In this episode of Plebchain Radio, Avi sits down with Aaron of Essex, the Bitcoiner, hairdresser, and music superfan behind Bitcoin Essex and the New Music Nudge Unit.
Aaron shares his 90s-era origin story, from Napster and CDs to discovering Bitcoin and realizing he could help working musicians build parallel rails for their art. He explains how the New Music Nudge Unit works in practice: self-hosting tracks, publishing them once via RSS to dozens of Podcasting 2.0 apps, and routing sats straight to artists through value-for-value. Along the way, he tells onboarding stories of artists like Longy, Fable, Nathan Abbott, Fifty Four Plates, and Hear My Roar, plus the UK’s first Bitcoin-powered gig, Into the Valueverse, and the recent BitFest music night.
The conversation digs into Spotify’s exploitative economics, the thousand-true-fans model, paying artists properly at Bitcoin conferences, and why Bitcoin and Nostr give independent musicians a truly global stage – without labels, gatekeepers, or permission.
New Music Nudge Unit
Wednesday Dec 10th at Peggy's Music Bar
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