February 28, 2022 • 59 mins
This week we are joined by Jess Garson, Senior Developer Advocate at Twitter! Join us as we learn about Jess's journey to Live Code NYC!
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Episode Transcript
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Brandon Minnick (02:03):
And welcome back everybody to another
episode of eight fits the showwhere we interview people to
learn about the people behindthe tech. I'm your host, Brandon
Minnick. And with me as alwaysis the amazing co host PJ Metz.
PJ, how is your week? My weeksgone pretty good, even though
it's been raining and cold inFlorida, which are two things I
(02:24):
never want to see in Florida.
And so okay, like, it's
Pj Metz (02:29):
I feel like when I say cold, people assume no, it's
like 52 and freezing, and I hateit. Like, when it's in like 50s
I'm like, I don't want to ridemy bike. I don't want to go
outside. And it's miserable. But
Brandon Minnick (02:47):
yeah, it's it's funny, because I remember
because I was born in New York,upstate New York. So we're
really familiar with ice stormsliving on Lake Ontario and in
the city of Rochester, and thenmoved to Florida. And yeah, used
to when we first moved therewould make fun of people.
Because yeah, it's like 50. InFlorida, people are putting on
(03:08):
sweaters, whereas like, we'reused to negative temperatures
and snow days. And then yeah,your body totally adjusts and
you get used to the heat. And sowhen 60 rolls around, you start
putting on your jackets, and nowI'm in Northern California where
yeah, we'll get down to the 40sand wintertime it doesn't it
(03:29):
doesn't snow here. But you know,when it gets into like, its 50s
and sunny. That's work and I'mnot saying the t shirt again.
Pj Metz (03:39):
I'm not we are very, very, very cold.
Brandon Minnick (03:49):
Feels good to be back. I I was absent for one
of the first times last week Ihad to had to take a sick day.
So thank you so much to Dr. Gfor filling in for me. Fairly
last minute. Had a had a bit ofa COVID Scare, or or just COVID
Pj Metz (04:12):
COVID Scare by which we mean you probably had Cobra
probably had
Brandon Minnick (04:17):
COVID Yeah, I will say quick PSA. For anybody
who hasn't gone through it yet.
I had symptoms last week, buttested negative in three PCR
tests over the term of a week.
So the PCR test never said thatI tested positive, but my wife
(04:38):
did and we had in quarantinebefore she had symptoms. So I
was definitely exposed to it hadsymptoms never got it. The
doctors told me to treat it likelike just like yeah, you
probably got it. Just treat itlike you do. So, yeah, just FYI.
For everybody out there, youknow, you can I guess negative
(05:02):
three times I still feel crummy.
But I mean, at the same time, Iwas also recently boosted. I got
my booster with beating inJanuary. So I was like, probably
a week away from having the bestpossible immunity. And that's
kind of my hunch for whathappened is like, I got it, but
not I wasn't shedding enough ofthe virus to maybe trigger the
(05:23):
Yes,
Pj Metz (05:26):
yeah. Hmm.
Brandon Minnick (05:28):
I've no idea.
But I felt he stepped in for me.
That's right.
Pj Metz (05:34):
We had a fun episode.
Last week. We were talking toRaj all the way from the UK. And
she was talking about securityand marketing. And it's exciting
because I always love when wehave people who have like some
different backgrounds or are notjust the typical person that
you're gonna see in computerscience or in the developer
world. And I gotta say, I feellike this week's guest fits that
(05:55):
bill perfectly. We're going totalk all about how I met this
week's guest that after we bringthem on. But let's go ahead and
introduce to the world everyoneplease welcome Jessica Garza.
Wait, hold on, I did it wrong. Idid it wrong. I did. Now I
forgot. Brandon said I have todo the reggae horn whenever the
(06:22):
guest comes in. His requirementy'all.
Jess Garson (06:27):
Nice. I really want to sample the reggae horns. So I
got
Pj Metz (06:31):
mine@youtube.com.
Right. And I found a websitethat does this thing called mp3
ripping. And now I've got it.
Jessica, welcome to the show.
Welcome to eight bits. Thank youso much for being here. Um, how
about we start with you tellingthe folks at home a little bit
about yourself.
Jess Garson (06:54):
So I'm Jess, I am a developer advocate at Twitter.
Um, and for fun, I have a hobby.
I make music with cologne, and Iperform under the moniker
massacre arson. I'm mostly inthe live code scene in New York,
(07:14):
which there is I think it's thecoolest thing about New York.
Well, I've code NYC and performregularly with them. And then I
also have been playing morenoise shows, which has also been
really fun because I make musicwith code and I sample myself
screaming on top of it. And ittends to be pretty harsh. So
(07:37):
I've been venturing more intothe noise world as well, which
is kind of how PJ and I met inlike a weird reflection. On New
York,
Pj Metz (07:51):
it was an absolute combination of those things that
led us together and and like thefirst thing that happened was, I
make Twitter bots. It's kind ofmy thing. And, and by my thing,
I mean it's the only coding Iknow how to do. And I was
talking about a change that hadbeen made to the process for
getting what's called theTwitter developer account. And I
(08:13):
was like a little frustrated byI'm like, downplaying it. I
ranted about on Twitter. AndJessica is a Developer Advocate
there. Uh, the NBN said, Hey,I'd love to talk to you about
you know, your experience withthis. This is something we're
working on. And I want to makesure that it's going well. And I
first off, this is my firstinteraction with a Developer
Advocate Dev Rel person from acompany for something I'm using.
(08:37):
So this was a big step. For me.
It was fantastic. But we got totalking. And we said, and I
looked at your profile, and itsaid noise musician and I went,
wait, you make noise music. Sofor everyone out there. noise
music is exactly how it sounds.
(08:57):
It is it is harsh noise, but itis musical creation. It is it is
an art form. And the thing thatmost people might be familiar
with that gets the closest islike Sonic Youth. Like, there's
some discord and stuff they did.
But it is very much like yousaid it is harsh. But those are
that we immediately bonded overthe fact that like I listen to
(09:19):
some noise, and I enjoy noiseand you're creating it. And I
was like basically as soon as Ican. Next time I'm in New York
City. I'm looking it up becausethat's the kind of stuff I want
to see.
Jess Garson (09:30):
Yeah, so I feel like I should play Florida
because, you know, to hang outwith you.
Pj Metz (09:38):
I can see some places where it would work. What would
fit and we got some arts here.
We got some arts here. Yeah. Solet's talk about um, we're gonna
we're, we're gonna get to somenoise later on. We're gonna talk
about we're gonna hear somehopefully that'd be awesome. But
let's talk about your history.
You are a senior developeradvocate at Twitter. Yeah. How
(10:00):
did you get into tech? Like,like, what's what's the road
path that you took from? Like?
Did you know from a young agethat you wanted to work with
electronics? Was it a hobby thatturned into a career? Was it a
job that turned into a hobbybecause because your hobby of
making music with code is veryclosely connected with your with
your job of working in tech. Sowhat's that path look like? Take
(10:21):
us through it.
Jess Garson (10:23):
Yeah, um, so I, I actually have an untraditional
background. So interesting thingabout me, is I never wrote code
until my late 20s at all. And soI got started, I come from DC or
from the DC suburbs. And DC iskind of like a career town. It
(10:46):
is like a company town forpolitics. So you know, I
graduated from college, and Iwas like, What am I going to do?
I'm going to work in politics.
Like, that's what, that's whatI'm gonna do. Like, there was
no, like, I never really thoughtabout it. Um, or like thought if
like, it was right for me oranything like that. I just was
like, Well, I graduated fromcollege in 2007. And that's an
election cycle. So I have to goout and move to Iowa. Like, I
(11:09):
knew. This sounds insane, right.
But like, at the time, I waslike, oh, yeah, that's like,
what I need to do. And it's allkind of gone as planned. And I
did a couple of other campaigns.
Washington State for PattyMurray, on the campaign there.
(11:29):
And all of a sudden, some likemessy data came into my life.
And also like my staff from likethat time, I used to, like
manage staff that would do likevoter outreach and things like
that. And like one of my Oh,
Brandon Minnick (11:49):
oh, no.
troubles. Oh, yeah.
Jess Garson (11:57):
And I found a lot of like, technical difficulties.
My internet died, like rightbefore. I was supposed to join
this. And it can links fromstreaming issues. I live in New
York, where I thought that therewould be good internet. When I
moved to New York. I was like,Yeah, New York. happens. And the
internet's really good. But thatwas a myth. The internet is
Pj Metz (12:21):
only only like a few parts of Manhattan have great
internet. Everyone else. It'svery fun for yourself.
Jess Garson (12:27):
Yeah, that's true.
Um, but yeah. Where did I leaveoff my story? My journey? You
Pj Metz (12:33):
found some some data?
Oh,
Jess Garson (12:34):
yeah. Some like messy data, gaming, messy data?
Yeah. And I had to write code toclean it up. And I go,
Pj Metz (12:43):
Wait, it was, it was a necessity. It was like, Hey, we
have this data. It's like allover the place in your life.
That so they were like, someoneneeds to write code. And you
were like, me
Jess Garson (12:54):
looked at, like how much time it was gonna take me
to do the task manually. Andthen I was like, There's got to
be a better way. And I likegoogled it and wrote a Perl
script. And was like, oh, yeah,like, I'm a wizard. I like real
code, and it happen. And like,it made my thing happen. And
like, you know, I am, I aminvincible. Like, I just
thought, like, I and like, tome, like, that was actually like
(13:17):
transformational moment, becauseI never saw myself as a
technical person. Like, I didn'tthink that I had a need to do
that. I like didn't really thinkthat that was available to me.
And then, like, I did somethingthat I thought was impossible.
And like that, kind of like thatwas like the moment where I was
like, damn, alright, like, ifthat's possible, like, what else
can I do?
Pj Metz (13:37):
That's exciting. I love it.
Jess Garson (13:39):
Yeah. And then I also talked to like, one of my,
like, former employees from thattime period, and they were like,
you know, you were, like,obsessed without data got into
the database. And that was allyou would talk about. And like,
you really wanted to be able to,like, make reports, and like you
like, and I was like, oh, yeah,you're right. That like was like
(14:01):
a proto programmer thing. Andthen I'm up after that job
working in like, the tech spaceof like politics. So I like got
a job in tech support. As you dowhen you want to break into tech
company that was like, dude,like email blasts and like,
(14:23):
fundraising and stuff forprogressive candidates and
causes. I like part of that job.
Like I like but like writingdocumentation and like helping
people like, but I didn't reallylike it like they were like, and
then like, ended up doing moredata stuff. But like, like part
of it, but like, my favoritething to do is like writing code
and talking about it. And Ifound this meetup in New York, I
(14:47):
mean, in DC at the time where Iwas living.
Brandon Minnick (14:57):
Pause for dinner.
Jess Garson (15:00):
more difficulties.
Pj Metz (15:02):
brief pause.
Jess Garson (15:03):
Okay, where did you were
Pj Metz (15:05):
you were you found a group? And yeah,
Jess Garson (15:09):
yeah. And it was free beginner friendly classes
for women by women. And then Ilike had this community and I
was like planning hackathons andlike, writing code and talking
about it weekly, um, when IGoogled one, so like, it used to
run this meetup called Hack andTalon DC, and it was like, five
presenters, and each presenterhave five minutes to present.
(15:32):
And then five minutes forquestions. And we would like
time you but the problem is, islike, if you only have two
presenters, and like, it doesn'treally work, right? It basically
meant that you always had to dosomething because like, that
format only works if you havefive presenters or like, six
presenters. But if you only havelike three or four, then like,
you need more time because it'slike 25 minutes. So you know
(15:59):
that that format was really fun,but maybe doesn't set you up for
success. But I one time Googled,like how to make music occurred.
And I found Sonic Pi, and I,which is like the Ruby way of
live coding. And it's like, aprogram that like, isn't like an
IDE. And there's like, now thislike really amazing woman, DJ
(16:21):
Dave, that makes like, reallyawesome stuff with that. And she
like plays big, like electronicfestivals and stuff like that.
And she's awesome. And she like,is really inspiring. But like,
you could do so much with it.
And I like basically like wrotecode and kind of people and I'm
like, this is really cool, butdoesn't sound like me. And then
I was like, what if I like,sample myself screaming on top
of it like that would be reallycool. And try to like book
(16:43):
myself out like punk shows in DCbecause I was like in a punk
band and like, was in that sceneand like, people are like, Wait,
like, you can't just like writecode a party's like, you can't?
What are you doing, and then Imoved to New York to teach at
NYU. And then by that point, Iwas like, a software engineer
(17:04):
didn't really like that and feelfulfilled, quit my job got hired
somehow, it'd be an adjunct atNYU to teach programming, which
was like, really awesome. It'skind of in this like, weird spot
where it was, like, moved to NewYork didn't really know what I
was gonna do. And then I hadcoffee with somebody, and
they're like, oh, there's analgorithm happening tonight.
Pj Metz (17:26):
I'll go rave.
Jess Garson (17:28):
And it was like an event where everybody writes
code that makes sound andvisuals. And they were like, You
should go to that. And I did.
And then I met all the peoplefrom there and became friends
with everybody and start playingshows on my own. And yeah, live
cut. algorri and learn aboutthis amazing community. And then
(17:53):
around that time, I was like,having lunch with somebody. I
was like, I don't know what todo my career. Like, I don't know
what to do. Like, I like don'treally like being a software
engineer. Because like, I justlike the teaching aspect of it.
Like I like talking aboutthings. I like writing code on
stages in front of humans. Ilike use products better, but I
don't know, engineering them,like what do I do? That's
(18:17):
developer advocacy. Immediately,like, I just started applying
for developer advocacy jobs. Andpeople were like, calling me
back right away. And I was like,wait, I guess that's it. And
then I got hired by Twitterpretty quickly thereafter.
Pj Metz (18:37):
I can't imagine a better like position where it's
like most of what I like aboutcoding is like helping people
code. And so then you becomelike an actual professor, like,
like an adjunct professor,teaching coding. And so of
course, Twitter was like, Oh, soyou've been a developer? And
you've taught Yes, absolutely.
Please come over right now.
Jess Garson (18:59):
Yeah. And then they were also like, Oh, my God, you
like have this community thatlike we've never heard of,
that's like a programmingcommunity. And you ran on dev
that yo, and I was like, oh,yeah, cuz I just like really
like writing and talking aboutthings. And building like, that
is what I like to do. And like,that's how I
Pj Metz (19:19):
branded? That's exactly how you explained it to me
first, and again, you did for asecond. Okay. But that's, um, so
So Brendan, that's how hedescribed DevRel to me when he
convinced me I should do this.
Brandon Minnick (19:32):
Yeah, because it, I'd say, programming in
general. And that's kind of oneof our goals of this show is to
break that stigma that like, youneed to be good at math. And you
need to be, you know, the bestdeveloper in the world or the
smartest person in the world tobe a good programmer. None of
that's true, like the day to daystuff you do as a programmer. A
(19:52):
lot of its administrative, youknow, having conversations about
planning. And then most of theThe code you write is doesn't
involve math. I know, we're,we're talking about algorithms
here. But you don't necessarilyneed that today. And so yeah,
(20:13):
when I was trying to convince PJand Gladdy glad he did make the
switch, as like, PJ, you'd bereally good at this. Like,
you're an amazing teacher,you're amazing public speaker.
videos already really good atmaking videos and active in
communities. And it was reallycool. Yeah, to teach you a
(20:33):
little bit of code and take offfrom there. Because now more
people can benefit from yourteaching.
Pj Metz (20:39):
And really, they're benefiting from you in the long
run. It's not random. I approxi,PJ, absolutely.
Jess Garson (20:47):
And one of the things that like we talked
about, like the first time thatwe spoke PJ, which like really
resonates was like you werelike, because we you had this
issue. And you're like, I don'tknow, like, I just don't think
about things in the way thatother people think about them.
And I'm a little bit slow. And Iwas like, That makes you such a
good developer advocate. I thinkissues also like, I think that
(21:07):
like for me, like not having itcome to me easily actually helps
me build more developer empathy,especially for like developers
at different parts of theirjourney. And like, I don't know
sometimes.
Brandon Minnick (21:23):
I'll pick up from that. Yeah, cuz I, I agree
with that so much, because Ialways anytime I'm teaching
something, documentingsomething, I always think about,
what what was it like when Ilearned it, like, what
misconceptions that I have I wasgetting into it, or what
mistakes that I make. And I wantto make sure I cover those. And
(21:44):
I've definitely gotten a lot offeedback from people will say a
lot there. This feedback iscertainly in the minority. But
some people will be like, youknow, you really made it too
easy. Like this workshop, yougave all the answers. It's like,
Yeah, cuz it's a workshop, and Iwant to teach you how to do it.
I want to make sure you leavehere with a working example that
you can show off your friendsand family. Whereas some people
(22:08):
try to make it like a challenge.
Like, yeah, step one. Publishyour website. It's like I've
ever done. Like,
Pj Metz (22:19):
the rest of the aljur.
All the rest.
Jess Garson (22:24):
Yeah, and I think also, like, figuring out like,
where in the steps things gowrong, I think is also like, a
big part of it, which is like,you know, all the different
places where something can breakdown, like, like posting a
tweet, like, I can tell you allthe different ways that it can
fail. But yeah, also, like,sometimes I'll like meet
developers, and they'll be like,oh, yeah, this thing happen. And
(22:46):
like, I don't know why. And thenlike, sometimes I don't know
why. And I like really, thatjourney of like, trying to get
in their shoes and figure outexactly like, why that's
happening.
Pj Metz (22:59):
I think that's what developer advocacy is at its
heart, whether whether you'reevangelist advocate, REL,
whatever it is, it'sunderstanding what the developer
has to do to use your product,right? So if you're at GitLab,
like I am, and my community isstudents, and professors, I need
to know what all students aregoing to encounter when they're
(23:22):
trying to use Git lab. And gitlab is huge. The first time I
open git lab, and there waslike, create a free account, I
was like, Oh, I'll do it. Andthen it was like, Alright, get
started. And I looked around,and I was like, What do you
mean, I don't know what this isfor? I didn't know.
Brandon Minnick (23:38):
So I am overwhelmed. Yeah.
Pj Metz (23:41):
So anything you can do to take them down to just
wellmed at least, is a benefit.
And just You're absolutelyright. It is it is about knowing
what those pitfalls are, becausethen you know exactly where they
need help. And they need like tosee where they're going next.
And that's how you help themthrough. Because if they know
what the next step is, then theydon't need you.
Jess Garson (24:04):
Right, exactly. And it's also like different
audiences, and like differentpitfalls that they're gonna
encounter is also like one ofthe things that I'm becoming
like a little bit more savvy onand just like, the more I talk
to developers that are actuallylike using things, the more I'm
like, oh, yeah, okay, that'swhat's happening.
Pj Metz (24:22):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Brandon Minnick (24:25):
And for anybody listening, you don't have to be
a developer advocate ordeveloper relations to do this.
I found even before getting intothis field, just as a senior
engineer, mentoring teachingpeople on your team in your
company. All these skills arealso very, very useful. And you
(24:46):
can leverage the same takeawaysjust for when somebody new joins
your team, like how do you getthem up and running? Do you have
it documented, do you knowconfiguration steps just to get
their computer to be able tocompile The code, right? Little
things like that, like, the moreyou document, things like that,
then the easier it is for thenext person. And yeah, that's
(25:09):
kind of something I've alwaystaken with me in my career.
Because also, what I found is ifyou ever want to leave a job, if
you've already trained somebodyto do that job, then it's a
really easy transition when yougo to your boss and say, I'm
going to switch teams, becausesome managers are like, No, we
can't do it without you. It'slike, okay, yeah, I've already
(25:29):
trained this person.
Everything's documented, you'llbe fine.
Pj Metz (25:33):
Or it's Nope, I can't let you leave.
Brandon Minnick (25:37):
And then you just quit. Cuz that's Yeah.
Pj Metz (25:42):
You can't leave. Yes, I can.
Jess Garson (25:44):
Yeah, the first thing that I did was like a
deployment thing. Because like,it was like the steps to deploy,
because I worked in this place.
And I was like, so how do youdeploy? And they were like, Oh,
you have to, like, memorize thisthing. And they were like, you
have to, like, memorize how doyou like, there's a lot of
steps, I'm gonna go human error.
(26:08):
Like, I can maybe do it like,right once. But like, I'm sorry,
I just documented it. I waslike, Alright, there's no
documentation on this. And thatwas like, the first thing that I
ever did. And and also, like, Idon't know, mean, the workplace
feel a little bit nicer. Becauselike that workplace in
particular, like, didn't haveanything documented. And I was
(26:29):
always like, terrified to like,do the task to do. And so yeah,
I think that's something thatlike, figuring out like, where
you can step in, especially iflike you work in a place where
nothing is documented, like, youcan help the future version of
yourself.
Pj Metz (26:46):
Man, yes, the future version of yourself. And new
people are one in the samesometimes. You have no idea what
you were going for.
Jess Garson (26:58):
Or, sure, you was like, Oh, wait, how did I do
that deployment? Like a monthago? Why was I doing why did I
do it?
Pj Metz (27:05):
Yep. Yep. Be nice.
Awesome. And that's Brandon, youtaught me that early on, when we
were working on your newfavorite poem, that website we
made together and you were like,Hey, man, you better leave a
comment here. You better saysomething about what this is
doing. Especially as we weregetting towards like the end of
an episode. And it was like,alright, we need to wrap up, and
you would always go, Okay, whatdid we do today? Write it down.
(27:25):
So we know where we are. Cuzsometimes it would be a long
time before we'd get backtogether again, and we'd look at
the code and be like, what werewe doing?
Brandon Minnick (27:38):
Right, I always tell myself, like, Future Me
will appreciate this. Yeah, justtake the extra couple minutes.
And, you know, even ever, oncewe even just, we purposely
created an error. So like itwould, the compiler would throw
an error, just so that next timewe jump back in the code, we try
to compile like, Oh, that'sright. This is where Oh, yeah.
(28:03):
Just like there's no way I'mgonna remember this.
Pj Metz (28:07):
So Jess, you say that, uh, your first thing you did was
documentation? And then nowyou're at, you're at Twitter,
what are you? What are youworking on at Twitter? What is
your what is your team? Or whatare you as a developer advocate
sort of focus on at Twitter?
Jess Garson (28:20):
Yeah. Um, as of late very, very recently, I
stepped into kind of a newersort of project, where thinking
about how to like, monetizedevelopers more and like, how to
reward developers and like, whattypes of things like motivate
developers and like thinkingabout like, one of the coolest
things about the Twitter APIright now is that we have a
(28:40):
whole community of openinglibraries and tools to use the
Twitter API with I know PJ, youand I talked about, I forgot
which whether you were using butyou are using one, two, right?
Pj Metz (28:53):
I'm using what was I using? twit? Yeah, you
Jess Garson (28:57):
were using twit?
Like, there's tweepi. There'slike, oh, there's like this
whole ecosystem of really cooltools out there. And like, how
do we reward those folks who aremaking really amazing things?
And like, how do we like peoplewho are making really awesome
content like you VJ? Like, howto what, like, what motivates
you? And like, how do we keepthat happening? And I don't
(29:17):
know, I'll say like, I've beenthinking a lot about that. And
then we recently last weeklaunched something called
Twitter toolbox, I'll put thelink in and tools are basically
things like bots or integrationsthat can help you improve your
Twitter experience. And they'relike, third party tools that
(29:38):
folks are creating. And then ifyou are like, Oh my god, I make
a tool. Even if it's a bot orlike, something like that, like
fat reader is one as long
Pj Metz (29:50):
Yeah, February is great. Yeah.
Jess Garson (29:53):
Um, and so yeah, that's one that is on the
toolbox, but If you're like ohmy god I make something that's
cool too. You can actually applyas well at t.co/toolbox Apply
Pj Metz (30:11):
I'm gonna go ahead and say that my Mountain Dew
kickstart box should be in therefor everyone to use so they can
all scream at Mountain Dew aboutgetting the sponsorship for
sure.
Jess Garson (30:20):
Also, maybe that's a word that you need is on
Mountain Dew sponsorship. Youalso messaged me as well. Send
me that joke. But yeah, we needto figure out like how to get
more people the rewards thatthey want. Like maybe it's that
we send you a box of MountainDew every like month.
Pj Metz (30:43):
All right, whatever box you want. If I can actually get
that Mountain Dew code red, noteven. Actually, I do like it
too. But literally, I've beendrinking it on stream for those
weekend. See this beautiful,orange and white can of
kickstart orange mountain mango,do whatever. Even just smelling
it.
Jess Garson (31:03):
What is that?
Pj Metz (31:06):
This is what I scream about all the time. It is a
water based energy drink. And Istarted drinking it because it
was $1 at the store that I wasat. And it was cheaper than
everything else. And I tasted itand it was heaven. And that's
all I'm not saying anymore. Youknow why? Because they're not
sponsoring me yet.
Jess Garson (31:28):
I'm more of like a Baja Blast kind of person.
Pj Metz (31:32):
What? We accept all kinds of Mountain Dew lovers in
this show.
Brandon Minnick (31:40):
I love it.
There's there's a rift in mymarriage, because my wife and I
don't understand it. But itseems to be one of those
products that you either love itor you hate it. Because anytime
I bring it up to somebody, theyeither love it or don't drink it
at all.
Pj Metz (32:00):
It's strong feelings.
Yeah.
Brandon Minnick (32:03):
There's a blast. Seltzer coming out. Like
it reminds me a Four Loko backin the day. And I thought that
was illegal now so I don't knowhow they're getting away with
illegal I could talk
Jess Garson (32:25):
for a logo and now it's like, okay, but like
Pj Metz (32:28):
I had to, like remove the caffeine from or not have as
much caffeine in it. Yeah, it'sstill around. You can buy it for
local if you really want to. Andyou can buy a red ball on the
side. And it's the same but Iwas I was there I saw firsthand
the dangers of Four Loko.
Jess Garson (32:45):
The summer of 2014 was
Pj Metz (32:52):
Facebook memories showed me two things. It was it
was the night before it was likeI've got Four Loko, Johnnie
Walker and the next memory waswhat has happened to be in my
friends. And I was like, that'sabout right.
Jess Garson (33:13):
time thinking about like what, like the pandemic
would be like early likelockdown times, like what
everybody would have been doing.
Pj Metz (33:30):
There would have been a lot of dropped pots and pans out
a window instead of clapping forhealthcare workers, they would
have been hitting the ground forsure that's dangerous. talking
so much about all this, and Ifeel like we got to take a
second step back and go to oursponsors real quick. And let our
sponsors do some talking theleading of for Loco is
definitely a good idea. We'll beback in just one second y'all.
(33:55):
Hi, if you're hearing my voice,that means you've been listening
to or watching eight bits withBrandon and PJ. And we're here
to talk to you about yourproduct. And how it can help you
in your life by to do whateveryour product does. So if you're
(34:15):
an avid listener of the show, oryou watch us on Twitch, then you
will know that your product yourproduct is right for you.
(34:36):
It's great, it's such a goodcommercial. That's right y'all.
If you are interested in havingadspace here on eight bits, you
can contest contact us at Helloat eight bits.tv Right Is that
right? I say right.
Brandon Minnick (34:50):
Yes, I'm just laughing because it's, it's you
in the video and then we comeback. Brace yourself about
Pj Metz (35:00):
It's like that meme of Obama giving him a medal.
Brandon Minnick (35:06):
He's like, What a great, what a great video we
have there.
Pj Metz (35:11):
I can't believe what a handsome spokesperson they got
for that commercial.
Brandon Minnick (35:17):
But email us at Hello at a pitstop TV, we'd love
to hear about any sponsorshipsand happy to share it with all
of our viewers.
Pj Metz (35:31):
That's, that's, uh, I can't be the person coming out
of that ad. I think you're gonnahave to pick that up next time,
Brandon. That's your job.
Brandon Minnick (35:44):
Sir, I completely derailed our
conversation with Baja Blast.
Mountain Dude, you're listening.
I'd love to give it a secondchance. Opportunities.
Pj Metz (36:01):
Great. So yeah, Jesse, you were telling us about how
you got into tech, you'retelling us about working at
Twitter, what you're working onat Twitter and the toolbox,
which is seems really neat.
Because one of my favoritethings about Twitter is the
variety of ways that you can dostuff with it. Especially if
you're learning to code. I can'tsay enough good things about
getting your hands into an APIor getting your hands on a
(36:22):
rapper that's using that API, doit and have some fun with it.
Um, let's pit and let's talkabout your hobby. Let's talk
more about noise.
Jess Garson (36:34):
Yeah. Um, so yeah, let's talk about noise. For me,
like learning into noise isactually kind of funny. As well,
just like my joining into pack.
I like, didn't do it when I wasyounger, like, I didn't really
like rebel in that way until mylike, 20s. To my late 20s, and I
was in the DC punk scene, I hada punk band left that punk band
(36:59):
just because I didn't reallyhave the time to really do it as
much as I would have liked. Um,and also, like, kind of got
bored of the DC punk scene, likePJ and I were joking about this
right before that, like, everyband like sounds the same. And
that, like, everything feltreally formulaic. And I didn't
(37:21):
want to follow up formula, likeI just wanted to do like weird
experimental stuff. They didn'tknow what that was gonna look
like, like, I thought it wasgonna be me in a synthesizer and
screen.
Pj Metz (37:36):
So like a, that happens a lot in music scenes, this sort
of like homogeneity that comesout of it, a lot of bands start
sounding really similar. Andlike, this is something that's
like, Well, I mean, blink 182has a lyric, playing in punk
clubs, still part of the samepunk bands. And that's what
happens with a lot of art scenesis because everyone finds the
(37:58):
thing that works. And they loveit. And it's how we're
expressing ourselves. But thenit all starts to feel kind of
the same. So what? So you havethis musical background? Right?
And you were like, Well, okay,I'm going to do something
different. I want to dosomething interesting. And you
were saying, synthesizer,vocals, some screaming? And then
(38:18):
you end up. You said, basically,you fell into programming
really? And then you told usearlier, you found through the,
what was it called a algorithm?
Yeah, I
Jess Garson (38:30):
found the algorithm seen. And yeah, at the time,
like my first show was, like,literally, like how I would
sample myself was I would like,open up audacity, and like,
scream into my, a USBmicrophone, and like, sample
that and just, like, drop thefile in. And like, like, like,
there was one time that I like,forgot to put like, the slash in
(38:52):
front of users. And someone,like yelled it out to me.
Pj Metz (38:56):
They were like, Why code reviewing you during your
show?
Jess Garson (39:01):
happened sometimes, like, especially because like, I
show my errors, so like,sometimes I'll be like, really
stuck on some things. Like, I'mtrying to do like a lot of
things all at once. And like,like, one time, I was doing like
a Twitch stream, and somebodywas like, this is what's
happening. And that's like, Ilove it. Like, I feel really
safe. Because, like, you know,you see something you say
(39:21):
something and like, I think thatjust means that you have like a
community of people that arethere with you have your back
and like that's amazing.
Pj Metz (39:29):
It's fantastic. So, um, is there is it possible? I know
we were trying to do this tosome technical sharing earlier.
I don't know if you can do itlive or not? I don't know if
we've got that capability. We'regonna try.
Jess Garson (39:43):
It's gonna work.
We're gonna try something. It'sgonna be kind of experimental. I
brought up my second computerduring the break. So I think I'm
going to try to join on mysecond computer. Well, we're
just going to try this live. Ihave no idea if this is going to
work. Okay, so you know That,like, honestly, like this is
like one of the things we weretalking about earlier is like
one of my favorite things aboutlike, because it's an
(40:04):
experimental medium, I'm havingsome problems with my computer.
I've had internet issues, someother stuff, like, but one of
the things I love is like, itisn't experimental medium and
like, weird stuff happens. Andlike, it's okay. Like, it's okay
to have errors. It's okay tolike, not know if it's gonna
work. Like that's, like part ofthe fun and like, I used to be,
(40:26):
like really intimidated when Ifirst joined the scene. And then
I think I was gonna startearlier, but like, I went to see
little data plays like one ofthe biggest names in the like,
live coding world, and hiscomputer, like crashed and like,
they were like, 10 people tryingto figure out like, what
happened. Um, and I was like,oh, like, that happens to me,
like, and then I was playing inEngland, the person who made
(40:49):
hails like, like a clip beforehim. And then I was like, Oh, my
God, like, he's gonna beawesome. He's computer crashed
like six times, like, while hewas playing the show. And I was
like, Okay, if that happens tothem, like, my computer could
crash too. And like, that'sokay. And like, I feel like
that's like, what makes it feellike really?
Pj Metz (41:11):
It's fantastic. When you can find
Jess Garson (41:14):
that they're like, their instruments are going to
work. I have no idea. Like
Pj Metz (41:22):
imagine like going out with like a guitar. And like,
the neck just like melts andyou're like, oh, that's never
happened before. I don't knowwhy. If we can help, it
Brandon Minnick (41:32):
must be bad Wi Fi causing my guitar neck. It's
basically the equivalent.
Pj Metz (41:39):
No one in the crowd is like, you need to plug into the
Ethernet to keep your guitarneck from.
Jess Garson (41:49):
So my other computer is having some issues
loading because yeah, I haven'tI have another idea PJ, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna email you asong. You choose which side and
I'm just gonna tell you some topsome song titles. And you can
make a decision. Okay. Spooky isnumber one. Also audience feel
(42:12):
figured out like if you're in itas well. Corners of disorder.
Brandon Minnick (42:17):
That's a cool name.
Jess Garson (42:19):
Yeah, it might be the title track, although I'm
not 100% Sure. If that's gonnabe the title track. Um, so yeah,
if you have any ideas of whatshould be here, not like I'm in
the process. Um, or maybe onethat's like screen free. Which
(42:40):
is my signature. I mean, I thinkthere's some lightweight
screaming. I'm NY SE.
Pj Metz (42:47):
York Stock Exchange.
Okay, so and why is he
Jess Garson (42:54):
and I asked, he does have a good story behind
it.
Pj Metz (42:56):
I mean, I was corners of disorder sounds like just as
a title of a song sounds cool.
Jess Garson (43:03):
Alright, I'm gonna email you corners of disorder.
Yeah. Alright, so
Pj Metz (43:07):
we're gonna be listening to corners of disorder
after you get the email. Thisthis is officially my journey
into actually being a shock jockbecause now I'm actually doing
music. Not live show too. I'vegot this. And like with a reggae
horn, I'm halfway there. Sothat's good. So good.
Jess Garson (43:32):
Also, finding your email is like the next thing.
Brandon Minnick (43:38):
You could sell it, send it to Hello at eight
bits.tv.
Pj Metz (43:46):
TV says Perfect.
Alright. Just like you can. Youcan email us music, or you can
email us request to be theadvertiser on the next episode.
Jess Garson (43:57):
Yeah, you normally live couldn't go into my music
folder. Now I'm like, I
Pj Metz (44:09):
I need to open up the right window. So I can open our
email Brandon. Oh, oops, therewe go. Because I only have it in
my it's all like well, likewe'll show it all off. You can
see my login and everything. Areminder for those of you in the
audience who are not familiarwith noise, music, it is
discordant. It is purposefully alittle bit harsh. It is noise.
(44:32):
If this is not a somethingyou're going to be hearing on
pop radio. It's not the type ofmusic that you're gonna sit
around and like be like, it'sbeautiful, but there's an
expression there and that's whyI love it. I listen to some
noise like a weasel Walter andthere's a Japanese noise band
(44:53):
from I think the 80s called theghetto Gay, gay, gay, gay. And
they are a wild band. They dofrom Five second, covers of,
well, not just this, but what Iheard them from was five second
covers of famous songs. Sothere'll be like, they'll do
baby kinky, like my fire, butit's five seconds of noise, and
then it's over. And it's it'sfantastic stuff that stuff makes
(45:18):
me so happy. But again, it's
Brandon Minnick (45:22):
not started.
Pj Metz (45:25):
It's so early noise, and I think Jess would know
better. But it's really to dowith like, experimenting with
what sound can be like, even ifyou look at like, composers like
John Cage, he did weird stuffwith most considered classical
music. Because they were saying,Look, if if music is a type of
(45:47):
noise, what if we just made thenoise, like John Cage had a song
that's called four minutes, 33seconds. And it's just silence.
It's nothing. And I was actuallytalking to my students about
this when I was a high schoolteacher. I was like, it's an
expression of something. Theperformance of a gym, that John
Cage piece that's just silenceis, instead of sounds that the
(46:12):
musicians make it is now thesounds of the room. And that
becomes the performance becausewhen there's no sound, your your
ears start to reach out foranything. And you otherwise
wouldn't hear. So it's, it's sothere's always been music
experimentation, like John Cageis doing stuff in the 60s.
Jess Garson (46:35):
Yeah, yeah. And that's like, it's kind of
changed a lot as well sincethen. And I just think you
should have an email, by theway, if I were to do something,
but I sent her a comp. Becausemy upload speeds of course,
because my internet is beingweird, aren't awesome. And then
while we play that I'm going toexperiment with like, seeing if
I can, like join the stream asme so like, there's a lot of
(46:57):
like, to maybe there'll be somelive stuff, but we'll see what
happens. You got it.
Pj Metz (47:02):
I am looking looking looking right now.
Jess Garson (47:05):
And it's hello@ebit.tv Yes.
Brandon Minnick (47:09):
Yep. Should be numeral eight
Jess Garson (47:12):
numeral. Okay.
Yeah, we're gonna play core.
This is like the world premiereI think of order for it was on a
comp once. There is like a newerversion that has like a bass at
the end and more screams becauselike, who doesn't like more
screams? Right? Yeah, but thisis like the older version.
Pj Metz (47:33):
I'm gonna start it I'm currently I should be sharing my
computer sound naturally becausebut I have these black hole
because I'm on a Mac. I'm gonnahit play. Let me turn off this
background chill background.
Jess Garson (47:45):
It's gonna start with a screen by the way so
everyone knows.
Pj Metz (48:30):
Just I am loving this, this is amazing. Oh my god. So
like, it's not in like a is itinformed? What time signature is
it?
Jess Garson (48:39):
Um, I think the BPM on that is one indeed.
Pj Metz (48:42):
So wow, that's fast.
Because it feels it feels likethere's a lot going on at once.
But there's a there's a cyclicalnature to it all to, to each
individual piece. Like thescreen is there on its own
cycle. The music is on its owncycle.
Jess Garson (49:00):
So through string length, which is like really
fun, because all the strings aredifferent, like so basically,
the way that it works that eachsound maps to a letter of the
alphabet, and then all of mylike, so. All of my strings,
like I played different stringsall at the same time. And
(49:21):
they're all at differentlengths. And so that's how I do
poly rhythms or string line,which is like really fun.
Pj Metz (49:26):
That's amazing. So what what programming language are
you writing these in?
Jess Garson (49:31):
Yeah, so I use three different programming
languages for various differentvibes. Um, so that is like
intense classic massacre. Ithink about it. Like I before I
went into the studio, where Irecorded that I had like this
like, almost like manifesto ofsorts for like, I had like
different like different phasesof Metallica. So that was
(49:53):
classic Metallica, and that'slike loud and aggressive. And
then I do like more droney stuffin Ruby. on Sonic Pi these days,
and that's like more chill, butlike also kind of aggressive in
its own way and like moreambient, but like, kind of more
drawn like, and then intitlecycles I do, which is like the
(50:14):
Haskell wrapper forsupercollider. And they're all
wrappers for differentlanguages, another programming
language called supercollider,and there's actually a Python
talk where I talk all about,like how to get started. If
you're like, interested in
Pj Metz (50:27):
wait, you have a PI CON talk about coding music. Yeah,
we need to link it, we have tolink it right now. That's
fantastic. Because again, thisis this is a, a fantastic and
fun way of, of doing your itswork because it's tech and it's
(50:49):
coding. But it's like a veryexpressive way of doing it. And
this is not something thateveryone knows is out there. And
so to show more people that isout there, it's fantastic. Oh,
my gosh,
Brandon Minnick (51:01):
I agree. And I will say, it wasn't what I
expected. Because when you saidit starts with screaming in my
head, I was thinking of like,what, I don't know if this is
the actual term for but I alwayscalled it screamo music where
it's kind of like heavy metalrock and the singer doesn't
really sing anymore. Just likeyeah, guttural screams into the
(51:22):
microphone. That's a great. No,right. Yeah, I love Yen's in the
comments is that he left? It's aturntable emoji cat turntable
emoji.
Pj Metz (51:43):
Perfect. I found your talk at HP icon Cleveland 2019.
And I just dropped the link inour chat for y'all. I'm making
music with Python supercolliderand Fox dot.
Jess Garson (51:59):
I think we're gonna try something. Um, I think there
should be another version of me.
Yeah, just TV that's like, we'regonna see if this works. I have
no idea if this is going to so.
So like, I'm going to share myscreen that's gonna be a minute
of inception or no, that's me.
That's me. Okay, cool. Now Ifound the right button to press.
(52:20):
Alright. So let's just I have noidea. This is gonna work by the
way. So I'm gonna turn on whatI'm doing right now. Is I'm
turning on Fox. Ah, we're gonnasee. And is this muted? Let's
just double check. My hands aresweaty. So yes, listening
Brandon Minnick (52:39):
along in the podcast, Jess is sharing her
screen. Looks like we're in theatom code editor. We have some
code on the screen. And she'scoming shortly.
Jess Garson (52:55):
Maybe it's like coming. Um, I don't know. Music.
It's coming. has stopped. Okay,cool. Yeah. So this is like,
despite doing this like amillion times. I hear a faint
man.
Pj Metz (53:11):
There's an echo now.
She just muted her. I think hermain computer and I definitely
heard of music. I definitelyheard something happening.
Brandon Minnick (53:28):
Yeah, I heard some some drums. Oh, yeah.
Pj Metz (53:34):
So she with Foxtrot, she's typing a string. And she
was telling us earlier, thestring creates a sound. Each
letter is a different sound. Andso she's layering these things
right now.
Brandon Minnick (53:48):
Yeah, it's funny to read the code because
like the code says play, andthen she has added a string and
the string is S, G, S, S,capital C, capital C, capital C,
F, lowercase p, lowercase b, ifyou just looked at it would seem
like complete nonsense. Butyeah, when you think about it in
(54:08):
terms of characters and lettersare sounds. She's building music
is code.
Pj Metz (54:19):
Yeah. And that's and that's what's like, again,
that's what I find interestingabout the noise scene is that
these things and these, theseways of stretching, music as an
experience are really really,really unique and interesting
and fun. Like you'reexperimenting, you're trying to
do something interesting. Andyou are saying, Okay, this is
(54:42):
what music is defined as, but itcan also be this and like what
we heard earlier was absolutelymusic.
Brandon Minnick (54:48):
Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, we were
talking earlier about people newto coding and getting into it.
What a better way to start likeif you're already into music
Learn how to code a little bit.
And then that can take off fromthere. Learn a couple lines of
code here. You google somethings and copy pasting from
(55:10):
Stack Overflow to get somethings working over there. Next
thing No, you're a developer.
Jess Garson (55:16):
Yeah. And then the other thing is like, that's how
I learned Ruby. Like, as aPython programmer, and now I'm
like, oh, that's like the GUthat's like what I do when I
make my loops like, and like,it's just like, a really fun
way. And then also, like, evenif you don't know anything,
like, I really like weird indiscord and sounds. So like, the
first time that I did it, I waslike, oh, yeah, yeah.
Pj Metz (55:38):
I like, right.
Jess Garson (55:39):
Yeah. And like, I remember following a tutorial to
like, do something. And I waslike, oh, no, like that weird
thing that I'm doing. That'swhat I want to do. And like,
because like I really likedlike, repeating like vocals and
things like that. I'm glad thatwe got something working, I was
a little bit nervous thatnothing would work. So. And I
think that's also like, part ofit is like the journey of like,
(56:01):
making it work every single timeand every weird venue with every
weird condition. Like it justlike, people keep inviting me to
play places. And like, it'sreally awesome to like, get to
know really amazing people toget to know who's doing it to
like, talk about, like, I'velearned so much about
concurrency, because that'slike, what's making all this
happen? Just through the like,live coding scene where like, I
(56:22):
don't think that I would learnabout that any other place.
Pj Metz (56:25):
It's great. I just posted a video of you at algo.
Wave back in December. Youperforming with Zach crawl?
Yeah, in the chat, if y'all wantto check out a live performance.
I'm just I'm so stoked. Like,from from me. Doing what I
usually do on Twitter, which isyell at Brands I'm submitting
(56:48):
you is exactly the best possiblesituation I could have hoped to
get out of this. You were justtalking about how important it
is to like, like, like gettingthere and having mistakes and
difficulties and things toovercome. And that's part of the
fun of music. I feel like thattranslates to developing as well
and translates to working intech as well. You know, it's,
(57:11):
you're gonna find mistakes,you're gonna have troubles and
there's gonna be difficultiesbut like part of that leads to
you figuring out the best way todo it. Like you didn't learn
Ruby until you started using itin your music. And now you know,
Ruby, like, it's fantastic. Ilove it. This is such a great
friggin podcast, Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (57:30):
Yes, and, Jess, we only have a couple minutes
left. We'd certainly love tohave you on again. We can show
off more of this. More of thesongs more of the live
Jess Garson (57:41):
thing. I buy a sponsored ad when I like have
any
Brandon Minnick (57:46):
drops.
Absolutely. But for the folkslistening who want to tune in,
check out your latest album.
Where can they find you on theinternet? Yeah,
Jess Garson (58:01):
Twitter's probably has a Twitter play? Twitter
Jessica Garzon? Yeah, find me onthe internet. So also if you
make anything with the TwitterAPI, or try programming and
music or like anything likethat, come and talk to me Um,
and yeah.
Brandon Minnick (58:21):
That's right and and tweet your thoughts at
just about Baja Blast MountainDew. Elser, let us know how it
is. Just thank you so much forjoining us. And thank you for
joining us for another episode.
We'll see you next time on eightbits.
And welcome back everybody to another
episode of eight fits the showwhere we interview people to
learn about the people behindthe tech. I'm your host, Brandon
Minnick. And with me as alwaysis the amazing co host PJ Metz.
PJ, how is your week? My weeksgone pretty good, even though
it's been raining and cold inFlorida, which are two things I
(02:24):
never want to see in Florida.
And so okay, like, it's
Pj Metz (02:29):
I feel like when I say cold, people assume no, it's
like 52 and freezing, and I hateit. Like, when it's in like 50s
I'm like, I don't want to ridemy bike. I don't want to go
outside. And it's miserable. But
Brandon Minnick (02:47):
yeah, it's it's funny, because I remember
because I was born in New York,upstate New York. So we're
really familiar with ice stormsliving on Lake Ontario and in
the city of Rochester, and thenmoved to Florida. And yeah, used
to when we first moved therewould make fun of people.
Because yeah, it's like 50. InFlorida, people are putting on
(03:08):
sweaters, whereas like, we'reused to negative temperatures
and snow days. And then yeah,your body totally adjusts and
you get used to the heat. And sowhen 60 rolls around, you start
putting on your jackets, and nowI'm in Northern California where
yeah, we'll get down to the 40sand wintertime it doesn't it
(03:29):
doesn't snow here. But you know,when it gets into like, its 50s
and sunny. That's work and I'mnot saying the t shirt again.
Pj Metz (03:39):
I'm not we are very, very, very cold.
Brandon Minnick (03:49):
Feels good to be back. I I was absent for one
of the first times last week Ihad to had to take a sick day.
So thank you so much to Dr. Gfor filling in for me. Fairly
last minute. Had a had a bit ofa COVID Scare, or or just COVID
Pj Metz (04:12):
COVID Scare by which we mean you probably had Cobra
probably had
Brandon Minnick (04:17):
COVID Yeah, I will say quick PSA. For anybody
who hasn't gone through it yet.
I had symptoms last week, buttested negative in three PCR
tests over the term of a week.
So the PCR test never said thatI tested positive, but my wife
(04:38):
did and we had in quarantinebefore she had symptoms. So I
was definitely exposed to it hadsymptoms never got it. The
doctors told me to treat it likelike just like yeah, you
probably got it. Just treat itlike you do. So, yeah, just FYI.
For everybody out there, youknow, you can I guess negative
(05:02):
three times I still feel crummy.
But I mean, at the same time, Iwas also recently boosted. I got
my booster with beating inJanuary. So I was like, probably
a week away from having the bestpossible immunity. And that's
kind of my hunch for whathappened is like, I got it, but
not I wasn't shedding enough ofthe virus to maybe trigger the
(05:23):
Yes,
Pj Metz (05:26):
yeah. Hmm.
Brandon Minnick (05:28):
I've no idea.
But I felt he stepped in for me.
That's right.
Pj Metz (05:34):
We had a fun episode.
Last week. We were talking toRaj all the way from the UK. And
she was talking about securityand marketing. And it's exciting
because I always love when wehave people who have like some
different backgrounds or are notjust the typical person that
you're gonna see in computerscience or in the developer
world. And I gotta say, I feellike this week's guest fits that
(05:55):
bill perfectly. We're going totalk all about how I met this
week's guest that after we bringthem on. But let's go ahead and
introduce to the world everyoneplease welcome Jessica Garza.
Wait, hold on, I did it wrong. Idid it wrong. I did. Now I
forgot. Brandon said I have todo the reggae horn whenever the
(06:22):
guest comes in. His requirementy'all.
Jess Garson (06:27):
Nice. I really want to sample the reggae horns. So I
got
Pj Metz (06:31):
mine@youtube.com.
Right. And I found a websitethat does this thing called mp3
ripping. And now I've got it.
Jessica, welcome to the show.
Welcome to eight bits. Thank youso much for being here. Um, how
about we start with you tellingthe folks at home a little bit
about yourself.
Jess Garson (06:54):
So I'm Jess, I am a developer advocate at Twitter.
Um, and for fun, I have a hobby.
I make music with cologne, and Iperform under the moniker
massacre arson. I'm mostly inthe live code scene in New York,
(07:14):
which there is I think it's thecoolest thing about New York.
Well, I've code NYC and performregularly with them. And then I
also have been playing morenoise shows, which has also been
really fun because I make musicwith code and I sample myself
screaming on top of it. And ittends to be pretty harsh. So
(07:37):
I've been venturing more intothe noise world as well, which
is kind of how PJ and I met inlike a weird reflection. On New
York,
Pj Metz (07:51):
it was an absolute combination of those things that
led us together and and like thefirst thing that happened was, I
make Twitter bots. It's kind ofmy thing. And, and by my thing,
I mean it's the only coding Iknow how to do. And I was
talking about a change that hadbeen made to the process for
getting what's called theTwitter developer account. And I
(08:13):
was like a little frustrated byI'm like, downplaying it. I
ranted about on Twitter. AndJessica is a Developer Advocate
there. Uh, the NBN said, Hey,I'd love to talk to you about
you know, your experience withthis. This is something we're
working on. And I want to makesure that it's going well. And I
first off, this is my firstinteraction with a Developer
Advocate Dev Rel person from acompany for something I'm using.
(08:37):
So this was a big step. For me.
It was fantastic. But we got totalking. And we said, and I
looked at your profile, and itsaid noise musician and I went,
wait, you make noise music. Sofor everyone out there. noise
music is exactly how it sounds.
(08:57):
It is it is harsh noise, but itis musical creation. It is it is
an art form. And the thing thatmost people might be familiar
with that gets the closest islike Sonic Youth. Like, there's
some discord and stuff they did.
But it is very much like yousaid it is harsh. But those are
that we immediately bonded overthe fact that like I listen to
(09:19):
some noise, and I enjoy noiseand you're creating it. And I
was like basically as soon as Ican. Next time I'm in New York
City. I'm looking it up becausethat's the kind of stuff I want
to see.
Jess Garson (09:30):
Yeah, so I feel like I should play Florida
because, you know, to hang outwith you.
Pj Metz (09:38):
I can see some places where it would work. What would
fit and we got some arts here.
We got some arts here. Yeah. Solet's talk about um, we're gonna
we're, we're gonna get to somenoise later on. We're gonna talk
about we're gonna hear somehopefully that'd be awesome. But
let's talk about your history.
You are a senior developeradvocate at Twitter. Yeah. How
(10:00):
did you get into tech? Like,like, what's what's the road
path that you took from? Like?
Did you know from a young agethat you wanted to work with
electronics? Was it a hobby thatturned into a career? Was it a
job that turned into a hobbybecause because your hobby of
making music with code is veryclosely connected with your with
your job of working in tech. Sowhat's that path look like? Take
(10:21):
us through it.
Jess Garson (10:23):
Yeah, um, so I, I actually have an untraditional
background. So interesting thingabout me, is I never wrote code
until my late 20s at all. And soI got started, I come from DC or
from the DC suburbs. And DC iskind of like a career town. It
(10:46):
is like a company town forpolitics. So you know, I
graduated from college, and Iwas like, What am I going to do?
I'm going to work in politics.
Like, that's what, that's whatI'm gonna do. Like, there was
no, like, I never really thoughtabout it. Um, or like thought if
like, it was right for me oranything like that. I just was
like, Well, I graduated fromcollege in 2007. And that's an
election cycle. So I have to goout and move to Iowa. Like, I
(11:09):
knew. This sounds insane, right.
But like, at the time, I waslike, oh, yeah, that's like,
what I need to do. And it's allkind of gone as planned. And I
did a couple of other campaigns.
Washington State for PattyMurray, on the campaign there.
(11:29):
And all of a sudden, some likemessy data came into my life.
And also like my staff from likethat time, I used to, like
manage staff that would do likevoter outreach and things like
that. And like one of my Oh,
Brandon Minnick (11:49):
oh, no.
troubles. Oh, yeah.
Jess Garson (11:57):
And I found a lot of like, technical difficulties.
My internet died, like rightbefore. I was supposed to join
this. And it can links fromstreaming issues. I live in New
York, where I thought that therewould be good internet. When I
moved to New York. I was like,Yeah, New York. happens. And the
internet's really good. But thatwas a myth. The internet is
Pj Metz (12:21):
only only like a few parts of Manhattan have great
internet. Everyone else. It'svery fun for yourself.
Jess Garson (12:27):
Yeah, that's true.
Um, but yeah. Where did I leaveoff my story? My journey? You
Pj Metz (12:33):
found some some data?
Oh,
Jess Garson (12:34):
yeah. Some like messy data, gaming, messy data?
Yeah. And I had to write code toclean it up. And I go,
Pj Metz (12:43):
Wait, it was, it was a necessity. It was like, Hey, we
have this data. It's like allover the place in your life.
That so they were like, someoneneeds to write code. And you
were like, me
Jess Garson (12:54):
looked at, like how much time it was gonna take me
to do the task manually. Andthen I was like, There's got to
be a better way. And I likegoogled it and wrote a Perl
script. And was like, oh, yeah,like, I'm a wizard. I like real
code, and it happen. And like,it made my thing happen. And
like, you know, I am, I aminvincible. Like, I just
thought, like, I and like, tome, like, that was actually like
(13:17):
transformational moment, becauseI never saw myself as a
technical person. Like, I didn'tthink that I had a need to do
that. I like didn't really thinkthat that was available to me.
And then, like, I did somethingthat I thought was impossible.
And like that, kind of like thatwas like the moment where I was
like, damn, alright, like, ifthat's possible, like, what else
can I do?
Pj Metz (13:37):
That's exciting. I love it.
Jess Garson (13:39):
Yeah. And then I also talked to like, one of my,
like, former employees from thattime period, and they were like,
you know, you were, like,obsessed without data got into
the database. And that was allyou would talk about. And like,
you really wanted to be able to,like, make reports, and like you
like, and I was like, oh, yeah,you're right. That like was like
(14:01):
a proto programmer thing. Andthen I'm up after that job
working in like, the tech spaceof like politics. So I like got
a job in tech support. As you dowhen you want to break into tech
company that was like, dude,like email blasts and like,
(14:23):
fundraising and stuff forprogressive candidates and
causes. I like part of that job.
Like I like but like writingdocumentation and like helping
people like, but I didn't reallylike it like they were like, and
then like, ended up doing moredata stuff. But like, like part
of it, but like, my favoritething to do is like writing code
and talking about it. And Ifound this meetup in New York, I
(14:47):
mean, in DC at the time where Iwas living.
Brandon Minnick (14:57):
Pause for dinner.
Jess Garson (15:00):
more difficulties.
Pj Metz (15:02):
brief pause.
Jess Garson (15:03):
Okay, where did you were
Pj Metz (15:05):
you were you found a group? And yeah,
Jess Garson (15:09):
yeah. And it was free beginner friendly classes
for women by women. And then Ilike had this community and I
was like planning hackathons andlike, writing code and talking
about it weekly, um, when IGoogled one, so like, it used to
run this meetup called Hack andTalon DC, and it was like, five
presenters, and each presenterhave five minutes to present.
(15:32):
And then five minutes forquestions. And we would like
time you but the problem is, islike, if you only have two
presenters, and like, it doesn'treally work, right? It basically
meant that you always had to dosomething because like, that
format only works if you havefive presenters or like, six
presenters. But if you only havelike three or four, then like,
you need more time because it'slike 25 minutes. So you know
(15:59):
that that format was really fun,but maybe doesn't set you up for
success. But I one time Googled,like how to make music occurred.
And I found Sonic Pi, and I,which is like the Ruby way of
live coding. And it's like, aprogram that like, isn't like an
IDE. And there's like, now thislike really amazing woman, DJ
(16:21):
Dave, that makes like, reallyawesome stuff with that. And she
like plays big, like electronicfestivals and stuff like that.
And she's awesome. And she like,is really inspiring. But like,
you could do so much with it.
And I like basically like wrotecode and kind of people and I'm
like, this is really cool, butdoesn't sound like me. And then
I was like, what if I like,sample myself screaming on top
of it like that would be reallycool. And try to like book
(16:43):
myself out like punk shows in DCbecause I was like in a punk
band and like, was in that sceneand like, people are like, Wait,
like, you can't just like writecode a party's like, you can't?
What are you doing, and then Imoved to New York to teach at
NYU. And then by that point, Iwas like, a software engineer
(17:04):
didn't really like that and feelfulfilled, quit my job got hired
somehow, it'd be an adjunct atNYU to teach programming, which
was like, really awesome. It'skind of in this like, weird spot
where it was, like, moved to NewYork didn't really know what I
was gonna do. And then I hadcoffee with somebody, and
they're like, oh, there's analgorithm happening tonight.
Pj Metz (17:26):
I'll go rave.
Jess Garson (17:28):
And it was like an event where everybody writes
code that makes sound andvisuals. And they were like, You
should go to that. And I did.
And then I met all the peoplefrom there and became friends
with everybody and start playingshows on my own. And yeah, live
cut. algorri and learn aboutthis amazing community. And then
(17:53):
around that time, I was like,having lunch with somebody. I
was like, I don't know what todo my career. Like, I don't know
what to do. Like, I like don'treally like being a software
engineer. Because like, I justlike the teaching aspect of it.
Like I like talking aboutthings. I like writing code on
stages in front of humans. Ilike use products better, but I
don't know, engineering them,like what do I do? That's
(18:17):
developer advocacy. Immediately,like, I just started applying
for developer advocacy jobs. Andpeople were like, calling me
back right away. And I was like,wait, I guess that's it. And
then I got hired by Twitterpretty quickly thereafter.
Pj Metz (18:37):
I can't imagine a better like position where it's
like most of what I like aboutcoding is like helping people
code. And so then you becomelike an actual professor, like,
like an adjunct professor,teaching coding. And so of
course, Twitter was like, Oh, soyou've been a developer? And
you've taught Yes, absolutely.
Please come over right now.
Jess Garson (18:59):
Yeah. And then they were also like, Oh, my God, you
like have this community thatlike we've never heard of,
that's like a programmingcommunity. And you ran on dev
that yo, and I was like, oh,yeah, cuz I just like really
like writing and talking aboutthings. And building like, that
is what I like to do. And like,that's how I
Pj Metz (19:19):
branded? That's exactly how you explained it to me
first, and again, you did for asecond. Okay. But that's, um, so
So Brendan, that's how hedescribed DevRel to me when he
convinced me I should do this.
Brandon Minnick (19:32):
Yeah, because it, I'd say, programming in
general. And that's kind of oneof our goals of this show is to
break that stigma that like, youneed to be good at math. And you
need to be, you know, the bestdeveloper in the world or the
smartest person in the world tobe a good programmer. None of
that's true, like the day to daystuff you do as a programmer. A
(19:52):
lot of its administrative, youknow, having conversations about
planning. And then most of theThe code you write is doesn't
involve math. I know, we're,we're talking about algorithms
here. But you don't necessarilyneed that today. And so yeah,
(20:13):
when I was trying to convince PJand Gladdy glad he did make the
switch, as like, PJ, you'd bereally good at this. Like,
you're an amazing teacher,you're amazing public speaker.
videos already really good atmaking videos and active in
communities. And it was reallycool. Yeah, to teach you a
(20:33):
little bit of code and take offfrom there. Because now more
people can benefit from yourteaching.
Pj Metz (20:39):
And really, they're benefiting from you in the long
run. It's not random. I approxi,PJ, absolutely.
Jess Garson (20:47):
And one of the things that like we talked
about, like the first time thatwe spoke PJ, which like really
resonates was like you werelike, because we you had this
issue. And you're like, I don'tknow, like, I just don't think
about things in the way thatother people think about them.
And I'm a little bit slow. And Iwas like, That makes you such a
good developer advocate. I thinkissues also like, I think that
(21:07):
like for me, like not having itcome to me easily actually helps
me build more developer empathy,especially for like developers
at different parts of theirjourney. And like, I don't know
sometimes.
Brandon Minnick (21:23):
I'll pick up from that. Yeah, cuz I, I agree
with that so much, because Ialways anytime I'm teaching
something, documentingsomething, I always think about,
what what was it like when Ilearned it, like, what
misconceptions that I have I wasgetting into it, or what
mistakes that I make. And I wantto make sure I cover those. And
(21:44):
I've definitely gotten a lot offeedback from people will say a
lot there. This feedback iscertainly in the minority. But
some people will be like, youknow, you really made it too
easy. Like this workshop, yougave all the answers. It's like,
Yeah, cuz it's a workshop, and Iwant to teach you how to do it.
I want to make sure you leavehere with a working example that
you can show off your friendsand family. Whereas some people
(22:08):
try to make it like a challenge.
Like, yeah, step one. Publishyour website. It's like I've
ever done. Like,
Pj Metz (22:19):
the rest of the aljur.
All the rest.
Jess Garson (22:24):
Yeah, and I think also, like, figuring out like,
where in the steps things gowrong, I think is also like, a
big part of it, which is like,you know, all the different
places where something can breakdown, like, like posting a
tweet, like, I can tell you allthe different ways that it can
fail. But yeah, also, like,sometimes I'll like meet
developers, and they'll be like,oh, yeah, this thing happen. And
(22:46):
like, I don't know why. And thenlike, sometimes I don't know
why. And I like really, thatjourney of like, trying to get
in their shoes and figure outexactly like, why that's
happening.
Pj Metz (22:59):
I think that's what developer advocacy is at its
heart, whether whether you'reevangelist advocate, REL,
whatever it is, it'sunderstanding what the developer
has to do to use your product,right? So if you're at GitLab,
like I am, and my community isstudents, and professors, I need
to know what all students aregoing to encounter when they're
(23:22):
trying to use Git lab. And gitlab is huge. The first time I
open git lab, and there waslike, create a free account, I
was like, Oh, I'll do it. Andthen it was like, Alright, get
started. And I looked around,and I was like, What do you
mean, I don't know what this isfor? I didn't know.
Brandon Minnick (23:38):
So I am overwhelmed. Yeah.
Pj Metz (23:41):
So anything you can do to take them down to just
wellmed at least, is a benefit.
And just You're absolutelyright. It is it is about knowing
what those pitfalls are, becausethen you know exactly where they
need help. And they need like tosee where they're going next.
And that's how you help themthrough. Because if they know
what the next step is, then theydon't need you.
Jess Garson (24:04):
Right, exactly. And it's also like different
audiences, and like differentpitfalls that they're gonna
encounter is also like one ofthe things that I'm becoming
like a little bit more savvy onand just like, the more I talk
to developers that are actuallylike using things, the more I'm
like, oh, yeah, okay, that'swhat's happening.
Pj Metz (24:22):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Brandon Minnick (24:25):
And for anybody listening, you don't have to be
a developer advocate ordeveloper relations to do this.
I found even before getting intothis field, just as a senior
engineer, mentoring teachingpeople on your team in your
company. All these skills arealso very, very useful. And you
(24:46):
can leverage the same takeawaysjust for when somebody new joins
your team, like how do you getthem up and running? Do you have
it documented, do you knowconfiguration steps just to get
their computer to be able tocompile The code, right? Little
things like that, like, the moreyou document, things like that,
then the easier it is for thenext person. And yeah, that's
(25:09):
kind of something I've alwaystaken with me in my career.
Because also, what I found is ifyou ever want to leave a job, if
you've already trained somebodyto do that job, then it's a
really easy transition when yougo to your boss and say, I'm
going to switch teams, becausesome managers are like, No, we
can't do it without you. It'slike, okay, yeah, I've already
(25:29):
trained this person.
Everything's documented, you'llbe fine.
Pj Metz (25:33):
Or it's Nope, I can't let you leave.
Brandon Minnick (25:37):
And then you just quit. Cuz that's Yeah.
Pj Metz (25:42):
You can't leave. Yes, I can.
Jess Garson (25:44):
Yeah, the first thing that I did was like a
deployment thing. Because like,it was like the steps to deploy,
because I worked in this place.
And I was like, so how do youdeploy? And they were like, Oh,
you have to, like, memorize thisthing. And they were like, you
have to, like, memorize how doyou like, there's a lot of
steps, I'm gonna go human error.
(26:08):
Like, I can maybe do it like,right once. But like, I'm sorry,
I just documented it. I waslike, Alright, there's no
documentation on this. And thatwas like, the first thing that I
ever did. And and also, like, Idon't know, mean, the workplace
feel a little bit nicer. Becauselike that workplace in
particular, like, didn't haveanything documented. And I was
(26:29):
always like, terrified to like,do the task to do. And so yeah,
I think that's something thatlike, figuring out like, where
you can step in, especially iflike you work in a place where
nothing is documented, like, youcan help the future version of
yourself.
Pj Metz (26:46):
Man, yes, the future version of yourself. And new
people are one in the samesometimes. You have no idea what
you were going for.
Jess Garson (26:58):
Or, sure, you was like, Oh, wait, how did I do
that deployment? Like a monthago? Why was I doing why did I
do it?
Pj Metz (27:05):
Yep. Yep. Be nice.
Awesome. And that's Brandon, youtaught me that early on, when we
were working on your newfavorite poem, that website we
made together and you were like,Hey, man, you better leave a
comment here. You better saysomething about what this is
doing. Especially as we weregetting towards like the end of
an episode. And it was like,alright, we need to wrap up, and
you would always go, Okay, whatdid we do today? Write it down.
(27:25):
So we know where we are. Cuzsometimes it would be a long
time before we'd get backtogether again, and we'd look at
the code and be like, what werewe doing?
Brandon Minnick (27:38):
Right, I always tell myself, like, Future Me
will appreciate this. Yeah, justtake the extra couple minutes.
And, you know, even ever, oncewe even just, we purposely
created an error. So like itwould, the compiler would throw
an error, just so that next timewe jump back in the code, we try
to compile like, Oh, that'sright. This is where Oh, yeah.
(28:03):
Just like there's no way I'mgonna remember this.
Pj Metz (28:07):
So Jess, you say that, uh, your first thing you did was
documentation? And then nowyou're at, you're at Twitter,
what are you? What are youworking on at Twitter? What is
your what is your team? Or whatare you as a developer advocate
sort of focus on at Twitter?
Jess Garson (28:20):
Yeah. Um, as of late very, very recently, I
stepped into kind of a newersort of project, where thinking
about how to like, monetizedevelopers more and like, how to
reward developers and like, whattypes of things like motivate
developers and like thinkingabout like, one of the coolest
things about the Twitter APIright now is that we have a
(28:40):
whole community of openinglibraries and tools to use the
Twitter API with I know PJ, youand I talked about, I forgot
which whether you were using butyou are using one, two, right?
Pj Metz (28:53):
I'm using what was I using? twit? Yeah, you
Jess Garson (28:57):
were using twit?
Like, there's tweepi. There'slike, oh, there's like this
whole ecosystem of really cooltools out there. And like, how
do we reward those folks who aremaking really amazing things?
And like, how do we like peoplewho are making really awesome
content like you VJ? Like, howto what, like, what motivates
you? And like, how do we keepthat happening? And I don't
(29:17):
know, I'll say like, I've beenthinking a lot about that. And
then we recently last weeklaunched something called
Twitter toolbox, I'll put thelink in and tools are basically
things like bots or integrationsthat can help you improve your
Twitter experience. And they'relike, third party tools that
(29:38):
folks are creating. And then ifyou are like, Oh my god, I make
a tool. Even if it's a bot orlike, something like that, like
fat reader is one as long
Pj Metz (29:50):
Yeah, February is great. Yeah.
Jess Garson (29:53):
Um, and so yeah, that's one that is on the
toolbox, but If you're like ohmy god I make something that's
cool too. You can actually applyas well at t.co/toolbox Apply
Pj Metz (30:11):
I'm gonna go ahead and say that my Mountain Dew
kickstart box should be in therefor everyone to use so they can
all scream at Mountain Dew aboutgetting the sponsorship for
sure.
Jess Garson (30:20):
Also, maybe that's a word that you need is on
Mountain Dew sponsorship. Youalso messaged me as well. Send
me that joke. But yeah, we needto figure out like how to get
more people the rewards thatthey want. Like maybe it's that
we send you a box of MountainDew every like month.
Pj Metz (30:43):
All right, whatever box you want. If I can actually get
that Mountain Dew code red, noteven. Actually, I do like it
too. But literally, I've beendrinking it on stream for those
weekend. See this beautiful,orange and white can of
kickstart orange mountain mango,do whatever. Even just smelling
it.
Jess Garson (31:03):
What is that?
Pj Metz (31:06):
This is what I scream about all the time. It is a
water based energy drink. And Istarted drinking it because it
was $1 at the store that I wasat. And it was cheaper than
everything else. And I tasted itand it was heaven. And that's
all I'm not saying anymore. Youknow why? Because they're not
sponsoring me yet.
Jess Garson (31:28):
I'm more of like a Baja Blast kind of person.
Pj Metz (31:32):
What? We accept all kinds of Mountain Dew lovers in
this show.
Brandon Minnick (31:40):
I love it.
There's there's a rift in mymarriage, because my wife and I
don't understand it. But itseems to be one of those
products that you either love itor you hate it. Because anytime
I bring it up to somebody, theyeither love it or don't drink it
at all.
Pj Metz (32:00):
It's strong feelings.
Yeah.
Brandon Minnick (32:03):
There's a blast. Seltzer coming out. Like
it reminds me a Four Loko backin the day. And I thought that
was illegal now so I don't knowhow they're getting away with
illegal I could talk
Jess Garson (32:25):
for a logo and now it's like, okay, but like
Pj Metz (32:28):
I had to, like remove the caffeine from or not have as
much caffeine in it. Yeah, it'sstill around. You can buy it for
local if you really want to. Andyou can buy a red ball on the
side. And it's the same but Iwas I was there I saw firsthand
the dangers of Four Loko.
Jess Garson (32:45):
The summer of 2014 was
Pj Metz (32:52):
Facebook memories showed me two things. It was it
was the night before it was likeI've got Four Loko, Johnnie
Walker and the next memory waswhat has happened to be in my
friends. And I was like, that'sabout right.
Jess Garson (33:13):
time thinking about like what, like the pandemic
would be like early likelockdown times, like what
everybody would have been doing.
Pj Metz (33:30):
There would have been a lot of dropped pots and pans out
a window instead of clapping forhealthcare workers, they would
have been hitting the ground forsure that's dangerous. talking
so much about all this, and Ifeel like we got to take a
second step back and go to oursponsors real quick. And let our
sponsors do some talking theleading of for Loco is
definitely a good idea. We'll beback in just one second y'all.
(33:55):
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It's great, it's such a goodcommercial. That's right y'all.
If you are interested in havingadspace here on eight bits, you
can contest contact us at Helloat eight bits.tv Right Is that
right? I say right.
Brandon Minnick (34:50):
Yes, I'm just laughing because it's, it's you
in the video and then we comeback. Brace yourself about
Pj Metz (35:00):
It's like that meme of Obama giving him a medal.
Brandon Minnick (35:06):
He's like, What a great, what a great video we
have there.
Pj Metz (35:11):
I can't believe what a handsome spokesperson they got
for that commercial.
Brandon Minnick (35:17):
But email us at Hello at a pitstop TV, we'd love
to hear about any sponsorshipsand happy to share it with all
of our viewers.
Pj Metz (35:31):
That's, that's, uh, I can't be the person coming out
of that ad. I think you're gonnahave to pick that up next time,
Brandon. That's your job.
Brandon Minnick (35:44):
Sir, I completely derailed our
conversation with Baja Blast.
Mountain Dude, you're listening.
I'd love to give it a secondchance. Opportunities.
Pj Metz (36:01):
Great. So yeah, Jesse, you were telling us about how
you got into tech, you'retelling us about working at
Twitter, what you're working onat Twitter and the toolbox,
which is seems really neat.
Because one of my favoritethings about Twitter is the
variety of ways that you can dostuff with it. Especially if
you're learning to code. I can'tsay enough good things about
getting your hands into an APIor getting your hands on a
(36:22):
rapper that's using that API, doit and have some fun with it.
Um, let's pit and let's talkabout your hobby. Let's talk
more about noise.
Jess Garson (36:34):
Yeah. Um, so yeah, let's talk about noise. For me,
like learning into noise isactually kind of funny. As well,
just like my joining into pack.
I like, didn't do it when I wasyounger, like, I didn't really
like rebel in that way until mylike, 20s. To my late 20s, and I
was in the DC punk scene, I hada punk band left that punk band
(36:59):
just because I didn't reallyhave the time to really do it as
much as I would have liked. Um,and also, like, kind of got
bored of the DC punk scene, likePJ and I were joking about this
right before that, like, everyband like sounds the same. And
that, like, everything feltreally formulaic. And I didn't
(37:21):
want to follow up formula, likeI just wanted to do like weird
experimental stuff. They didn'tknow what that was gonna look
like, like, I thought it wasgonna be me in a synthesizer and
screen.
Pj Metz (37:36):
So like a, that happens a lot in music scenes, this sort
of like homogeneity that comesout of it, a lot of bands start
sounding really similar. Andlike, this is something that's
like, Well, I mean, blink 182has a lyric, playing in punk
clubs, still part of the samepunk bands. And that's what
happens with a lot of art scenesis because everyone finds the
(37:58):
thing that works. And they loveit. And it's how we're
expressing ourselves. But thenit all starts to feel kind of
the same. So what? So you havethis musical background? Right?
And you were like, Well, okay,I'm going to do something
different. I want to dosomething interesting. And you
were saying, synthesizer,vocals, some screaming? And then
(38:18):
you end up. You said, basically,you fell into programming
really? And then you told usearlier, you found through the,
what was it called a algorithm?
Yeah, I
Jess Garson (38:30):
found the algorithm seen. And yeah, at the time,
like my first show was, like,literally, like how I would
sample myself was I would like,open up audacity, and like,
scream into my, a USBmicrophone, and like, sample
that and just, like, drop thefile in. And like, like, like,
there was one time that I like,forgot to put like, the slash in
(38:52):
front of users. And someone,like yelled it out to me.
Pj Metz (38:56):
They were like, Why code reviewing you during your
show?
Jess Garson (39:01):
happened sometimes, like, especially because like, I
show my errors, so like,sometimes I'll be like, really
stuck on some things. Like, I'mtrying to do like a lot of
things all at once. And like,like, one time, I was doing like
a Twitch stream, and somebodywas like, this is what's
happening. And that's like, Ilove it. Like, I feel really
safe. Because, like, you know,you see something you say
(39:21):
something and like, I think thatjust means that you have like a
community of people that arethere with you have your back
and like that's amazing.
Pj Metz (39:29):
It's fantastic. So, um, is there is it possible? I know
we were trying to do this tosome technical sharing earlier.
I don't know if you can do itlive or not? I don't know if
we've got that capability. We'regonna try.
Jess Garson (39:43):
It's gonna work.
We're gonna try something. It'sgonna be kind of experimental. I
brought up my second computerduring the break. So I think I'm
going to try to join on mysecond computer. Well, we're
just going to try this live. Ihave no idea if this is going to
work. Okay, so you know That,like, honestly, like this is
like one of the things we weretalking about earlier is like
one of my favorite things aboutlike, because it's an
(40:04):
experimental medium, I'm havingsome problems with my computer.
I've had internet issues, someother stuff, like, but one of
the things I love is like, itisn't experimental medium and
like, weird stuff happens. Andlike, it's okay. Like, it's okay
to have errors. It's okay tolike, not know if it's gonna
work. Like that's, like part ofthe fun and like, I used to be,
(40:26):
like really intimidated when Ifirst joined the scene. And then
I think I was gonna startearlier, but like, I went to see
little data plays like one ofthe biggest names in the like,
live coding world, and hiscomputer, like crashed and like,
they were like, 10 people tryingto figure out like, what
happened. Um, and I was like,oh, like, that happens to me,
like, and then I was playing inEngland, the person who made
(40:49):
hails like, like a clip beforehim. And then I was like, Oh, my
God, like, he's gonna beawesome. He's computer crashed
like six times, like, while hewas playing the show. And I was
like, Okay, if that happens tothem, like, my computer could
crash too. And like, that'sokay. And like, I feel like
that's like, what makes it feellike really?
Pj Metz (41:11):
It's fantastic. When you can find
Jess Garson (41:14):
that they're like, their instruments are going to
work. I have no idea. Like
Pj Metz (41:22):
imagine like going out with like a guitar. And like,
the neck just like melts andyou're like, oh, that's never
happened before. I don't knowwhy. If we can help, it
Brandon Minnick (41:32):
must be bad Wi Fi causing my guitar neck. It's
basically the equivalent.
Pj Metz (41:39):
No one in the crowd is like, you need to plug into the
Ethernet to keep your guitarneck from.
Jess Garson (41:49):
So my other computer is having some issues
loading because yeah, I haven'tI have another idea PJ, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna email you asong. You choose which side and
I'm just gonna tell you some topsome song titles. And you can
make a decision. Okay. Spooky isnumber one. Also audience feel
(42:12):
figured out like if you're in itas well. Corners of disorder.
Brandon Minnick (42:17):
That's a cool name.
Jess Garson (42:19):
Yeah, it might be the title track, although I'm
not 100% Sure. If that's gonnabe the title track. Um, so yeah,
if you have any ideas of whatshould be here, not like I'm in
the process. Um, or maybe onethat's like screen free. Which
(42:40):
is my signature. I mean, I thinkthere's some lightweight
screaming. I'm NY SE.
Pj Metz (42:47):
York Stock Exchange.
Okay, so and why is he
Jess Garson (42:54):
and I asked, he does have a good story behind
it.
Pj Metz (42:56):
I mean, I was corners of disorder sounds like just as
a title of a song sounds cool.
Jess Garson (43:03):
Alright, I'm gonna email you corners of disorder.
Yeah. Alright, so
Pj Metz (43:07):
we're gonna be listening to corners of disorder
after you get the email. Thisthis is officially my journey
into actually being a shock jockbecause now I'm actually doing
music. Not live show too. I'vegot this. And like with a reggae
horn, I'm halfway there. Sothat's good. So good.
Jess Garson (43:32):
Also, finding your email is like the next thing.
Brandon Minnick (43:38):
You could sell it, send it to Hello at eight
bits.tv.
Pj Metz (43:46):
TV says Perfect.
Alright. Just like you can. Youcan email us music, or you can
email us request to be theadvertiser on the next episode.
Jess Garson (43:57):
Yeah, you normally live couldn't go into my music
folder. Now I'm like, I
Pj Metz (44:09):
I need to open up the right window. So I can open our
email Brandon. Oh, oops, therewe go. Because I only have it in
my it's all like well, likewe'll show it all off. You can
see my login and everything. Areminder for those of you in the
audience who are not familiarwith noise, music, it is
discordant. It is purposefully alittle bit harsh. It is noise.
(44:32):
If this is not a somethingyou're going to be hearing on
pop radio. It's not the type ofmusic that you're gonna sit
around and like be like, it'sbeautiful, but there's an
expression there and that's whyI love it. I listen to some
noise like a weasel Walter andthere's a Japanese noise band
(44:53):
from I think the 80s called theghetto Gay, gay, gay, gay. And
they are a wild band. They dofrom Five second, covers of,
well, not just this, but what Iheard them from was five second
covers of famous songs. Sothere'll be like, they'll do
baby kinky, like my fire, butit's five seconds of noise, and
then it's over. And it's it'sfantastic stuff that stuff makes
(45:18):
me so happy. But again, it's
Brandon Minnick (45:22):
not started.
Pj Metz (45:25):
It's so early noise, and I think Jess would know
better. But it's really to dowith like, experimenting with
what sound can be like, even ifyou look at like, composers like
John Cage, he did weird stuffwith most considered classical
music. Because they were saying,Look, if if music is a type of
(45:47):
noise, what if we just made thenoise, like John Cage had a song
that's called four minutes, 33seconds. And it's just silence.
It's nothing. And I was actuallytalking to my students about
this when I was a high schoolteacher. I was like, it's an
expression of something. Theperformance of a gym, that John
Cage piece that's just silenceis, instead of sounds that the
(46:12):
musicians make it is now thesounds of the room. And that
becomes the performance becausewhen there's no sound, your your
ears start to reach out foranything. And you otherwise
wouldn't hear. So it's, it's sothere's always been music
experimentation, like John Cageis doing stuff in the 60s.
Jess Garson (46:35):
Yeah, yeah. And that's like, it's kind of
changed a lot as well sincethen. And I just think you
should have an email, by theway, if I were to do something,
but I sent her a comp. Becausemy upload speeds of course,
because my internet is beingweird, aren't awesome. And then
while we play that I'm going toexperiment with like, seeing if
I can, like join the stream asme so like, there's a lot of
(46:57):
like, to maybe there'll be somelive stuff, but we'll see what
happens. You got it.
Pj Metz (47:02):
I am looking looking looking right now.
Jess Garson (47:05):
And it's hello@ebit.tv Yes.
Brandon Minnick (47:09):
Yep. Should be numeral eight
Jess Garson (47:12):
numeral. Okay.
Yeah, we're gonna play core.
This is like the world premiereI think of order for it was on a
comp once. There is like a newerversion that has like a bass at
the end and more screams becauselike, who doesn't like more
screams? Right? Yeah, but thisis like the older version.
Pj Metz (47:33):
I'm gonna start it I'm currently I should be sharing my
computer sound naturally becausebut I have these black hole
because I'm on a Mac. I'm gonnahit play. Let me turn off this
background chill background.
Jess Garson (47:45):
It's gonna start with a screen by the way so
everyone knows.
Pj Metz (48:30):
Just I am loving this, this is amazing. Oh my god. So
like, it's not in like a is itinformed? What time signature is
it?
Jess Garson (48:39):
Um, I think the BPM on that is one indeed.
Pj Metz (48:42):
So wow, that's fast.
Because it feels it feels likethere's a lot going on at once.
But there's a there's a cyclicalnature to it all to, to each
individual piece. Like thescreen is there on its own
cycle. The music is on its owncycle.
Jess Garson (49:00):
So through string length, which is like really
fun, because all the strings aredifferent, like so basically,
the way that it works that eachsound maps to a letter of the
alphabet, and then all of mylike, so. All of my strings,
like I played different stringsall at the same time. And
(49:21):
they're all at differentlengths. And so that's how I do
poly rhythms or string line,which is like really fun.
Pj Metz (49:26):
That's amazing. So what what programming language are
you writing these in?
Jess Garson (49:31):
Yeah, so I use three different programming
languages for various differentvibes. Um, so that is like
intense classic massacre. Ithink about it. Like I before I
went into the studio, where Irecorded that I had like this
like, almost like manifesto ofsorts for like, I had like
different like different phasesof Metallica. So that was
(49:53):
classic Metallica, and that'slike loud and aggressive. And
then I do like more droney stuffin Ruby. on Sonic Pi these days,
and that's like more chill, butlike also kind of aggressive in
its own way and like moreambient, but like, kind of more
drawn like, and then intitlecycles I do, which is like the
(50:14):
Haskell wrapper forsupercollider. And they're all
wrappers for differentlanguages, another programming
language called supercollider,and there's actually a Python
talk where I talk all about,like how to get started. If
you're like, interested in
Pj Metz (50:27):
wait, you have a PI CON talk about coding music. Yeah,
we need to link it, we have tolink it right now. That's
fantastic. Because again, thisis this is a, a fantastic and
fun way of, of doing your itswork because it's tech and it's
(50:49):
coding. But it's like a veryexpressive way of doing it. And
this is not something thateveryone knows is out there. And
so to show more people that isout there, it's fantastic. Oh,
my gosh,
Brandon Minnick (51:01):
I agree. And I will say, it wasn't what I
expected. Because when you saidit starts with screaming in my
head, I was thinking of like,what, I don't know if this is
the actual term for but I alwayscalled it screamo music where
it's kind of like heavy metalrock and the singer doesn't
really sing anymore. Just likeyeah, guttural screams into the
(51:22):
microphone. That's a great. No,right. Yeah, I love Yen's in the
comments is that he left? It's aturntable emoji cat turntable
emoji.
Pj Metz (51:43):
Perfect. I found your talk at HP icon Cleveland 2019.
And I just dropped the link inour chat for y'all. I'm making
music with Python supercolliderand Fox dot.
Jess Garson (51:59):
I think we're gonna try something. Um, I think there
should be another version of me.
Yeah, just TV that's like, we'regonna see if this works. I have
no idea if this is going to so.
So like, I'm going to share myscreen that's gonna be a minute
of inception or no, that's me.
That's me. Okay, cool. Now Ifound the right button to press.
(52:20):
Alright. So let's just I have noidea. This is gonna work by the
way. So I'm gonna turn on whatI'm doing right now. Is I'm
turning on Fox. Ah, we're gonnasee. And is this muted? Let's
just double check. My hands aresweaty. So yes, listening
Brandon Minnick (52:39):
along in the podcast, Jess is sharing her
screen. Looks like we're in theatom code editor. We have some
code on the screen. And she'scoming shortly.
Jess Garson (52:55):
Maybe it's like coming. Um, I don't know. Music.
It's coming. has stopped. Okay,cool. Yeah. So this is like,
despite doing this like amillion times. I hear a faint
man.
Pj Metz (53:11):
There's an echo now.
She just muted her. I think hermain computer and I definitely
heard of music. I definitelyheard something happening.
Brandon Minnick (53:28):
Yeah, I heard some some drums. Oh, yeah.
Pj Metz (53:34):
So she with Foxtrot, she's typing a string. And she
was telling us earlier, thestring creates a sound. Each
letter is a different sound. Andso she's layering these things
right now.
Brandon Minnick (53:48):
Yeah, it's funny to read the code because
like the code says play, andthen she has added a string and
the string is S, G, S, S,capital C, capital C, capital C,
F, lowercase p, lowercase b, ifyou just looked at it would seem
like complete nonsense. Butyeah, when you think about it in
(54:08):
terms of characters and lettersare sounds. She's building music
is code.
Pj Metz (54:19):
Yeah. And that's and that's what's like, again,
that's what I find interestingabout the noise scene is that
these things and these, theseways of stretching, music as an
experience are really really,really unique and interesting
and fun. Like you'reexperimenting, you're trying to
do something interesting. Andyou are saying, Okay, this is
(54:42):
what music is defined as, but itcan also be this and like what
we heard earlier was absolutelymusic.
Brandon Minnick (54:48):
Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, we were
talking earlier about people newto coding and getting into it.
What a better way to start likeif you're already into music
Learn how to code a little bit.
And then that can take off fromthere. Learn a couple lines of
code here. You google somethings and copy pasting from
(55:10):
Stack Overflow to get somethings working over there. Next
thing No, you're a developer.
Jess Garson (55:16):
Yeah. And then the other thing is like, that's how
I learned Ruby. Like, as aPython programmer, and now I'm
like, oh, that's like the GUthat's like what I do when I
make my loops like, and like,it's just like, a really fun
way. And then also, like, evenif you don't know anything,
like, I really like weird indiscord and sounds. So like, the
first time that I did it, I waslike, oh, yeah, yeah.
Pj Metz (55:38):
I like, right.
Jess Garson (55:39):
Yeah. And like, I remember following a tutorial to
like, do something. And I waslike, oh, no, like that weird
thing that I'm doing. That'swhat I want to do. And like,
because like I really likedlike, repeating like vocals and
things like that. I'm glad thatwe got something working, I was
a little bit nervous thatnothing would work. So. And I
think that's also like, part ofit is like the journey of like,
(56:01):
making it work every single timeand every weird venue with every
weird condition. Like it justlike, people keep inviting me to
play places. And like, it'sreally awesome to like, get to
know really amazing people toget to know who's doing it to
like, talk about, like, I'velearned so much about
concurrency, because that'slike, what's making all this
happen? Just through the like,live coding scene where like, I
(56:22):
don't think that I would learnabout that any other place.
Pj Metz (56:25):
It's great. I just posted a video of you at algo.
Wave back in December. Youperforming with Zach crawl?
Yeah, in the chat, if y'all wantto check out a live performance.
I'm just I'm so stoked. Like,from from me. Doing what I
usually do on Twitter, which isyell at Brands I'm submitting
(56:48):
you is exactly the best possiblesituation I could have hoped to
get out of this. You were justtalking about how important it
is to like, like, like gettingthere and having mistakes and
difficulties and things toovercome. And that's part of the
fun of music. I feel like thattranslates to developing as well
and translates to working intech as well. You know, it's,
(57:11):
you're gonna find mistakes,you're gonna have troubles and
there's gonna be difficultiesbut like part of that leads to
you figuring out the best way todo it. Like you didn't learn
Ruby until you started using itin your music. And now you know,
Ruby, like, it's fantastic. Ilove it. This is such a great
friggin podcast, Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (57:30):
Yes, and, Jess, we only have a couple minutes
left. We'd certainly love tohave you on again. We can show
off more of this. More of thesongs more of the live
Jess Garson (57:41):
thing. I buy a sponsored ad when I like have
any
Brandon Minnick (57:46):
drops.
Absolutely. But for the folkslistening who want to tune in,
check out your latest album.
Where can they find you on theinternet? Yeah,
Jess Garson (58:01):
Twitter's probably has a Twitter play? Twitter
Jessica Garzon? Yeah, find me onthe internet. So also if you
make anything with the TwitterAPI, or try programming and
music or like anything likethat, come and talk to me Um,
and yeah.
Brandon Minnick (58:21):
That's right and and tweet your thoughts at
just about Baja Blast MountainDew. Elser, let us know how it
is. Just thank you so much forjoining us. And thank you for
joining us for another episode.
We'll see you next time on eightbits.
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