Bankless - The Song-A-Day Man | Jonathan Mann (Layer Zero)
Primer: Jonathan Mann is the Song-A-Day Man. He has been writing and singing songs everyday since 1 January 2009. David Hoffman from Bankless speaks with him to learn the whys as to what he does, how he entered the crypto space, and the SongADAO, a DAO formed around his songs.
Meeting Him At ETH Denver 2019
💡 David met Jonathan at ETH Denver 2019
Served as an emcee for 1 minute
The judges were taking too long and he went up on stage to stall for time
Went up to share about his story of making one song a day
Entering Crypto
In 2017, he was at a summer camp and he came across a talk by Ethan Buchman from Cosmos
Explained crypto in a way that he got it for the first time
“Proof of work. Like I have that. I've been doing a song a day since January 1 of 2009. Like, that's my Proof of Work.”
- Jonathan Mann
Reached out to Ethan and he was supportive
Tweeted that he has a crazy idea for a blockchain project and his friend reached out to him. Gave him some ETH to play with
A week later, his friend introduced him to CryptoPunks and it was a light bulb moment for him
Song A Day
An ongoing project where he writes and records a song every single day
Has been doing that since 1 January 2009
Wanted to try it out for just a month. Had a couple of his songs went viral
Was unemployed at that time, so he decided to try for a year. At the end of the year, he decided to just keep going on
Why Did He Do This?
Realized his reasons have changed over the years
In the beginning, his response was that he is a creative person who has been writing songs since 12
Another reason he gave was that he uses it as a writer’s block-proof method of creating
A subsequent reason that he gave is that he liked the attention
As time went on, it became a practice for him to just come up with something everyday, such that it has become part of his life
What Are Some Of The Benefits He Experienced?
It has been very humbling and it teaches him that, in the grand scheme of things, no one’s really paying attention to you
It’s okay to make something shitty on the way to making something good
“The only way to get good at something right is to fail a lot, is to fuck up a bunch. And Song A Day is a really great framework for fucking up and for making a lot of shit and a lot of crap that's bad, you know?”
- Jonathan Mann
Does It Take A Similar Role to Meditation/Journaling?
Would say that’s the case
When people shuffle through his songs, they can get a sense of his life in a lot of ways
Ghozali just went viral for taking a picture of himself everyday for 5 years
His friend Noah Kalina has took a picture of himself everyday for 21 years now
When he pushes himself right up against the edge, he enters a flow state
What Does He Do On Days That He Haven’t Done His Song?
Just bang out a song
Gives himself latitude even if it sucks, because no one cares whether it sucks
There are days where he feels uninspired or exhausted but the songs he create still resonates with somebody listening
“I don't think you can actually go for emotion, right? Like, that's not something that you can optimize for now, right? You can't just decide that you're gonna be emotional today.”
- David Hoffman
People think that hit pieces have to be emotional. But it’s not possible to pressure yourself to become emotional
Are His Favourite Songs Judged By Their Output Or The Process Of Creating Them?
What he is most proud of are on albums
Put out an album in 2019
Did a narrative fiction podcast called Songonauts featuring the music that he’s most proud of. They were the songs that he put the most effort into and tried to get to the heart of what each song was
Crypto And Song A Day
In 17 September 2017, he wrote a song about CryptoPunks as he was so into it
Wrote several CryptoKitties songs as well
Wrote a song about no shilling because people approached him to write a song about their bags
How Does He See Himself As A Storyteller?
That was his job pre-pandemic
He would go to conferences, give that talk, watch all other talks, and recap everything that was said
The crypto scene has amazing stories and lore
There are many narratives that he has wrote songs about:
CryptoPunks
Erick Snowfro burning his Zombie Punk
Erick Snowfro creating Art Blocks
ENS DAO
Had a fantasy of doing a conference where all the speakers are people who do things a day
Feels some sort of kinship with people who do things a day
Noah Kalina recently entered the space. He takes a picture of himself each day for the past 21 years
Why Do You Think We Value People That Do Things A Day?
It is because time is the scarcest thing we have
Everyday is a reminder that we are closer to death
In the digital world, things are infinitely replicable. With NFTs, we have found a way to make digital things scarce
Thoughts On Scarcity And Market Value Of Assets
Skeptical of people using scarcity to assign value to NFTs. It feels too arbitrary to him
Doesn’t think that we are at the point where we can value these things correctly
NFTs are going to become a powerful tool for rewarding creative work in a way that hasn’t existed before
Prior to the invention of recorded sound, music was scarce. One has to hear it in person
With the invention of recorded sound, we gain this ability to copy it
Will Do Things Everyday People Find Crypto Sooner Than Other Artists?
Doesn’t think it’s true that they find it faster, but think they get it faster
When Beeple entered crypto, he did not put up all of his Everydays for sale. He curated and only put up some of them
What Drawn Him Into NFTs? Is It Because His Work Can Be Monetized?
The monetization part was what attracted him initially
As he went down the rabbit hole, he realized that it’s all about stories
“If I could be putting out my song every day, and even just making like $100 or somebody paid me like $100 in ETH every day for my song. I'm gonna come out so far ahead than if I wasn't able to do that. And that was the impetus for me from the very beginning.”
- Jonathan Mann
SongADAO
His initial goal was to take CryptoPunks and turn it into Song A Day
Similar to CryptoPunks, each of his songs have different traits — location where he sing his song, topic for his songs, etc.
Had to explain it to everyone — each song has an image generated from different layers, and each layer is done by a different person
Hired different illustrators for each year of Song A Day
Spent $600,000 building this project. Has made $100,000 a year for the last 10 years. Hence, he spent 6 years worth of work just to create this project
This project is also funded by another project of his called Fuckin’ Trolls, which is a PFP project making fun of other projects
Hired Raid Guild to build this project and they launched on 31 December. 4000 songs sold out with 1.5 hours
Since January 1st 2022, he has been auctioning his songs off his website everyday
The money from the auction goes to the DAO
Community
People need to own one of the songs to be eligible to be in the DAO
Once their identity is verified using BrightID, they will then be able to vote
Anyone who holds a NFT is welcome to provide creative input and suggest collaborations
The DAO Treasury
Does not want to be seen as the only one bringing money into the DAO
There are opportunities for members to bring in revenue (e.g. song getting placed in a movie)
Why Don’t He Just Pocket All The Money Himself?
When his songs launched, the mint price was a 0.2 ETH, which was really high for a project like this
That amount was the number that he needed to feel comfortable to give the rest of it to the DAO
He build Song A Day to last over the long-term
“What's the utility of the art? The art needs to have utility! And now there's a reaction that we're like, fuck utility. This is pure and we're going Dogecoin people. We're just going like pure meme. It's the funny fucking thing and we're all getting behind it.”
- Jonathan Mann
Will He Be Changing The Songs That He Writes And Sings In Order To Help The DAO Profit?
Used to think of singing songs with special traits to make them rare (e.g. with an instrument he has never played before, doing it in a location he has never been to, singing about a topic that he never sung before, wearing an outfit that he never wore before, etc.)
Now his focus is more about the stories in the space
The ENS DAO Song
Randomly minted the ENS DAO song
Someone bought it and sold it to ENS DAO
He has already done a bunch of DAO songs
He releases the songs randomly so that it will be a fair process
Projects have approached him directly for song commissions, but he wants it to go to the DAO
Have Any Community Members Stepped Up To Wear A Leadership Hat?
His friend Boris, the one who introduced him to crypto, is helping out a lot
Have picked up a couple of mods
Where Can People Go To Join His DAO?
The DAO can be found at songaday.world
There’s a link to the OpenSea collection on his site
One Lesson That Everyone Should Learn
A quote from Adventure Time: Sucking at something is the first step to being kind of good at something
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