Latest / UK Column Radio / Adam Curry on music, MTV, the decline of radio, and inventing podcasting | Jerm Warfare

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Adam Curry on music, MTV, the decline of radio, and inventing podcasting | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:35
None. I've got a I've got my Fender
0:39
Strat lying yeah behind me in my Vox AC-30 tube amp.
0:44
I don't know if. You play music.
0:45
I know you. Oh, nice.
0:49
Nice. You play a bit.
0:50
I don't. I have a couple of guitars here,
0:53
but they're just stuff I acquired over the years.
0:57
I do not. I play E.
0:58
GCEF. That's about I don't need much
1:01
more for some songs, but that's about my my range.
1:05
You don't need any more and you just have to play power chords
1:08
and that's it, just two notes. And get a capo, you know you're
1:10
good to go. Good old punk rock style.
1:15
That's right, man, That's right. Adam Curry, thank you for
1:20
joining me in the trenches. It's my pleasure now coming Coke
1:24
S Africans, my chest breaker. Hey, well, that's more, that's
1:28
more Dutch. Dutch.
1:30
That's more Dutch. It's Dutch, Yeah.
1:31
I grew up in Amsterdam, so I speak fluent Dutch.
1:35
Really. I do.
1:36
OK, so, so if I speak Afrikaans, you'll probably understand parts
1:40
of what I'm saying because they they, they're very similar.
1:42
Very similar and I have several friends who are from South
1:46
Africa and so whenever whenever they speak S Afrikaans.
1:51
To me it sounds like someone who's drunk speaking Dutch.
1:56
Look, the Dutch don't think very highly of Afrikaans.
1:59
They think it's some sort of primitive backwards language you
2:02
see. I.
2:02
I. Disagree.
2:03
I mean, and also I know a lot of Dutch people who have homes in
2:07
South Africa. It was a big thing about 10
2:10
years ago. Everybody was buying homes in
2:13
Cape Town and Johannesburg. And of course, you know, the
2:18
political situation, the way the news portrays it doesn't, you
2:22
know, you don't have great PR for the country.
2:24
No, no. But I wouldn't say that the
2:27
Dutch really have any any any problems at all.
2:31
I I don't think so, but. No, they just think that.
2:34
They just think that Afrikaans is a bit primitive.
2:37
But it's funny though, because Afrikaans is a fully fledged
2:41
language, but it's very young. I think it's one of the youngest
2:44
languages in the world. So like maybe like 100 years.
2:48
No, a little bit more, I think maybe 200 to 250 years.
2:52
OK, All right. Well, that's like American
2:53
English, you know, we're only 250 years old.
2:56
So we're, we're, we're in the same league, brother.
2:59
Do you speak English or do you speak?
3:00
American. Well, I I speak American.
3:04
I lived in London and, and, and in Guildford in the UK for five
3:10
years. So I, I did pick up a lot of I,
3:14
I don't use it because, you know, if it slips out there, the
3:16
Brits will look at me like you're trying to do, man, stop
3:19
it already. I speak Texan.
3:21
You know, I'm in Texas, so I speak Texan.
3:25
I haven't been to the States, but I'd love to go to Texas.
3:28
I hear the stakes are pretty good.
3:30
We've got some pretty good steaks.
3:32
Yeah, we, you know, Texas has fed the nation several times
3:36
over throughout hard times. And once we get out of this, we
3:42
kind of have a beef crisis going on right now.
3:45
But people are starting to become aware of the beef
3:48
industry and, you know, people buying stuff in the supermarkets
3:51
here that says USDA and it comes from South, South America.
3:56
And it's been, you know, there's a a great cattle drive and
3:59
there's all kinds of stuff that gets shot, they get shot up with
4:01
on the way. So people are starting to
4:03
rediscover American beef and which is better quality and
4:07
actually cheaper. Well, I'm I'm a gun owner and I
4:11
love the fact that Texas has so many guns.
4:13
I think I heard that. I got one right here man.
4:16
Just just in case. Just just in.
4:18
Case you get out of. Line, you know I got my James
4:20
Bond gun here. I heard that Texas has got more
4:23
guns than the entire U.S. Army.
4:28
That wouldn't. Surprise me.
4:29
I mean, in general, we are a completely armed nation, which
4:33
is part of our culture, part of our it's part of our
4:37
constitution. And it's not really, you know,
4:40
of course, you know, with, with great power comes great
4:43
responsibility. And there's, you know, there's
4:45
always things that happen that, you know, shouldn't happen.
4:50
But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that if it really
4:53
came down to it, the government could not control the people.
4:57
I think that that's, you know, that's always the ultimate
5:00
reason why we all have guns. Yes, well, exactly.
5:03
And that's precisely why governments everywhere are
5:06
trying to disarm the citizens of.
5:08
Course, I mean, look at Australia.
5:09
Oh man, what happened to those people?
5:12
And they gladly gave up. Here's my gun.
5:14
All right? We.
5:14
All give it up. And.
5:16
And what does it stop? Does it stop machetes?
5:18
Does it stop knife crime? No, of course not.
5:20
You know, so yeah, ultimately governments do not want you to
5:26
be armed. They don't want, they don't want
5:29
you to have free speech or or the right to bear arms.
5:33
Where do you think we are in the world at the moment with regards
5:36
to, let's say, the temperature gauge when it comes to free
5:39
speech? Oh well, it.
5:44
Kind of depends on where you are and how you look at it.
5:46
I mean, if, if we're looking at online free speech or freedom of
5:51
speech, because free speech is like, you know, it's like just
5:54
doesn't cost anything but the freedom to speak your mind.
5:59
I would say. That the European Union has
6:02
really kind of. Covertly shut a lot.
6:06
Of things down and not so much that you can't go out and post
6:09
something on social media, but Germany is the one that
6:14
surprises me the most. I mean, you cannot be critical
6:16
of politicians and they have pretty hefty fines for for
6:21
violating these laws. And obviously the UK and the UK,
6:25
we've seen a lot of, you know, the videos of police showing up
6:29
and saying, hey, you hurt somebody's feelings, which is
6:32
kind of crazy. But in that regard, I think the
6:37
we've fallen into a trap of thinking that platforms is the
6:45
Internet and that's where speech takes place.
6:48
It's not, it never really has been.
6:50
You know, if, if you don't control your own output or where
6:53
you are publishing, then you're at the mercy of someone else,
6:57
which is usually more commercial interests than than pure
7:00
political. So we've kind of lost the
7:03
ability to set up your own blog or your own website or even your
7:08
own podcast. You know, when we when we
7:11
invented podcasting, the whole idea was that you could control
7:16
your own destiny with your RSS feed, which you could host
7:19
anywhere. And you know, now we have a lot
7:22
of hosting companies luckily. But when people go for something
7:24
like the Spotify free hosting option, well, don't be surprised
7:29
when they kick you off. So I hope that out of all this
7:34
people learn to come back to having some sovereignty over
7:39
where you publish and how you publish and not getting all
7:43
wrapped up in the I've got to have followers and likes,
7:45
etcetera. You know, that's, that's
7:47
idolatry that doesn't really result in anything because you
7:50
don't even know if that's real follows and likes and no one has
7:53
any idea what's actually read on these platforms.
7:58
Podcasting has taken off though in the last few years, hasn't
8:01
it? I've heard about it.
8:03
Yeah, it's. It's quite, it's quite a thing,
8:07
yeah. And.
8:09
It's, I mean, I love it. I think it's a little
8:13
unfortunate that now basically anybody who's talking to someone
8:17
else with headphones on and microphones is a podcast, even
8:20
if it's on YouTube. You know, Dave Weiner and I
8:23
worked on the original concept and it really does come down to
8:29
your RSS feed. You know, that is your freedom
8:31
right there is controlling that yourself.
8:34
And if you're building up an audience on Facebook or YouTube
8:37
or TikTok, well, you live at the whim of those platforms, you
8:41
know, so people are always saying to me, oh, why don't you
8:43
scream it on X? So because I could build up a
8:47
hundred, a thousand, 10,000 people watching it.
8:49
And you know, today Elon's like this.
8:52
If he changed his mind, I could be gone tomorrow.
8:55
So, you know, podcasting is, is ultimate true freedom of speech
9:02
because you are literally talking.
9:04
The video part doesn't matter much to me, honestly.
9:07
I, I think it's, it, it makes sense in some cases.
9:11
But even if you look at the numbers, people who are watching
9:15
something on YouTube are probably listening to it more
9:18
than watching. And you know, with some
9:21
exceptions, some notable exceptions, but it's it's really
9:25
become a new way for people to communicate ideas and thoughts
9:31
And the whole it's So what has turned into just something
9:35
beautiful where audiences who have been conditioned and
9:38
trained to, you know, have see someone interviewed for 7
9:43
minutes on The Tonight Show. You know, we got a minute to
9:46
start off, tell a joke. The producer already had a pre
9:50
interview. So I'm going to lead you into
9:51
this story that you're going to tell me.
9:53
Play the promo clip of your movie and then we'll end it
9:56
after the commercial break and goodbye.
9:58
And now people are more than willing to listen to a sit down
10:01
discussion between people for 1/2 or even 3 hours.
10:05
I mean that that is so counter to everything that we have been
10:10
brought up with in our media landscape.
10:14
And it also shows that, you know, the difference between
10:17
linear media where, you know, ABCCBSNBCCNN, whatever it is,
10:21
they only have 24 hours a day. They have to fit everything into
10:25
that 24 hours and they have to hit all the commercial breaks
10:28
and the news at the top of the hour.
10:30
And we can just do whatever we want for however long we want.
10:33
And there's also this concept of, oh, I can stop it and I can
10:37
rewind find it, or I can Fast forward.
10:39
I mean, it's, it's how this has played out has just been beyond
10:44
anything I could have ever imagined.
10:46
Well, I mean to feed into what you're saying, you were recently
10:49
on Rogan and it was over 3 hours long.
10:51
I mean, that is insane if you think about broadcasting.
10:54
I mean, no radio or TV would have ever aired something like
10:58
that long. No, and, and it's also, I mean,
11:01
that's because Joe and I like each other and we're literally
11:04
catching up. You know, we text a little bit
11:07
from time to time. That's maybe it.
11:09
I'll send them a link or, you know, have a comment or, you
11:12
know, just just small talk stuff.
11:15
So I think I've been on five or six Times Now.
11:18
It's literally like, let's catch up.
11:19
It's like just see like old buddies, you know, it's like,
11:22
hey, what's going on? What you thinking about, what
11:24
you've been, what you've been seeing, what you've been
11:25
reading. And so I think entertaining
11:29
conversation. Lots of people like to listen,
11:31
they like to eavesdrop in on conversation.
11:34
So it's it's not even anything remotely like mainstream does.
11:41
So do you think that podcasting has killed the radio star?
11:48
Well, that's an interesting question.
11:52
In a way, here's radio are their own worst enemy.
11:55
What radio did is, and that's purely because of the economics
12:01
of it. They have given up what radio
12:03
was good at, which was local, a local community.
12:08
So if you're in Austin, TX, I'm about 80 miles West of it.
12:12
But if you're in Austin, TX, where's the Austin radio station
12:16
that actually has Austin issues, Austin news, Austin music?
12:21
I mean, we had this big event, the snowpocalypse, we called it,
12:24
I think four or five years ago. And we were all stuck in our
12:27
homes without power for, you know, 3-4 days.
12:30
There was, you know, big snowstorm in Texas, which of
12:33
course, you know, we don't have snow ploughs here.
12:34
We got guns. You know, we're not going to not
12:36
have anything to clean up the snow with.
12:38
And I saw I was looking around on the radio dial and NPR, which
12:43
is our National public Radio, they had a national programme
12:45
on. No one had anyone talking
12:49
anything locally except like the the local Top 40 station.
12:53
The weather guy was actually doing reports about what was
12:57
going on, was kind of taking over the programme.
12:59
They were completely unprepared to do anything local.
13:02
And almost everywhere now all programming is national.
13:06
You're just hearing local commercials and may maybe a
13:09
local weather report. So radio is its own worst enemy.
13:13
And what's come back now is people who are doing podcasts
13:18
about communities of interest. But also now we're seeing more
13:21
and more what I call hyperlocal podcasting, where it's for your
13:25
town or for your neighbourhood in a city.
13:27
And that's what's killing radio. Radio killed themselves not not
13:31
any other medium in my opinion. I mean, that was obviously a
13:36
reference to your MTV. Background.
13:39
I know, I know. Can you remember the very first
13:43
song that you introduced? That I introduced, you know I
13:56
can't because my. 1st hours on MTV was in was New Year's 1987.
14:03
I just moved from Europe to the States for this job and they,
14:08
you know, I was supposed to start later, but they say, you
14:10
know, hey, we've got New Year's. Would you mind being on Times
14:16
Square and being the, the voice on Times Square?
14:19
I'm like sure. You know, I'd never actually
14:21
been on Times Square New Year's Eve.
14:23
It was me and a million of my friends and, and two bodyguards
14:27
and it was, you know, freezing cold.
14:30
So I, I honestly don't remember. Do you happen to know what it
14:33
was? Because I really don't remember.
14:35
No, I've genuinely done that. I have no idea.
14:38
It was in the days of Def Leppard and Warrant and and
14:42
Poison, so it might have been one of those.
14:44
That was when music was still good.
14:46
You know, well, I mean, music is music and it comes and goes, but
14:51
the formulaic stuff, you know, it's like now we have AI music,
14:55
which is I'm kind of on the fence about because sometimes I
14:59
get fooled and I'm like, oh, that was good.
15:01
Like, oh, that was AII should hate that.
15:03
I'm not supposed to like that. Music transforms, man.
15:07
I mean, and, and there's always a counter movement in music.
15:11
So we had. You know we had.
15:12
Disco and disco the the music industry love disco because it
15:16
was, you know, bells and claps, you know, you could programme
15:19
it. We had drum machines and all
15:21
that stuff was starting to come in and what came out of that was
15:24
punk rock. You know, that was the obvious,
15:27
you know, the obvious counter move and you and that was like
15:31
distortion and and loud and it was and and people are fickle,
15:36
you know. So that just that just moved
15:38
everything. And then after that we kind of
15:41
got into big rock ballads and then from that we got more into
15:45
hair bands and that of that came hip hop, you know, so and then
15:48
grunge. So it moves all over the place
15:51
all the time. Grunge was basically only two
15:53
bands of Nirvana and Nirvana Pearl Jam.
15:59
Yeah, Pearl Jam. Yeah, exactly.
16:01
Yeah, But still, it it was a vibe, you know, it was a it was
16:05
a moment. And that's funny.
16:09
It really was only two bands was and I'm like, you can.
16:12
Name. Another one, but it didn't last
16:15
that long either, so. No going back to MTV.
16:22
I decided I want to see if I can catch you out.
16:24
Oh boy. Do you know what the very first
16:29
video ever on MTV was? Of course, Buggles video killed
16:34
the radio star. Ah, you know, of course.
16:36
OK, now of course. What about MTV?
16:38
Europe. Oh, MTV Europe.
16:41
Was it the final countdown by the band Europe?
16:44
No, no, just missing. I have no.
16:46
Idea. That's a good guess, but no,
16:48
it's not. Bad.
16:48
Yeah, yeah. What was it?
16:50
So the dire straits money for nothing.
16:55
Oh, OK. Well, Seminole, of course.
16:56
Yeah, the money for now, thinking your chicks for free,
16:59
play your guitar on your MTV. Yeah, that makes sense.
17:02
That makes sense. They did that.
17:04
You know, I think it's the second verse of that song that's
17:06
now censored on on Apple Music and that little, that little
17:10
faggot. Is a millionaire.
17:11
Yeah. Oh boy, how words hurt so much,
17:15
don't they? But I mean, if you if you watch
17:19
that video, that animation, I guess it was pivotal at the
17:22
time, but it's pretty terrible now.
17:24
Yeah, I actually got an email from one of the people who
17:28
worked on that video and it it was at the time they were, they
17:31
were rigging up some incredible stuff just to make that happen.
17:34
But I saw all these, all these technological innovations when I
17:40
first started our video to even before MTV, I started television
17:43
in Europe and our, our videotape was this wide and it was reel to
17:48
reel. You'd have to, you know, put it
17:50
on to, I've always been on the technical side too.
17:52
You'd have to kick the machine to make sure it got into sync.
17:56
And, and so the video mixers, they were all analogue video
17:59
mixers. And the big, the big thing that
18:03
came in around 80, I want to say 848585 was Quantel, QUANTEL.
18:11
And that was a digital effect. And so once everybody had that,
18:15
everyone had like these starbursts happening, all these
18:17
transitions that were, it was mind blowing.
18:20
Oh man, look at what we can do. So if you just look at, I mean,
18:26
to me, I'm 61 years old, it is amazing that we can video, we
18:31
can FaceTime with each other. I mean, what we're doing right
18:34
now, we could only dream of that happening when the Internet
18:37
first started and we were all kind of all in on it.
18:40
And, you know, the first web browsers came out.
18:43
This has gone so fast. And the fact that we can now do
18:46
a full on video production with relatively inexpensive tools,
18:51
it's just crazy. You know what?
18:53
What? What will we see next?
18:58
You you mentioned the video effects.
19:00
I was thinking now to that the Jackson 5, can you feel it?
19:05
I think that was even earlier than it.
19:07
That was analogue, that was feedback, camera feedbacks.
19:11
And it was like kind of like that, that wave echo effect.
19:15
Oh yeah, I would say there. Was a couple of videos.
19:20
Do you remember Godly and cream? Remember them?
19:24
The cry video. So what's this?
19:27
I don't remember the video. Well, we had morphing
19:30
technology. All of a sudden we had morphing
19:32
and Michael Jackson used it in black or white, and that was
19:36
kind of a step forward. Yeah, with the hair.
19:38
With the hair changing the. Face is changing.
19:41
So that was there were very early digital effects.
19:43
Was called morphing, and of course.
19:46
Everybody would today. Oh yeah.
19:48
Oh, I mean today with AI, I mean, it's great.
19:50
You may have 8 fingers, but it's pretty good.
19:52
No, no, no. What what I'm saying is that
19:54
video, it's still pretty good if you watch it still.
19:57
Good. Oh, it's still good.
19:58
Yeah. But even if you go back and look
20:00
at Cry from Godly and Cream, they did that analogue.
20:03
So they they went from face to face just by selecting the right
20:07
people and and having them in the right position.
20:10
And it's really beautiful. All analogue, no digital effects
20:14
involved. It's just fantastic.
20:16
But I'm disappointed now with the answer about music because I
20:19
think that a lot of sort of post 2000 music really went downhill.
20:23
But I think everybody says that as they get older.
20:27
I think you're right. I mean, I really, after I left
20:31
MTVI and I was also doing a lot of Top 40 radio.
20:34
I, I completely left. I was listening to classical
20:39
music. I got into country music for a
20:42
while, which I was really kind of digging and, and lately I've
20:48
kind of, you know, I got saved three years ago and I've really
20:51
gotten into contemporary Christian music, which is, is
20:55
kind of more like country rock these days.
20:59
And there's still some actual musicianship going on or even
21:03
even now we're seeing things change.
21:05
You know, I hear AI everywhere and also just live music.
21:10
I I still love going to a concert, even though everyone's
21:14
using, you know, multi tracks these days, like I I can hear
21:18
another guitar that I don't see on stage.
21:20
But still live music is just nothing beats it, you know, just
21:24
with an audience and and a band or a performer, the sound stack.
21:29
I mean that's just that. You can't beat that.
21:31
I don't care what's happening to commercial or recorded music.
21:35
Someone just singing in a bar, singing in the airport, you
21:38
know, I love of that. When South Africa exited
21:43
apartheid, which was so 994 for those who don't know, going to.
21:47
Play Sun City. Wasn't that, wasn't that the
21:50
song? Yeah, I.
21:52
Remember there were there were a lot of a lot of bands that that
21:54
would that boycotted that whole event.
21:57
And that's that's fine that but post 94, the very first
22:02
international act that I saw live was Lenny Kravitz.
22:06
And it was pretty it was pretty amazing because that I mean,
22:09
he's actually a very good musician.
22:11
A. Great performer, too.
22:13
He does. He puts on a great show.
22:15
Very, very, very good show. Yeah, awesome.
22:20
But now I was going to ask you now about going back to the MTV
22:24
stuff, because I would not watch MTV now.
22:28
I think the last that I actually enjoyed MTV was in the the era
22:32
of Jackass. And then after that, it just
22:33
kind of went downhill. Well, MTV had to make some
22:38
decisions and and by the way, whenever I see somebody, you
22:41
know, I have MTV now 35 years ago for me and someone will
22:45
figure out who I am. And, you know, they can have a
22:47
suit and tie on their CEO. And all of a sudden, like, wait,
22:51
man, you did headbangers ball. And then the jacket goes off,
22:54
the shirt opens, Metallica T-shirt underneath.
22:57
You know, this happens all the IT was more of a a moment in
23:00
time that that we share collectively amongst a certain
23:03
age group. And what MTV did is, you know,
23:06
they bought up as many music video channels as they could,
23:10
that Black Entertainment television, of course VH1 was
23:12
theirs and country music television all became part of
23:17
Viacom and it was commoditized and the Internet was coming.
23:21
And so they knew that music videos wouldn't be special
23:24
somewhere where you go to listen to it.
23:26
And so they diversified. And that was really a ratings
23:29
issue once they realised that The Real World and Remote
23:32
Control and Jackass and now of course you know, Pregnant and
23:39
16, whatever it is, that was always going to get more ratings
23:42
than the music video. So they made a good business
23:45
decision what kind of killed the whole concept.
23:48
And they literally just turned off all, they had like 8
23:51
different streams running which were on TV stations everywhere
23:54
and on satellite with the classic MTV, you know, the MTV
23:59
rock, MTV hip hop. They turned it all off for one
24:02
reason. No one was watching it.
24:06
But for me, I mean, the voice of a generation was still the late
24:09
90s, early 2000s. What?
24:11
What decade? What decade stands out for you?
24:20
Well, I kind of came in the middle between the 80s and the
24:23
90s, so I would say for me it was more the 80s.
24:26
So I really started my career in 81 in Europe and finished around
24:34
93 in the US. And that that was also the
24:39
decade of the big mobile phone, you know, the one looked like
24:44
Avhs cassette. It was.
24:46
It was the era, the early computers, the Tandy colour
24:49
computer, all this. Stuff CD.
24:52
CDs. Oh my God, I remember playing
24:55
the first CD on the Dutch national broadcaster.
24:59
It was Dire Straits because, you know, it was all Phillips.
25:02
So Phillips owned the CD technology and they were on
25:05
Phonogram Records, which was owned by Phillips at the time.
25:08
And I remember. And so we had, you know, this is
25:10
like big government transmitters throughout the whole country.
25:13
And we're kind of like these these bandits who were there.
25:16
We're going to play this on our show.
25:18
We had a Friday night show and we put the the CD and, and it
25:21
had so much dynamics that the actual transmitter shut down.
25:25
They couldn't handle the dynamics that were coming
25:28
through the line. It was amazing.
25:30
It's like, wow, can you blend? You know, the CD players were
25:33
this big. You know, huge, huge monsters of
25:36
machines. Yeah, and then of course,
25:39
strangely enough, Napster came along.
25:42
We all like went like, well MP3 yeah, sounds like crap, but at
25:47
least I can get the songs. And we have degraded our
25:50
experience to an incredible degree with.
25:54
You know, with literally MP3 songs, I mean, yeah, there's
25:57
some higher quality ones, but in general, even the stuff you get
26:00
off of Apple and and Spotify, it's it's not as good as quality
26:05
as CD was or probably could ever be unless you make these huge
26:09
file sizes. We've we've really accepted a
26:13
lot of degradation in the quality of what we're listening
26:16
to. Well, I've got a vinyl play here
26:19
with loads of records and I enjoy.
26:22
That will still sound good. What's your amp?
26:24
What do you have running as an amp?
26:26
Oh, no, no, no. I've got a I've got a Mickey
26:28
Mouse set up. No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:31
But, but, but I still play vinyls, But I I actually, I need
26:34
to upgrade. Yeah, it's a little.
26:38
It's a little better. If you run it to an old school
26:40
amp for sure. But there is that scratchiness
26:43
that's still pretty fantastic. Oh yeah.
26:46
Oh yeah. I, I still have one set of
26:49
vinyls that I carry around. That's all my Prince records.
26:52
I have every, every Prince album on vinyl.
26:56
And I've I've just wherever I've moved, I've taken those with me.
27:00
Prince is one of those musicians for me who was ahead of his
27:03
time. Well, he set the tone in many
27:10
ways. He.
27:14
Because he was virtuoso in playing every single instrument
27:17
and had his own studio and eventually, you know.
27:22
For, gosh, there must have been a good eight years where he
27:25
didn't even record anything because he had the dispute with
27:27
Warner Brothers, he says. I'm not going to be a slave.
27:30
And we had slave on his on the side of his face and, and during
27:35
that time, he just, he, he just did so much, created so much,
27:39
such an incredible body of work. I think they'll still, if they,
27:42
if they want to, they could release a Prince album every
27:45
single year. So he was just, he was just a
27:47
gift from from heaven, man, that guy, he, he had something very
27:51
special. But John Lydon was a decade
27:55
ahead of him in terms of going against the the labels.
27:59
Who did he go? He had issues with EMI.
28:01
Think it was. I think so, yeah.
28:05
Well, he was definitely a definitely a counterculture guy.
28:10
Came out of a counterculture nest, that's for sure.
28:13
He's still going strong today. Oh yeah.
28:17
Although he switches back and forth on his positions
28:21
politically, I've noticed. But I mean, come on.
28:24
When? When some of that stuff came out
28:27
with the pistols, man, that's what I'm saying.
28:31
He's been all over, he's been all over the place.
28:34
But we, we have, we have to appreciate and and cherish the
28:39
people like him. For well, for sure.
28:42
I mean, I think Public Image Limited was incredible.
28:47
And even the pack, even the packaging.
28:49
The packaging. Did you get the the metal case?
28:52
The pill? Oh man, that was so beautiful.
28:55
I lost that one, of course, years ago, 2 divorces ago.
28:58
I don't know where it went, but I had all of that promotional
29:01
stuff. The pill, the pill box was
29:04
great. You said earlier you became a
29:08
Christian. What is it three years ago?
29:10
More or less, yes. So that's so.
29:12
That's during the COVID. Era little later, little later
29:15
than COVID. Knowing what you know now,
29:20
what's where are we, 2025? Would you go back to 2019?
29:25
OK. I think look, everything happens
29:29
for a reason and and everything that is is you think is new has
29:34
already come before the world has gone through these types of
29:37
events. In general, I think everybody
29:41
has some form of trauma right now, COVID trauma, whether it's
29:45
in your family, whether it's with your work, with your your
29:49
friends. I would say that.
29:53
What it resulted in generally is a dis a distrust of government.
29:59
A lot of people went, wow, wait a minute, I can't trust my
30:01
government. That's.
30:03
Shocking. And, and the media, which is
30:06
good because, you know, I've been doing the no agenda show
30:09
for over 18 years. I've been saying this like you,
30:12
I come from there. You can't trust that it's
30:14
dishonest. And here's why.
30:16
And it's not, it's not necessarily, you know, an evil
30:18
guy behind the curtain. It's, it's Emilio, it's, it's,
30:22
it's just how things work in, in, in organisations.
30:27
But I think it is also made people search for deeper
30:31
meaning. And now that you pose it that
30:34
way, I was, I think God had a plan for me.
30:38
I would say it certainly helped me move on the path that I was,
30:49
that I was that was already laid out before me.
30:52
And I, and I can see now with younger people who really, we
30:55
had Vietnam and then we had 911 and we had the Iraq war and
31:00
Afghanistan. And a lot of young people today
31:04
in their early 20s, they had COVID.
31:06
That was their Vietnam or that was their 911.
31:09
And, and because of it, they're searching for deeper meaning.
31:12
And a lot of them are picking up the Bible and saying, OK, let me
31:16
try this book. Let me see how this works out
31:18
for me. So I think that in general has
31:20
been good. And, you know, I, I think that
31:29
it's. Good.
31:29
It's good that. We went through that and it's,
31:31
it's good that we're all questioning.
31:34
It's good that it's, it's, it's really turning a lot of corners
31:39
on a lot of things. And I, I, I believe that's a
31:41
healthy thing. There's a lot of people who
31:44
approach it with an unhealthy attitude, but in general, I
31:48
think it's good that we question government, question messaging,
31:51
question media, question each other, question motives.
31:55
I don't think that's a bad thing.
31:56
Is it? Is it fun?
31:58
Is it more painful? Well, it's definitely more
32:01
painful for certainly for a lot of people, but hard times makes
32:08
hard men and we had a lot of easy times and it made quote.
32:12
It's, you know, it's the saying make weak men and everybody got
32:15
weak and kind of passive. And now we went through
32:18
something hard and that'll change us.
32:20
That'll create, I believe, a new generation of of people who want
32:24
to build things, create things, create new communities or
32:27
strengthen old ones like our own country, like the United States.
32:30
I have a feeling that we can actually come come out of this
32:33
stronger are. You implying that the.
32:36
US is in a weak position. Oh, I think we got very weak.
32:40
Absolutely. And and just look at what
32:43
happened with with President Trump.
32:46
I mean, for, to look at that path of 2015 and you know,
32:51
starting in 2016, then four years in between and then coming
32:55
back and getting elected again, man, that's some, there's
32:58
something going on with that. That's not just something to
33:01
scoff at. And I tell everybody, whatever
33:04
you think of Trump, pay attention.
33:06
You will never see another president like this in your
33:09
lifetime. You will never see anyone who
33:11
does the things that he's doing and does it with a very classic
33:16
boomer American attitude, which is also filled with humour.
33:20
You've got, if you don't allow the humour to to touch you, I
33:24
think you're really missing a big part of the experience.
33:27
And this is something we'll be telling our grandkids about.
33:31
I remember we had this President Trump, you have no idea this guy
33:34
was hilarious or he was, you know, bold or he was, you know,
33:38
sometimes very mean or, you know, all these things.
33:41
You're never going to see a president like that, well, as
33:45
somebody. Who's in a country that
33:47
sometimes on the wrong end of of Trump's?
33:49
Donald Trump, Yeah. But I will.
33:52
Say. That I particularly enjoy the
33:54
way he derails the media. That has always been for me, one
33:58
of his best points. I remember I back, I think it
34:01
was in 2016, no, 2019 I think it was.
34:04
I interviewed Victor Davis Hanson.
34:08
He had just he had just published a book, I think it was
34:11
called The Case for Trump. And he made the he made the
34:15
point that in that first election, he everybody thought
34:21
that he was a joke. And I remember, I think it was
34:25
was ACNN that said that Clinton would win by something like 98
34:29
or 99% landslide. Yeah, the evening of the.
34:32
Election they were saying that yeah, absolutely, yeah and and.
34:36
And he had defeated every nomination within his own party
34:40
also. And he used no funding of, of of
34:44
the party used his own funding, his own money, Yeah.
34:48
Yeah, I mean it. Was quite.
34:49
Quite the but that's also, I mean, people have been telling
34:53
Donald Trump to run for president for 40 years.
34:57
And it's not just people on the street.
34:59
It was Oprah and Barbara Walters and David Letterman and all the
35:03
people who now hate Trump, all the anti Trumpers.
35:07
They were always telling you'd be greatest president.
35:10
But I think in general, so, you know, media and politics and
35:16
Hollywood politics is basically Hollywood for ugly people that
35:20
got so intertwined and particularly with big globalist
35:25
organisations like the United Nations and NATO and World
35:29
Health Organisation, you name it, you know, the the billing,
35:33
Melinda Gates Foundation, the overreach of even Murdoch, you
35:38
know, Murdoch, everybody has political agendas that is mixed
35:41
up with entertainment, is mixed up with the movie industry, is
35:45
mixed up with advertising. It just got so convoluted.
35:49
And when he came in, he's like, I have no other agenda than to
35:52
make America great again. And here's what I think that
35:54
means. And so right now, you know, if
35:57
you believe the, the, the podcast wars, which is just,
36:02
it's like this is crazy. It's like CB radio, the old
36:05
days, people are just yelling at each other and, you know,
36:08
clashing over each other's signal and going on each other's
36:11
podcasts and talking about that guy and that guy talks about him
36:15
and her and all this stuff. You get the idea that the whole
36:18
country is falling apart, but 90% of the country just gets up
36:24
in the morning, wants to go to work, you know, play.
36:27
It's like like the guys from the Dire Straits song, You know, I'm
36:31
just moving my refrigerators and these colour TV's and I just
36:34
want to get home. And I just want to have a good
36:36
life for my family and for my kids.
36:38
And I believe he's actually working on a lot of that and and
36:43
changing that and bringing production back to America
36:46
because that's where we were weak.
36:48
We were we become, you know, a service country.
36:51
Like I'm washing your car, you're cooking for her.
36:53
You know, we're all we're all doing some cut, performing some
36:56
kind of service, but weren't really producing anything.
36:58
And as he said recently in the strategic defence document, he
37:04
says the makers have the future. And yeah, we've got to get back
37:07
to making stuff, though he's making it possible.
37:10
Only the American people can do it.
37:12
No one. You can lead the horse to water.
37:14
So I think he's doing that and hopefully we'll see some
37:17
innovation, ingenuity and good output with regards.
37:22
To your comment now. About the perception of America
37:25
falling apart if you follow the podcast Wars.
37:28
Similarly, South Africa is also not a war zone.
37:32
You know, you would think that is just Oh no, of course of.
37:34
Course. Well, my neighbour here is.
37:39
My neighbour here is Laura Logan.
37:41
You know Laura Logan who did? Right, so she.
37:46
Literally lives 200 yards down the road.
37:49
And so I'm always throwing my Dutch at her and she's
37:51
pretending like she understands me and speaks back in South
37:54
Africans and I pretend I understand her and people around
37:56
us go wow. And we're like, we had no idea
37:59
what we're saying. But I mean, obviously, but
38:03
that's the same everywhere. It's that's why I take it with a
38:06
grain of salt. Like everyone's getting arrested
38:08
in the UK. Well, it's not quite it's bad,
38:11
but it's not quite as bad as it seems.
38:14
Exactly. But even the podcast wars, no
38:17
one's really listening to every single podcast.
38:20
You're seeing a clip here, a clip there.
38:22
Oh, I can't believe he said that.
38:23
It's the context may not be there.
38:25
So I, I know this because I come from this world and I understand
38:30
how it works. And the algorithms have gotten
38:31
very, very good, particularly American social media algorithms
38:37
where our culture is, is the opposite of China.
38:42
So if you are on TikTok and you like Trump, you're going to get
38:45
a whole bunch of Trump videos. If you like Kamala Harris or you
38:48
like, you know, whatever it is, you're going to get all of that
38:52
everywhere else you get, especially in the comment feeds,
38:56
that's where the algorithms are really important.
38:59
I hate him. I love him.
39:00
I hate him. I love him, I hate him, I love
39:01
him. That's intentional.
39:03
That is to keep you engaged. Like, well, I can't believe that
39:06
guy said that. Oh, and back and forth and back
39:08
and forth. That is all brain programming.
39:11
And, you know, the sooner people wake up and realise that you're
39:14
really being played and it's just our politicians do the same
39:18
thing, blue bad, red bad, you know, right, left, all the it's
39:22
the same thing. The Democrats, the Republicans,
39:27
it's a. It's a game.
39:28
It's a. Game we play and it's it's
39:31
getting pretty old, but it is. That's what makes it look like
39:36
everything. The whole world is on fire.
39:38
And it's really not. It's Candace Owens with her
39:41
little show and Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson and Tim Poole and
39:48
now Pierce Morgan steps in and then Megyn Kelly will say
39:52
something. Ben Shapiro.
39:54
So everyone and, and ultimately it's it's all egotistical.
39:58
Everybody wants to have their say.
40:02
And and of course, with that comes a huge degree of what I
40:06
call audience capture, where if you don't say, if you're not
40:10
saying this about this situation or, or this person or that
40:14
country or this policy, then people's well, I'm going to.
40:19
Not watch you. You suck, you're no good.
40:21
I'm unsubscribing. And you got to have a tough
40:25
stomach to say no. Here's what I believe in.
40:27
And I don't think any of those people really have that kind of
40:29
stomach. They're just doing, you know,
40:31
just going with the flow. They're actually more afraid of
40:34
their audience than anything else.
40:36
But I think. It's also because.
40:38
A lot of people are scared of being cancelled.
40:42
Well, does that even happen anymore?
40:44
I mean, so you know, the whole idea of being cancelled again, I
40:48
come back to podcasting. You can't cancel a podcast.
40:51
You can't cancel me from publishing my podcast because I
40:55
don't rely on any of the big platforms.
40:58
In fact, over five years ago, so during COVID, Apple decided.
41:04
This is just before the first time I went on Rogan, Apple
41:08
decided we're going to take Alex Jones and a couple of the
41:13
podcasts out of Apple Podcasts. And because, yeah.
41:18
And because it was Neil, it was because of Neil Young, wasn't
41:21
it? I don't even know what it was.
41:24
The point is, it didn't make any sense all of a sudden.
41:27
Apple's the boss of podcasting no so because all the
41:31
independent apps were all using their database, my friend Dave
41:35
Jones and I, we set up podcastindex.org, which we run
41:39
purely on donations. We don't make any money off of
41:41
it. And now over 70 apps and
41:44
services are using that to get all their podcast information
41:48
because we could no longer count on Apple.
41:50
So now we're this and we also published the database and
41:53
there's 1000 copies of it everywhere.
41:55
So no one can de platform you off of podcasting.
41:59
But if you if you see, oh, I'm getting traction on YouTube and
42:04
boy, look at how popular I am. Be careful because now you're in
42:08
the algo hamster wheel. And if you don't keep feeding
42:11
the machine, if you don't keep posting content, if you don't
42:14
keep the comments going, then you get down ranked.
42:17
You're not showing up anymore. With podcasting is like people
42:20
follow you and they subscribe to your podcast and that's it.
42:23
And, and you're not even really going to be discovered unless
42:26
someone else says, Hey, listen to that podcast.
42:30
So cancelling is like, well, if you rely on someone else's car,
42:36
if their car decides they don't want you to drive along with
42:38
them, then, you know, tough, tough luck.
42:40
Build your own car. So that's what podcasting was
42:43
always intended to be. I added my podcast to two. .0
42:48
some time ago, just for safety, Yeah, of course.
42:52
The safety and yeah, safety, but it'll, it'll be somewhere in the
42:57
future. We'll all be happy that that's
42:59
there because I mean. You're right.
43:03
Apple could. Could take down any podcast at
43:06
any time. Spotify has taken mine down
43:09
three times. Oh, I can't even.
43:11
Get our podcast on it. They won't.
43:17
They won't accept it and. It's just like, OK, whatever,
43:20
that's fine. The podcast apps.com Here's 20
43:24
apps that do that do have it and probably have more features and
43:27
work better. But at what stage did?
43:31
Ideology take control of these companies.
43:34
I mean, this is not a business move, this is an ideological
43:37
move. I think once.
43:46
In the United States, it was a. Multi pronged, but it really
43:49
comes down to Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act
43:56
and that was put in place during the Clinton administration to
43:59
allow services on the Internet to grow.
44:03
And in short, what Section 230 does is it says if you're
44:06
hosting A blog, a podcast or comments or posts from
44:12
individuals, you as a platform are not liable.
44:17
If someone says something liable, somebody lies,
44:21
threatens, whatever it is, you are not liable as a platform.
44:26
So whatever you say on Facebook, on Instagram, on X, even what
44:31
Google index is, they're not responsible.
44:33
From a legal perspective, this has been a very powerful tool,
44:37
especially during Kovid. And so there's ample evidence
44:41
that the even parts of the Trump administration, the so called
44:46
deep state, but certainly during the Biden administration, they
44:49
were telling companies like, hey, if you let these anti
44:55
vaxxers post this, we are going to reconsider section 2:30.
45:00
So that's really where the ideology, there's only one
45:03
ideology, bottom line in America.
45:05
And that ideology is green dollars.
45:09
It's money. The business of America is
45:12
business. That's what it's always been.
45:14
And so you'll see Silicon Valley people who were vehemently Obama
45:22
love him. He's the guy, we love him.
45:25
Flip to Trump within three months.
45:27
And they flipped again when it was whoever's in charge, as long
45:32
as we can get favourable tax status.
45:36
You know, there's certain types of amortisation, depreciation,
45:40
local tax benefits, then they're going to they're, they have no,
45:45
there's no ideology. There's really no political
45:48
ideology in that regard when it comes to technology companies.
45:53
I remember that whole. Thing with Zuck.
45:54
And how you switched and now Facebook has opened up
45:57
overnight. Overnight.
45:59
It's. Amazing, I mean.
46:01
We literally had, as a social network, deplatform the
46:07
president of the United States. I mean because they knew what
46:11
was coming. They knew.
46:12
What was coming next? And they want Curry favour.
46:16
Yeah. But Facebook also deplatformed
46:20
Trump and they they made their political choices based upon it
46:26
was business decisions that this would Now underneath that, of
46:30
course, you get a whole just like in the US government, you
46:33
get a whole infrastructure of people who are like Trump is
46:37
Hitler, Trump is Hitler. And you know, they just that
46:40
just feeds on itself. That's the same thing when
46:45
Charlie Kirk was murdered. I truly believe that people.
46:50
What are you laughing about? I just thought of something.
46:55
OK, so when Charlie Kirk. Got.
46:57
Murdered, you could say in a minute.
47:00
What? I truly believe that.
47:03
People were happy. That that happened because they
47:07
had been told inside their social groups, whether it work,
47:11
family, school, whatever, that he was a hateful, racist person
47:17
without having ever seen anything he really stood for.
47:22
Now, what were you laughing about?
47:23
I really want to know what you were thinking about.
47:25
Well, you, you said when? He was murdered and then there
47:27
were some very ominous winks. Who knows what really happened
47:35
there. Look, I was I was in China.
47:38
When that whole thing happened and and I I just thought, Nah,
47:42
this whole thing is weird. That doesn't make sense.
47:44
I've not commented on it at all, you know.
47:47
We won't know. Until pretrial and trial, you
47:51
know that we have a process in America and there's gag orders
47:55
and you can't contaminate the the witness pool, the jury pool.
47:59
So everyone's kind of coasting on very, very little information
48:04
and a lot of video. Look, Adam.
48:07
I don't know about you but I go hunting and I I own a three O 8.
48:13
I can tell you right now. There's always an exit wound.
48:18
I mean, obviously I. This is only the the preliminary
48:24
report if it was a 30 odd 6 and it was full charge because you
48:27
do have different types of charges.
48:30
You know well I mean the thirty O 6 and the.
48:32
Three O. 8 are the same thing. Effectively, these are.
48:36
These are pretty fast. Calibres I I'm in agreement with
48:40
you. But I, I will wait.
48:43
I mean, I waited with 911 until I got information from pilots
48:49
for 911 truth.com. I'm a pilot, helicopter and
48:52
fixed wing. And then I really had some
48:56
information I could work. I said whatever happened, these
49:00
planes did not fly like that. So, you know, there's a lot of
49:03
different things. And you know, and I know that
49:05
Building 7 didn't fall down out of sympathy for buildings one
49:09
and two. You know that that's just not
49:11
how it works. It was an office fire these.
49:13
Things happen all the time, Adam.
49:14
All the time. So.
49:18
And and. But that but so that is
49:20
literally part of the problem is that governments have lied to us
49:26
for so long and the media has been so incredibly complicit
49:30
that what is happening now is, is healthy.
49:32
It's healthy for us to be running around and and yapping
49:35
and giving our opinions. I don't think it's a bad thing
49:38
at all. Does it get us to the absolute
49:41
truth? Probably not, but at least we're
49:44
more aware and not so gullible. I look, I agree with you.
49:50
You're preaching to the converted.
49:52
I'm a big fan of, of, you know, not believing the government.
49:56
I think it's Curtis Joven who he he created that is it analogy or
50:02
metaphor? Forget now which, which, which
50:05
it is. But he said it's the cathedral,
50:07
which is effectively government plus media, plus academia and
50:12
and they formed the cathedral. And of course, if you go against
50:15
that, you're an apostate and you get kicked out, of course.
50:19
Guilt. Guilty as.
50:20
Charged and you know when president.
50:24
Eisenhower gave his famous goodbye speech and he said, you
50:27
know, beware of the military industrial complex.
50:31
That actually the the original text of his speech was beware of
50:35
the military industrial academic complex.
50:39
He put academia in there as well.
50:42
Yeah, not a lot of people know that.
50:44
And, and when I look at COVID and particularly the the mRNA
50:53
gene therapy stuff that came out of this, this was all academia,
50:58
academia seeing enchant. I still don't you can't convince
51:01
me that this was some grand plan by some group scheming behind
51:07
the curtain. It was the perfect confluence of
51:11
of evil, of evil overtaking people, but not all in one go
51:15
individually, they all had their own little agendas and it just
51:18
brought it all together and culminated in this in this just
51:22
crazy time. I mean I.
51:25
Asked you at the beginning. Of the conversation, if you'd go
51:27
back to to 2019 and I I wouldn't because my son was born now like
51:35
last year and and he's not vaccinated.
51:38
And that and I'm very thankful for the COVID era because it
51:42
made me re re question what I thought I knew about vaccines,
51:46
childhood vaccines. And so and so yeah.
51:50
So I mean, this has not changed the entire future of my child.
51:57
Absolutely and. What's interesting is that in
52:00
2012 there was A, and we covered this on the No agenda show in
52:05
2012. There was a big, I think it was
52:07
like Goldman Sachs or one of these companies, one of these
52:10
banks and they had a, a big conference and was all the
52:15
vaccine manufacturers. And because of the Internet, I
52:20
was downloading their PowerPoints and looking at their
52:23
presentations. It was insane.
52:25
It was like, we're going to have vaccines against smoking, We're
52:28
going to have vaccines against cocaine abuse, vaccines for
52:33
gambling. I mean all this like that's not
52:36
exactly. How a vaccine works, You know a.
52:38
Vaccine is you condition the body to a certain a certain
52:44
hostile entity and then when it when it hits you again, then
52:49
you'll be able you'll have immunity against it.
52:52
All of that, that they were already all jacked about that
52:56
stuff. You know, a good what is it
53:00
151516 years before COVID? They were so they were already
53:06
thinking about this stuff. The travesty mainly coming from
53:11
the United States is in 1986 and you know, they, they basically
53:19
said vaccines are so important. They are same thing with social
53:23
media companies. They are immune from liability.
53:27
Well, so now we have Bobby Kennedy Junior coming in and
53:31
saying, hey, man, if they're all so safe and effective, then why
53:34
wouldn't you just allow people to sue you if your, if your
53:38
product is no good? Well, obviously then they don't
53:41
want that. And so every, every hit to the,
53:48
to the vaccine complex in my, in my idea is good because it just,
53:54
it just doesn't make sense to have 72 childhood vaccines on
53:59
the schedule. I mean, it's obvious, but you
54:02
know, it's all about information and you know, it's still being
54:05
played. The, the, you know, look who who
54:07
funds our media here. It's drug companies.
54:09
That's another thing. I don't know you, you probably
54:12
don't have drug advertising on television in South Africa.
54:16
Do you really know? No, no, not.
54:17
Really. I don't know.
54:18
I don't. I don't really watch TV, Right.
54:21
Well, I think it's only. New Zealand and America that
54:24
that allow that they should stop that that should just not be
54:27
allowed. You know, and you know, you
54:29
still should talk to your doctor or whatever you want to do.
54:31
It's, it's just so, I mean, we have some of the best doctors
54:36
and healthcare systems in America, but the insurance
54:40
companies have ruined the whole thing.
54:43
They've ruined it so no one kind of they say we can't afford
54:46
healthcare. No one can actually can't afford
54:47
the insurance. That's the problem.
54:50
You can go directly to a doctor and say, hey, whatever you're
54:53
going to charge the insurance, I'll give you $0.20 on the
54:56
dollar and they'll say yes, please.
54:58
Because they don't want to deal with the hassle anyway, you
55:00
know, with all, all the paperwork and all that.
55:02
And they have to go fight the, the insurance company, the
55:05
insurance company, just another word for bank.
55:08
So we have a lot of systems that need to be unwound and some of
55:13
it's happening. It's happening right before our
55:15
very eyes. It's really beautiful to watch.
55:17
But Adam, you know. For thousands of years, no kids
55:21
made it past age 4. This is why vaccines are so
55:24
important. Stop with this anti vax.
55:30
Talk, man. What are you?
55:31
What's wrong with you? Science is in science, brother.
55:34
Like global warming. I'm sorry, climate change.
55:37
It's science. Global.
55:38
Global. Global.
55:39
Global. Global Boiling.
55:40
Global Boiling. That's one.
55:43
Now global heat. Global heating.
55:45
I've heard that global. Boiling.
55:47
Yeah. That's Guterres, the secretary
55:49
general of the United Nations. He's like the earth is boiling.
55:53
All right, OK All right, brother.
55:55
I'm shivering in Texas. I don't know what's happening.
55:57
What's happening in your part of the world, you know, And that's
56:01
another, that's another academic complex, you know, that's it's
56:05
huge. It's huge business.
56:08
Well, that's mostly based. On modelling anyway, I mean.
56:11
So it's all modelling? Yeah, I.
56:14
Don't know if you've heard this. One but the The difference
56:17
between a Jarvis witness and a climate scientist is that one of
56:23
them has had every single doomsday prediction wrong, and
56:26
the other's a Jarvis witness. This is a good joke I need.
56:33
To use that in church I. Mean.
56:41
Have you seen this? I used to love the Jehovah's
56:43
Witnesses. They would come to the house in
56:45
Austin and they'd knock on the door and say, hey, come on in,
56:48
man. Let me show you some of my 911
56:50
stuff they would be like. This guy's nuts.
56:53
I gotta get. Out of here I dated a Joe's
56:56
witness. Many years ago for a couple of
56:59
years and I went along to all the meetings and and all that it
57:01
was it was actually very interesting.
57:04
I bet it was I. Bet it was.
57:06
Yeah. I mean, they were very good.
57:08
People regardless of what, but but very boring people.
57:13
Yes, they celebrated nothing. Nothing to be happy about,
57:18
everybody, no. No.
57:20
That's funny, Adam, we, we are coming in for a landing and I've
57:24
thoroughly enjoyed chatting to you.
57:27
Just very quickly what's in your playlist when you're driving in
57:31
your car? Well.
57:35
I actually run a hyperlocal radio station here in
57:40
Fredericksburg, TX. We have about 12,000 people that
57:43
live here. Over 10% of them go to our
57:47
church and on the weekend, you know we get a hundreds of
57:52
thousands of people because we have all these wineries here.
57:55
So on my playlist, I don't really have a playlist because
57:58
I've always listened to the radio station that I'm on.
58:01
So it's called Hello Fred for Fredericksburg.
58:04
And we've got Jelly Roll and Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham
58:10
and Crowder and Striper, You know, a lot of kind of
58:14
contemporary Christian rock songs.
58:18
Oh yeah. Striper.
58:19
Oh, they're Christian. Band and they're just not a
58:20
Christmas song. I.
58:22
Haven't heard of that name. Since like 1989, I know they're
58:26
back and they're actually. They're coming.
58:28
They're doing a a big reunion tour.
58:30
There's still video of me interviewing Striper on the
58:33
Headbangers Ball. No, you got to send me that
58:36
link. Yes, it's on YouTube.
58:39
I'll find it. Yeah, definitely.
58:41
And, you know, and, and at the time I remember because of
58:44
course I wasn't a Christian then I remember my producer saying,
58:48
well, you know, they they've got a hit song, but you know,
58:51
they're a Christian band. I'm like, OK, whatever.
58:54
But they throw Bibles into the audience.
58:55
I'm like, that's pretty rad. You know, I really didn't care
58:58
one way or the other. And, and now, you know, they're
59:01
doing a documentary about the history of striper and they just
59:04
put out this really, I think it's Silent Night.
59:08
They did a Striper version. It's hardcore.
59:12
It's like, whoa, OK, that's good.
59:15
They're good guys. I like them.
59:17
How old are they? They must be old.
59:18
Now, well, if you consider me to be.
59:21
Old germ. Yeah.
59:22
I'm, you know, 60s. Thanks a lot.
59:26
Burn all right, nice 61 man just.
59:31
Rub it in. Just hang on a SEC.
59:36
Yeah, as. We as we come in.
59:37
For a landing year. Ah, there it is.
59:41
Flaps down, gear down. We're coming in.
59:44
There's the. Mega hat, very nice.
59:46
Very nice, I don't actually this one a mega hat.
59:49
So this one is actually made in the.
59:51
US it's not made in China, just so you know nice.
59:54
It's a good well, that's. A rare one, actually, to have it
59:56
made in the US, not in China also because.
1:00:01
There was a I think Trump said he wasn't going to export the
1:00:03
cap. So I had to have it seemed to me
1:00:06
from. From a friend.
1:00:10
Yeah, through illegal channels, it's.
1:00:12
It's harder to get one of those Made in America caps than drugs.
1:00:15
I got you, Adam. For the very small.
1:00:21
Group of people that don't follow you, how can they follow
1:00:25
you? Sorry for asking.
1:00:27
So it's no, it's OK. The No Agenda podcast and I
1:00:33
guess I don't really post on on X, but at Adam Curry or if you
1:00:39
want to email me adam@curry.com, you know, I got that email
1:00:42
address. I got that web domain a long
1:00:44
time ago so you can always hit me up there if you want to I.
1:00:49
Actually killed my Twitter X account a week ago.
1:00:55
And my Facebook account. I found it just too.
1:00:58
I found it just too toxic. Yeah.
1:01:01
Oh no. I well as I said.
1:01:02
I'm I, I I don't have Facebook. I killed that 88 years ago.
1:01:08
I have an Instagram account only to check on my daughter, see if
1:01:13
she's still alive because she's she's on Instagram And and X is
1:01:17
really just to announce when we release a new show.
1:01:20
That's really it. And people kind of use it as an
1:01:21
inbox. They'll tag me in certain
1:01:23
stories. So I probably have, you know, 20
1:01:26
or 30 things a day. I just look at the notifications
1:01:29
tab. But I I don't have enough time
1:01:32
in my life to to scroll through the infinite scroll and, and see
1:01:36
everything happening unless I'm specifically looking for
1:01:38
something like, OK, what's going on with the podcast wars?
1:01:41
Let me. Yeah, I like staying up to date
1:01:43
with that, but that's just more my job than and, you know, just
1:01:47
scrolling around just quickly. I love the fact that every
1:01:53
thumbnail of your, of your, of the no gender show is different.
1:01:57
It's different. Yeah, so.
1:01:58
You know, so our podcast is we we.
1:02:01
From the very. Beginning, we decided we'd never
1:02:03
have ads because with John C Dvorak and I, we knew that, you
1:02:08
know, whatever we were going to discuss, it wouldn't be
1:02:10
advertising friendly. That's just part of it.
1:02:11
We actually did not want to have any meetings with advertisers.
1:02:14
We had that for most of our professional lives.
1:02:17
Like we're not interested in that.
1:02:19
And as it became more and more work, we said, you know, hey,
1:02:21
you guys got to, you've got to start supporting us.
1:02:25
And we started with the, you know, subscribe for $5 a month
1:02:28
or whatever it was. And with the with the typical
1:02:31
results, it's just, you know, you can't live off $150.00 a
1:02:34
month. And then we said, you know what,
1:02:37
let's do this value for value, whatever value you get out of
1:02:40
our show. Send it to us and put that into.
1:02:42
Numbers and send it back and we got still a lot of people with
1:02:45
$5, quite a few with 50 couple 5 hundreds and 15000 and we never
1:02:51
looked back like OK, turns out I can't determine what value is.
1:02:55
I don't know what someone's pocketbook looks like.
1:02:58
So that's been going well for us for 18 years.
1:03:00
But as a part of that, not everybody can support us
1:03:03
financially. We say support us with time,
1:03:05
talent OR treasure. And one of the things that we
1:03:09
asked early on and someone set up a website,
1:03:11
noagendaartgenerator.com is make art for every single episode
1:03:16
because we want to have different art every single time.
1:03:20
And so now of course with AI slop models, there's at least 50
1:03:25
different things to choose from. But every, every show, right
1:03:28
when we're done, there have been people listening live because
1:03:30
when we record, we also stream it live and they've been
1:03:34
listening and they'll create a piece of art and we choose one.
1:03:37
And it's been just a, a thrill to have all these different
1:03:42
pieces of art. It it's an important part of our
1:03:45
product, I feel. I follow you on Apple.
1:03:49
So just so you know, Apple Podcasts has the no gender show.
1:03:56
Well. People you know it was.
1:03:58
So early on in 2005. I got a call from Steve Jobs
1:04:03
and. And he said, you have time for a
1:04:05
meeting. Yeah, you can still.
1:04:07
You can still see it on. Well, not the meeting, but he
1:04:09
said you have time for a meeting.
1:04:11
I'm like, yeah, I can meet with you, Steve Jobs.
1:04:15
Heck, yeah. And we met privately, spoke for
1:04:19
about an hour. He was really interested in
1:04:21
podcasting, how it all worked. And at the end I was kind of
1:04:24
like, why? Why does he want me here?
1:04:26
He says, is it OK if I put podcasting into iTunes and onto
1:04:30
the iPod officially? I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
1:04:34
And two days later he announced it.
1:04:36
You can it's kind of a funny video.
1:04:38
You can find it on YouTube where he plays a piece of my podcast.
1:04:42
I'm actually ragging on my MacBook.
1:04:44
That's that's a piece of crap. He's he's a show man.
1:04:47
He knew exactly what he was doing.
1:04:49
So, and I still know lots of people at Apple and they're and
1:04:54
they're really nice and they are actually, they have integrated
1:04:57
more of the new features that we've developed in any other big
1:05:01
app. So I have a lot of, a lot of
1:05:03
hope in, in what they're doing. And it's, you know, it's not a,
1:05:07
it's not a real revenue centre for Apple.
1:05:10
So I'm grateful that, you know, they still have a podcast app,
1:05:15
unlike Google or just like gave it up and said, go to YouTube.
1:05:18
You know, they actually had a podcast app and they just shut
1:05:21
it down like so many things with Google.
1:05:24
So I don't expect we'll ever get kicked off of Apple, but if we
1:05:27
do, it's OK. That's I, you know, we still
1:05:30
have the index and it can be found on hundreds of other apps.
1:05:36
Did you coin the? Term podcast.
1:05:40
I did not, no. So Dave Weiner and I worked on
1:05:45
the technology and I started doing a Daily Show called the
1:05:50
Daily Source Code because I needed developers to come in and
1:05:53
start developing applications that could, you know, do this.
1:05:57
They could actually help you subscribe to a podcast and get
1:06:01
them on your on your mobile device.
1:06:03
And although Ben Hammersley takes credit, the way I remember
1:06:07
it is a guy named Danny Gregoire.
1:06:10
He popped into the conversation at one point and said, hey, how
1:06:13
about we call this podcasting? And we were like, yeah, that's
1:06:16
pretty good. Makes sense.
1:06:17
Broadcasting iPod podcasting. So no, we did not come up with
1:06:21
it. And I believe Danny was the one
1:06:24
who who really came up with it. Well.
1:06:27
That's a great way to. End the the conversation.
1:06:30
Adam Curry, thank you for joining me in the trenches.
1:06:34
Now, Jeremy, this was a lot of. Fun and I forget the name of our
1:06:38
no agenda producer who set this up.
1:06:41
I think that's how it came together.
1:06:42
I love that. I love that someone says, hey, I
1:06:44
listen to I listen to this guy's podcast, listen to you.
1:06:47
My dream is if you could have do a podcast together, I'm like,
1:06:50
OK, easy dream. So I'm glad we were able to set
1:06:53
it up.