This chapter, as should every good chapter, starts with a gif and a sign. We had already been well into gif creations as show art for the new podcasting 2.0 apps. It’s killer, dynamic show art in a nude app. Based. An important date to note is May 9th 2023, it was the first Monday Lavish and I were able to feature proto value time splits. Meaning we could switch the wallets, but we did it without the use of remoteitems and guids. We had special guest Matt Bigelow on, journalist and musician from Japan on and it was a great goddamn time. Check it out here: https://podverse.fm/episode/RFpC-U8Tr. Music has been a long standing pillar in BTS’s production, and adding the ability to redirect boosts to musicians was something we had been yearning for. There was an attempt (successful but clunky) exactly forty episodes to just add musicians in on the episode level split for playing their music on that week’s intermission. Value Time Splits (VTS’s) were on the scene. In order to stress test what the fuck was happening, we spent many a weekends over the spring/summer working with nostr:npub1yvgrrzf4dnmu30qfhw95x87ruu0g2kpv3a64h8hpvqsre8qeuspsgd6pv9 brand new split kit where we would play music from the suuuuper small repository of music available, but we had a great time. There’s even a lost performance of both nostr:npub1yvscx9vrmpcmwcmydrm8lauqdpngum4ne8xmkgc2d4rcaxrx7tkswdwzdu and I playing acoustic guitars singing and switching wallets. To highlight these streams, I started playing with a new plugin in gif creation.

My birthday came later that summer, and I received something that would end up being critical to this story. It was a neon Boo sign sent from Makeherosim and nostr:npub1fgaj3fgj9s79rd7nywultnuza0dduyyhxghwl7ahs9r8fp07emaqp3pq4d . Beautiful. We’ll revisit that next year.

Fast forward to December. The only thing of merit mentioning that fall was spent building rss feeds for musicians and hosting their music for them in my value contribution of trying to grow the open source Podcast Index. There’s a lot now!

🪐 Cold Winds Blow From The North In The Minneapocalypse

December marked the date for an important two day event. Ainsley Costello was booked to play two shows in December, one at a Bitcoin meet up and one at 7th Street Entry at First Ave. My day job is live event production, I worked on the road for almost a decade touring Broadway shows (thanks covid). Alongside that was the autistic pursuit of learning RSS, so I figured I could bring some value to that production. Reached out, the shows happened, it birthed the infamous “kid running around in vans meme”, it was great. The most important thing to come out of those shows, and it gets so buried in the hype of 20 million sats, the LD for those two shows was included in the split. Frankiepaint had never owned Bitcoin prior to this experience, and thanks to her split and value contributions she earned her first sats. No amount of Forbes or cringe substack articles will ever rip that joy I felt for her seeing her open her fountain wallet after the first show. From what I know she has yet to buy any Bitcoin and instead earns it through splits on productions. Very incredible if you ask me. The fire was lit for us to produce more LIT (live item tag for those not in the know, or uninitiated) concerts. I also booked Ainsley to come on B4TS to read through all that came in. In value for value, one of the key mechanisms that is super easy to lose is the acknowledgment. To have that person's name, amount (or kind of value added), emblazons their producer stamp on the production. I cannot stress how integral it is to close the value feedback loop.

https://video.nostr.build/b4fdf62adec4ce8d232a5f0078a3d46d169133c2d101f39cfca21c2d1a901329.mp4

2024 started off right, with playing with lights. Remember that boo sign? It was time to figure out how to get that motherfucker boost reactive. nostr:npub109pc6vlklws9k5f8vahq2yrdgap7uyqyt7zqknetd5tjzche8t2qvr5aaj (based boy) was running amok in the IRC and this mofo mentions QLC+. What’s QLC+ you ask? Open source lighting control. In there, is an audio trigger widget. That was the foot in the door.

https://video.nostr.build/9465c97349e4fe23b7a464b94dc99178fb271d921744599406060a11c9eaa09e.mp4

After playing around for a little bit, I was able to get this led stand to respond to audio triggers from boosts. Wowie. This Boo sign had a wire coming out of, I bet it’s usable. Yup. It was.

Zowie.

https://video.nostr.build/7975b7b8ffc8559aa55ec6ddae66a7a8742c013ff1baa9eafad55c5d5ec8dec3.mp4

Tho clunky, it was here. Boost reactive lights. It was at this time two things took place simultaneously. We were itching to do a show come summertime in Nashville, with the BTC convention and big No Agenda related meet-ups taking place, we thought it would be the perfect spot to host another LIT concert. We found a quote, had a plan (https://zososcorner.substack.com/i/141385700/vv-the-tour), and was sadly rejected on the proposal. It wasn’t all lost however, we took our plans and put that towards Taylor Sound (more on that later), and Frankiepaint’s suggestion of having a side stage parallel to the convention was later turned into Bands at Bitcoin. Additionally, Spencer had pinged me about doing some work with him down in their studio, aka the Bowl. Being immersed in the space was enough to get the creative juices flowing, and I knew the perfect thing to add to the bowl. A boostable disco ball. Thanks to Homegrown Hits, disco balls were hip again. So I planned another trip down and Spencer, myself, and nostr:npub19ha7tju4teqp3dmwv4p28wrcy9zd6h6hxkg5mwvjrlfycweazpkse2q0fa did the damned thing. There hung a boost reactive disco ball.

https://video.nostr.build/43a7503cfc65ad3bf34216bd41ca3f63c17408c63a8b2541f1b586d32fa38118.mp4

To be there in person and boost live from the studio, to be washed in the disco, there’s nothing like it. 10/10 you need to try it at least once in your life. This weekend also marked the heavy production planning for our own show in the Minneapocalypse. Working with Taylor Sound, we booked and v4v fundraised for a concert with a fully realized rental lighting package. Included with that, would be a 48” disco ball…I also wanna shout out the goat drive, where we encouraged the active murder of goats to help fund raise for the show. This adventure is all pretty well documented thru our show notes at Zoso's Corner and the show Behind the Sch3m3s. This concert was deemed "12 Rods Tour Eclipse: A v4v Mirror Ball Stream Feat. Mellow Cassette", check it out here: https://podverse.fm/episode/-jZWO5UOy

🪐 Spring Awakenings

The show with 12 Rods and Mellow Cassette took place the first weekend in April. It was physically crushing loading in that gear but we did it. The show happened. The 48” inch disco ball was blasting the room on each payment. nostr:npub1gfh3zdy07r37mgk4hyr0njmajapswk4ct6anc9w407uqkn39aslqqkalqc had also joined the fold and for this event created a unique scoreboard to keep track of which producer was on top, it looked like a Galaga scoreboard it was perfect. It may, or may not, have inadvertently invented this non-competition between boosts and zaps. Simply because he had the fore-site to include the total amounts coming in from everywhere. People onsite were actively cheering on producers like Petar, nostr:npub177fz5zkm87jdmf0we2nz7mm7uc2e7l64uzqrv6rvdrsg8qkrg7yqx0aaq7 and many more. We had a big projector setup so it was easy to see in the room, to be part of the environment. We also used the same node/QLC+ triggers from the Boo sign and the bowlers disco ball. Don’t ever let anyone dissuade you from running a node, you’re gonna want one where you’re going. Banners were made, grass roots promotions, a great deal of value was poured in.

🪐 Suns Out Buns Out

Admittedly, it was a ton of work to fundraise for 12 Rods. Openmike helped out tremendously. The walk away feeling was, “can we do this for cheaper?”. Turns out yes. Any live stream has access to a venue, that’s easy. Bands rehearse surely. I was witness to that from Herbivore and the streams they were doing in February for their album release (shout out #herbivore). nostr:npub14c7ksq2wln0s9nftjlr0wv2vqpg5xzvw7jezl3whczc0ff2y97eqerl5l2 also provided key inspiration with their livestream studio setup. Perhaps these “venues” could be linked together for a show. Welcome, The Satellite Skirmish.

Bands would livestream and we as the production capture those streams, rebroadcasting them thru RSS feeds. Pretty easy to set up all things considered. The pool of tallent was widened with the introduction of MC’s DuhLaurien, Marykate Ultra, Frankiepaint, and Hot Liv Tyler. Alongside them were six bands, all DeMu artists. Did I mention the Mc’s were cartoons? EricPP also introduced visual boost alerts, another first. I am remiss that I didn’t draw up something custom after it was all said and done, as we had used a template kit that I had purchased. However, it definitely got the job done and the message across.

It’s easy to label it a battle of the bands, I’ve done so myself at times. At its core however, there’s something more going on. Like a vaudevillian revue show of sorts. It was a smash success, a great turn out from producers. Everyone had a blast. Congrats to HeyCitizen for winning that one. It also would not have been feasible or as tight of a production without Cottongin’s work put in helping manage the streams. There’s seven live streams happening at once, it’s impossible for just one person to handle them alone. Thank you Cottongin.

Watch the full thing at https://satskirmish.com/

The end of summer was marked by Bands at Bitcoin and an epic stay at an airbnb in Nashville. There’s more that could be said about that event, but perhaps it is better saved for another time.

🪐 Martha, Do You See The Leaves Turning?

Before the dust had settled, it felt time to already book another skirmish. This time, something fall related. Fuck it. It was a brisk turn around, but worth it because everything that was brought to the table was improved vastly upon. Tech wise, art wise, it came together sublimely. The Satellite Skirmish: Autumn Rust.

Personally speaking, it was the first time in my life where I could combine all these facets of interest into one stream. Broadcasting, music, animation, illustration, theming, making credits. It’s a personal favorite of mine. It featured a bevy of new faces, another ludicrous value split for all involved parties. There were also improvements in the split kit. We used the split kit for the first one too. It’s really what makes the skirmish what it is. It’s the only place that I know of where you can boost any artist at any point any amount. There’s a chat feature, scoreboard, video for the stream, everything. The split kit facilitates this. If you’re not using the split kit, what are you doing? Come get some.

https://video.nostr.build/27ab7cec7c484fba5a49006c01131108e0451d8a5ab55b05a882d78769aab633.mp4

This skirmish marked the debut of custom boost alerts, which are so good I wish I could eat them. We built upon the ones from the last skirmish (aka drew our own) and EricPP worked his magick to get them displayed as overlays on the stream. There’s so many more elements that are easy to gloss over, this post will be long enough as it is sadly. It was an epic production to say the least. Survival Guide shoutout shoutout! Watch the full event at https://www.thesplitkit.com/live/7273eba9-d12d-41d0-8efa-ec777aab446a/video

We also wanted a round 2 at Taylor Sound for a Halloween show. This would have been the show of the year imho, as we were going to introduce trigger-able special effects in honor of Halloween. I’ll save most of the details about this show simply because it didn’t happen. Big sad. We had no way of paying a guarantee. Had twice as much lighting gear, and a space, but no band. What you would have seen was the split kit pushed to its wackiest. In lieu of buttons to boost bands, it would be the special effects. A button for fog, a button for strobes, a button for the plasma ball chandelier, a button to glow the show logo painted on the castle wall back piece.

It’s definitely a cool idea. And certainly not dead. It was and is definitely possible as we have code now that ties between boosts and DMX. Sky’s the limit.

🪐 Read The Sign Mate!

(Fun sidebar, one time in Australia I talked my coworker on a gag into checking out what I thought to be a strip club. Made it down the stairs. It was a skinema cinema. We quickly turned around. That’s what the man at the counter said as we booked it, “Read the sign mate!”.)

You get an itch to make a sign. The plan originally was to make a led neon sign for Agent Em, winner of Autumn Rust. The design is there (and honestly I’m glad I have one under the belt before starting hers, lots and lots to learn no doubt) and it will begin in 2025. I had told OpenMike about these various ideas and he was interested in introducing some of them to his upcoming Boostagram Ball Live show he was producing. I agreed to the project and set out designing a sign to use on the livestream. You should see the original plans, as it was a foot bigger and was an infinity mirror. Talk about obnoxious! Settled on the design, and set out working with EricPP on it.

The big question is how do you relay to a producer what amount triggers what effect. There wasn’t going to be a split kit event for this show, so no button there. Maybe the bands and MC could relay the amounts to trigger, but that feels pretty haphazard. There was only one easy solution, which was a holdover from the Halloween show. One of the planned effects was neon strands of LEDs that would react to boosts no matter what the amount was. But, it was more interactive than just on or off. The trigger would be the last digit of the boost. Ten different digits, 0-9, ten different effects. To further flesh the look out, I also asked Eric to throw in colors pulled from show art of shows on the No Agenda stream. It all worked as planned.

https://video.nostr.build/a91414486697737c14981ca72353a66205dffe33c566133cb326efff3fd18dd9.mp4 https://video.nostr.build/8dc5c37734bf8bd0b8646b5c5a15052184333071894ea8c342667791ec645d1e.mp4

🪐 The End?

I saw something the day after that really inspired me to write this all out.

I was tuning live into Bowl after Bowl, admiring the work Spencer and Laurien had been pouring into improving the bowl. I was tripping balls when he first showed me pics of the upgrade, and good god. That was just the beginning. They’ve been doing a ton of work down there. New PTZ Robo cams, new tv monitors, new lights. Fuck. Fuuuuuuck

It’s so cool. Spencer was showcasing his new mover head spotlights tied into the disco ball boost. BOOM. DISCO BOOST. They also have that sweet sweet smoke machine. They just need the code to start tying this into helipad (what is a helipad?). I very much will make them a sign that I know will be utilized to the absolute fullest. A sign that merely accents the tremendous amount of value culminated in by everyone.

In the shadow of the disco eclipse, new ways to experience live productions are here. 2025 will change the face of live podcasting and live music for the more interesting. No amount of trying to resuscitate an industry or larpers on substack can stop it. Build a node. Get involved. Find a link to the Zeronode IRC and get the fuck in there.

Love is lit.

boo-bury, Mothman of the Minneapocalypse

#diaryofamothman #v4v

P.S. Stay Tooned