Checking Out the NFT Music-Metaverse
Let the great virtual experiment begin
I’ve been reading a lot lately about NFT’s, which stands for Non-fungible tokens, and what it means for musicians and other artists. On the surface it is really confusing when you navigate through a listing of intentionally pixelated graphics with people bidding with alien-like currency. I have to say I had no idea what I was scrolling through or what it all meant when I was checking out one of the biggest platforms, OpenSea.
After reading seemingly the same copy-and-paste explanation from a multitude of articles - none of it made sense until I learned more about the “Meta-universe.” According to Wikipedia, a metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. In futurism and sci-fi, the term is often described as a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality headsets.
Apparently, real people buy virtual real-estate and put up virtual areas for gaming, museums, galleries, and so on. Can you believe that there is even a virtual dive bar named “Meta Lite,” which is curated by the real company Miller Lite for people to virtually go to a bar and watch football and pour virtual beer. What kind of got my attention was that the Meta Lite bar stated that it was going to host live music or open mics - just like the real taverns around town. Interesting…
I next poked around to see which musicians were actually selling stuff, and what were they selling? I found one techno artist who was selling music that was attached and simple graphic tokens. According to his website the crypto tokens that are displayed from your smartphone crypto wallet when you enter earns you guest-list access and other perks like access to real merch and stuff. Hmmm….Cool idea.
Another artist out of France is selling virtual one-take performances for you to own and download. Basically like inviting a person to do a house concert and then buying the song to use for what ever you want or even resell it. What I liked about that idea was the ability to put productions out in a fairly quick way using a home studio - with the expectation that this is a one-take and as-live production. I also like the fact that this person is making a lot of money - much more that a regular gig for the music. I’m talking about thousands of dollars here! Not only that, someone could collect this song and put it on some virtual music player out in the Metaverse for people to listen to, accessorize their avatar’s virtual headset, host music in games and so on - potentially making some crypto-cash from their investment. If they choose to re-sell it the original artists gets a royalty percentage payment for up to 10% of the sell - every time it’s sold.
With all the above, I decided that it was worth exploring with my own music. I decided to NFT my live recordings going forward for 2022 at-least. I think the model I’m going with is that of the 1990’s Phish live music postings for free downloads. To this day people are spinning and talking about specific shows and dates that were recorded at Phish concerts. I’m going to do the same thing in the Meta-verse. Record shows live, date and geographically locate them and sell them for use in a virtual world that will supposedly be available and locked into crypto trading until the end of time.
So, during the weekend I decided to move forward and NFT the hell out of my live stuff, starting with “Big Story Friday Night.” Check it out
You’ll probably see my stuff on some virtual Japanese-kanji-pixelated jukebox in a Minecraft-type castle adorned with cyber-kitty portraits and torches in the year 2085.
