Damn, I love living here. Australia is beautiful. It’s amazing anything ever gets done around here. The beaches, the weather, the parties… This stretch of coastline from Bondi to Coogee is a non-stop scene.

I just got a call from Elishia, an up-incoming music artist, asking to meet an hour later than we planned. I’m glad she did, because now I’m here, feeling the ions pouring off the sea. It’s electric, and I’m getting goose bumps. Is it from the chill, or from the prospect of starting something new? Hard to tell.

I’m working with Elishia on a music video and forthcoming MusicNFT drop, and in moments like this, I’m reminded that everything is connected because a personal journey is a long, winding road that keeps leading us back to, well… ourselves.

My journey with music started at a young age. Listening to my mother’s collection of Roberta Flack, James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg. There was some Credence Clearwater Revival in there too, and Pink Floyd. Tim Buckley and Jimi Hendrix. The Grateful Dead. And a chamber style jazz album that I still remember every note from, because my mother used to play it to help me get to sleep… Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio. My mother had taste, and for that I am grateful.

As a child of the 1980s and 1990s growing up in Seattle, I used to go out to the Roxy to discover bands. Little known bands like MXPX, Mother Love Bone (who became Pearl Jam) and yes… Nirvana. It was a wild and glorious time, the 90s in Seattle, and you could feel something in the air. Something new, and fresh emerging from the ether, like grabbing a tiger by the tail… it was hard to see or define yet, but yet it was something we could all feel like ions in the air. Like strange new emotions that we didn’t yet have words to describe.

Come to think of it, that’s what music is, an emotion in search of a word… and I’m feeling that now, on the other side of that same ocean I used to gaze out at in my youth, thinking about the possibilities that lie in front of us.

Something is Brewing in MusicNFT-land

I’ve been investing in crypto for a few years now, but I’ve been sitting on the sidelines of the NFT space for a while. Watching it develop, get bloated with noise and now, slowly find purpose and meaning through communities, banding together over common interests. In traditional start-up speak, it would be seen as a standard hype cycle… but I like to look at it like this… Now that the trend followers are getting disillusioned with the bottom dropping out of their CryptoPunks NFT or NBA Top Shot or Jack Dorsey Tweet as an NFT, it’s time for real communities to shine.

This is why I like the Music NFT space. It is full of people who are here for the long haul, because… we can’t be anywhere else. Because every road we take, just keeps leading us back to ourselves and our need to connect through music.

So yeah, music was the tipping point for me. It baptised me in the cool, pure waters of what Web3 can really do… level the playing field, and bring people together in a more intimate way. Bridging the gap between technology and real life.

So… here’s my first NFT purchase ever… a Peter Saputo track ‘at your best’ which I found on sound.xyz and purchased on the secondary market.

You can listen to this track here.

I fell in love with Peter’s music first, but then started to explore the rest of his story, and came across this thread on Twitter. Posted to the top of his twitter feed here.

It’s a deeply personal story which is better off read in his own words, but it played out in a pattern I’ve often experienced. First you discover and connect with the art, and then when you begin to connect with the artist you start to realise why the art spoke to you in such a profound way… What a thing.

The Next Chapter As I See (and hear) It

I believe this next chapter of NFT adoption and utility will define the next 10 years of music, so there is a lot of opportunity for people who are interested in laying down new platforms and use cases for how to democratise music into the future. Music that will shape the next generation will be written, and shaped and supported by communities who benefit alongside the artists they believe in. Art is never created in a vacuum, and what better way to grow and find your voice, than alongside a supportive group of people who believe in your potential.

What a time to be alive.

As for artists who are already migrating their tribes into Web3, there is a bright future. One where selling a hundred NFTs can make you more than millions of streams on traditional streaming platforms, and where you can evolve and grow your craft at a faster rate, bolstered by the support of fans and speculators who are banking on their taste, and an unrelenting belief in your art. People who are setting alarms so they don’t miss out on your next drop, and even if they do (yeah, I missed out on the free Peter Saputo pre-mint of ‘21’ I set my alarm for) they’re on the journey with you.

Time to Create, Build and Grow

In order for the momentum to continue, we all need to be more generous. To each other, to the community, to the artists who are just discovering the potential this space has to support their art and growth as human beings.

That’s why I’m not just standing on the sidelines. I’ll be working with Elishia and whole bunch of other Australian musicians over the next few months, getting them inspired and into Web3… after all, I’ve been doing that my whole life. Managing bands in my twenties. Making music videos in my 30s, and when my film career got going, assembling original soundtracks for my films, like this soundtrack written by Kram for my feature film Love is Now, and this soundtrack full of indie musicians living in vans, for my documentary The Meaning of Vanlife.

Soundnation

Part of my contribution to this nascent MusicNFT movement is working with a team of devs led by Dennis Tang at Zeroonelabs.tech here in Sydney on Soundnation, a MusicNFT platform that aims to continue building a bridge between NFT technology and the real life experiences that we crave. More on that later, when we have something tangible to share, but I wanted to honour the spirit of this movement… and this community of people… by sharing early and often.

There is joy in refining our craft with the support and love of others.

I’ll end by saying that this is a wildly exciting time for me personally. Staring at the big, frothy swell of an incoming tide… I’m diving in.

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Jim Lounsbury is a Film Director, Environmentalist and Music Lover. He climbs mountains for fun (metaphorically and physically). Currently working on soundnation.io with a few of his friends.