Speaker A: All right, hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode, a posthumous interview episode. Uh, we're here today with NookCZ and Trinity. We're doing a little collector interview, kind of a fan interview. Nook has the, I think, the longest streak of anyone on Twitter for retweeting our episode posts, getting the, getting the word out there and just generally supporting us. And you're also a very interesting collector who started their own livestreaming thing with art too that we're gonna talk about. Super excited to have you on. And how's it going, everyone?

Speaker B: Going well.

Speaker C: Yeah, this is so exciting. I'm on the Waiting to Be Signed podcast. This is pretty cool.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You made it. I have to say that I think these collector interviews are sometimes my favorite. You know, artists are great. I guess they're fine, but talking to people who may not have been a part of this world before all of this kicked off, it's so fun to hear all of the different perspectives. that other people have. And this is the life that we've led as well. And so I think it's just kind of like fun time and a fun conversation. I'm really excited to get into it with you and just kind of learn more about how you discovered all of this and, you know, some of your thoughts over what's happened for the last couple of years.

Speaker A: So yeah, Nook, why don't you take it away? Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your history in collecting and art and how you got into NFTs and generative art.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, thanks again for having me. This is super, super cool. So my name's Nook. I'm based here in Chicago. And going back from as long as I can remember, I've been a collector and just like a rabbit hole explorer my entire life. So I know, Will, we were chatting a little bit about this before, but like sports cards, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, Pokémon cards, And then getting into like collecting like remote control vehicles, like cars, planes, helicopters, like building them, selling them, trading them. That's all been part of my childhood and just the hobbies that I've had growing up. And my free time, if I wasn't collecting something, if I wasn't at like some sports practice, I was probably playing a video game and I was probably playing RuneScape if I were to guess. I mean, I logged in recently just to see how many hours I've put in.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: I'm well over 2,000 hours of game time, so I've got a pretty nice account. And I think all of this kind of ties in pretty interestingly. And I mean, you can never connect the dots looking forward, but when you look back, it kind of all makes sense. And to get into the connection to art, so my grandfather was a painter for the last 35 years of his life. And when he was alive, he would bring over his paintings to our houses. I would look at them like, They looked great. Like, he would go to some incredible places. He was a very talented painter, but like, I never really had a deep connection with his work. It was just very surface level. And I'll pick up on, on this thread in a little bit, but if we were to fast-track to my crypto career, it started in 2017. Bought some Bitcoin, bought some ETH on Coinbase, really didn't take it too seriously. I saw things go up in 2018. I bought some like altcoins like Siacoin, like Waltoncoin, like some random ones, and then saw it all come crashing down. And I'm like, okay, well, this was interesting. Cool. Didn't get rich. And then I kind of forgot about crypto for a good 2 years until like I started seeing some things about digital art pop up. But then Top Shot in 2020 was a very big like zero-to-one moment for me. Like I was mentioning, like collecting cards all my life, I used to sell them on eBay and like packaging them up, making sure that they're in good condition. Like all of that just took so much friction. It was just really difficult. But then on Top Shot where it's like, hey, you can just buy and sell these cards, you can collect them, the conditions are going to be pristine. It's like, this makes sense to me. So I kind of went down that rabbit hole and that got me back into crypto Twitter, which I think then opens the door to just so many other opportunities. And I was at this time in business school getting my MBA, and one of my courses was in data analytics where I was learning the programming language R. And like a lot of the homework assignments were kind of boring, and I'm like, how can I find ways to make learning how to code fun? So I was just like going on Google, typing things in, and I came across Tyler Hobbs's blog on creative coding. I'm like, oh, this is really interesting. Like you can use code. And you can make these like really cool designs and artwork with it. I'm like, this is interesting. And then flipping through crypto Twitter, I come across this Art Blocks platform. I'm like, huh, this is very like what I was exploring for my MBA homework. Like, let's try to learn a little bit more about this. So January 31st, 2021 comes around and I minted my first ever piece of art. I had no idea what I was doing. I minted 845 out of 1,000, so I like barely got through because I had no idea what gas meant. And then I saw my mint. I'm like, this is cool. I have no idea what just happened, but let me get in the Discord and understand a little bit more.

Speaker B: What did you mint?

Speaker C: So my first mint was Dmitry Chernyak's Ringers project. So I hopped in the Discord and chatted with Dmitry. I'm like, hey, I don't really know what just happened, but I'm studying for my MBA in data analytics and would love to learn more about what you're doing or if you have any other resources. And I mean, he was just so helpful, so welcoming, and just art has always been a very disconnecting and just like foreign thought to me. Because like my grandfather, he was an orthodontist growing up. He doesn't have an art background and he'd be like rejected from art fairs that he would apply to because like wasn't like artsy enough. So like, I always had that taste in my mouth where it's like, you need to be this certain way to like get art. So it always just felt like art wasn't for me. But then I get in this Discord and everyone's so friendly, everyone's so helpful, willing to just send me resources, willing to help out. And I'm like, this is totally different. Like, this is the exact opposite of what I think my grandfather felt. And this is one thing really started to click for me and really, like, generative art overall unlocked the whole world of art. I mean, I'm sure you see from my Twitter now, it's like half Japanese woodblock prints, half generative art. It's all over the place and it's allowed me to really connect to my grandfather's work now in ways that, like, I never thought imaginable. And that kind of goes into the Walk and Talk series that we'll chat about in a little bit, but I'd say like, that's my like 7 to 10 minute, this is how I got here.

Speaker A: Well, when you were looking up creative or fun things to do with R, I mean, we've interviewed some artists on the show who use R as their coding language to create art. So was that, was that your original kind of idea? Like, were you gonna pursue creative coding yourself? And have you ever tried making art with R?

Speaker C: I went not very far down that rabbit hole. Like I did some coding train cuz like there wasn't a ton of like tutorials in R. Dimitri sent me like Thomas Lind Pedersen's name. So I like looked him up and there was a few other folks that I was able to come across that was doing stuff in R and I kind of like copied their code and like did a little bit with it. I didn't go down that far cuz I think once I found this world of like more of the collecting side, I think that's what like really stuck with me and like that's where I wanted to pursue more of my time. But I did get into like the coding train and going through a lot of Daniel Schiffman's video just to kind of understand the whole premise of it. But yeah, I mean, as time has gone on, like, I've seen more and more people using art, so it's kind of a throwback to like how I got all into this in the first place.

Speaker A: Right on. Why don't we actually transition into talking about the Walk and Talk series? Because I think it'll dovetail well with your— you've had this passive interest in art, and then through generative art, it's clearly like blown up into a thing that's become a much bigger part of your life. And It's manifested in this Walk and Talk series that you do where you build these galleries and invite artists or collectors on to basically explain why they have these pieces or what they like about them. And unfortunately, I've never caught one live, but I've looked at a couple of them on YouTube and I will link to them below. I encourage everyone to go check them out. But tell us a bit about the origins of that series and kind of your path to starting to create content around art.

Speaker C: Yeah, so I mean, it starts back with my grandfather. So with his studio, he would just walk me through just some of the recent works that he was doing and just tell me about the works. And I would ask some questions. They're probably very surface level and like not very interesting, but he would show me the work while I was talking with him about that. And just from being part of the crypto Twitter ecosystem, I mean, so many times when artists are talking about their works, like, you can feel the passion in their voice, but it's like I really want to see what they're talking about. And it's with OnCyber, which is an amazing Web3 platform that allows you to build digital worlds. And one of those worlds can be a digital art gallery. So I just kind of thought, like, how can I use this new technology to translate what my grandfather used to do to me for artists in our ecosystem? Because like talking with artists, learning from artists, like my favorite thing in the world. And by being able to like see the artwork while we're talking about it, it just makes that connection so much stronger. So that's really where the idea came from. And the first artist, if you go back in, in the YouTube channel, there is ADHD, who's an incredible artist in not generative art, but he's more digital abstraction, but absolutely phenomenal. Highly recommend you all checking him out if you haven't come across his work before. But we were chatting at Art Basel in Miami, and I just kind of had this idea, and we're like, we should do this sometime. So it was just one of those things where it's like, you never know if it's going to come to fruition. But then I'm like, no, like, I should definitely do this. We should definitely do this. So I picked out a few pieces of his, and like a few of them, like, he hasn't even like seen or talked about in such a long time, if at all, ever. And it was just a really wholesome, fun experience just getting to learn more about the work from him. And like, I mean, the beauty about this space is like we're around these legendary artists and like we have the ability and opportunity to ask them anything we want about their work. Like, how cool is that? It's very selfish in a sense where it's like I get to do all this stuff and I think it's, it's the coolest thing. And with OnCyber, Anybody in the world can be in the room with us while we're having this discussion. Whereas if it was in my grandfather's studio, it's like, it's just me and him. So like, there's just so much that technology has to offer. And that's kind of where though the Walk and Talk series came from. And it kind of goes into this like overarching theme that I'm starting to realize, like, where I fit my puzzle piece in this space is really around elevating artists and telling their stories. So that's kind of how anything that I do in this space, I want to make sure that it attaches to that in some way, shape, or form.

Speaker B: So within this Walk and Talk series, you mentioned that it's specifically in OnCyber, which, you know, I've dabbled with a couple of different gallery platforms, whether it's OnCyber, whether it's DECA. OnCyber, I find, is definitely the most immersive, so to speak. It definitely supports some of that VR kind of walking through. Was that important when selecting how to do this versus looking at more of a flat webpage like you might do with Deca?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I think what I was trying to do was just replicate my personal experience as much as possible in the digital world and like physically walking around in the space and like there's movement with it. I think it just creates this feeling where it's like we're all here together versus like scrolling on a page. So I think that part is really important. And it's also— was kind of funny on the most recent collector walk and talk that I did with Blockbird, who's an incredible collector. His kids love using OnCyber and they know all of like the shortcuts to like do all the dance moves or like to feint. And there's just like a lot of like fun quirky things that you can do that I think just makes it way more enjoyable, wholesome. And I think that's why OnCyber made the most sense for me. And I just thought it was very easy to put in all the NFTs, organize them. It's been really fun just to like curate all of them as well, because I've really enjoyed that part of it. I'm also a DJ in my free time, so like curating music, curating art, it's kind of a similar thing I've realized. And it's equally as fun. So again, selfishly, I love putting all of it together. It's been a really fun experience.

Speaker A: Yeah, how do you approach that? Because when I first saw the series, I assumed that you reached out to these people and had them create the OnCybers, and then you would kind of walk through and ask. But actually, you're the one who goes into their wallets and creates these galleries, and then you invite them in and interrogate, you know, about what's going on with each piece. So like, what's that process like? Because that, you know, someone like Blockbird must have thousands of pieces in their collection across multiple chains and, and stuff. So how do you bring it all together?

Speaker C: That's a great question. For the collector ones, I typically have them send over like 20 or 30 pieces of theirs that then I pick through, just because with OnCyber there are just a few limitations, just because I want to make sure that I have enough to put in there. For collector ones, I think it's a little bit more difficult. Typically I've done just how they physically look or like the vibes that I'm getting from the pieces, whereas on the artist side I've had some where like for the, the Cory Haber Blooms project, it was all very chronological. And I think just viewing things in a chronological order makes it really interesting just to see the progression of the artist and that through line of like them learning a new technique here, and then you see it a few projects later kind of like fully take shape. And this idea really stuck with me from a Bridget Riley exhibit that I went to with a few other Web3 folks a few years ago at the Art Institute. And it was like a whole exhibition with like a bunch of her sketches, like a bunch of her notebooks, and you can like see all of these little pieces start to come together in her to like really find her voice as an artist. And like there's a whole room dedicated to her like copying other people and just like, again, like trying to find who she is as an artist. And I think that chronological progression makes so much sense and is so interesting. So typically for any artist walk and talk that I do, it's going to be in chronological order because I love just having that story and asking the questions about like, hey, this was 3 years ago. Tell me about like what techniques you were learning, like what you were experimenting with. And then fast forward to your most recent project, like you can see a lot of those similarities but kind of taking it to the next level. And I think there's a lot of value in that and something that I find really interesting. So that's kind of the way that I delineate between like collector versus artist. I think the artist ones are almost a little bit easier in that sense, just because if you're going chronological, I typically will then pick a few pieces from a project just to kind of show the breadth if it is like a series work. Whereas for ADHD's works, his are mostly all one-of-ones. There are some series in there, but I think that one was more like, hey, these pieces are really interesting to me, let's, let's chat about it. So it's kind of been a little bit all over the place in the way that I've set it up, but I'm the one that goes into Uncyber and like puts them all on the walls.

Speaker B: So when you've had these talks with artists, especially when comparing it to the conversations that you've had with your grandfather, Do you notice any sorts of differences between how artists have progressed within the digital art space? I think specifically within generative art over the last 3 to 4 years versus traditional art. And have you noticed some of the same themes between these artists or does their progression kind of look different?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think from my grandfather's work and like our family still has a lot of his artwork, so he started in, I believe 1989 and painted up until he passed away around like 2010. But from like the first sketch that he ever did was just like a sketch of like one of his shoes. And then up until the end, like you can definitely see just like the detail and the technique advancing. He would always paint typically from photographs. My favorite ones is when he's like painting reflections, which I find just a fascinating concept, especially in the medium of oil paints. But I think just in terms of like exploring different areas, like exploring different color palettes, I think we definitely see that in today's day and age with the artists that we're surrounded with. And I think it's almost to the next level just because of the technological advancements of like what can be done. I mean, like, you can't make an animated oil painting. Like, it just doesn't work that way. Whereas now you have artists doing incredible work with 3D, with animated work, with crazy pixel sorting algorithms. Like, there's just, I think, so much more that can be done. Whereas I think if he saw some of the art that was being created today, he would think it's pretty wild and out there. I don't think he was really looking to push the boundaries that much. He was just looking to like really perfect his own craft, if that makes sense.

Speaker A: I want to kind of rewind back to your, a little bit of your intro again and like that initial feeling of like minting your first piece and jumping into the Discord and like, what do you think it was? Or aside from the community, how do you kind of relate your collecting past to the bug that you caught for generative art? I guess this is a roundabout way of saying like, what kind of, what's your philosophy on it? What are you into? You know, why do you think generative art and digital art grabbed you and pulled you in versus like other forms of art that you could have been collecting, right, all along?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's, that's a great thought. And I mean, that's something that I've been constantly thinking about over the last few years. I mean, I think the easiest, just like surface level thing that got me in is probably the equivalent of opening up a pack of baseball cards. Opening up cards with my dad was like always my favorite thing to do. And like part of generative art is that feeling where it's like, hey, I don't really know. Like the first time I didn't even know what I was doing. But then like once I realized like, oh hey, I got this one and then this person got this other one that like kind of looks like mine but is different. Like, oh, this one's like slightly more rare. Like I thought that was a really cool aspect. But then when you realize that this is like a performance art piece folding out and you're part of it because like you see the art before the artist does. That was just such a novel idea to me. And the way that it just kind of connected all of these dots that I've always enjoyed in my collecting journey, and just allowing me to find new rabbit holes to go down. So like you would see certain algorithms be like, oh, like what's a flow field, then you'll do research on it. And there's just this world, the rabbit hole is endless. I've had some other hobbies where it's like you go down and then there's kind of a bottom and it's like, okay, there's nothing left to explore. Let's find something else. This world is just so vast and it just opens the door to learning about everything and everywhere. And I think that's always been something that's super appealing to me because I'll start doing research on an artist from our Web3 world and And then I'm somehow on this crazy artist from like the 1500s doing this like crazy technique. And it's like, how did I get here? But like those types of things I've always really enjoyed. So I mean, it's kind of going back to the collecting philosophy. I mean, for the Ringers mint, I think it was like $100 was everything. And like, I had $500 to start with. I made some like through Top Shot.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I'm like, I'm a student right now. Like, I'm not putting any more than I'm willing to lose. $100 for this seems like a fun experiment. Let's try it. My whole strategy this whole time, and I still do this today, is like, I need to discover and research these artists before I can no longer afford them. So I mean, that's kind of been my strategy on fxhash. That's been my strategy on OBJKT, on HEN. A lot of this happens on Tezos just because it happens to be more affordable. But I think the art is amazing and it's like, if I can get this art that I love before it's out of my price range, like, that's what I'm going to do. So that's been my strategy this whole time and I don't see that really ever changing because I don't have unlimited funds for this. So I need to get creative.

Speaker A: Collecting must have changed a lot over the last few years then, because we've seen such a consolidation. The artists that we used to collect affordably are now not so affordable. And it also at the same time feels like, at least on the generative art side, there hasn't been like a second wave of people who might be the next Iskra or might be the next Zancan or might, you know, like that, and kind of ascend to those like price levels. But I agree, it's like, I feel like none of us probably would have gotten as into this if it wasn't so affordable in the beginning. It's just not attractive to see all this art that's like $1,000 plus and just go like, well, I guess it's not for me. But when it's like $10 or $50 or $100, it all of a sudden feels attainable. But that kind of has flipped along with a lot of the sentiment towards doing things cheaply, towards doing things randomly, and like getting that fun of opening one of 1,000 pieces in a series. So is it like bittersweet to you? Have you, or have you adapted a lot, or are you just like digging more and still finding stuff that maybe we're not finding?

Speaker C: I mean, I think what my strategy, and I've been doing this over the last couple of years, where like if there's a project that I've always really liked and I missed the mint and then things went crazy, I just like put it in a bookmark folder that is called check. So I just have probably like 100 links in there and then just like whenever I'm bored someday, I'll just like open 20 of them up just to see where the floor is on some of these. Because I agree that sometimes if you're spending money on a mint, significant money, it's like you want to make sure that you're most likely going to like it. We're not in a world where it's like, hey, you mint 2, you sell the one that you don't want to cover your costs. Like, we're not there. So it's like I, have been more cognizant of like, do I need another piece in my collection? And will this kind of like fit in with like a certain like curatorial theme? Does this fit in like to an idea that I think like one day in the future I can make a collection of like a few of these pieces and curate them in a certain way? And if it doesn't fit into that, I think I'm just more hesitant about minting things. Like, I still really enjoy it and it's a really fun thing, but I've been going more so on secondary on some of these projects from like FXHash Genesis and some of like those earlier months where they're getting to be really affordable again. You'd see like the sales feed where some people are accepting collection offers really low and it's like, okay, like now is the time to like, if there's a piece that this person maybe has, like look through their collection and see if you can put in an offer on something. So I think that's been a really exciting thing just because I've been able to get some pieces that I've had my eye on for years and they have come to a price that is now available. I do think some of these early FX hash projects, like just because there is so much fervor, like there's only so much attention that can be going around, but like there's so many incredible projects that people just never really put the time and effort into, especially like if you only look at the thumbnail, you don't actually look at the art. There's so much of that. And I think over the last couple years especially, I think it's allowed all of us to really understand like what else is out there, like what did I miss, like what can I collect now. So I think it has kind of shifted a little bit, but I do think a lot of these earlier artists that people are going to be rediscovering Once things get going again, like, we will have like a second wave of artists coming in. I think this is very normal, this consolidation, when people get risk-off and just uncertain about the future. But then again, everything is cyclical. Like, it'll come back and then we'll see some of these newer artists get their time because, I mean, there's many that definitely deserve it.

Speaker B: Well, I think now is a perfect time to start naming names unless you want to keep that alpha to yourself. But throughout this period or this extended period of consolidation, has there been anything specific either at the artist level or the artwork level that you've kind of come to that new appreciation on?

Speaker C: I mean, a few of them come to mind, like YKX. He's the one that did Traveler and like that Ukiyo-e In Bloom. Those Ukiyo-e pieces for me, like, again, like I love Japanese woodblock prints. And I love generative art. So like for me, I've been keeping my eye on that project for so long, and I now have each of the different palettes. And like I can just imagine having those all like on a wall next to each other looking really amazing because I want to have as much Japanese-inspired work together because like I'm just envisioning this in my mind. So that's one that I've really been keeping an eye on. And then Michael Perouse is also one of my favorite artists. He's only done a few projects on FXHash, but I think my favorite one of his is Theatergoers. If you remember, like, the black backdrop with, like, little blobs and, like, some have hearts, I think it's just, like, such an awesome project. And for a long time, they were probably 200 tez plus, but over the last few months, I've seen, like, some go through for, like, 20 or 30, and I'm just like, how did I miss that? But then he has another collection called Clara Story that I think is amazing and really really, really great. So I've been picking up a few of those when they've come across or just from putting in some offers. I think those are the two that really come to mind. I've also been exploring outside of the generative art world as well through finding people on Rodeo. I then see that they have an object page, like I see that they have affordable mints elsewhere. So I think it's been a fun discovery tool for me just to find some artists that I never came across before. Have you guys been exploring much on Rodeo?

Speaker A: I have. Trinity, I know you got an invite, but I've only seen you minting occasionally there in my feed.

Speaker B: I was minting a lot a couple of weeks ago when I first got the invite, but I don't have it set up on my phone. I only have it set up on one laptop that I don't really use. And so from a stickiness perspective, it's basically going in when I happen to be on that laptop and I'm on that laptop right now. So maybe I'll go. Multitask while we're talking.

Speaker A: Same. I only mint from the browser, but I basically just like check in the morning because everything's 24 hours. And so I'm pretty much only checking once or twice a day for a few minutes. And I found the last 2 weeks or so, as they've really opened it up more, it's becoming a lot harder to find stuff I want to mint. Like there's just a lot of stuff on my feed now that I'm just scrolling past really fast. Whereas before it was like, oh, here's a Rudxane, here's this, here's that. It's like people I know, art that's cool. And now I'm starting to see a lot more random stuff.

Speaker C: And I'm—

Speaker A: I'd be curious to know what the Rodeo team thinks of that, or like if they have a plan for how to like better curate that, because it would mean I'd have to unfollow a lot of people who are minting stuff that I don't really care about to seeing, you know.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No, I think as time has gone on, we've definitely seen that. But I think that's good from their aspect that just like more people are using the platform. But I do think having ways to like sort through better. What I've been doing that I think has been really helpful, because, well, I'm similar to you where I'm checking pretty much like twice a day, like once in the morning, that's when like 80% of like the minting I'll do, and then like maybe once in the afternoon. But I just put the notification bells on for the artists that I just want to make sure that I don't miss. So every morning I go to my notifications tab and like They'll say like so-and-so just posted and it's like, okay, then I just do like Ctrl-click and just have like 10 links open and then I just go through and make sure that I hit all of the artists that have new exciting stuff up. It's been a really fun way not only to collect some of this but also just to find new artists. Like, I don't know if you saw my post recently, Antonis Tsigari is just such a cool artist making Really amazing work, and I had a post about this. How like one of the pieces that he put on Rodeo is very reminiscent of an art book that I took from my grandfather. It like took me back to that moment, and I'm like, "Who is this artist? What else does he have?" Like I went through his Linktree. I saw like he has an object page. He had stuff on Solana, and I just like went through all of his work. I'm like, so much of this is absolutely incredible, and it. I can collect this. So I just like went through and probably got like 8 one-of-ones of his and just being able to talk with him and got amazing vibes from him. And like, that's the part about this world that I enjoy the most, being able to find a new artist, connecting with them, talking with them, and just like understanding more about how they've come to be an artist, what else they're working on. Like, I just find that so enjoyable. And I think Rodeo has been a fun way to kind of explore and find new artists that way.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: I did not even know that you could set alerts like that for artists. So now you've got it. It's huge.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think they maybe came out with that feature like a week or so ago, but once I saw that, like, I always put the bell icon on if it's somebody that like, I want to make sure that I don't miss.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because otherwise, like, you're, you're going to miss it.

Speaker B: I think Rodeo introduces some interesting social mechanics and I think it's completely different. We've talked a little bit about it on the show in the last couple of weeks. But how the work that's released there, do you see it as being different or serving a different purpose from the work that they might release on fx hash or Art Blocks or wherever else people might purchase art? And do you see it having an interaction with like the core pieces that they release? I know it's a hot topic right now.

Speaker C: It's a really good question and something that I've been thinking a lot about. A lot of the beginning of Rodeo were like, hey, these are sketches, these are works in progress of things that I've been working on. And it took me back to that Bridget Riley exhibit where like I saw all of her sketches and works in progress and like how that helped tell the story of her as an artist. So like that instantly resonated with me of like, oh, this would be really cool to have these Roxanne pieces next to like my other Roxanne pieces of art that I've collected from FX hash from object, so it's hard to delineate exactly like what we would call them. But again, with my love of Japanese woodblock printmaking, like back in the day when all of like the Ukiyo-e woodblocks were made, a lot of them were for like advertisements. They were marketing. It felt very rodeo-y where like it wasn't deemed art at the time because these were just prints that people were collecting and people just like had, and then it became art later when people realized how amazing it was. So I like kind of feel similar vibes from Merodeo, but it's hard to say this, this early on. But I think for $0.25, for some artists where like if they're able to mint 100 pieces, I mean like that can be significant money if you're able to do that a few days in a row. So it's hard to say. Like, I don't think you should view it as like, like if you're the only one to collect it, like, would that be a one of one? Like, I just don't think that's necessarily like what the goal is of it. I know it's like meant to be a social platform where you can collect. So it's hard to say how it plays out. But having these pieces be a part of the collection, and if you have more of this artist's work and just kind of showing that story of like, hey, this was a work in progress that they did. a year before this project. I think that's interesting and cool to have. But yeah, I'm curious on your guys' thoughts.

Speaker A: My thoughts are just the same as what we've said on the show. I'm not worried about it. I think it's just fun for now, and then I'll be more worried about it if and when they add a marketplace and we start to see some really warped behavior. But for now, it still seems wholesome and fun.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's always the first thing that I look for. Like, when I first started Art Blocks, FX Hash, Hen. It's like this is fun, this is wholesome. People are having a good time, and like I got those same vibes from Rodeo. It's been a great time, and again, been able to connect with some really cool artists along the way.

Speaker A: Before we jump to the second half of this, which will be you kind of turning the tables on us, do you want to talk about what you're kind of working on that you mentioned to me? Or we can cut this out if you don't want to talk about it.

Speaker C: We can talk about this, and I plan on a bigger announcement on my birthday, which is September. September 9th, but the Walk and Talk series, like I was mentioning, is really focused to elevate artists to tell their stories. I didn't want to pigeonhole myself to like only doing this thing just because who knows what the future holds. So like this project, the overarching umbrella theme is called Art Focused because I've done like GM posts posting art for 2+ years. I think it all kind of goes back to like discovering this world of art. And like when I'm flipping through my collection, it's like nothing else really matters. I'm just like in this world where it's like me and the artist. And I think it's a really special thing that a lot of people have felt. I didn't necessarily create this world, I just kind of put a name to it. So Art Focus is the project that I'm working on that, again, the mission is to elevate artists and tell their stories. Walk and Talks is one way of doing that. And as time goes on, I'm sure there will be other avenues that will allow anybody to enter this world and be a patron of the arts, continue to kind of tell their stories and, and lift artists up. So the Walk and Talk series is kind of like that first tangible step. And I mean, I'm really excited to kind of see where all this goes, because I've had some hobbies that like will fizzle out after like 4 or 6 months, you kind of like know when their time is coming. But like, I just see this world where it's like, I think I'm going to be doing this until I die. This is something that I want to put a lot of time and effort behind because I deeply care about this and I find it so fun and enjoyable. So I'm excited to see where all of it goes. I'll be launching a website and continuing to do some walk and talks, and we'll kind of see how it all shapes up as time goes on. I don't have any roadmaps. I don't have any $10K PFP projects to release, but gonna be releasing a website and hope people watch some of the YouTube videos that we've done in the past. But yeah, I'm really excited about it and I think it's gonna be a really fun journey.

Speaker A: We'd love to see it. Trinity, if there's nothing else from you, should we hand it over to Nook here and—

Speaker B: Hell yeah, let's do it.

Speaker A: He can really put us to the test with some questions about making the show.

Speaker C: Don't want to grill you guys too hard, but I mean, first off, this has been such a fun discussion. I mean, I remember when you guys launched your first fxhash project, you're like, hey, we're looking to raise money for audio equipment, like, can you mint this project? And I'm like, that sounds awesome. Like, I'd love to have people talking about this world. I mean, like, so many of us were just like, the minting window is open, we're just on our computer, and it's like, How cool would it be to like be listening to people almost telling us like what's going on, like the week's recap? And I'm like, I would gladly mint these. I think I minted a few of them and like told everybody, it's like, let's make sure that this actually happens. And like in this world, so many times you see something like that, they do like 2 episodes. Like I've done this before, like I did a fantasy football podcast that lasted like 3 episodes and then died. But you guys have been doing this for 100+ episodes. And I think that's, first of all, so cool. I know how hard podcasts are, so it's a testament to you guys for continuing to do this. And like, this is a crazy world and you've been able to distill it down so well. And just the interviews that you guys have done— I've told you guys this before, but I mean, like, the quality of interviews has gone up tremendously. And like, of a lot of the podcasts I listen to, like, you guys are really, really, really great at it, and you're asking the right questions at the right time. So it's been really enjoyable for me. I mean, I guess one thing that I would want to ask you is, what's been your favorite part about all of this?

Speaker A: Trinity, you want to go first?

Speaker B: No, but I can. I think it's really exciting to have a reason to nerd out about something that you love. And, you know, you can kind of do that very easily in high school and college and through online platforms, whatever. But this has been a really great excuse to actually come up with our thoughts for the week. You know, how has this been? It's been a great time for reflection. And I think it's been fun. It's been a new experience to build something together, like with a core theme. I think it's been partially getting into the market, getting into the art Seeing how this whole world has progressed. But I think a lot of it has also just come down to chatting about stuff that I love with a friend.

Speaker C: I love that.

Speaker A: For me, one of my favorite parts of it has been like the ability to do something creative and have a reason to do something creative and also follow through, right? Like there's a lot of times where like, I'll have an idea, like I'm gonna go do this or I'm gonna go do that. And, you know, sticking with like the coding, for example, with some of those early projects, like there's a lot of reasons that didn't continue, but That was one where I was like, at one point I was like, I'm really gonna keep doing this. This is a great outlet for trying to be creative and learn something creative. But ultimately, like the show became that with getting more into editing it and then making more decisions around like, what would be a great title for this? You know, what would be a great piece of art to associate with this episode? You know, coming up with like little things like putting in the breakbeat when we're editing something out, you know, like just a lot of little decisions like that, that then ultimately became like really satisfying, very fulfilling. Also tiresome, but it was fun too. And that's gonna continue probably with the transcripting of the episodes at least, but in a different way. So yeah, definitely having a reason to like grow a skill, a creative skill, which I've never really had. I mean, like game design we had, but that was, that's something that we don't do anymore.

Speaker C: That's amazing. And I think I know from the interview that you guys did, or the, I guess when you were just kind of chit-chatting when there wasn't much going on in the market, there was an episode where you guys were just kind of like telling your guys' story. And I like one of the quotes that, Will, you mentioned is like, if it wasn't fun, I wouldn't be doing it. I forget exactly the context of that, but like clearly you guys enjoy the Waiting to Be Signed world that you've created. It takes a lot of effort, but it's, it's clear that you guys enjoy doing this together and enjoyed kind of telling this story. And it's been really cool because I'm sure if you guys are podcast listeners, like after a while of listening to a podcast, like you feel like you know the people.

Speaker B: Mm-hmm.

Speaker C: You spend hours with these people and it's like, you know, Trinity, her first concert was Justice. And it's like, I love Justice. I'm sure we would like going to an electronic music show together. Things like that where like you get to know the people and then being able to actually meet them, like have conversations with them. It's just, it's such a cool thing. And I think just the world of podcasting is just such an interesting avenue. Cause like if you're on like TikTok, let's say like you're scrolling through something after like 8 seconds. When you're listening to a podcast, it's like you're listening for like an hour intently. You're like actually listening to the words. And I think just this medium is just such an awesome medium where like you actually do get to know people. So it's been a really cool thing, I guess. Other questions for you? What's been like your 0 to 1 moment of collecting digital art? Like when did it really click for you guys?

Speaker B: I would have to go back to my collection history just to kind of see some of the earliest.

Speaker C: Is there like one piece that really you remember minting it like at a certain day and time or like I think there were a couple, like, especially in that December 2021, it was just an iconic moment.

Speaker B: Maybe for me, it was even before I started collecting in a way. It was just the anticipation of collecting because Will had gotten there a couple of weeks before I did. And so, you know, he had like everything about like, this is how you do it. This is what it is. I remember when Will sent me the list of Chris Wallace potential blue chip projects. And, you know, at the time fx hash had 8-hour minting windows, or maybe it was even 6-hour minting windows. And so I just remember having that list open, going to all of the projects, seeing what was still available, like opening them up in separate tabs, just waiting for that mint window to open, and then just like immediately clicking mint on all of them at the same time. I had no idea. What a block was or like how gas worked or like, you know, not being able to have like multiple transactions in the same block at the time. And I think it was just like sitting at the starting gates waiting to go. That clicked. Maybe that's not digital art collecting. Maybe that's just like prepping for flipping or like having insane micro. I don't know. But that was just... An amazing moment. I think I was at work. I don't remember. We were probably working from home still at that point, to be honest.

Speaker A: I think this was definitely a work from home thing for both of us, if I remember right. But I mean, I had done a little bit of collecting on HEN right at the tail end of it. And I remember being interested by that. I have some super random HEN stuff still in my collection. The piece that I collected that was like, got me super interested in digital art. It was very expensive at the time. I think it was like $25 or even $50. Tez, and that was when Tez was like $4 or $5. This is the piece where I minted this and I was like, oh, this is something really cool. I've never seen a piece of art like this. It was called Memory Studies 006. I minted it on October 27th, 2021, and it's by an artist named Patricio Gonzalez Vivo. It's a real-time animating piece that's like super glitchy and weird. I'll drop it into our group chat here. This was the one where I minted it and I was like, I wonder if this is gonna be really important or interesting 20 years from now, 30 years from now. Because I was aware of like the fact that HEN was really small, really niche, and I was just getting into NFTs. So this was definitely the piece that felt to me like the first serious piece of art that I was able to collect. And again, it was like, yeah, it was 50 Tez at the time. So that was not insignificant.

Speaker C: This is so cool.

Speaker A: Yeah, it just, it just hit my feed and I was like, this is so random. This is so weird. It's, yeah, it's just a strange piece. But then like the thing that pulled me in was obviously fx hash and similarly, like finding the community, finding the fun of generative art and like getting really into some of the early artists like Mark Knol and Quentin Hochdie and like always minting a couple of their pieces. And the thing that really stuck and kept me in was the hype of like minting and flipping and, and just the mania of it. Like, that was such an addictive rush for a few, few months that obviously spawned the show, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's how we got into it. But then you realize there's so much more than just the minting and flipping. Like, you meet so many people, you're meeting artists, you're meeting other collectors, and like, I think that stuff brings you in, but then the other stuff keeps you here. And I think that's fairly normal for pretty much anybody. So it's like, for new people that, that want to come in, it's like, what can we do to like help allow them to have that similar feeling? Because like, obviously, if somebody's coming in and like you see that a piece that's, that minted for 1 Tez is now 1,000, and it's like, oh, buy this 1,000 Tez piece, like, it's, it's not a great entry point. So I think there is hopefully new and exciting ways to get newer people in. I think like what Snowfro is doing with generative goods is like such an incredible way to get generative art out there into the real world. Because I mean, I think we do a pretty poor job in the Web3 ecosystem of like leaving our bubble. We're in Discord, we're in Twitter, like we're talking with the same people. If we want to have more people understand our world and enjoy it, it's like, how do we find— other people that would be interested in this stuff. So I think with generative goods, like having a generative art hat where you can see somebody walking on the street that has like a similar one to you, but it's slightly different. It's like, hey, we can have this conversation. Like this happened to me recently where I was wearing like, I went to summer camp growing up and I was wearing my t-shirt walking around the city and somebody came up to me and was like, hey, I went to the neighboring camp. And then we just like talked about summer camp for like 2 minutes, and this was a complete stranger. And it's like, these are the types of conversations that I think generative art in the real world can spawn. And I think with what Eric and the Generative Goods team is doing is really helpful in like bridging that gap into the physical world. And I think there could be interesting ways to like bring it back to the digital world. Like if it's like the NFC chips or like interesting ways to like tie NFTs to physical goods or physical moments. Like, there's, I think, a lot of creativity to be had there, and I'm sure over the next few years we'll just see more of those happen. So I'm really excited about kind of like that physical-digital transformation. You announced that you're working on some type of project, is that right?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's been announced with 85% certainty.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Until they're made, it's not a guarantee, but we have, um, I have hat samples.

Speaker B: You have hats in hand.

Speaker A: I have samples from US Union Wear, so it's like a union-owned or union-operated plant here. So they're not cheap, which is one of the reasons the hat's not going to be super cheap. Obviously the other part is that an artist is going to be hopefully custom embroidering them using an algorithm. So the TBD timing for that is probably early next year. Which would be around like the 3rd anniversary of the show. That's probably how we'd be framing it, despite the fact that the show is probably going to still be on hiatus then. But I hope that we can get some interest in these hats.

Speaker C: That'll be a really cool way to bring the Waiting to Be Signed world to life. The more that we can bring it into the physical world for other people to experience it, I think is a great thing. So, I mean, like some of my favorite moments of this world has been like meeting up with people in real life, not even exchanging like physical goods, but just like exchanging conversations. And it's like talking to people about literally anything else even besides art. And I think just like the friendships that we've made, like that's been the alpha the whole lot, like the whole way. And like I firmly believe that. I know it sounds corny and hokey, but like I think that has been one of the best parts about all of this is just being able to meet so many new people. And it's like, as you get older, it's harder to meet new people because like you have like your day-to-day routine. Like there's usually not that much change, but like we've been able to meet people from literally all over the world because of this. And like, how cool is that? Wouldn't other people want to also experience that same thing? So it's like, how do we get people into this world so like they can feel that same joy that we've been able to?

Speaker B: So.

Speaker C: Those are just some of the things that I think about. I'm curious, how do you guys think, like, if we're looking to grow generative art, if we're looking to grow just the digital art ecosystem, like, what are some things that comes to mind for you guys?

Speaker B: That's a really hard one. You know, before you were talking about getting the sense that you're able to know us through just listening to us talk into the ether for an hour every single week, an hour plus every single week. And, you know, I think that feeling kind of goes both ways. Where we have a sense of who we're talking to, even if it's just 30 people, 50 people, 100 people, those are probably all people that we've talked to in Discord every single day. And so I think that there's that back and forth, and I think it's getting people into the system is going to be one of the bigger issues, especially if kind of the areas where people are sharing the most starts to be in these like fringe social networks like Rodeo or Farcaster, which don't have that mainstream appeal or just like that wider audience to start slowly sucking people into the funnel. But I think that once people find their way into, I think more specifically Discord, for better or for worse, I don't think that we can rely on Discord into the future. I think it's just the conversations that it enables that make it all feel a lot more accessible. And you're able to learn so much more. So I don't know if there's a way that we can kind of replicate that. You know, it was a very different time at the start of all of this. When we get this first huge wave of people, it was COVID. People were at home. People were just clinging to any way of that they could socially interact with other people, and it was primarily digital. It'll be interesting to see if we can translate that back into a world which is more physical first. I don't have thoughts on that though. Yeah.

Speaker A: I would say I've become increasingly more skeptical that we can grow the space 10x or 100x simply. I think making generative hats or shirts are nice. I think it remains to be seen that you can do it at scale where you might actually bump into someone else who has one from the same series as you. I mean, you're talking about probably print runs in the millions to make that really viable, like a 1% chance on a given day that you might see someone else wearing it. Unless it's like at a New York City meetup, I doubt we'll ever see multiple people wearing a Waiting to Be Signed hat in the same place. You know, there's going to be too few of them out there. I think what Trinity described is very much like the thing that gets people interested. And in order to get someone in looking at stuff and getting engaged with the community and kind of like finding the things to like here, it takes a specific psychographic profile. I think a lot of people who collect have similar backgrounds, like You've collected other things, you've come from gaming, or you come from an investment angle. Like, there's very, very few people who have come over who are just normies, you know, who've never gotten into— who've never sat down and like made a spreadsheet of all their baseball cards, let's say. You have to have that specific kind of borderline spectrum-y personality, I think, to really get into this. So you have to either find them, Like, I found Trinity and brought her in and I was like, I know this is gonna be an easy sell for Trinity probably. But other people I've talked to who know about the hobby and know about the show, like real life friends are like not at all interested in collecting. Even when I say like, oh, I got this for like $20 and now it sells for like $500. Like, it's like, okay. Well, they don't want to buy it for $500 and I can't tell them with confidence which ones they can buy cheaply that are going to go up. So absent that, I don't, I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, I think things like Highlight and Base Chain and stuff, for as much fear and concern there is, have the potential to get more people interested in collecting, just interested in collecting and finding the fun in collecting. But then how do you convert them into collecting on fx hash or Verse or Art Blocks? I think it's a much bigger question and no one's cracked it. No one's cracked it.

Speaker C: No, it's It's not an easy problem to be solved, but I mean, typically the ones that are worthwhile aren't that easy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: But I still go back to my RuneScape days of people collecting the party hats that had no utility in the game. They just looked cool. Millions of people played RuneScape and they all agreed that these are the most coveted items. It's like people understand the concept of digital collectibles. They understand I want my character to look cool, even if it doesn't give me more armor. Those people understand that. And then if they like get in through like, who knows if like the next wave there is like a Web3 gaming wave and like a lot of these gamers come in and then they discover that like maybe they did love art all along. Like if you would have told me 4 years ago that I would be on a Waiting to Be Signed podcast talking about generative art and digital collecting, like. I would have laughed you out of the room. It seemed so far-fetched, but now it just seems like, of course, this is what I would do. Like, this makes so much sense. So it's hard to look forward and like extrapolate out. But I think if people find ways just into this Web3 world in some way and then they come across like, who knows, maybe in like these Web3 gaming worlds, people are putting their artworks that they've collected on fxhash in the wall of like some guild and then somebody is like, oh, that's so cool. Like, what is that? And then they click into it and like goes to FX hash, and then they're searching around. I think there's ways for it to happen, but it won't be easy, and it'll probably take much longer than we all anticipate. But I just think it makes sense as our worlds become more and more digital that people will find ways to make our digital lives more rich, and typically artwork has been able to kind of. hold that in the physical world, and I don't see that changing in the digital world. I also think in our physical world with display technology getting better, that'll help immensely. Like, Will, for that piece that you just showed, you can't print that out. Like, that's not, like, that's not how it works. Isn't the Samsung Frame— can you put moving images on a Samsung Frame yet?

Speaker A: You can, it's just not easy. That's the barrier, right? And also then it's just like one, and what if you want to have multiple? And the frames are not cheap, so A lot of this stuff is like, yeah, it's like all we need is like a robust metaverse and affordable, functional, low-friction displays. But that's like, that could be 10 years, that could be 20 years from now. And so, yeah, I mean, I know like just from still passively on Twitter, it does seem like there's been some more action on NFTs. Like, I don't know if we're gonna see a rotation back in or what, but it's encouraging obviously to see some sales happening and like some blue chip stuff. It might really be that this is like a totally decoupled thing from crypto cycles, and it's going to take real-world technology and investment to make the average person more interested in it. And we have no control over that, unfortunately, no matter how many episodes or interviews we do.

Speaker C: I do think with just new technologies that come out, we'll be able to attach to that in certain ways. Like, I was listening to a podcast recently, and they were just talking about how like With Disney's Snow White back in like the '30s when that came out, it's like if you saw it in theaters, great, but then like you couldn't watch it at home. 40 years later, VHS comes out and they re-release it on VHS and it sells like millions of copies. They didn't invent VHS, but they had the creative idea before that they then could apply this new technology to. So like, I think in our world there will be new technologies that come out that generative art, crypto art will be able to attach to that'll take it to new levels. Like, I think that's digital displays. Like, who knows what, like, VR and AR— like, I just, like, am imagining me being able to DJ in a room where I have, like, all of this art on the walls, and I can just click buttons and, like, recurate the rooms in certain ways based on, like, certain songs that I'm playing. And I'm like, This world doesn't seem that far out. The art that I've collected will be able to make this happen. I just kind of have those extrapolations and I think it'll just be a really cool thing. It just, again, might take longer than we maybe want it to.

Speaker A: Hell yeah, dude. What kind of music do you DJ?

Speaker C: Kind of all over the place. Typically electronic. I've only really DJ'd for like friends' parties. There's like a couple times that I publicly DJ'd, but mostly if I have like my crowd there where like I can play really the music that I want to play, it would be pretty much from like 2010 to 2015, trance slash house. And then if I'm really feeling zany, I've got some awesome dubstep songs from that time too. So like, I just have like a time capsule of music that I was getting when I was super into it from like 2010 to like 2015 was like my peak, and then I just didn't collect as much music after that. I still love listening to new music that comes out, but it just like I don't think nearly comes close to like what it was during that era. Like I know when you were talking about Justice, like Justice puts on like incredible shows. I went to Lollapalooza this past year, and it's like there's DJs playing cool stuff, but it's like so many they're playing like other people's music and whatnot. Like Justice. Plays like Justice music in their own way, and especially their live shows, incredible, especially from that era. So like, that's just, I think, missing from a lot of the, the live acts today. But I just love playing fun music from that era, and it's, it's been a fun throwback. I haven't been able to do it too much recently. I went on like a Twitch stream spree, maybe this was like a year ago. There's this really cool Google Chrome extension called ArtTab I forget who created it, but shout out. I think it's like Quantized, I think is his name on Twitter. But like every time you open a new tab on your computer, either he curates a bunch of NFT art or you can like put in your own URLs to then have whatever art you want to have pop up. And I just would have that running while I was DJing on a Twitch stream. It was just like a fun way to curate music and art. And I'm just trying to think of other ways to kind kind of do that, that allows me to get back into DJing because I really enjoy doing it. So I just need to figure out avenues to make that happen. Did you guys ever get heavily into the electronic scene?

Speaker B: Not heavily, just enough to appreciate.

Speaker C: Did you guys play instruments or play music growing up?

Speaker B: I did. I already did French horn.

Speaker C: Oh wow.

Speaker B: And, you know, drums from a young age. And, you know, I was actually in like a vocal community band up until COVID, pretty much.

Speaker A: Oh, that's right. I forgot all those times you had to go to band practice as an adult.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: What kind of band is it? Like an orchestra type band?

Speaker B: Yeah, it was like 100 people. It was more a symphonic band. So just standard band instruments. No strings, essentially. But, you know, I think that there's something with music and the math and just Just being able to get into that zone, or like that flow state, I suppose, where you're hitting the notes, you're hitting the beat, you're doing it with everybody else, you're playing your part, you're harmonizing. I think that there's something really cool about that. But I've never practiced any sort of music as an individual where it's piecing those parts together yourself with the hope of coming up with something great. So it sounds like a little bit different.

Speaker A: Yeah, no instruments for me beyond just like the basics of like you try something here and there when you're growing up, but Nothing ever stuck. I'm like really picky with what I listen to, so a lot of times I'll like find one thing I like and then I'll look for more things that are similar and then I can't find it. Like, I really— I like deep house stuff and I know a few artists that I like, but then whenever I try to let the algorithm recommend, it just veers too far too quickly. And so I'm always looking for very specific recommendations and, uh, just— I'm always just trying things to find which one will now fit into like my taste collection, I guess. I don't know.

Speaker C: Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. I mean, that's what we do on like for collecting digital art where it's like you go to an artist that you really like and then you see what they collected. And I think there's a way to do that in the DJ world. Well, I don't know if you're familiar with the website 1001tracklists.com, but it's pretty much like a Wikipedia of what DJs play. So like if you find a DJ that you really like, I usually go to that DJ and see what they're playing either on their like weekly show or what they play live. And then they just have all of the tracks. I mean, most people don't only play their own music and like if they're playing a song at their set, it's like it's clear that they like that music. So it's like the equivalent of seeing what William Mapan is collecting is like clearly it's going through his algorithm and saying like, yes, this is good. Spotify is not great at recommending electronic music. I just haven't had too much success with it. But if you're willing to go a little bit more manual and like going through the 1001 tracklist and like listening to like their weekly shows, because a lot of DJs have them, then you can find like the certain songs and kind of go through the rabbit hole that way. Like that's how I built a lot of my collection.

Speaker A: Can you go the other way? Like if there's certain songs or artists that, you know, you like, can you search and see which DJs are—

Speaker C: I think if you click on songs, you can see then like which DJs have played that song. So I think there is ways of kind of going through and playing like the Wikipedia hyperlink game pretty much.

Speaker A: Okay, I'll check that out.

Speaker B: It's just fascinating. The most liked playlist on here is Skrillex Live at Lollapalooza. Were you there?

Speaker C: I was not at Skrillex, unfortunately. And I think that was Saturday we'd make it. Apparently it was just like, it was also very hot that day and like it was so crowded. But I've seen Skrillex once before. It was pretty cool. And I also saw Skrillex when he was in his like emo band from back in the day.

Speaker A: Oh wow.

Speaker C: I'm also a big fan of emo pop punk music. So he opened up for All-American Rejects, Hawthorne Heights, and Fall Out Boy back in like 2005, 2006. But then when I found out that the lead singer from First to Last was Skrillex, that was Kind of blew my mind. Yeah, I mean, he's a very talented artist. There's no questions about that. It's just a matter of if you like crazy dubstep music.

Speaker A: His look, his physical look has changed so much. He used to have that like very Skrillex, like his like kind of like undercut hairstyle thing, and now he just looks like a regular dude. What happened?

Speaker C: He's not the same Skrillex of old, that's for sure. And just like the music that he plays is— he's always been all over the place, but even more so now. He's like way more into like the house, deep house kind of trap vibe versus just like pure dubstep, brostep, which I enjoyed the most. Like his first couple albums, like I very much enjoyed. It was just unlike anything that I've ever heard. And I think that kind of goes to like when I saw like reading a book by Kim Asendorf, it's like, this is unlike anything that I've seen before. Like, Zancan Garden Monolith, like, this is totally different. I think that's always been a common theme for me for artists where it's like people willing to do something that's like so different and crazy and recognizable. That's always what I've enjoyed, where it's like people are so true to themselves and trying something new. So I think that goes both for digital art and audio art as well.

Speaker A: 100%.

Speaker C: There's a lot of crossovers I've realized.

Speaker A: All right, man, we got time for probably one more, so make it good.

Speaker C: One more. Oh man. Well, thank you guys again. This has been such a blast. If you were to start this all over again, is there anything that you would change?

Speaker A: Having babies. From a podcast perspective, it would have made it a lot easier to not have babies. Let's acknowledge that. That's a joke. Obviously we love our babies. It has made the scheduling difficult for sure. But no, what's a real answer, Trinity? What's it?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think we spent a lot of time doing the show and less time talking about doing the show. We did some of it here and there, but, you know, I think that having a strategy and having like kind of the goal, putting that together is like a different type of work, you know? And we definitely did some of that at the beginning. But I think that it's just hard to maintain some of that. Like, I think if anything, the change for me would be it's not having babies, it's having jobs.

Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, that works too. Yeah. Adding to that, like maybe what we should have done earlier, one thing we could have done earlier is start up, start the Patreon earlier.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: From a kind of a quote unquote brand perspective, it just seemed right to like have the show be supported by crypto donations, it being an NFT show. And eventually enough people told us, we don't want to support you that way. And we resisted it. And it might've made a big difference. I don't know, to have that Patreon ready to go from the very beginning. Maybe it wouldn't have. Definitely not quit our jobs different, knowing even at like the height of the listenership, there's no way we would've been at that level. That's one thing we could have done differently. I think we probably could have made some different decisions around trying to chase some trends and trying to like find other ways to grow the show, like certain guests that we had on. Are they the best fit? Maybe not, but they have their own audience. And so let's try to get them on so that we can get a reciprocation and go on their show and like grow the show. And I don't think any of that stuff actually worked out at all. So, but that's the type of thing that you don't know unless you try it. Right. And so, you know, looking back, knowing that it didn't yield a lot of growth for the show, like probably wouldn't have spent so much time trying to like get on other podcasts or get on random YouTube shows or have hosts of other shows on.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: our show unless it was like a really— there was a really compelling reason to do it.

Speaker C: That's all fair, but I do think, and like, who knows how it'll all play out, but people love to go down memory lane. And I think you guys encapsulated the FX Hash diary where if somebody wants to like relive what 2020, 2021, 2022 looked like, they can go back through the archives. And I think the interviews, I mean, those are very evergreen. And I think as time goes on, when we see these artists going to museums, it's like Will and Trinity had some of the first interviews with these people. So I do think you guys captured a really cool moment at a very special time. And it's hard to see how the future plays out, but I think we'll look back at the content that you guys did and you were able to encapsulate what we were all feeling during this time. And I think it's a really special thing and we all thank you for it. I know it's— I wanted you guys to grow the show to be absolutely huge. I think we all did, but I don't think that means that what you did is, is not really special and really just incredible work. So this was still a huge success in my eyes. So I hope you guys think that as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Trinity, you're proud, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that we all learned a lot and it was a really I mean, we're still— we're not done.

Speaker A: Yeah, we just released an episode today. Yeah, we just released the Stevie P interview today, and we've— we're still working on wrangling dates for some of the last guests of this run, but we've totally left the door open to come back. And obviously we're doing the hat and we're still engaged in the space.

Speaker C: So there will be other ways for Waiting to Be Signed to flap its wings, I'm sure.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Hell yeah.

Speaker B: It's been a really great part to— fun to be part of this community.

Speaker A: Well, let's wrap it there. Thanks so much, Nook, for taking the time to come on chatting with us. This episode will definitely come out after your birthday because I'm traveling next week, so everyone should be looking for an announcement from you.

Speaker C: Yeah, that should be out provided everything is, is working properly. So yeah, hopefully this is— website's out by then. So yeah, check it out, explore it, see some of our old videos, and I'm sure there'll be Lots more to come.

Speaker A: Be on the lookout for ArtFocused, the website, and we will link to that below, and we'll link to the YouTube channel that you have for anyone who's interested in going back for some of the gallery walk and talks. And of course, I'll, I'll offer up that I'll be happy to come on and do one if you—

Speaker C: Yes, I'd love both of you guys. So, so yeah, if you want to start thinking of like 20 pieces that you'd want to talk about, we should absolutely do that.

Speaker B: Let's do it.

Speaker A: Just 20? Easy. Well, thanks again, Nook. This was great. That's it for this one, folks. We'll be back again with a few more. All right, later. Bye, everyone.

Speaker C: Bye, guys. Thanks so much. Always send.

Speaker B: We're waiting to be fried.