Upsample with Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff

The story around Daniel Ek's military tech investments has reached a fever pitch, and nothing about it is likely to improve. Is now finally the time to quit using Spotify? We dive into Deerhoof's announcement about pulling their music from Spotify (4:03), our feelings about what to do as an artist (18:30), and what to do as a user (36:57).

Recs: Will - Without A Stage: LA's Independent Jazz Scene directed by Michael DiPietro by The Terrarium on YouTube , Carson - Andor season 2

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

We're back from going to festivals! We kick it off in urban affairs with "The Uncertain Future of Granville Island" by Uytae Lee on the YouTube channel About Here (2:23), then swing into AI as Carson shares the Timbaland music training/generating controversy (24:31) and Will gets into The Velvet Sundown, an accelerationist mix of AI-generated everything + bot playlist marketing (47:09).

Timbaland links:

• “Timbaland’s AI music project is a ghost in a misguided machine” by Sheldon Pearce for NPR
• Zarah Scully claims Timbaland trained Suno using her voice
• YouTube video: Curtiss King interviews Zarah Scully

Velvet Sundown links:

• "The Velvet Sundown are a seemingly AI-generated band with 325k Spotify listeners" by Stuart Dredge for Music Ally
• Benn Jordan’s IG post claiming Velvet Sundown are 100% AI gen. Rick Beato agrees
• They are supposedly tweeting

Recs: Carson - album Tether by Annahstasia, Will - album Gadabout Season by Brandee Younger

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

We hang at Carson’s house to celebrate 5 years of Will’s music website Rhythm Changes!

(0:00) Intro

(2:28) The very beginning of RC in the summer of 2020 with 50 email sign-ups,

(7:11) “The worst gig of my life” story and reuniting with David Blake,

(15:50) Is vancouverjazz dot-com lost forever?

(20:04) The curse of always being The Podcast Guy,

(23:29) Times that Will touched a nerve with subjects?

(28:35) Caity Gyorgy and 'never write alone',

(32:59) Why Will didn't cover the scene's most controversial story,

(42:38) How the 2021 heatwave, RC’s failed first jazzfest, and Thad Bailey-Mai's set at Ocean Artworks led to Will meeting Tim Reinert before Tim started presenting shows,

(54:26) The tech stack at RC,

(1:01:10) Why Will replies to over 80% of music submissions,

(1:02:31) Why the Infidels Jazz t-shirt is the most meaningful piece of clothing he owns.

Recs: Will - album Ce qui tourne dans l’air by l’Oumigmag, Carson - album All Ashore by Punch Brothers

We’ll take a short break now and return in July.

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

Shout-out to our friends in The Shorties! We then get into a story called "Why it’s Time to Support Grassroots Venues with a £1 Ticket Levy" by Dan McCarthy in The Quietus (5:09), an out-of-nowhere but relevant reference to the 2015 vote on our local transit authority in Vancouver (21:41), and the video "Why EVERY Artist should be on YouTube" by Jon Talks Beats (26:55).

Recs: Will - album Sancocho Trifásico by Empanadas Ilegales, Carson - album Caroline 2 by Caroline

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

After Will admits to giving Meta his money again, we get into a big hairy question: what is the meaning of ‘labour’ we use in the arts (03:14)? Anti-streaming labour activism (14:21), the labour economics of playing gigs and small local shows (21:38), a detour into Vancouver venues closing (32:46), the Cultural Land Trust (38:10), and which things that an artist does are actually labour? (49:41)

Recs: Carson - album 2 by Foxwarren, Will - Canadian Football League season opening weekend

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

(0:00) Will has a camera!

(3:07) "'A Billion Streams and No Fans': Inside a $10 Million AI Music Fraud Case", by Kate Knibbs of WIRED

(17:24) Spotify tracks on the wrong artist profiles

(37:59) What happens when the AI-gen floodgates burst?

(44:27) Is Will being too naive about AI videos?

(52:52) Recommendations

We reference Search Engine's podcast episode "The Russian Cake Switcheroo" and the Anthony Fantano video "Massive Problem on Spotify" . The music project from the WIRED story is here.

Recs: Carson - setting up your own music server at home, Will - Dialectic podcast hosted by Jackson Dahl with guest Alex Danco, start at 59:00 for music scene discussion

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

(0:00) Will dreams of his Brentwood show & advertiser bucks

(05:47) Feature on studio owners written by Nathan Caddell in the Georgia Straight

(32:12) André 3000's 7 Piano Sketches project

(53:50) Recommendations

Recs: Will - Giacomo Turra scandal & Adam Neely "The Ethics of Fake Guitar", Carson - album Under Tangled Silence by Djrum

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

Spotify's favourite metric? We don't love it. We can't even guess our own monthly listener figures!

(0:00) Will has the notebook out to plan his jazzfest

(2:37) The monthly listener figure on Spotify

(47:47) A Rhythm Changes SEO digression

(50:34) "What number should we look at instead?"

(55:50) Recommendations

Recs: Carson - Blue Prince, Will - 2025 NHL playoffs (Leafs, Oilers, Jets)

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

We discuss a controversial, but relatively tame and annoying online jazz battle: Patrick Bartley’s #BoycottAI vs. JazzMemes' Chase Maddox with the blog post "There's no 'AI' in Art" on AI-generated images. Was 'slop' invented in November 2022, does the fate of art itself hang in the balance, and what else can we do?

(0:00) Reacting to our show being out in the world

(1:36) Bon Iver

(5:55) AI finally lands in the jazz world

(10:48) Patrick Bartley & JazzMemes

(32:24) Our views on the AI issues

(53:54) Recommendations and a big anniversary for Carson

Recs: Carson - album Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes, Will - Venus Theory YouTube video "The Future of Music is Noise"

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.

We’re live! To celebrate, we get into the topic that brought us together for the idea of this podcast in the first place: Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.

(0:00) We have a name

(1:50) Liz Pelly's Mood Machine

(1:09:57) Recommendations

Recs: Carson - artist Queralt Lahoz, Will - Land & Lore YouTube channel videos on the Vancouver Stock Exchange

FIND US:

Will

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamchernoff/

-Rhythm Changes: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamchernoff/

Carson

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctworow/

-Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ctworow.bsky.social/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctworow/

Hosted by Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff. Edited and mixed by Will Chernoff. A Chernoff Music podcast. Theme music by Carson Tworow.