This trailer for Hundreds of Beavers is captivatingly unique. There's a pull quote in there that says "Exists at the crossroads of Looney Tunes, Benny Hill, Cannibal: The Musical, Blazing Saddles and Adult Swim." That's a helluva intersection but you can see all of it in just the 1:20 of the trailer. I'd even toss in a pepper of Guy Maddin.
There's an extended trailer if you're curious to see a bit more of the action. My hope is that it never crosses over into gory but I'll just have to watch it to find out.
I know zilch about Philadelphia band full body 2 but I do know that their 2023 album infinity signature is checking all the right boxes for me. It's steeped in shoegaze (so play it loud) but there's also a great deal of electronic music influences flowing through as well. Excellent blend start to finish. Dive into "wonder limit" - enjoy!
I will rant and rave all day long about how I think nostalgia holds people back from appreciating new things - a prison of the past that restricts you from being open to new experiences. But when I look at this Old Windows Icons repository, I can't help but be overjoyed.
I love a modern icon but there's something charming about the artistry of a tiny cassette, animated rose or
Recently encountered this upcoming Syne project, a 12" x 15" display that connects with your Spotify account to show what is currently playing. The pitch is that it's kind of like a vinyl record cover but it's powered by your streaming choices.
All told, not a bad idea! Giving a bit more real world presence to streaming music would be nice - especially in a public space. That said, there are a lot of questions to be answered that hopefully the early March 1st launch will answer. Does the "Syne" logo have to be visible at all times? What happens to it when I'm not listening to music? What's the price?
That last one is a real clincher. If it's even vaguely expensive, it's going to be tough to convince folks this is worth purchasing. I'm curious to find out how it all goes.
For the majority of 2023 I was under water. Vimeo let a bunch of people go which resulted in a lot of increased responsibilities for myself and, eventually, a new job at Mosaic. Then thatwent away in early 2024 and I found myself with a small window of free time. In between job hunting, I've been making up for lost time by posting lots of episodes of my We Own This Town: Music podcast.
If you're unfamiliar, it's basically a radio show - approximately an hour of music from Nashville area bands with a focus on indie rock, hip-hop, noise, ambient, electronic, et al. Things outside the city stereotype and incredibly enjoyable. Episode 366 focuses on a niche collective of artists that are swimming in shoegaze styles (that's an oversimplification but a good place to start).
I've got many more episodes queued up, I just need to edit them and get them into the world. If you're looking for some old school music discovery, consider subscribing.
Brand new podcast from Jed Sundwall that features conversations with "technologists about the literature that has influenced them." First up is Time O'Reilly talking about Dune. That's a helluva first episode if you ask me.
The animated logo is real charming but the title is even better - Techs on Texts. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, RSS or, if you're not yet convinced it is worthy of your subscription, read up on why the podcast should exist. Jed's doing a great job and it's just getting started.
Excellent short film here - Duct Tape and Dreams - all about the revival of the SFMOMA soapbox derby back in 2022. It really is irrelevant that it's in San Francisco or that the MOMA is involved, it's just a pleasant exercise in creativity. Anytime someone races a prawn down a hill, I'm in.
Shockingly, much of the music for the short film is pulled from the Uncle Skeleton catalog. Through the magic of music licensing, there's no less than seven of his songs throughout the piece. Musicbed - the licensing service they used - even recognized it as worthy of acknowledgement, not too shabby!
For convenience sake, I also turned that list of tracks into a playlist, enjoy at your leisure.
Every few years, Blind Melon comes up in conversation and, inevitably, I learn that yet another person in my sphere adores the band's second album Soup as much as I do. It's an album about addiction, serial killer Ed Gein, murder Susan Smith and lighter topics like halitosis and a grandmother named Vernie. For being known as that bee girl band, they really went out of their way to show they were more than that. I appreciated it more than I could say in 1995 and was beyond bummed to learn of Shannon Hoon's passing just two months after it was released.
All that is to say, I've been going down the YouTube rabbit hole of Blind Melon material I was previously unfamiliar with.
Intimate, Interactive show - a fantastic hour long set comprised primarily of Soup songs, interspersed with some song anecdotes.
Woodstock 94 - don't think I'd ever watched this before. A good year before Soup was released but the songs were, obviously, already there. Can't tell if it's a good or bad idea to play mostly unreleased material to a crowd this size.
There's plenty more out there I'm sure but that's a smattering of what I'm listening to in between album rotations.
Really nice read from Chain of Thought on How Sora Works and the Future of Filmmaking. Those are two enormous topics but the piece keeps it simple. The first half is a relatively layman's explanation of how OpenAI's Sora is getting the kind of results it is getting. I don't say "layman" in a demeaning way, it's literally the only way I can understand these concepts - so I appreciate it even if it is overly simplified and leaving a lot out.
The second half deals with how technology and filmmaking have such a turbulent relationship. It's hard to articulate but technology lowers the barrier to entry, a great thing for folks looking to be creative but not so great for an industry known for gatekeeping.
Generally speaking, I love the idea of lowering the barrier to entry to any creative endeavor. That Glif Extension that lets you create any image in any specific style? Great! ElevenLabs letting you submit your voice for emulation and getting paid when someone uses it? Wonderful. Sora letting you create consistent film characters in whatever world you want? Should be great! I don't think any of it supercedes the need for story, art direction and human decision making. I also don't think we're going to be generating sitcoms for individuals - that's taking the microculture war too far!
This is just a simple blog post to steer you towards something to ponder. It's certainly a topic worthy of it.
It's great read and filled with pertinent observations on both the dichotomy of Silicon Valley dependency on microculture content and Big Media's total lack of understanding of the same cultures.
Using the term "Big Media" feels like a big red flag but I'm not using it in the conspiracy theory sense. I simply mean big Hollywood studios, primary news outlets and mainstream content creators with giant budgets.
Worth a read or two just to stick the landing on the similarities between the 60's counterculture and our modern microculture. Should be an interesting year ahead.
The folks over at Glif recently released a new browser extension that lets you remix images directly from the web. The promo video explaining it does a good job (and provides some hilarious music) but I suggest you just try it. Glif is doing great work to make AI interactions very accessible and doing so with a great deal of fun. Ya love to see it.
Ran across the work of Chris Cunningham while scooting around New Orleans and had to share this Protect Ya Neck piece. There are more in the series but this specific Tom & Jerry swirl just hit the spot.
Near my office there is a historical marker dedicated to the 1910 Kentucky Derby winner - a horse named Donau. I'm not sure how many historical markers exist dedicated to specific horses but this one certainly struck me as strange.
Reading up more on the situation, it seems the horse was owned by William Gerst, a brewer who ran the Nashville Brewing Company, later known as the Gerst Brewing Company. The plaque is located near where the brewery once stood and where Donau spent his final days.
The horse was overworked, even by early 1900's standards. The Wikipedia says "Donau's unruly behavior worsened to a point where he would lie down on the track if prompted too harshly by racetrack employees or trainers." I don't blame him.
I love this plaque and admire the horse for embracing such a fiery attitude in the face of abuse. In the spirit of this admiration, I put him on a shirt. My Yawning Kat store has no real rhyme or reason to the wares I offer, so Donau seems like a wonderful addition.
When I saw the new METZ album artwork was by "Sara Cwynar" I felt a twinge of familiarity. How do I know that name? Turns out, I know the name because I've been admiring their work since 2010!
Catching up on more recent offerings from the Brooklyn artist is a real treat. The collage work from over a decade ago is still present but has, clearly, evolved and changed dramatically. Click on over and be sure to watch the "Glass Life" short film excerpt and view the Tracy exhibition. Then click on everything else.
hard to tell from just two songs but seems like the band has figured out how to flesh out their songs beyond just unrelenting power energy. excited to hear it all.
