What’s up friends! Another exciting week here in Fort Worth, Texas.

Ok it’s actually been pretty chill. But that’s great cause I’ve had time to think and reflect on everything that’s been going on, and what I want to do next. Clarity! Underrated in these fast times. I’ll spare you the boring details, but I will recommend taking time to reflect if you’re feeling a little bit overwhelmed with everything you got going on.

What I’m Reading & Watching This Week, or RECOMMENDATIONS:

🔗 Jesse Cannon Drops Epic 4 Hour Video on How to Build a Fanbase

A free full course on the step by step way you grow a music fanbase to millions of fans.

If you’re not familiar with Jesse Cannon’s work, this is a good video to start. It’s so good. So, so good. I’m almost done with a first watch, and I plan to rewatch it several times to let all the good advice soak in.

I started following Jesse back in 2012 or 2013 after I came across his book “Get More Fans” (which is still one of the greatest collections of good ideas and tips for musicians I’ve ever seen). In fact I wrote him a long email back then, pitching him on the idea of starting a podcast (pretty cringy now that I’m re-reading it 😂). Of course podcasting was already on his radar, but he was kind enough to humor me and even grab lunch with me in Brooklyn the first time I visited NYC in 2018.

Anyways, Jesse is a gem and one of the smartest guys out there sharing what he’s learned about music production and marketing. You’d be an idiot to not watch this video at least once. And you should probably watch it twice, take notes, and sign up for his newsletter.

🔗 How to Quit Spotify (by Brian Merchant)

If you’re curious about better ways to support musicians and finding a better service for streaming music, check out this breakdown of Spotify alternatives.

Bottom line: Buying music from artists directly helps them far more than any number of streams will. Bandcamp is the way to go if you want to build a library of your favorite music.

Me, I want to go back to having a big digital collection on a hard drive that I can sync to my iPod classic. And of course a carefully curated vinyl and CD collection.

🔗 AI Enshittification Continues

You ever sign up for a service and then immediately hit a road block because of a poorly implemented AI system? Ugggghhhh.

That happened to me last week when I tried to upload a song to Musixmatch (a service that is supposed to help you get time-synced lyrics to show up in the social media apps when someone uses the song in a video or story).

We’ve reviewed the issue you described and can confirm that what you encountered appears to be a random error within the AI sync feature. This can sometimes happen due to the way the AI processes certain audio files.

What the fuck, bro? Fix your shitty AI app.

It’s best for everyone that I stick to this rule.

Ok that’s all I have time for this week. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend/week,

Aaron Dowd

Saturday, December 13, 2025

Fort Worth, TX