Let's make two things abundantly clear. First, I find the title Dad Jams for a record to be very off putting (and a bit lazy). Secondly, my complaint is likely null and void as the record stems from a band named Thee More Shallows, not exactly the best moniker in the world to begin with. That snarky commentary aside, I'm excited to hear that the band has returned. The 2007 record Book of Bad Breaks was in regular, heavy, rotation for years. All of the prior albums received a solid bit of quality time as well and the band always felt like one of those unfortunately undiscovered gems.

This V13 interview with songwriter Dee Kesler explains the long stretch of time between albums (surprise, he became a Dad!) and shares the first single "Ancient Baby" which is a phenomenal name any way you slice it so my prior complaints are a complete wash.

Very limited run of LP's from Monotreme Records that I am confident will be worth the purchase.

I was recently reminded of the Integratron, a structure built in 1960 by UFOlogist George Can Tassel. Having spent some time with Skyway Man, this structure was not completely unknown to me but I did realize that I didn't know much about it beyond the anecdotal.

The Atlantic ran this piece, "A Time Machine In The Mojave Desert ," back in 2015 and it serves as a nice primer for the history of the place, the intent of the structure and its modern fate.

Obviously Wikipedia has plenty of info, the official site is pretty interesting and I recommend reading the Atlas Obscura entry for a full Quickstart guide on the place. Or you can just watch this Zwan video, filmed inside of it.

Sally Davies has a incredible body of work; some of which is portraits of NYC'ers in their highly decorated apartments. The quotes from each individual is almost always a lament back to the "good ole days" of NYC but that doesn't detract from the images of their homes. It's quite fun to pore over all of the details.

Tip of the hat to Jamie Dubs for this Juxtapoz piece on The Art of Warez, a short film from British artist-filmmaker Oliver Payne and American painter Kevin Bouton-Scott.

It's about 13 minutes about Bulletin Board Systems, ANSi art and the culture that revolved around them. Topics that are near and dear to my heart. I'm not much for nostalgia but this relics of pre-Internet days were formative, to say the least.

If you're looking for more ANSi art, there's a bunch on artpacks.org, 16colo.rs and ArtScene. It's a subculture worth spending some time with.

say whaaaaaa

After a quick premiere via Flood magazine, I am happy to share two new tracks from Stone Jack Jones featuring Adia Victoria. Back in 2019, yk Records released Black Snake from Stone Jack Jones; a pretty dark blend of folk, psychedelic and rock. It's not music that is easy to plop into a standard genre as there's something mystical about it. These two new songs - "I'm Made" and "Heaven Knows" - build on that same vibe.

The first track, "I'm Made", is actually 9 minutes long - a length that may appear daunting at first but a factor to the song that gives it time to really set the listener into a meditative and transfixed place. It doesn't feel like 9 minutes in the slightest.

I'm really happy to get these songs out into the world and think they capture a special collaborative vibe between everyone involved. Stone Jack Jones and Adia Victoria really do share a kindred spirit in terms of their embrace of the Southern Gothic and the contributions of Roger Moutenout, Robin Eaton, Kyle Hamlett, Kelly Diehl and Mason Hickman really take it to a special place.

TLDR: two new songs out on yk Records, give em a listen. Streaming everywhere.

performance film mixed with pre-recorded footage. Always good to see Grandaddy emerge with something.

a well spent 17 minutes

not gonna lie, this is clever enough to back.

relevant to my interests

company Ekioh is trying to re-invent the browser. Very interesting read but it's a massive hill to climb.

Many thanks to the Nashville Cream for premiering this brand new video for "Mixed Signals" by Jack Silverman. I already loved the track but the video really recontextualized it for me - adding a layer of narrative that I would have never come to myself.

The G. Seth West / Ben Marcantel direction for it has an almost Dr. Katz feel with the simple illustrations and squiggly movement but there's Easter Eggs nestled throughout the whole piece. The "11:34" clock being the most obvious and pervasive.

Watch it and enjoy.

another absolute stunner

I have discovered a new intriguing Bandcamp genre

I just recently learned about Roman Opalka and his lifelong art project painting to infinity.

In 1965, he decided to "to paint numbers that would progress sequentially from one canvas to the next for the duration of his life. " Starting on a black canvas he started painting these sequential Details for years. Around 1968, he starts to add 1% white to the canvas with the ultimate goal that the paintings would eventually have a fully white background with white numbers on top.

I'm usually not a big fan of these sorts of "invisible" works but there is something admirably meditative about the act of painting from 1965 to 2011 to the point where its not even visible.

this came through as a submission and I gotta admit, I really like the animation style.

i found myself on Tumblr the other day and revisited this photoblog. Unbelievably good.

I recently came across the work of Demond Melancon, an artist from New Orleans "with extensive roots in the Black Masking Culture." If you're not aware of the Black Masking Culture, it's an homage to Native Americans and the African diaspora told through incredible elaborate costuming, always involving extremely intricate beading work. Here's a 2 minute documentary on that to catch you up.

Melancon takes the traditions of these Mardi Gras Indians and applies them to his fine art portraits. Most of the images from his site do not give the sense intricacy or scale involved with these pieces but they are often huge and always incredibly detailed.

I find the work to be fascinating from all angles - the method of execution in making it, the actual illustration style itself and the story each pieces tells.

You can find Melancon on Instagram, naturally.

don't sleep on cuttlefish; dudes is SMART

Soundcloud recently announced Fan Powered Royalties - a different approach to paying out artists than what any of the other streaming services use. I've been fascinated with this approach ever since I read about Deezer's User Centric Payment System. This article does a good job of explaining "pro-rata" payouts vs "user-centric" payouts but the gist of it - instead of paying artists with the most repeated plays on a given platform, payouts are based on direct plays from subscribers.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying it or misunderstanding the approach but, as far as I can tell, they're going to try and pay out artists based on actual plays; not an algorithm of who should be paid. This is closing in on 1:1 plays to payments.

The Soundcloud promo site sells it pretty well but there's a lot of documents to sort through to figure out how to be eligible for it. To start, if you're on Soundcloud and don't have ISRC codes on your tracks, you should go ahead and do that ASAP.

However it shakes out, it's a very worthwhile experiment and I'm happy to see a big company like Soundcloud trying this out.