Randy AKA Lime Bar - Building IndieBeat TV and Making Federated Music - The Lorenzo's Music Podcast (Transcript)

Tom Ray: Hi and welcome to another Lorenzo’s Music Podcast. I’m Tom Ray and this is a podcast where I talk to musicians, people who create things for musicians with a skew on the open source and Creative Commons realm. And today I have a person that’s involved in music, makes music, and does a lot of other things. We’re going to talk about that today. So why don’t you tell the people who you are and what it is you do.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Hi, Tom. my name’s Randy. first of all, I don’t think I introduced myself earlier. my real name is Randy. but, I make music under the name Lime Bar and do other things, with that artist name. and so you’ll find me on Mastodon as Lime Bar at Mastodon social. and so, I’ve, recently been involved with a bunch of other artists on the Fediverse doing some, some cool projects that I think you wanted to talk about today. But, that’s kind of. I’m, ah, I’m from Indianapolis, so I’m actually in Indianapolis right now. Oh. I’m kind of curious. Where, where are you at again? Are you in.

Tom Ray: I’m in Madison, Wisconsin.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Madison, Wisconsin. Okay. I have, I have a sister who lives right, right near the Beloit. yeah. So, so, I’ve been making music for a long time. I took a big hiatus, probably started, kind of in the late 80s, I guess. I was a teenager then, so I’m an oldster. But, I was, I kind of came of age during the 80s, so that’s sort of where my teenage, years were with music. and that was sort of the time frame when MIDI was kind of hitting big and making, okay, it possible for someone like a teenager who I worked at a pizza shop to buy equipment and make music, you know, at home. And so that’s kind of how I got started way back then. But then I went to school, got a job, kind of stopped making music for a couple of decades. and then, during the pandemic, when things were. We were all at home and everybody else was making sourdough bread, I decided to pull all my gear out of the closet and connect it back up and start making music again. So that’s how I kind of got back into it recently. here’s what I love.

Tom Ray: You still had the gear?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay, I sold some of it, but I kept most of it. Yeah, right.

Tom Ray: No, I get It. I get it. I have many instruments that I still have where it’s like, I could have upgraded, but it’s like. No, but that’s the one I used to.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s old, retro now, classic stuff. So it was just. It’s fun to play with. And you know, I found out pretty quickly that that’s, you know, things are quite different. Things are the same, but they’re quite different, these days. So, you know, I think one. One year I got a. Like, around 2019, I got a Christmas bonus and I went out and bought a audio interface because you got to have those nowadays, right. For low latency audio. And started learning how to do everything digitally with, you know, VSTs and all that kind of stuff. very different from, from the 80s, obviously.

Tom Ray: Right.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: But one thing that was the same was, I still. I still, even currently still use Cakewalk.

Tom Ray: Oh, you do? I was just talking with somebody about how Cakewalk is still around the other day.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Oh yeah. I was surprised too. So I think it went away for a while. I was using it back in the 80s when it was a DOS program. so it was all character mode. It was crazy.

Tom Ray: See, I don’t know the origins of it. That’s what I was going to ask you in a second. I was going to be like when you were working with midi, because my only knowledge of MIDI is that it’s something where it programically tells something. These are the notes and then you can just change those notes on playback. And I was like, before that, did it do more? Was MIDI something without a graphical interface?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: M. Yeah. I mean MIDI was just the way to connect all these devices together and get them to talk and, and sync and all that kind of stuff. And And you know, Cakewalk at that time was just a. Was just a sequencer. It wasn’t. You know, the word DAW came later. Right. Digital Audio Workstation, they added. And that’s kind of when they started pricing me out of the game was you know, I couldn’t afford the 500 upgrade at the time, to go with their, I. I think it was Sonar, their DAW version or whatever. So, you know, that coincided with kind of when I stopped making music as well. But fast forward, you know, 20 years or whatever. And I think Band Lab bought them and bought the brand or whatever and brought it back and made it available for free. So about the same time I started looking at this stuff. I’m like, oh, wow, that’s. I already know how to use that. So I went and grabbed it, got the free version and it was full Featured. It was 100% what I remembered. and so, yeah, so that’s kind of how I got back into things. And I think since then I probably would have been better off if I’d have. You know, I’ve been thinking about going with Ubuntu ah, Studio and doing like Reaper or some other, some other you know, Foss Daw or something. But I probably, probably should have done that because I think I’m going to have to do that now anyway because they’re monetizing it as everybody does. So it’s not, it’s not going to be for long. No.

Tom Ray: I remember when if I remember correctly, Ableton Live was free. It might still have a free version, but I know that’s how they enticed a lot of people to use it was. There was a free version of Ableton Live, but to do other stuff, it was upgradable and you know, or it had its limitations. Kind of like God, we’re going to talk about all kinds of old, old daws. Kind of like the way if you remember Sonic Foundry acid, are you familiar with that?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: I remember that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom Ray: That was their Cakewalk, competitor.

Tom Ray: But it was m also for regular audio so you could. It was essentially just for creating loops and yeah, it was, it’s one of those things where like I never really got it. And then later on when I learned more about editing and recording and multi tracking music, I was like, oh, that’s what that did. Oh, that would be handy.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Oh yeah, yeah, they were, I mean they were just kind of inventing what the Daw is today. Like a lot of the daws look very similar now, but they knew what it was going to look like and so they were inventing all that stuff at the time. So yeah, Cakewalk was just a sequencer basically originally. And started adding all these audio features for multi tracking audio and effects and all that kind of stuff. and like I said, kind of priced me out of it at my teenage years because I couldn’t really afford that stuff.

Tom Ray: You never had friends who were like, oh, there’s this crack site that you can go to.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, right. And I may have done some of that but you know, ultimately life took over and got a family and got busy and had a job and had a career and all that kind of stuff and sort of got back into it recently and just you know, and the big difference for me personally was back then as a teenager I, I made tons of music but I never played it for anybody. Like I was terrified of the criticism. I have hundreds and hundreds of tracks that never, never saw the light of day really. I mean that’s not entirely true. There was I don’t know if you remember Usenet is still a thing, but back then it was a big deal. And there was because you know, there was a, there was a Usenet group rec music, industrial that I was really involved in and interested in. And that’s where people, I mean that’s how we discovered music. for me anyway, back then wasn’t as easy as today I would say in some respects. So you’d find a group of like minded people and have conversations and so they would do a, somebody on there on that list would do a compilation tape from people on the list who also made music. and it was all you know, cassette tapes being mailed around and somebody you know, putting them together and then you could, you could buy one back for five bucks or whatever and they’d ship it to you. So you know, I had some music on a couple of those and I even had one on a CD that somebody mastered. So somebody back in those days, and this would have been the early 90s when CDs were kind of hitting, had access to master CDs and stuff, which was fantastic at the time. Nobody knew how to do that. and it actually got placed in a, in a alternative press magazine, that magazine. So I actually got a royalty check for like a dollar seven. Oh, no kidding. Which is probably more than I ever made on Spotify. But you know, and so back then I, like I said I didn’t, I didn’t play my music for anybody. I was, I was kind of terrified. And then fast forward when I started making music. This, I thought I’m gonna, you know, it’s, it’s different when you sort of deliberately try to do something. I decided I’m gonna make music and I’m gonna just see if I can be heard, you know, just try and be heard by as many people as possible. this time. And because you know, I was learning about like Distrokid and CD Baby and all the streaming platforms, it was cheaper and easier to get distributed than ever before. So I thought I’d give it a shot. and of course we all know how that turned out. Like, you know, the thing the, the, the new hard lesson that I learned is like, nobody gives a damn about your band. That’s.

Tom Ray: That’s what I was gonna say. There are lots of people who are like, well, I want to do this, but it’s not quite ready to put out yet. And I’m like, no one’s gonna see it when you first do it.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah.

Tom Ray: If you put it out there and you’re really worried that so many people are gonna see it, then you should be a marketer, because you’re amazing. People are trying to find out how to do that.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah. So, you know, I kind of laugh about my younger self thinking that I was going to be criticized, because first of all, if, if they’re going to criticize you, first they got to listen and they’re never. Yeah. But then something kind of miraculous happened. Like I was. I joined the Fediverse in November 2022, just like millions of other people who were fleeing, Twitter and every. And everything else, during the big migration or whatever you want to call it. And, I was kind of amazed. So, you know, I mean, I didn’t really participate on social media too much before that. I, you know, just wasn’t my thing. I’d follow, like, funny comedians or whatever, celebrities, just, Just out of interest. But, I didn’t really interact with people, too much at the time. So when I got on Mastodon, I started again in the spirit of, like, trying to be heard and just see how many people I could, get to listen to my stuff. I started posting things and to my surprise, people were interacting and engaging, you know, which is, something on, the Fediverse, I think, is pretty unique. There’s like a music and a musician, ah, culture that’s pretty amazing. We have direct access to these people and they engage with you, like yourself. Like, I could, I could message you and you would probably respond, right? Yes, Jamie, Hill’s out there and he’s great, right? So, he was, he’s out there giving advice and, and people are talking about music production and I’m, you know, I was learning things actively, by talking to people, and I just, I thought it was fantastic. So, like, you know, I went from, you know, being afraid to distribute anything because I was, nervous about being, people being critical about it to realizing nobody’s going to listen, to actually finding, a community of people who actually listen and gave encouraging feedback and generally very nice about it, you know. So it’s kind of an interesting arc. And I guess about that time that’s kind of when I got interested. I think that’s. I don’t remember when Radio Free Fetty, launched. I think it was a little bit after. After that, certainly a little bit after I joined the Fediverse. But I was just amazed at the indie artists that were on that channel. and there was probably a year, year and a half in there when I didn’t listen to anything else. Like I was. I kind of got out of the habit of listening to any sort of mainstream music. I was just listening to indie music and largely just listening to it on Radio Free Fetty, or discovering artists there and then going and finding their catalog elsewhere and listening. I was, you know, dissatisfied with Spotify. you know, basically they’re stealing money from artists and we know all the story with Spotify. And So I got off of all those streaming platforms and I got off even as a listener and started rediscovering my own music collection. so setting up like I have a Plex server, but I toyed with Jellyfin, and some other things.

Tom Ray: I, had one of those and I never keep up with it. I set it up and then it’s like to keep it active or to keep updating it, I just, I never follow through. It’s like after I get done setting it up, it’s like, there, I did it. And then I never use it again.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Oh no, I use it.

Tom Ray: I’ve had several of them.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: I mean I use it all the time. Like that’s, that’s how I listen to music and especially the, you know, and I don’t want to like be an ad for Plex because that’s a paid product or whatever. But they do have a really cool feature that I would love to see in open source, which is this audio, analysis feature. And so they can go through and like do a, some kind of thumbprint or something on your music.

Tom Ray: Oh, like an audio.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah. Then create these playlists that sort of. You can pick two songs that are like radically different in style and it’ll create a journey between them, you know, gradually, picking the next, similar sounding song to get you from point A to point B. And it’s, it’s, it’s fun. It’s like, it’s, it’s really a lot like what the playlists on. I guess early Spotify or some of those other platforms could do. Like if you remember those platform came out, they were originally pretty good at playlisting.

Tom Ray: The best one was Songza. this Songza was the best one. And that one got bought by what used to be the. One of the greatest players or, music services, which was Google Play Music was pretty darn good.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Oh yeah.

Tom Ray: And they bought out Songza. So their, their algorithm for finding music types was great. And then it just got all washed out as things got bigger and bigger, you know.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, I think the operative term is insidification. Right. So they all, they all, they all just they switch from, doing a feature that you like to a feature that makes them money. Right. That’s the long arc of how that stuff works. Yeah, Go ahead.

Tom Ray: Well, I was going to say here is what I want to know, though. So when you got back into doing this, it had been many years, you said. And first of all, and this question, I guess applies to both what type. How would you describe the music you do in the sense of you started back up. And also like, is it much different than what you used to do?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: It’s a lot different. Yeah. I think it’s. Everything I do is. Is. Is very electronic. I wouldn’t, I’m a music maker. I wouldn’t necessarily. I wouldn’t like to call myself a musician in the classic sense. I’m not very prolific at, you know, playing like guitar, any kind of, Any kind of keyboard. I can pick out a tune, I can hear music in my head and make it happen. but I’m definitely.

Tom Ray: The voice is in my head.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: You know, I can go for a sound and I can achieve a thing. And so I do a lot of different stuff. Basically I just follow my interests. So, I like, right at the moment, I haven’t made any music for a while and I just, I’m kind of. But that’s okay. I know that happens. And I just sort of wait for something to inspire me. So, and it’s usually. It’s usually some kind of a new piece of equipment or a new, a new mode of making music, a new thing. And that kind of leads into where. Where we’re headed here with this, New Beat Television thing, which is, You know, One of the things that was kind of interesting to me was there’s a. One of the processes that I use to make music actually involves starting with, video and audio and cutting it together and

Tom Ray: Yeah. What are you using to do that? I’ve seen some of your videos and they do have like, you’ll take Found footage. Well, I mean old foot, public domain. You’ll take footage and you’ll loop them and do things to them. But like what? First of all, what are you using to do that?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Okay, so one of the things I’m using is actually. So you’re familiar surely with like teenage engineering. they have these really expensive fancy synthesizers and stuff. I don’t have any of those. I can’t bring myself to fork over the bucks for those things. But they do talking to a guy.

Tom Ray: That uses a PSR home synthesizer from the 1980s as his main instrument.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah, right. That’s. Yeah, I’ve got my old stuff sitting over here. But like, they have also these little devices that are called Pocket Operators that are like basically toys but not. They’re better than that. And at one point they put out an app, in conjunction with a Pixel Phone, with Google called the Pixel Operator. And you start with video and it’s meant to be, I think it was designed to be sort of like you take some video, with some sound in it and then it’ll find all the transients and it’ll give you little pieces that you can play with and sequence together a track. and it’s. I think it’s kind of a toy. Right. But you can, you can, you can misuse anything.

Tom Ray: Okay.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: use it wrong enough and you might be able to create something interesting. And so that’s what I started doing. I started taking video elements from other artists for one thing. like I don’t know if you’re familiar with Flock of Nazguls that’s on Feddy, but they were doing ah, an everyday, custom patch, with visual, synced visuals, on Twitch, for a long, long time. And they release everything as Creative Commons license, non commercial, you know, certain cc, license. And so I just, you know, technically I guess I could have taken the material and just ran with it. But I like to, I like to ask. So I reached out and was like, hey, do you mind if I have a go at some of this material? And so I take snippets of those videos, I take other pieces, of music that I’ve made and maybe some video that I’ve taken and bring it into this app. this is just one of the ways that I make music. And then, instead of using found, sound and video, I purposely bring in clips and things that I want to mash up. and so I use the pixel operator to do some of that stuff. And then, you can sequence it and get a whole track going. And then I typically bring that track out with the video so everything’s really synced up magically. And then bring it into a daw, cut it up and do further work, finish it off, add additional drum tracks or bass or whatever. Whatever it wants, whatever it means.

Tom Ray: so you’re doing the video in an app, though, is what you’re saying. That’s how you’re. That’s how you’re doing the. So here’s. Here’s a quick question about that. So when you’re talking about this, and I think maybe you had mentioned it, but I didn’t understand possibly the way that you explained it, but are you talking about that time when Google had a bunch of people just make singular apps that were really. They did one thing, but it was like one weird thing because I used to have one of those, and it was fantastic. And I lost it recently, and I can’t remember the name of it. It was basically one where you could take your phone and write in the. Anywhere in the room, and you could turn on the camera and walk around and go behind it and walk through it. And like, basically the words were just floating in midair. And I, used it all the time.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: I didn’t, I didn’t. I didn’t use that one. I know what you’re talking about, but I think it was that same whatever model pixel it was.

Tom Ray: That’s. That’s what that look of surprise was on my face. I was like, oh, I know what you’re talking. Because I’m like, what app are you? And then I’m like, oh, it’s one of those ones where it was like a one off that they did to go like, we’re teaching people how to make things. And then they make some, like, really just no one asked for it app. That’s like, I’ve never seen anything like this.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah. And then. So I just, you know, that’s just one of the ways that I found to make music. It was just, you know, something to get inspired by, something to play with. you know, and I. I’ve made music, like, more conventionally in the daw as well. Just like, picking out a melody, figuring out, whatever progression, I want and that sort of stuff, and sequencing the drums. So, you know, it just depends on my mood at the time and what the. What the technology is. But, yeah, so, you know, I’m kind of in a I would, I wouldn’t call it a dry spell. I’ve been doing other stuff, so I just. So I’m kind of waiting for that next inspiration to happen. but really that’s what, you know, I started making videos that way and then I had other tracks that didn’t have videos and I, I was, you know, I was new to the Fediverse and I found out about peertube and I thought, hey, this is pretty cool. so I started uploading my videos there and then I just decided I’m gonna go get like, like you said, stock footage or common. Creative Commons released stuff and edit together videos. I just enjoyed it. It’s just fun. It’s just, I guess, another way to experiment with the music, you know, to find, to find some more creativity out of it. and so I started.

Tom Ray: Where do you look for the videos?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Oh, they’re on. They’re on, community media video. which is. Yeah. basically there’s links in my profile on Mastodon to everything I do.

Tom Ray: Gotcha.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: but there’s. I do. I’ve done videos for just about every track I’ve made in recent history. Just because I like it, just because it’s fun.

Tom Ray: now you mentioned that some of the videos you use, they’re under Creative Commons along with public domain. Now I’ve noticed that you don’t release your music under Creative Commons. Why is that?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: I do some. So, I, I kind of experiment with both. So, you know, there are some things where, especially if I’m starting with some, again, it’s back to that deliberate thing. So. And I try to encourage other, Other, artists to do this. It can feel weird, I think. I think, a lot of musicians maybe have some trepidation about just releasing their stuff in, you know, as Creative Commons licensed. It’s a little different though, if you go into it thinking, purposefully again, like, same thing. It’s like, I’m going to make music to try and get it to be heard. If you go into it and think, I’m going to make some music with the intention that I’m going to release it under a Creative Commons license, it’s very freeing. m. You know, you don’t have all this, you don’t have all this, I don’t know, let’s just call it capitalist sort of thinking about, what if somebody steals it? What if, you know, whatever. Because that’s all out the window. You’re like, you’re going into it with the intention of releasing it this way. And it does feel pretty. It does feel pretty, different, I would say, you know, and freeing. Yeah. I mean, it is a good way to go. And I’ve been doing more and more of that, I think in the last. Many of the last few things have been. I’m starting with, another artist. I think, Ax Wax had some CC music that I. That I messed with. Fugue State Audio, had some. Or Fugue State had some, Again, some audio, and video. There, was another artist, attacks the Darkness, who I’ve mashed up, some stuff with. And I even, got involved with the Bonk Wave, which I know you’ve. You’ve run across now.

Tom Ray: I’ve run across, but I still don’t entirely understand it.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: That’s okay.

Tom Ray: But I, But I’m very moved by the entire concept. Yeah, yeah.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Bonk Wave is whatever you want it to be. That’s, that’s That’s my answer. Or what? Yeah, so. So yeah, actually for one of the compilations, I just. One of the most challenging things I ever did was I just. I took all four of those artists and made a track using all of their pieces from all of their, material, which was really challenging to get it all to fit together. And it went through, you know, how music, art, anything goes through a really ugly, ugly phase before it sort of becomes, its final shape. It went through the ugliest imaginable phase. I was thinking for a while there, I can’t pull this off. But, you know, just in time to submit. I finally, finally got it to a place where I really like it. I think it’s one of the better things I’ve ever done now. But, yeah, so, Yeah, just, you know, that was inspiring. That was like a little challenge to myself, something to try. So, you know, that’s the kind of thing that gets me being creative, I guess. But, you know, and the other thing is like, This, you know, like I said, I. I came to the Fediverse and I found Radio Free Fetty. and I was so impressed with all of these artists, all these indie artists that I was hearing. And I just. I don’t know. Radio Free Fedi was a little bit different than. I mean, we’ve had Internet radio stations forever. There’s a lot of great ones. but to me they were doing like artist forward, artist promotional stuff. Right. They were trying to support the artists like as Mission one or whatever. And I felt that felt a little different to me. And so I was pretty, into it, you know, and I. Like I said, I listened to that pretty closely for a long time, and.

Tom Ray: I discovered it a month before it went off the air, so I really don’t have a history with it. Yeah, I know. And I know that they did a comeback revival, sort of, like, weekend thing that they. They did not too recently, but.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah, but. But. So, you know, I reached out to them because. Because, you know, I was listening in my headphones or on my phone or whatever, but, you know, I really wanted to listen to it on my, you know, my. My stereo system. I don’t have a great system, but I have a, you know, something that sounds a little better than my tinny computer speaker or whatever. And so I reached out and. For better, for worse. Mostly for worse. Like, in my house, we have, I. I’ve kind of. I’m all in on Roku devices. I kind of wish I wasn’t at this point. They’re in the initiatification phase. But, I. You know, I was a software developer for many years, and then I’m still interested in doing software development, tinkering mostly. And, so I learned how to make Roku apps, and I offered to make the Radio Free Fedi Roku app because I. I wanted it. I wanted to be able to sit in my living room. all of my audio goes through my television, right. In my stereo system. So I offered to make an app, and they were like, yeah, that’s great, but make, sure that, you know, they were just very clear. Make sure that you’re putting the artist information on the screen, and a link to where the artist can be supported. Like, it’s all about artist support. It’s not just.

Tom Ray: Which is part of the. A lot of the Creative Commons license, as well as its. Attribution.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, attribution. Yeah. So they were pretty. Pretty firm about attribution. And then. So I was able to do that, and I was able to get, like, even, you know, cover art on the screen. And then I had a sort of a. An inspired moment where I was like, I’m gonna take that artist support link and generate a QR code and put that on the screen as well. So that if I’m sitting here and I’m listening or I’m doing housework and I hear a song, I really like it. I can go scan it with my phone real quick and get right to the artist’s webpage.

Tom Ray: I Never put together that process. Okay, sorry. This is coming together with things we’re going to be talking about in a minute.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah, so. And that’s where I’m headed too. I think. I think we’re on the same page. So I did that for Radio Free Fedi, and it worked out pretty well. and I think I also, like, by the end, I think there were hundreds of downloads for that app. So people were listening and using it. And then unfortunately, like, end of 2024, like, apparently a month after you discovered them, they should have.

Tom Ray: I was really late to the game on them.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah. So. So when they shut down, then very quickly, the indie beat came up. So, Kirsten. Yes, Ms. Kirsten, decided to. To bring up the indie beat, and she hit the ground running. I think, like, now indie beat just for.

Tom Ray: For people listening, we got to make sure that they know what we’re talking. We know what we’re talking about.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah.

Tom Ray: Being another current online radio station that actually I’ve interviewed her on the show, which is also how I found out about you. Because, like, you’re talking about, you made Roku apps and you made one for them. But also it’s connected with the way you get your music up there is through Bandwagon, which I also had on the show. So you upload there, you can have it put on.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: I’ve watched both there.

Tom Ray: Now everybody’s up to speed. Let’s go.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, so, yeah, so I just reached out to her and said, hey, do you want a Roku app? And she said, yeah. And so I made one, for. For that as well. So I was back in business. I could. I could hear, all this great music again. And I was very trying to encourage people. Like, when I found out that Bandwagon, just to make it clear for people, like, if you’re a musical artist, you can upload your music to Bandwagon, check a box, and it gets shipped over to the indubeat and gets played on the radio, like on the Internet radio. And that’s pretty low barrier to entry. It’s pretty cool. And I can tell you, because I also made the, bot for the indie beat that does the now playing info. Yeah, I did that as well. as an artifact of that Azure cast. Tells you how many listeners there are. Right. And that bot can see that because. And it was kind of funny because when I first created, I was gonna ask about that. Okay. She had. She had, I think originally she had six channels, like rock, pop, jazz, electronic, ambient, whatever. and it was just, it was too fast. So the bot kept getting rate limited. the Mastodon server was saying, you’re posting too frequently. So I had to figure out what could I do. And I, so I decided I’d look at this data and I could see that how many listeners there were. So basically if there’s no listeners on a particular channel at any given point, I don’t post any info. But as a side effect, I can see people are listening. Like there are thousands of people listening.

Tom Ray: Oh yeah, when m. I’m in my car a lot because I’ll be like, I can either shuffle, through my library again, which is a vast library, but still, you know, but I’m like. Or I could listen to new music and go, oh, what’s this?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I made that app and I made the bot for her. And in the process too, I noticed, I just happened to notice that she has, she had a, an owncast, ah, server sitting there live dot the indie Beat fm. and so I, I put that also, I put that in the, in the Roku, app so you can watch that live stream whenever it’s live. But then when I kind of found out is even though the radio was going great, nobody was really using, nobody was, streaming, they’re like a concert or anything on, on the live owncast. And so putting all this.

Tom Ray: I wasn’t aware it was there, to tell you the truth. So that might be why too. I didn’t know.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, nobody’s. Nobody is using it. So. So at the same time, you know, I’m making all these music videos, nobody’s seeing them. Right. They’re on, they’re on peertube. I’m getting, a few views. But unless I promote the crap out of it, like nobody’s seeing it. It’s hard to discover those things. But that made me interested to go look and I found tons of other artists are making videos. Yeah, I found Meljoann has some like, professional quality videos out there. Like not messing around.

Tom Ray: some of them I feel like they made. I feel like they became musicians so they could be make videos because their videos are so incredible.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, Roberta Fedora’s videos are great. BGM makes fantastic videos. And I’m looking at these things and I’m seeing like, you know, some of them, I’m like, this is criminal. There’s like eight views. Yeah. 10 people have seen this or whatever. And I’m just it was very upsetting. And so I started thinking about it. And I was like, you know, all these owncast servers and especially this server is just sitting there quiet all the time. So I didn’t know how to do this, but I reached out to miss Kirsten and it said, you know, what do you think about if we put up a bunch of music videos on Yomcast and just run it 24 7.

Tom Ray: Okay. All right, now here’s, here’s where this. So I, let’s get to this. All right, so let’s organize this whole thing. Now while I have known you online for a while, actually most of the people I talk to on the show, I know them on the Internet and it’s exciting to talk with them in person. But it’s so funny catching up on the history of how it all came about. Now here is one where it came about and my knowledge and learning of what we’re about to talk about is. So it comes from so many different places because it’s the Internet and there are tons of places to do this. But so now there, so we’re talking about, there’s the Indie beat which does Indie Beat Radio. Now then you’re talking about how now the current thing that’s out is Indie Beat tv, but we also use a discourse server where we all talk about music and music on the Fediverse and all that called the, what’s it called? The social.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: The social music network.

Tom Ray: The social music network. The discourse server who is run by. Now I’m going to forget their name.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: I don’t know actually.

Tom Ray: I apologize. Yes, yes, thank you. I was going to be so sad that I didn’t remember the name who invited me to this discourse. And in there we talk about open source music and or the Fediverse music and all kinds of stuff like that and have discussions and many discussions have been started. Now the person who shared this Indie Beat TV thing to me was on there and it was Roberta Fedora. And you guys started putting up a submit your videos sort of thing. Now this is where it comes in because then you also contacted me and said hey, would you like to do some promos for this thing? And I’m. And then I’m putting this to different places and I’m like, are people getting it and am I sending it to the right place? So now you’re saying that it did start with you contacting it. You contacted her about the. Or Indie Beat Radio. Oh my God, I’m having trouble organizing this in my own head.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: It’s Me.

Tom Ray: So you contacted them and said, hey, you have an owncast server. What if we did videos? That’s where you’re getting at with this. And that is how it started.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: That is how it started, yeah. Okay, so. Okay, all right. I just, I was seeing all this great stuff and, and, and so, she said, she said, yeah, that would be great. She would host it. because a big, A big piece of this is like, you know, somebody’s got to pay for the server, somebody’s got to pay for the bandwidth. And she was, she was game for it, and was interested in doing it really. I mean, obviously she’s huge supporter of indie music. Like, you couldn’t not be and run the indie beat radio. Right? So, but she didn’t have like, she didn’t have like the arms and legs to go figure it out. Like she, she went and figured out Azure Cast and got the radio going. But I think her, her life was complicated, towards the end of last year. and so she just didn’t have time to do anything. So she’s like, if you can figure it out, yeah, we’ll, we’ll, let’s make it happen. and then this is where, you know, I had no idea what I’m doing. but I have a background in software. I’m not, I wouldn’t call myself a Linux guy at the time, but I’m becoming one. And so I had to go learn everything. And it took me a while. So I think probably mid last year is when I started talking to her about this and I started looking at stuff and I even.

Tom Ray: It’s still pretty good turnover time.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, it only took about, I mean, and honestly we were ready to go probably maybe mid to late October, but we wanted to wait because we knew MTV was, was shutting down in Europe.

Tom Ray: Oh, right, yeah.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: And I think Meljoann suggested, hey, you know, there’s this period between the holidays and New Year where everybody’s bored. why don’t we launch right in there to give people something to do. So that’s kind of why we waited. But yeah, I mean. And so I started looking at stuff and by the way, I made the Roku app for Retro Strange, as well. So Phil, runs that. Phil. I’ve, forgotten his last name. Darn it. Platt, maybe. No. Anyway, so I talked to him, and got some advice on how, because that’s a 24 7, playing, public domain movies and things.

Tom Ray: Yeah, I only discovered that through you because when you Asked me for a promo. You go, here’s an example of what exists.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah. So, so so, so I talked to him and you know, what he’s doing I think is he’s using obs. and he’s got like a mini computer but he has like, I think they’re in San Francisco. He’s got fantastic Internet connection and all that kind of stuff. And I’m like this is not going to work for me here where I’m at. So in obs, I started to come to the realization that this was going to have to be something that I’d have to run on a cloud server, run on a vps, which is also something I’ve never done before. So I had to learn.

Tom Ray: I entertained the idea once myself and I was like that seems like.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: A lot of work.

Tom Ray: Is it really worth it?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: It was, yeah. And so I had to learn a bunch of stuff and then I started look. So I discarded that. I started looking at ffmpeg. you can certainly point it at a directory of of videos and say stream it out and it’ll do it. But the problem there is that it’s not very resilient. If things happen you have to build some infrastructure around it. Like if the stream breaks or if server resets you’d have to build up some stuff around it. and somewhere in the past I had put out a request on Mastodon, just asking for advice on stuff in Luca Princhic, or Prinlu I think another artist who also runs a music label and da da da da da and is kind of an advocate of be your own platform. yeah, mentioned Liquid Soap. and this was a while ago and at that time I’d gone and look at it and I thought no, this is too much for me. I don’t understand this. I kind of went away from it. When I started looking at the indie beat TV again I, I went back and looked at it again and I found I think the author of that or the creator of that is Romaine, Beauvoir. Maybe I’m messing that up. Anyway, he has, he has a video out there on liquidsoap.info which was like a presentation, that. That they were giving to somebody or other. Yeah. About how it works and like going through just. It’s only like a 10 minute video. It’s like checkbox by checkbox. Everything that I needed. It’s got resiliency in, has Fallbacks. So if your videos are failing, it’ll fall back to as a known good video. You can have, you can set it up as a daemon so that if you’re, your server reboots, it’ll automatically restart so you don’t have to sit there. And you have to sit there.

Tom Ray: I’ve noticed that. So when you released, when you guys launched, Indie Beat TV and you have those links in there and I was like, I’m curious because I knew about Liquid Soap and I knew about people who had worked in it, on it in the past. And I was in there, I followed the links. I actually followed all the links to. You’re like, it uses this isn’t this. And I went and looked at it, saw that video. But one thing I did notice, and with you saying that it must be true, because there is a little thing on the bottom of the video or underneath the video that goes server running for this amount of time. And I’ll notice every time I go jump in there it’ll be like the server’s been up for like seven hours and it’s like. No, it’s been up since like New Year’s Day.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah, some, something happened and it it dutifully restarted the stream.

Tom Ray: Yeah, no, that’s, that’s, that’s awesome.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah. And you know, I knew that if I did this I wasn’t gonna have the time to just babysit it and constantly go in and restart stream. So it had, it had to be able to do that. And then it’s got all these features that are baked in. So basically Liquid SOAP is a language, and it’s, it’s a functional programming language, based on OCaml. And I, even though I’m a programmer, I’m not, I wasn’t familiar with functional programming. And it is a different headspace a little bit. I actually like it now that I understand it better. but it’ll happen. It took a bit of learning. And so what I found was going out there, looking around, I could find lots and lots of examples of people using Liquid, SOAP to create radio stations, like doing audio streaming. And even though the software can do video, I couldn’t find any complete examples of a video channel. So like a side effect of this or a secondary goal was making sure that we documented everything we did ah, as we went along. So the script, everything is out there on Codeberg. so if somebody else wanted to create their own 24. 7 liquid, ah, soap based, streaming channel they could start with the script that I made and modify it and go on. And it’s got you know, it’s got it’s got time predicates in the language formally which means you can go in and program up a schedule. So you know I knew like with FFmpeg I could have just pointed at a directory and had it blast videos randomly for hours and hours. But I figured you know I liked, I love the Indie Beats Everything channel which is just a riot of styles. I discover a lot of stuff but I also like those sort of genre based channels. Yeah, you know something a little bit more consistent. and I also like the curated channels. So like Sam, Ethical Revolution, Nam curates ah a radio station there, there’s a Bonk Wave channel curated by Keith Marshall. There’s a, there’s also Audio Interface which is curated by zylander. So audio interface.org does mixtapes and so you know I like those sort of curated things and I like the genre things as much as I like the firehose. So I knew going into this you know and thinking back to when I was young MTV came out. We had, right you know you had Headbangers ball, you had 120 minutes, you had new music segment, you had all these segments and I wanted to be able to do that and this language could do that. So you can schedule programming, you can schedule in jingles and station idents and you can schedule in eye candy. So you got to have some breaks between the music, you got to have some quiet moments, you got to have some visually interesting identity for the channel and you can program in all of that stuff quite easily with this. Suddenly it started to look like that was the answer. I guess the next thing I did was I just downloaded it and started hacking away at it, trying to make it do what I wanted it to do, which was a challenge. I was doing that at the time on my Windows PC here, so I wasn’t even doing Linux. and it became very, very obvious very quickly that I was gonna, I was gonna need to run this on Linux at some point on the, on the VPs. and then I also reached out to AJ Roach, Andrew Roach, who’s another, another guy who’s, he’s, he runs a cable station in New lj, Georgia. He has a makerspace, he has a record label, he has a recording studio, has all this stuff. But he’s also you know, like I said he was Doing television, he’s doing broadcast. And so I asked for some thoughts along with Phil about how to do this. And then I also asked him. That’s where he runs the peertube where I have my videos. So I asked him if we could use that peertube as a test. So I created a test video that was unlisted. So for a couple of months there, if somebody had stumbled upon my test video, they could have seen what the indie beat was shaping up to be. and once I had something that was kind of working, not great, but kind of working and it was just all my own videos. So it was like basically the Lime Bar channel for a while there. I brought a bunch of people together in a Mastodon private chat that I thought could help. And this is where I got real audacious and I just dragged them into it. So I knew that Meljoann made videos, I knew that Roberta made videos and I knew that they were top notch artists who could help make this happen. So I dragged them into the chat. I knew that Meljoann was interested in, in this kind of thing. and she runs Gravitons, that collective. She runs all of their tech stuff. She knows what she’s doing. and she’s a Linux person as well. I also knew that Sam was interested because he was obviously curating NHAM videos, over on nham.co.uk and then Snobby was, also develops and helps bring NHAM along. So you know, I brought them in. Keith Marshall I also brought in because he runs bonkwave.org and a lot of the Bonk Wave technology. Yeah, and I know, I just know from reading his, you know, his Mastodon feed that he, he likes to write tar pits for AI crawlers and things like that. So he knows what he’s doing technically. and then also Axwax, I knew was a programmer and very technical person. So I brought them in as well. And the thing is they were all musicians. So this core group of people were musicians and also technical. And very quickly I think I got them excited enough looking at this test stream that we could believe it could work. and they started helping out, miraculously, which is great. and so from there it got unwieldy to be on Mastodon in this chat. So Roberta set up a matrix room for us to go collecting and chat and we started figuring out how we’re going to make this work because again I didn’t Know what I was doing? I still sometimes don’t, but Keith offered. Hey, we use Massive IO, for Enclave when people want to submit things for the submission. So why don’t we try that? That’s the submit form that we have.

Tom Ray: It’s been running for how long now?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: So as of, today it’s two weeks. So we’ve been running. We’ve been live for two weeks.

Tom Ray: Why did I think it was longer? Yeah, it’s only. I know the beginning of January. I check in on it all the time. And this is what’s great about it is like you were saying, it’s like a. It’s like a actual streaming TV channel and it has rotating shows. it has a rock segment, it has a pop segment, it has an animation segment which I’ve submitted a bunch of my animations to. And in. In between it’s got little promos, and things like that, which is how we, we’re connected.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Now.

Tom Ray: For people who are just hearing about this now, you were just talking about Massive. So people can still submit videos going forward. Right? I mean, of course it wants to have new content. It’s not like now it’s done and these are all we’re gonna play. So where can people actually go do that? They, they go to the place itself. Correct.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: So we have, yeah, the Forum. The Forum is, is out there on the ndb. There’s a link for tib, tv, the indie beat TV out there. We also have a link, on, ah, Roberta set up a page called animationarray.com and so she, Roberta, early on, was like, hey, I really want to do an, you know, because she’s an animator, I think, at heart, as well as a musician. And she really wanted to do a, an animation show. Like early MTV had like, Liquid Television.

Tom Ray: Yeah, Liquid Television.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: All that kind of cool stuff. And so she wanted to curate that. And so, you know, people just started volunteering for that stuff. So. And then of course she set up a page where she’s hosting the Forum. And then all that material just comes to me and I parcel it out to people. and we go and do our curation, you know, vet the material, make sure it’s you know, suitable for airing. Because we don’t think, you know, we don’t. Nobody’s trying to get sued here. This is all, consent driven. you know, you gotta have the rights to the material to be able to, submit it and that kind of thing. and it’s all original Content. So, yeah, we’re still taking. We’re still taking, music videos, original, animations, if people want to do station idents, things that pop up and announce the station or even, What I like. I think the proper term is interstitial videos. Like little eye candy, breaks. You need a little rest between the music sometimes, right? So you get, You get these little, Weird little video montages or whatever between some videos. So I’m hoping that we get interest by people who do, GLSL coding. So this is January, on Mastodon. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that hashtag. You got all these, coders creating all this cg, artwork. And I’m hoping some of those people take notice and will submit, their little animations as interstitial eye candy. That would be cool. you know, other things that I’m kind of interested in, I don’t. Are you familiar with the demo scene? Is that the. What ring a bell? Demo scene. So maybe. Yeah, so this has been around since the. Probably the 80s as well. It’s like, demoscene is like people, who do, demo coding. And it’s usually computer, graphics. But also for me it’s kind of as much about chiptune music. So it’s sort of, graphics demos. And I think a lot of it comes out of people, trying to create, as interesting and dazzling graphics, animation as they can in as little code as possible. Like, there are categories, right? So there are categories that are just, you know, you see demos that are like, have sound and animation and they’re like literally 128 bytes. Not 128k, but 128 bytes of machine. Okay. And you know, those kind. So, you know, these are people who are like, riffing off each other and trying to impress each other just some way. Same way that musicians do too, right? They try to. You know, the best stuff like Bonk Wave is like people trying to impress each other and say, hey, look what I did. You know. And so I’m kind of hoping that we get some interest from the demo scene to submit some of their demos. Now the real way to experience a demo is to run the executable. we obviously can’t do that, but people do, record them. And if you go search demoscene on YouTube, you’ll find.

Tom Ray: Yeah, I mean, you can do a screen grab. You can run it and capture the screen. I mean, there are ways around it, we have the technology.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Right, right. But I think some of that stuff could fit on, the animation array for sure, because they’re pretty elaborate and pretty, they can have, The best ones have, a narrative. You know, they have a story that they tell, and the music can be quite, emotive. And some of them are fantastic, and I’m just hoping some of them will submit. But, you know, these are just some ideas. you know, these are just wishes that I have.

Tom Ray: Well, here’s one thing that I. One thing that I have to make sure before we leave today. I have to ask this question, and I keep. Keep trying to. I keep meaning to ask it, and then I get distracted by something else. So my last question today is one that I have to ask. So the name Lime Bar.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah. I kind of knew this was coming, so. Yeah, it’s a weird name. I know. I. So like I said, when I came back to making music, I, I had to. I had to find a name. And it is really difficult to find an artist name that’s not already been taken on all these streaming platforms. Like, everything I came up with that I was even close to liking was taken, like, everything. And, So, I don’t know, just sort of on a whim, my. My. My wife makes lime bars, which are like lemon bars if you’ve ever had a lemon bar. And I thought, is it really that simple? It’s that simple. I was so frustrated trying, to come up with a name. And I just love these line bars. And I thought, you know, they’re kind of tart, they’re kind of sweet. And that’s the kind of music I think I’m making. Okay, so something a little tart and sweet. you know, little. Little tidbits. and so I went and looked, and I’ll be. You know, nobody had taken it, so I used it. Of course, like, in less than a year, there were two other line bars out there.

Tom Ray: Oh, really?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah. So if you go look, there’s probably five by now. But, like, you know, at one point I was thinking I should just. I should just pick, a random. A large random number and be that artist, because you can’t afford colliding. I guess Lorenzo’s Music’s probably not going to have somebody else, take. Take that name. But Lime Bar.

Tom Ray: Yeah, it’s our name. Nobody takes it because there’s an apostrophe S on it. That’s the. That’s what I realized is the trick, because our Name is taken from something. Our name is the voice of Garfield. It was the actor who did the voice of Garfield and Peter Venkman on, the Ghostbusters cartoon I was inspired by. Basically, I came home one night and I was watching the Bob Newhart show show, and one of the creators of the Bob Newhart show was Lorenzo Music. And it was there in the nice Cooper 70s font. And I was like, that’d be a cool name for a band. So I just ran with it.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: So that’s where you lived, in Chicago?

Tom Ray: Yeah, he lived in Chicago. We were playing shows in Chicago and we got contacted by his lawyer and he goes, Mr. Music would like to have a copy of your CD. And I was like, oh, yeah, sure. You know, basically, like, he heard about it and he wants to be like, who are these people using my name? So, we put an apostrophe S on it and never heard back from him again.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Oh, that’s good. That’s good. That’s.

Tom Ray: So there you go.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, yeah.

Tom Ray: So, anyway, now, if people want to, first of all, listen to you, where can they go do that? And also if they want to, watch and participate in indie beat tv, where can they do that?

Randy AKA Lime Bar: So, yeah, if you want to listen to me, I guess, you can find me on Mastodon. And my links are all in the profile, Lime Bar, social. I also have a website that I just created called Limebar Space, and it’s got TiddlyWiki. It is on TiddlyWiki, yes.

Tom Ray: Which is awesome.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Isn’t that crazy? I know. Well, it was a fast, easy way to make a website, and I like it.

Tom Ray: I just didn’t know anybody else knew about that. I used it years ago.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: A lot of people are using it now. And it’s, it’s fun. I don’t know. I just enjoy using it. So. Okay.

Tom Ray: Anyway, sorry I distracted you. Go back to address. I realized I didn’t interrupt you telling your web address.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: No, it’s fine. yeah, I’ve got music out there. My links to the videos. links to. I’ve got a blog where I post some things and some photography. I do some, photography stuff. So I post some of that stuff out there as well. and then the real show is TV, TheIndyBeat FM, which is, 247 consent driven indie music videos from across the metaverse. So go check it out.

Tom Ray: It’s really fun to just pop in there.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, I know. Well, it’s addictive. Like, you start watching and you can’t stop. Which is great.

Tom Ray: Yeah, Your music there too.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Or video, sorry, underneath the video, ah, there’s a link that will, take you right to the submit form. And, so if you’re making, ah, music videos for your indie project, music project, please submit. And if you’re making original, animation, which I didn’t realize that you did until we started doing this. So now I’ve seen some of your animations and I’m like, these are great. Xylus and Dexter is awesome. And we’re. Nobody can. Every time I’m in the chat, people are like, what happens next? So they’re all waiting for the next episode.

Tom Ray: You guys contacted me and you’re like, are you guys gonna make more? And I’m like, you guys had used all nine videos already, and they got nine videos. And then I had to. You guys only got one video out of my series of nine.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, it didn’t come through. So now we have them. And Roberta is actively cutting together episode C of Animation Array. so you’ll find out what happens in, episode three of Xylus and Dexter in that one, and then so on and so forth.

Tom Ray: So, yes. No, it’s a lot of fun and it’s a great channel. I’m super glad that I got to talk with you today. It was nice to finally meet you in person.

Randy AKA Lime Bar: Yeah, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.