Jim Costello joins Avi for Episode 4 of Sunday Brunch. The conversation pinballs from David Lynch deep cuts and the musical fingerprints of Angelo Badalamenti into how Costello’s Phantom Power Media helps independent artists navigate the Bitcoin and podcasting music ecosystem, inspired by daughter Ainsley Costello’s breakout via Wavlake and the broader “open mic / sats flowing” live-scene energy.
Big themes: the messy-middle of onboarding (don’t lead with “Bitcoin,” keep it human, meet artists where they are), the very real discovery problem (duplicate feeds, fragmented identifiers), and the rising tide of AI-generated slop and chart-gaming, with a hopeful counterspell: web-of-trust curation and simpler, more elegant one-click tooling.
Executive Producer (top booster from last episode): ToneWrecker
Links
Jim's Playlist Today
Jim's Solo Piano Works
Phantom Power Media