Mr. Darcy and I did bring it back to America with me well yeah you would it was hard you know TSA kind of gave me a hard time and they laughed at me when it was coming back I was about to go to war for

Mr. Darcy I was like if they're gonna take him from me no that's just not happening they didn't really give me a hard time but like it got pulled aside when we were going back in TSA work as a weapon yeah like if you had broken his head off you could have stabbed somebody with that because it's a big stone slab of a you know a chiseled you know 1700s gentleman um but they were like you could see them like looking at it you could see them like looking at it on TSA um like what

is this and like my mom had gotten through TSA first so they were asking her the questions as if it was hers and they were like is this abraham lincoln i was like no then she said she goes it's mr darcy and then they all laugh and they're like of course it's mr darcy i used to be falling head over heels now i'm falling on death's ears and my fears are catching

up with me with every breath i breathe every waking dream it's just just me falling You like to deal with drama Feed off trauma Other people fight and cheat and lead the life You think what's got them Think you float above Think you got a perfect love It's still not enough So you just keep on fooling Falling, falling People want to hear a heartbreak In a hotel room Missing the person lying next to you Want to know how it hurts And how you're holding on by your face People wanna hear a heartbreak

Feel you fall apart A problem's dead, is that a problem's old?

Wanna know how it's worse Hanging on every word that you share Cause they wanna hear a heartbreak You pretend you're here to help me Through my misery You're here to see me break On the contrary It's rivaled my defeat Only bit of my relief Is knowing you're worse than me You've already fallen, fallen, fallen People wanna hear a heartbreak In a hotel room Missing the person lying next to you You wanna know how it hurts And how you're holding on by your breath People wanna hear a heartbreak

Feel you fall apart A five-blood's dead is not a problem zone Wanna know how it's worth Hanging on every word that you say Cause they wanna hear a heart break When you see a breakdown Do you stop and stare? Do you strain your neck?

Looking over there Slowing down Thinking about how life is a thing People wanna hear a heartbreak In a hotel room Missing the person lying next to you They wanna know how it hurts And how you're holding on by a thread People wanna hear a heartbreak Feel you fall apart Oh, a problem said is not a problem So wanna know how it works Hanging on every word that you said Cause they wanna hear a heartbreak Hear a heartbreak Wanna hear a heartbreak Hear our praise Hear our praise

Cause we want to hear our praise Funny enough, on the day that we're recording this, Satoshi disappeared 15 years ago.

Wow. We salute you, Satoshi.

it's been real like that's kind of crazy that like also bitcoin only started well not it didn't only start 15 years ago but like it stopped being quote-unquote like managed 15 years ago yeah and look at how far it's come like without you know a central force or somebody yeah kind of controlling in like a company moving it yeah it's you know i would just love one day if like a hundred years from now you know a time capsule is unveiled and it's like you were always meant to find this it's

me i'm satoshi and it was like jacob sartorius or something right or even better like it would be amazing if it was like lena khan yeah like the most educated smart kind of like i i hope Satoshi's a woman. It was a woman? Yeah. Shocker. Satoshi was a woman? Satoshi? Why didn't they name her Satoshi-a? Right. Yeah. Like, it'll be interesting. I think in our lifetime, it's possible that it could be figured out who Satoshi was. Like, yada, yada, yada.

But it's interesting that when we record a Bitcoin podcast, it's on the day that Bitcoin's quote-unquote founder disappeared. Disappeared. It was like, nope, bye.

yeah and she comes back so i am satoshi it was me i was it was me i was a six-year-old super genius yes i had been working on it since i was about negative three and it took about time in my mom's brain yes absolutely the idea in the cell that my mother carried her entire life yeah I think I mean other news in Bitcoin there seem to be a lot of different like crackdowns with Bitcoin between the US and the UK and this is something that we've touched on in other podcasts

as well where Bitcoin yes can be used as like freedom tech it can also be used for scamming nefarious things yeah so there's a double-edged sword here yeah what was the um the article you were talking about how some someone in the uk did something bad with it and then yeah it was scammers quote-unquote people were scamming using bitcoin in the uk and it caused over 14 billion dollars to be frozen in the u.s yeah from like all of what's going on which i thought i mean 14

billion isn't no number to like shy yeah that's a crazy high number of money to be frozen and i think just with all of the new mandates and things around bitcoin it's interesting to see that the immediate reaction is kind of to crack down yeah and i think it's also interesting that in the u.s the main thing is like yeah bitcoin bitcoin bitcoin like great awesome and then behind the scenes it's freezing accounts yeah interesting very interesting and it's hard like to continue

to like be and i'm not saying that i am a hugely important person in this space but it's like it's one of those things that like as someone who has very openly and heavily advocated for the use of it and its adoption it is hard when the mass populace is constantly hearing more stories like that rather than Square. Oh my gosh, 4 million merchants are now accepting Bitcoin because it's real money. Right. Like you would never hear that. You only hear, oh, there's the rice maker. The rice is done.

and it sings to me it's happy that square is now accepting bitcoin yes it is yeah in one of the the big arguments that i think i heard a lot when i was in dc for um the awesome like q a session i did with david tar in btc district like it's it's cool to see that you know people are finally starting to articulate the argument of like okay yeah criminals use bitcoin trump advocates for bitcoin but both of those parties drink water and eat food and drive in cars are you going to

stop using those things because they use it no so why should this be any different like it's it's it's encouraging to finally know that we have a sentiment that it can easily be articulated like

that because like that was when I saw that in the unbanked film I was like oh that makes a lot of sense that's the way that I'm going to explain it from this point of view but um yeah it's also interesting like when people say to me like oh Ainsley like this this bitcoin thing you're into like it seems kind of weird lest you all forget I got into this because of Sam Means somebody's who has awesome success in the traditional music industry. And speaking of Sam, it was awesome.

I got to see him when I was at the event in DC. Um, and I talked to him, I was like, Sam, I'm really curious to hear what this, uh, what this title track boycott heaven is about, because I saw the title and there are two ways that it can go. I saw it and I read it probably the less

common way to think about that title, which proved to be wrong. Once I listened to the lyrics, I read boycott heaven as it's boycott heaven you're in heaven just like saying I'm not gonna do this like it's it's it's the heaven where you go to say like oh just I'm so happy to just like ban all these things that's how I read it which just like proved to be so wrong and I told him that and he was like oh well it's coming out on Friday you'll get to see it but it proved to be

like boycott heaven like wow what a song what a track i love it so much it hit really hard for me yesterday i was driving up my session i basically listened to it all the way there um the lyric about um holy roller please the damage to your knees can't be undone so boycott heaven because they never gave a fuck about us like i was like if i was in a worse headspace about the music industry right now that might be like you know what that's how I feel I mean it is already kind

of how I feel like now listening to those first three songs that the format has put out from this upcoming record that I'm really excited about um I I can I love how they're kind of using that religious symbolism and like I I don't know like maybe it is like solely about like deconstructing religion I don't really know much about um you know the lead singer's kind of backstory and that maybe that's where he's coming from when they're writing those lyrics but like I'm listening to

these and I'm like I'm tired of believing in a system that doesn't believe in me and like wow if I was in a if I was feeling a lot more nihilistic about my chances right now I'd be like yeah I feel like the holy roller waiting for a sign like that line about the damage to your knees can't be undone that idea of like you can believe in something so hard that it like it really kind of fundamentally damages you it's like that is also how I feel a lot about the music industry

sometimes and I just think like what an articulate way to say that um and again it's probably not about the music industry it can probably be about a bunch of other things like we were talking about in the last episode about you know do you write you know in a really wide way or do you kind of like zero in and zoom in on something really particular and weirdly that can translate more but um yeah wow I love the Boycott Heaven song and I'm really looking forward to the album so

plug for Sam I don't know I just I felt like I had to say that no I well because you started there

saying that you were brought into this by Sam who is a well-established musician in the traditional musical yeah so it makes sense for you to also be pulled into this world by somebody who arguably was more established than you oh absolutely so it's more of trusting like okay this is the next wave like okay what can I do to put myself in a position to where when this is the main thing like yeah how can I position myself to be in a better place yeah because ultimately as an artist you're

always looking for the next thing that can help can help you push your art that is a way to brand that is a way to meet people and network and put yourself in the right rooms and with the right people the good people like it's it's always a measure of what can I do that I'm not doing right now yeah and finding fountain for a lot of artists is that yeah totally what can i do that i'm not doing already and if i'm releasing on this platform and i can make more money cool yeah and that's

just point blank baseline releasing music on fountain yeah then you can go into okay well now I believe in the principle of Bitcoin freedom and yada, yada, yada. But go down the rabbit hole. You can go down the rabbit hole, but you don't necessarily need to as well. Yeah. And I think that's also something that can be said in this space that isn't said enough. Yeah. Like you don't have to buy into everything. No, totally not. I don't think anybody has.

I think it's just a way to market and sell this thing. Yeah. But that being said, there is money being made in it. And you don't necessarily have to buy into the whole idea to do the thing. Have you read all of the user terms and conditions of Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok? iCloud. Anything like that? No. No, you haven't read that 42-page document. And there's somebody that's nodding along saying, well, I have and yada, yada, yada, this isn't about you.

Yeah. so you can be willing to release music and see if you make any money and if you don't maybe this isn't the place for you yeah maybe you're doing the right thing on traditional music apps and you don't need to be over here cool but that isn't the case for like 99.9 percent of the musicians in the world yeah so you can stay on your high horse or you can eat it i don't care but this is what musicians are hoping for yeah absolutely and I'm always I'm really encouraged when

I show up to an event that you know the population of the people who are there it can feel pretty dev heavy but we have people like Sam who show up or Nick and Oscar from Fountain and Theo and Dobby Doss who show up and they're like no like it's it's about more than just creating for people who are creating or developing for people who are developing like we have to remember that you know these platforms and nostr should be for users and not for other devs like yeah and I think that's a

that's a loophole that I think people get kind of caught up in and um yeah I mean it's always encouraging you know when we have people who like Sam or like the fountain guys have had some experience firsthand in seeing how hard the music industry is and they're kind of there to sympathize and they're like I've been there too we know what that's like and um also on this point shout out to Nat and Nind from 2140 Music and Aaron of Essex because when I was in Manchester um when

I was at the show that Longy was at the Green Sands were at Nathan Abbott um it was really it was such a well put together show and coming from somebody who has firsthand had experiences

with onboarding artists putting those shows together making sure the technology is running right the wallets the live stream uh they did such a great job with putting that whole event on and not in from 2140 music are like visionaries like they have been in the traditional music industry they see how it doesn't work like they're doing the same thing that we're doing over here over there and um yeah it was it was really lovely to meet um Aaron of Essex and Longy um and the

Green Sands man they were awesome really cool band um Aaron was like man the lead singer really sounds like Jeff Buckley and it's these like 16 17 year old like hard rock kids and they were really tight they were so good um and I think we've we've played them on the podcast before and I was like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah at some point like we we have done a lot of episodes of this podcast at this point I think this will be our 23rd once the time it comes out so go us

go high five there we go um so we've done so many episodes of this and we've played a lot of music

that sometimes I don't always remember like the artists that we've played and so uh Aaron had said like oh have you heard of the green sands and I was like oh I don't know and then I heard them play a song later in the night and I was like wait yes I have heard of the green sands we've played them like they were really good yeah and um Nathan Abbott was there oh another thing hardcore crushing on redacted he was so hot and he was really nice and like I can't tell if Brits are just like

naturally flirty or if he was kind of into me too he was like thank in his British accent he was like thank you baby and I was like yeah thank you love I just Oh, that's my number. I want to have a British husband and I want him to call me love. I feel like any girl who greeds. Yeah. Specifically. Because, yeah, I wouldn't mind. That'd be nice. It would be. We're still monitoring that Google sheet, guys. It's a running joke. Yeah, if you want to submit an application.

Yeah. Applications are open. Don't forget you do need references. But applications are closing in the beginning of February. February 1st. All submissions need to be in by February 1st. And if you're doing early decision. We'll get back to you by mid-April. Yeah, Katie and I were talking before we got on here. Both of us kind of have some people we're crushing on right now. And it was fun to be like, you know what?

we're both very independent women who are I think we both thrive being single and being by ourselves because it's like I am not going to lower my standards for something that society tells me I should be in just for the sake of being in it like no I don't particularly feel like going through a bunch of relationships that like aren't good just for the sake of saying that I've been in relationships but I actually have a song like funny enough I have a song that I'm writing right

now with Jake and the punchline of the chorus is am I stubborn for wanting nothing because something isn't loving me the way that I need hell yeah and it's truly a question that I do ask myself though like am I stubborn for literally like wanting no one because I haven't found that yet And that's no diss to the people that I've dated. It's just you also reason season lifetime, right?

Yeah. So it's great to learn things about yourself while you're in relationships as well as while you're out of relationships. And there's a lot to be said for that as well. Yeah. But I fear at this point I've gone through the different iterations of that and I don't feel like I need to do it again. Mm-hmm. So am I stubborn for wanting nothing because something isn't loving me the way that I need?

Or do I have, or, and the next one is, as a woman, am I given a choice or is it more of advice to wait and see? Yeah. Like, am I given a choice to wait and see or is it more of advice to be like, yeah, find one. Yeah. Right. Like, so all of that being said, I love that we can talk about these things. And I think a lot of women are age are going through the same thing as well. Totally. Yeah. And I love that we. Screw you, Dixie and Jake, for being in a great loving relationship. Oh, guys.

Because it's so annoying. That's your fault. It's so annoying. Yeah. But we were talking before we got on here and we were like, oh, you know, you can forget. Like, I haven't had a crush on someone in a really long time.

like but I you know I'm in the past year or so there's been someone who I've been kind of crushing on and I'm like you know what this is fun I forgot that this is just like it all sometimes like it isn't always that serious like you can just have a crush on someone for the sake of having a crush on someone and you can just let it be fun and is this thing with this person probably ever gonna happen no but it's still fun it's fun to hope fun to dream my my thing is that like i am always

so like i'm very so not boy crazy in my actual life that i joke that like my outlet for it is in the books that i read and in the shows and like the fictional couples that i'm constantly shipping It's a lonely open road I can fall asleep It's a matter of myself

Just a matter of key You can keep me new You, Kalina, don't lead me away I can read the lights on the television You, Kalina, don't lead me away You, Kalina, don't lead me away Colleen up, Colleen up, my young. It's the season of my solitude. I can hold my heart. I just want a little gratitude. But you just let me know. So here we go. Colleen up, don't lead me away. I can hear the fountain. The children ringing. Colleen up, don't lead me away.

Coming up, I'm going to believe it Coming up, I'm going to believe it Coming up, I'm going to believe it Coming up, coming up, my dear It's the only road to travel I can find it in the city Anywhere you want to go Then go back home I can hold it up again So blow it up again Take on, you might not see at all Anywhere you wanna go, go back home I can't hold myself together I should go to sleep We are slowly open road

I should buy a seat But I can hear now I spinning round and round and round Then I found you Kalina don lead me away I can read the lights on the television You, Kalina, don't lead me away. I can hear the bells in the church ringing. New Carolina, don't feed me away Shake me a side and off my body New Carolina, don't feed me away Carolina, oh no New Carolina, oh no You can be not, oh no You can be not, oh no It's the only road to travel on So much easier than sitting home Any way you wanna go

Let me tell you a funny, another funny story about when we were in London. So the first day

that we were, um, at BitFest, uh, my mom and I were talking with Nick and Oscar, we're just kind of like chatting, catching up. And it's about a week or so before we go out to their offices and they're like, Oh yeah, we can, um, we're, we're out in Soho. It's a really cute area. And I'm like, Oh, here we go. I thought it was going to be a funnier moment. Nick and Oscar

looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. But so me, if you're a longtime listener of this podcast, or if you just, you know, consumed every piece of media I've ever put out, you would know that I am holding out for my one and only true love, Andrew Garfield, my number one, number one celebrity crush of all time. Truly. I'm so delusional. You give me 20 minutes with him. I can pull him. I can do that. I believe in myself. I believe in my ability to do that.

and I had seen when we were going to London I saw a video of a bunch of um like London locals including Andrew like he was the only celebrity in there saying somebody asked oh what's the best coffee shop in London and everybody said Bar Italia and in Soho and I so then I went after Nick and Oscar said oh yeah our offices are in Soho then I decided to make a fun joke of it and I was like mom we can go to we can go to Bar Italia in Soho so I can have my Andrew Garfield

sighting they looked at me like i was crazy they looked at me like i was like insane hey it's like it's like when somebody comes here and goes oh my gosh i can't wait to see blake sheldon on broadway yeah it's absolutely it's the same thing for sure but let me have my tourist moment true and look oscar nick i'll forgive you when i'm getting married to andrew garfield i will invite you guys and we will we will forgive and forget that you guys looked at me

like I was delusional. It's fine. We'll forget it. We'll forget it. It's fine. But what was that thing you were saying about the SpaceX? Like how I'm such a grandma. I'm like the SpaceX.

No, SpaceX. So I've been kind of monitoring Elon Musk ever since he really came out with like

Neuralink because. Oh, I haven't even heard of that. Well, Neuralink is the chip that goes inside your brain it's like a computer thing oh yeah so he's heavily involved with that of course he is um tesla like he just has been sticking his fingers in a lot of different pies making a shit ton of money yeah and i don't know it just seems like we we started hearing about him maybe 10 years ago and now he's become one of the richest people in the world and i'm just curious

so all of that being said spacex was a privately traded company it is now going public in the beginning of 2026 and it's being valued at 800 billion with a b so So I don't know truly the ins and outs of when a company goes private to public. But I will say in some way, shape, or form, the owner of said shares has to be bought out. So I don't know if Elon is the complete owner or if he did that with investor money or yada, yada. Like, I haven't done that research.

But I will say he's getting a good chunk of that. And that's just from a company going private to public. Like, that's crazy. That's just one thing. And if he has so many other figures, like, I don't know whether I'm suspicious of this man or if I'm like, hmm, how can I do that in a more ethical way? Yes, exactly. Like, how can I? How? Because he's doing so, I don't know. All of that said.

again FBI if you're watching please don't kill me but also if you're hiring please let me know like yeah I mean look I don't am I a big fan of Elon Musk no but if he's gonna send more men to Mars then you know that can't be a bad thing well and I mean the thing about it was they're they're hoping to launch Neuralink well not Neuralink they're hoping to launch satellites within the SpaceX like system essentially he has a shit ton of satellites that are up in the

ether space or ether is internet lol but that are up in the space and are giving cell service to people in space or in the air he hoping to then create a chain of that between like you could call me from mars whoa that's what he's trying to do whoa in real time whoa with satellites that's what he's trying to do see my thing with the whole space time travel thing is one of the big arguments that I see with billionaires is that people are like you know you have so much money you could do so

much good on this earth I read um or I listened to Bernie Sanders latest book when I was driving down to DC um and there was a statistic in it that said if billionaires if every billionaire

got together and piled up their money, they would solve world hunger 14 times over. And it's like, okay, knowing that, why aren't we spending this money to help the people who are already here instead of trying, or no, why aren't we helping the people on this earth who are already here instead of trying to make, you know, a colony on Mars for us to go live in when the sun dies out in however many years or when, you know, inevitably we have a mass casualty event that, you know,

forces us to not be able to live here. Like, why aren't we taking care of the people who don't have

homes, who don't have food, who don't have access to clean water? Another thing that I'm another thing that I am passionate about is like period poverty like what do you mean that like the women in Gaza were stripping linen off their tents because they didn't have pads and tampons what do you mean that like a lot of women are getting infections because they don't have Kotex yeah like I'm just baffled by why are we trying to fix a problem that's not really even a

problem but we're just completely letting the problems that are here on this earth go to the wayside right now yeah I about period poverty as well I saw a video that was like it's a fun funny little quip but it was like if men went through period cramps in a period there would be a cure by noon and a voucher for the grocery store yeah like because at the end of the day like that's one week every single month of every single year that a woman is literally shedding

an internal organ yeah it's hard for those of you who haven't experienced it also if you think about it you're shedding that once a month you're also growing an entire organ 12 times a year do you know how much energy that takes yeah so then you think about that and it's like oh but now we're getting into the like anthropological i'm here to have it i'm here to have that conversation i am and like one of the other things like and this is kind of getting back into

uh inequality in the music industry is like so i don't also think that people understand that like being on your period can affect your voice and affect not just of course it affects your energy and how you're feeling but the way that you sing and like you can have a perfect rehearsal you know a couple days before your period starts and then you go on and you do a show on the first or second day and it's like why is my instrument not functioning the way that it normally does

there are a lot of things that people don't think of when it comes to you know how periods affect women yeah no I yeah there's a lot to be talked around this and billionaires and what's going on in the world and how that ties to the little guy and how Bitcoin is trying to improve that ish but then of course it's being spun out like all I would tell you as well is nine out of ten times when somebody is vehemently telling you not to do something

and not to go for it, not to do this, not to do that, because this, this, this, this, and this, and this. And if you've looked into it and you're like, well, that looks pretty decent, it's probably because that person wants to hold a corner on that market. And they probably don't want you to have the same idea that they've had. And so they're going to scare you and say, no, don't do it. It's so bad. Don't do this. Don't do that.

Maybe what that person is just trying to do is cover up something that they don't want you to have access to. Yeah. And that trick is the oldest trick in the book. So, I mean, yeah, don't go down that alleyway. That alleyway is haunted. That alleyway is terrible. That led to a speakeasy. Yeah. You know what I mean? For sure. Like it's the premise of don't do this. It's bad. But the other guy is doing it 10 times over and making a shit ton of money. Well, he's telling you that it's bad.

It's like what we talked about last week in the episode about, you know, a lot of the labels were all up in arms about, oh, you can't use our artists to train AI. But then once they were cut in on the deal about it, they're like, oh, it's fine. Right. Speaking of AI, another Spotify headline.

Spotify to let users steer the algorithm by personalizing playlists with AI prompts. Spotify is portraying the new feature as part of its effort to make the music streaming experience more personable and controllable by users. Users can always fine by editing the prompt and can request a regular refresh of the playlists essentially creating a personalized version of Spotify Discover Weekly feature Quote our goal is to make Spotify more personable I don't know why I keep saying personable.

More personal, more responsive, more intelligent, and more aware of the world and culture around it in order to bring greater value to listeners, artists, and creators.

And for artists, this unlocks smarter, more inspired discoveries, resurfacing their music for the right listeners and opening new ways to deepen their fan bases sure jan sure jan like it's odd to me that labels are very up in arms until they can get a piece of it yeah and i mean it's the classic thing from record labels that we've seen forever yeah but I don't know I think AI is just scary in general and to me when you verge on AI anything like you're just

you gotta be careful yeah and I don't think that that's being careful I I don't either like to me I read that as, hey, artists, we're going to make it even harder than it already is to have fans find your music. Because I truly, and this is my firsthand experience, I just don't think people are interested in discovering new music anymore.

I mean, I can't tell if it's people just aren't interested in it or if the landscape has just made it impossible to discover new music that people have kind of forgotten that that's a thing that you can do.

I read that and I see you know an average music listener being like okay give me the deep cuts of this artist that I love who I've only heard the top hits from not like hey give me an artist that has less than a thousand monthly listeners right I just don't see how this is going to help artists more I just see it as fans here's more of a chance to just keep listening to your favorite artists but we can make it really niche if you want a niche playlist about your parents arguing in the

kitchen in 2009 while you bake cookies and you know you know you want four Beyonce songs that well what I'm worried about is I mean and I'm sitting here looking at your sweater that looks like a knit sweater right uh sure it's not really knit it's it's a blue gingham sweater yeah it's blue gingham and i think about it like this at some point in time somebody knit that and that was their job and they sold it and they make it they made a lot of money on it and that's how they

put food on the table yeah and then something came around to where they were able to make a super modified machine and then that person got out of a job yeah because they made a machine to replace the human that's happened across all sectors yeah but widely it has been agreed that art is not subject to that because art is subjective and can't be created or um trained by a human like it can't be duplicated that's the word i was looking for yeah it can't be duplicated so it's

always going to be by a human yeah with ai that nixes that yeah because now you can create human likeness yeah and that's why i think artists are a little bit more scared now with all of this because at one point we were like oh this isn't gonna affect us because whatever automation technology improvements and yada yada yada but no this is very much going to affect yeah and i also raised that is it unfair for us to already get so mad when this has already happened across

multiple different and we've factors for multiple different industries lack of a better term artists have been safe up until this point because there hasn't been a machine or a computer that's been able to replicate art until now ish roughly yeah and I mean one of the other things that was in that article that I didn't say was that you know the Spotify spokesperson or whatever said we truly believe that playlist curation is still at the heart of the Spotify experience but like

I feel like with that tool artists are going to be just like oh make me a playlist that you know has XYZ requirements and it takes the fun out of going and discovering it yourself and continuing to add to this four and a half hour long playlist that you've been curating for three years. Like you don't have to make that anymore and find the songs and be like, Oh, I heard this instrumental in a TV show. And this has to go on my study playlist, which is something that I have like,

it takes it out of it. Like, Oh man, I saw that Katie and I were like looking at, um you know headlines to talk about and she was like in the kitchen and I like saw that headline and I just cackled and I was like ah of course of course Spotify yeah we saw it coming but I think that might wrap it up for this episode I think it will too it has been an honor and a privilege that sounds like we're ending yeah last episode of the snap guys it's been real

no after after 23 episodes we're giving it a rest rounded it out at 23 we'll see you next time rounding it out at 23 i feel like that's all we hear from the music industry too no literally lol it's been me your host katie and me your host ainsley and we'll catch you next time