yk mix: Ruination Rumination

posted October 21, 2015 #

It's that time of year again, the Halloween mix! I can't believe I've been putting these together for TEN YEARS. Frankly, I'm not even bored of it. This years undertaking, Ruination Rumination, is a three part movement and I think it turned out pretty well. Not as terrifying as some years past and not as silly either. An excellent balance and some era spanning selections.

I full admit that the title is *bit* on the dramatic side but sometimes that's a fun indulgence this time of year. Imagine saying it with your head tilted back and a light underneath your face and then laughing maniacally.

ruination rumination
[ Stream It | Single MP3 | ZIP ]
Previous Halloween Mixes
Revival Denied (2014), Potions & Brews for Countless Horrors (2013), Paralyzed with Fear (2012), Endless Hell (2011), My Descent Into Madness (2010), Dark Despair (Undead Trespass) (2009), Crepuscular (2008), Et Tu, Morte? (2007), Songs for Spooks (2006), Pure Terror (2005)
--more--
  1. Screamin Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You
  2. Souls Unlimited - The Raving Vampire
  3. Charles Sheffield - It's Your Voodoo Working
  4. Gene Page - Blacula Strikes!
  5. Oliver Nelson - Skull Session
  6. Artie Shaw - Nightmare
  7. METZ - Zzyzx
  8. Quintron - Horror
  9. Wavves - Gimme A Knife
  10. Horrible Houses - Terror Cassette
  11. All Them Witches - Heavy/Like A Witch
  12. Queens of the Stone Age - My God Is The Sun
  13. Mr. Gnome - Wolf Girls
  14. Meatbodies - Mountain
  15. Paul Banks - Another Chance
  16. Makeup and Vanity Set - A Warning
  17. BLVCK PØW∃Я - ✝1k ✝øk
  18. Barry Vorzon - Theme From The Warriors
  19. Dots Music - Graveyard
  20. Disasterpiece - Doppel
  21. Preacher - The Lamb of God

Friday Videos - Oct 16th, 2015

posted October 16, 2015 #

I gotta give a big amount of thanks to Steve Niebauer and Chad Pugh for the constant supply of absurd video entertainment that ends up in these weekly lists. I literally couldn't do it without them.
  • Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, Vol 5 - I love this series. The new episode does not disappoint.
  • Owen Wilson Whispers - he sure does!
  • Cat Chiropractor - a silly skit featuring Bobby Tisdale (that's Zeke from Bob's Burgers). I can't explain why but the bit where he actually adjusts the cat had me in fits.
  • w/ Bob and David - the first official trailer for the new Netflix show has been released and I'm kind of stunned at how much it looks and feels exactly like Mr. Show. Very excited.
  • Squatty Potty Unicorn - I actually stumbled on this late last week thanks to Lee and it's an absurdly weird commercial for a device I've actually heard high praise from others about.
  • Vorhees Stomp - if we're being honest, I don't really love the video on this because I'm so out of the loop on classic 80's horror film tropes but I do love the song. And it's October appropriate, so enjoy!
  • Say Hi - Torrents of Rain - great combination of silly and spooky. An entertaining Halloween based music video
Hey, don't forget to watch Computer Show as well, you'd be a dummy not to.

William Mortensen

posted October 14, 2015 #

William Mortensen was an American photographer that began taking Hollywood portraits in the 1920's and transitioned into running his own School of Photography where he developed a photo manipulation style and focus on subject matter that erked so many other photographers at the time that he's been lost to history for the past 80 years. Seriously, Ansel Adams called him "The Anti-Christ." That's either serious damnation or high praise.

The past few years Mortensen's work has been rediscovered and, rightly, highly praised. His official site and Facebook have a ton of examples of his work - most of which is focused on the macabre, grotesque and mystical.* Many of the pieces are highly manipulated, either with double exposure, image overlays or direct etching into the plates used to create them; giving them an illustrated look. He was a human Photoshop to put it more directly.

I can certainly understand how he was ostracized in his day but these images are unbelievable, even now. Absolutely loving browsing through these archives. It's a deep well and entirely appropriate subject matter given the Halloween time of year.

* The subject matter is also largely NSFW, if you didn't pick up on that already

Friday Videos - Oct 9th, 2015

posted October 9, 2015 #

It's October! Okay, technically it was October last week but I was out of town and not really quite feeling the excitement of the Halloween season descending upon us. You know what I love the most about this time of year? Candy corn. Yea, that's right - the waxy, questionable, candy treat that's plagued kids treat bags for years is one of my favorites. Now you know a little something about me.

Enjoy these distractions:
  • Pumpkin Dance - I'm going to post this every week until Halloween because it needs to be seen as much as humanly possibly. 3 million views? We can do better than that.
  • American Ninja-saurus - nothing like an obstacle course in an extremely awkward dinosaur suit.
  • Hey Folks - an hour of Marc Maron saying Hey Folks. How much can you endure??
  • Sarah Moody on Hardly Art Records - Moody's take on what role a record label should play with an artist is exactly what I'm trying to do with yk records, though she states it way more eloquently than I ever could.
  • Will Butler "Anna" - entertaining music video featuring Emma Stone dancing around. Not too shabby. There's a solid Song Exploder episode about this song too.
  • Input/Output - I can't even begin to express what is happening here but there's a myriad of unexpected output from the inputs.
  • Breakmaster Cylinder - Chordettes - I've been listening to a lot of Reply All lately and when they mentioned this Chordettes remix put to Horror movie clips, I knew it was an appropriate introduction to the Halloween season. And the song is bonkers.
They can't be embedded unfortunately but I highly suggest this series of Saddam Hussein replacing sad movie deaths series. Ridiculous.

Shaboi, Halloween 2015

posted October 8, 2015 #

Guess what? It's October 8th. That means it's prime time for you to start embracing Halloween themed music because you've only got 23 days to fully enjoy it before it becomes a little weird. In my opinion, there is no better spooky album to achieve that goal than Shaboi's Curse Walk.
I talk about this album in great abundance every year and, amazingly, it still never gets old to me. It's unfair to call it "novelty" because the songs are good, they just happen to mention ghouls and the undead fairly regularly. I implore you all to take to Twitter and implore the man behind the music to make more of it.

If you're not a Bandcamp listener - no problem! Hear it on Spotify, Rdio, Apple Music, Soundcloud and just about everywhere else.

posted October 7, 2015 #

Are there people who only go to Wiccan church on Halloween? Like Christmas mass for pagans

Friday Videos - Sept 11th, 2015

posted September 11, 2015 #

Fun fact, there's a NASA Graphics Manual Kickstarter that has raised nearly 750k to reprint scans of a 1975 manual. The fun part is that NASA just released the entire manual for free. So, if you were curious what the contents were but didn't want a bound book of them, you're in luck.

Hope you had a great week. I think I could get used to this four-day work week thing.
  • Dead Man's Bones - should I save this for Halloween? Probably but this dance routine is just too spellbinding to not share immediately. Thank you Wijtze.
  • Reverse Jaws Boat Scene - I saw a gif of this making the rounds and the keyword search to find the original material was too perfect.
  • Hell's Club - probably the most insane mashup of films I've seen. Yes, I posted it earlier this week. Yes, you still need to watch it.
  • The Art of Close-Ups with Edgar Wright - love the work of Edgar Wright and will take any chance to hear him talk about his process and filmmaking in general.
  • Viet Cong "Bunker Buster" - beautifully shot and perfectly weird music video. Quality song too.
  • Laser Moon Awakens - listen, I tend to stray from Star Wars related anything online because there's just too much of it and the saturation makes everything not funny. So, the recommendation to watch the full 30 minutes of Laser Moon Awakens does not come lightly. Thank you Paul
Need more? Watch this great MacWorld feature on Specimen - with Erica Gorochow and the Upright T-Rex boys. Or just watch this absolute madness about 100 times. Or have a peek at this chart of insane correlated data.

Drip For Drip

posted June 30, 2015 #

I've been enjoying the playfully competitive nature of Drip for Drip, a head-to-head design matchup between Wijtze Valkema (of Bamse Ontwerpt) and his favorite designer / illustrator friends. They design coffee cups, have a quick chat about coffee and share the results. Seeing the creations is a nice study in diversity while still staying on a particular theme.

Markus Magnusson

posted April 20, 2015 #

I spent a fairly substantial amount of time browsing the works of Markus Magnusson and I can't even begin to pick a category of singular piece that exemplifies the fun of his work. The Just GIF's is, of course, a great place to start but these illustrations or these Google Doodles are decent jumping off points. Of course, the Busy Block promo and Cat Mayhem piece are pretty much essential viewings as well. Pretty much, you should click on everything available to click on.

Friday Videos - Nov 7th, 2014

posted November 7, 2014 #

Did you know Bob's Burgers has returned to airing new episodes? Hopefully you did, it's such a fine show. Anyway, here's a bunch of distracting videos to help you get through your day. You deserve it, you worked hard for it.
  • Player Hater - loved this little death animation. All my favorite things.
  • Infomercials - Too Many Cooks - this is eleven minutes long. That's an incredibly long time for an Internet video but it gives this absolutely absurd video a long time to go some quite insane places. It only gets weirder and darker as it goes.
  • What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks - this is a helluva handclap choreography. How many times do you think they've done this?
  • Klaus Nomi - Lightning Strikes - My friend John went as Klaus Nomi for Halloween and I've been diving into his catalog of works ever since. What a fascinating character.
  • Shooby Taylor - Stout-Hearted Men - new life goal, memorize this and everything else in Shooby Taylor's catalog.
  • CHAPPIE Movie Trailer - I'll be real, I didn't love the last Blomkamp movie but seeing this Chappie trailer gives me hope that he'll continue to live up to my highest expectations.
  • AMBITION - this is a full-on sci-fi trailer for an actual space mission. I could get used to this sort of PSA.
  • My cousin Oskaar - you know how annoying Daylight savings is to people who live in Iceland? You will after seeing this.
  • Boom Boom Boom Way Ho - I am sure I have seen this and I am sure this has made the rounds in your office email pool before but it's absolutely worth a rewatch. I predict you will be singing it all day today.
I've also got Bee & PuppyCat on my queue for the weekend.

Friday Videos - Oct 14th, 2014 (Halloween Edition)

posted October 31, 2014 #

It's Halloween! And it's on a Friday. That's a very special combo. Before you dive into this weeks videos, please be sure to check out my Halloween mix, it's a handy soundtrack for the rest of your day.

It's going to be hard to top last years playlist but I think you'll find some solid entertainment here: Plenty more Halloween things floating around yewknee.com if you're in need of more. Don't miss this classic ASCII art repository for your new email signature.

Have a great Halloween!!

yk mix: Revival Denied

posted October 29, 2014 #

I've shared quite a few Halloween themed mixes already this year but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't throw my own hat into the ring. So, here's my 2014 Halloween mix submission to you all - Revival Denied.

I attempted to follow suit from last years mix and find a balance between some more light hearted fair and a progression into a little darker territory. I think it turned out successfully - if the mix were a person it would, hopefulyl, be more Creepy than it is Murder-y.
Revival Denied
[ Stream It | Single MP3 | Single M4A | Compiled ZIP ]

Previous Halloween Mixes
Potions & Brews for Countless Horros (2013), Paralyzed with Fear (2012), Endless Hell (2011), My Descent Into Madness (2010), Dark Despair (Undead Trespass) (2009), Crepuscular (2008), Et Tu, Morte? (2007), Songs for Spooks (2006), Pure Terror (2005)

--more--
  1. Alan Parson Project - Lucifer
  2. Unicorn Kid - Phantom Unicorn
  3. Plone - The Greek Alphabet
  4. HAM1 - Saluki
  5. Little Viking - It Works Out
  6. Quasi - Loopy
  7. Sweet Valley - Impending Doom
  8. Mogwai - Remurdered
  9. Jim Guthrie - Death To Everyone
  10. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Sunburn Fudge
  11. Nossaj Thing - Fog
  12. Ral Partha Vogelbacher - Lonely Dreadnought
  13. Makeup and Vanity Set - Yearling
  14. Forget Cassettes - Catie Age 30
  15. Mogwai - Repelish

Robert the Doll

posted October 28, 2014 #

add this to your "Spooky Stories" catalog for Halloween tales. via @black_cat_belle
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