As I noted in the previous post, there was a lot to come out of the Music Maynumit talk I had with Tom Ray of Lorenzo’s Music. Existential questions, really. There’s a very real possibility I won’t address those until after Netlabel Week in July. There’s the Netlabel Week planning, but I also have JJJ’s to record with David Rovics then Jessica Harrison, and I would like to get the audio-only version of JJJ out at some point as well. I also have a cycling stage race the week of Memorial Day and then will be visiting family in July. There’s also the matter of getting our internship program set up.

But, there were some things that will be easier to address. Like, what the hell is the deal with Jibber Jabber Jambalaya?

Back in September 2024, we decided we needed to sit down and figure out what this organization was. I called the event a “Constitutional Convention.” Wiktionary’s first definition of constitution is “The act, or process of setting something up, or establishing something.” Whatever we call it if we end up trying to do this again, that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to set up the org. A domain name an org does not make.

One of the agenda items was “Branded Shows.” William Maggos and I agree that one of the problems facing the community is there are a lot of different places to go. So, the question is, do we need yet another podcast/PeerTube show? And if we did, what should it be? Who should host it?

In mid-December 2024, I had the idea to do a series of pilots so we would have some examples to think about what the show might be. Things started off a bit of a history lesson. This pretty much directly spawned the very first JJJ episode with Jessica Harrison.

Next up, Sam and I did a show on Netlabels. One of the things I am thinking about with the direction of the org is a focus on netlabels or Free Culture, so I would highly encourage folks to watch that if you are unfamiliar with netlabels…but as I noted at the beginning, this is really a topic for another day.

Episode 3 was about Free Culture, and despite technical difficulties, it is the highest viewed video on PeerTube. Before the discussion with Tom, I had plans to do a couple of Free Culture shows in July and October, but now the July show is going to be a talk with Jessica Harrison about organizational structures and filing status.

Episode 4 was a chat of the variety that most of JJJ’s have fallen into. Essentially some sort of digital fireside chat.

Episode 5 was supposed be a short news thing but ended up being a lot of talk about the Constitutional Convention.

Episode 6 ended up not syncing with PeerTube for some reason (or maybe I culled it?). In any case, it literally spawned its own “show” called Working Sessions, which I changed the name to Office Hours, and then to CC Listening Party. No one was showing up when it was a daily thing, so now it’s weekly on Thursday at 6:30pm Central. I guess we’ll see if people start showing up.

The Constitutional Convention was frustrating. Probably we just had too many topics when what we really needed to do was figure out how we were actually going to run the org. One thing that we did actually discuss and get somewhere with was the Branded Shows though.

So, basically JJJ is a continuation of the “Everything’s Open” pilots. It might fall into a rhythm, but probably not. David Rovics’ in July is going to be another fireside chat style. Maybe I need to sit in front of the fireplace in the winter for better branding…

As for the name, I figured there would be a lot of talking, so “Jibber Jabber”. I don’t exactly know how Jambalaya came to me. New Orleans is a music city, so it works, I think.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the shows are a bit like jazz improv. When it works, the audience and the performers are all in a state of flow. When it doesn’t work, it’s a mess. I don’t think there has been a lot of the mess though. Perhaps the intro is one of those points, but I haven’t figured things out with OBS. Tom gave me some tips, but I haven’t had a chance to implement them yet. Tomorrow is the next CC Listening Party, so I guess I should work.

Tom made some clarification points yesterday about things like Music Manumit and it makes me wonder if I need to be clearer about audience. I think some of the clearness was invoked in the “CC Next” name. Tom does a great job of doing actual interviews. There are multiple places in the CC scene to go and listen to music with friends (I’m thinking The Bugcast and RynoTheBeard.cc specifically, but I am sure there are others). I don’t need to do those things. I guess I think of JJJ as being a bit of a “backstage” discussion, maybe with the occasional gap filler free culture show. I don’t think there is a good music show that focuses on free culture. The people don’t seem to want that every month. I mean, I am sure some people do, but when someone else is doing the work, it is easy to say yes to everything. I still think we need to get together and think deeply about A) what we want in the scene and B) what do we actually have the resources to do. I think the best way to make use of our limited resources is to come together as a group, but we mostly still seem stuck in our silos. Granted, this is not necessarily because we want to be. I doubt there are any billionaires reading this. And if there are, and you want to fund me to work on CC Music stuff full time, let me know!

To bring it back to JJJ, the show is always going to be raw and unedited unless someone volunteers to edit them. I barely have time to be record them in the first place, so editing is just not something that is going to happen. If someone wants to get involved, I would very much welcome it. If someone wants to host what amounts to the monthly Friends of CC Music show, I welcome it! I could bring back Obsidian. I could write more. I’m not trying to be an influencer. I’m trying to get stuff done. The people think these monthly shows is getting stuff done. As long as people continue to think that, I’ll continue to do them.