Tune into WOL 1450 AM, 95.9 FM, and the WOL Livestream on Thursday, January 9 at 10:30 a.m. EST for “Everything Co-op,” hosted by Vernon Oakes. On this week’s episode, Vernon will interview Simon Vansintjan and Alex Rodríguez, the co-founders of Mirlo. Mirlo is an online audio distribution and patronage platform that strives to be radical, accessible, open-source, modular and standards-based.
Simon Vansintjan is a programmer and mutual aid, solidarity economy, and dual power organizer in Washington, DC. He plays soccer, guitar, banjo, and doodles in his free time. He’s done weekly radio on public radio and music journalism in a past life. Simon has been a software developer for UN organizations, Fortune 500 companies, user experience agencies, fast-growing start-ups, not-for-profit organizations, open-source software, and open data platforms.
Alex Rodríguez is a trombonist, anthropologist, and organizer working at music and social transformation confluences. He currently teaches in the Department of Music at Wellesley College and holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, where his research focused on jazz clubs and the communities that sustain them in Los Angeles, USA; Santiago, Chile; and Novosibirsk, Siberia. His writing on the contemporary jazz world has appeared in The Newark Star-Ledger, NPR Music, LA Weekly, and DownBeat, among other outlets. He has also trained in Deep Listening through the Center for Deep Listening and is currently preparing his debut album project, Somewhere Else!!!!, with three Chilean collaborators. Alex has worked in the solidarity economy movement as co-founder of the mental health worker cooperative, Catalyst Cooperative Healing, as a working member of Sociocracy for All, and as an Artist-Owner of Ampled.
Mirlo provides a user-friendly space to help musicians sell music, manage subscriptions, and share with their supporters.