Upsample with Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff
By Chernoff Music
Categories: News, Tech News, Music, Music Commentary, Business, Entrepreneurship
Upsample is a music, tech, and business show co-hosted monthly by longtime friends Carson Tworow (drummer, electronic music producer, and Big Tech professional) and Will Chernoff (bassist, writer, and music industry professional).
34 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- Beach Bits
We discuss Micah Erenberg of The Secret Beach doing bits on Reels. Is this exactly what a 'social media' audience demands today, or do we have to strip away the last pretenses of building such an audience for our artistic careers? Before that, we have some good news about our friends at Gigpit…
- That's On Us.
Late payments to artists this summer have reopened the East Coast Music Association (ECMA) situation. We go back through this story and its mix of joloew, ticket levy, co-op, Fort Langley, and Coastalgate vibes. What is a mission-driven artist organization meant to do, and how far from that are…
- Suno's Out for Summer! At Carson's
Berklee students want the school to cut it out with AI music courses, but it's looking bleak. The same venture capital interests that brought us the CEO of Suno saying no one enjoys making music, have a friend who is installed as Berklee's president. Per a recent Adam Neely video, both the student…
- Jo(el) Loew
The future of getting paid for our songs rests on blockchain vs. bureaucracy, as Will reports back on Australian musician Jo Loewenthal's 19-part "deep forensic investigation" of global publishing. We also touch on the launch of Subvert after opening with a dismissal of the year's biggest…
- Ticket Talk w/ Gigpit Co-Founder Evan Dungate
Evan Dungate of Gigpit joins us!Gigpit, headquartered in Victoria and also running in Vancouver, is a new local live music platform that offers concert listings and a ticketing service, currently with no fees. The company has five young co-founders: Evan, Aidan Polglase, Ellie Scott, Josh Taylor…
- Sora Shutdown, Spotify Profile Protection, AI Can't Write
(0:00) Toronto Blue Jays opening day (2:31) Will's physical media level-up (4:59) OpenAI shuts down Sora (17:35) Spotify Artist Profile Protection (30:29) Jasmine Sun on AI and creative writing (50:44) Triple recommendationsCarson recs:Gregory Uhlmann - Extra Stars, Photokem - A Mat in the Garden…
- Getting Taken Down is Cool & SOCAN vs. AI
let's talk about fully automated slopitalism and the threats to performance rights organizations & songwriters No episode 2 weeks from now (Mar. 13), we return later in March.(0:00) Music MCP (which got taken down)(8:40) SOCAN's AI policies & advocacy(36:23) "Pre-deplatformed" cool content(50:27)…
- Post-American Internet
"Move fast and break... Kings!" That's what Cory Doctorow calls for in his recent talk. We discuss a potential "post-American internet" future per that talk, then we weave in two related stories: Anna's Archive scraping virtually all of Spotify for torrenting, and Pitchfork launching a paywall.No…
- Now They’re Emailing Our Friends
It's Year 2 of Upsample starting now, and the leading AI music company Suno has already intruded into Will's day-to-day in the local scene. What else is in store?(0:00) Intro & Self-Taught Legend(4:27) Hooks by Suno(12:50) Suno Partner Program(32:06) Bandcamp wants to ban AI music(45:35)…
- Finally, Filterworld! Year-Ender at Carson's
3 days after we published the Side Door episode, a tragic incident injured a loved one of someone from the Side Door community. There's a GoFundMe that the community organized to support them through the hospitalization and recovery.We're back at Carson's house to discuss a book that has…
- Hide From Wrapped Season With Us
After we rage against Spotify Wrapped and follow up on our previous episodes, Carson unpacks three recent stories related by the theme of AI blowback: a maximally high-effort and human album, an anti-AI revival of Vine, and a platform that might get enshittified by its buyer.(0:00) Intro(4:11)…
- Side Door Closing
We discuss the story of the Canadian live show platform "where every space is a venue" called Side Door, from the company's founding to its coming end, as announced on Nov. 4.Correction: at about 53 minutes, we say Arlene invested out of Dragon's Den, and we later say that Side Door didn't raise…
- Aura, Agitslop Fear-Monsters, & Canada Music Fund
Carson declines to jinx the Jays. Then it's time to lock in for one of our most theoretical conversations yet, in response to the Never Post podcast episode titled "A.I. and New American Fascism". Will chases it with a Canadian story about the possible non-renewal of a $16 million boost to federal…
- Co-Ops, Labour, Touring, & Streaming w/ Madelyn Read
Madelyn Read (musician, songwriter, and BC Co-Op Association Community Engagement & Education Manager) is our first-ever guest!(01:07) Introducing Madelyn and her work (05:26) VSO musicians strike update (it's over) (10:33) How Madelyn set up her Europe tour in 2024 (21:54) Talking about streaming…
- VSO Musicians Strike
Update from later today: VSO musicians have begun their strike. After Will vents about the Canadian Football League controversy, we discuss a potential strike by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) musicians (4:32), purported salary discrepancies (17:52), and we catch a brief response by the…
- People Love the Dead Internet
We begin by jinxing the Jays. Then we get into the KARRA story “I invested $100,000 to create my album & Spotify deleted it” & part 2 (2:24), are labels bad if they just use DistroKid? (19:49) and is this gonna make us all leave finally? (35:31) Recs: Carson - listen to God's Gonna Give You a…
- Challengers to Bandcamp's Throne
Be careful out there or you'll get yelled at by shirtless dudes in Pontiacs! Will has a music library app now on his desktop, and Carson needs a new website (02:10), Bandcamp launches Clubs (08:38), EVEN is a hip-hop-coded post-Bandcamp platform (25:35), we check out the familiar mission of…
- No Fees, No Saxe, No 'AI Music Night'
(0:00) Will LOVES that you don't read his emails(1:52) Subvert turned down $200K and want to launch with no fees(18:15) "AI Music Night" in Texas(27:26) We need skills to make the platform internet suck less(38:28) Which tech move is Will going to make first? (48:19) JP Saxe's tour got…
- Who Funds Your Bumbershoot? Vancouver City Council Don't Pass Our Agenda
We have closure on The Velvet Sundown! Then we get into the very creative ticket pricing, or lack thereof, at Bumbershoot in Seattle and the Guelph Jazz Festival in Ontario (11:43), and a Vancouver city council motion that put several of our favourite ideas on the table, but didn't pass…
- Our First Look at Subvert
After clearing the WeTransfer air, we get into subvert.fm, a collectively owned music commerce platform in development. The Subvert team calls the platform a direct alternative to Bandcamp. We discuss the concept of Subvert and who founded it (11:17), Bandcamp controversies: being sold twice and…
- It's Time to Leave Spotify, Right?
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…
- Granville Timbaland
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…
- Rhythm Changes’ 5th Birthday! In-Person at Carson’s
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?…
- Wanna Pay More Tax, Yes or No?
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…
- Is Being an Artist "Labour"?
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…
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