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.
Fairly certain YouTube has got my number when it comes to "weird things you might like to watch." Case in point, this Pixel POV Effect video just 3 minutes long (perfect), displays a baffling visual effect (intriguing) and manages to describe it sufficiently (approved). There's even a follow up that builds on the concepts but still keeps it just to 2 minutes.
Back in December of 2021, Uncle Skeleton released the album Golden Hour. At the time, I had the idea and intention of putting together an album visualizer that featured one long sunset set to the album as soundtrack; a nod to the literal intention of the record - taking time to just reflect. For no good reason, it never happened. Mostly, I just ran out of time with work and couldn't ever get it over the finish line.
I finally put the rubber to the road and put together the video. It's not one long sunset as originally envisioned but many sunsets through the duration. It's not a music video, so I don't expect you to give it your full attention but I do recommend that you toss this up on a TV somewhere and let it roll. It's pleasant and the album is a banger; likely overlooked because it was released in December of 2021; a notoriously terrible month for releasing records.
I don't see near as many music videos these days as I did in my youth but I still know a good one when I see one. This video for "Take Me To A Lake" from Cloudmouth is phenomenal. I suggest you hit play on it right away as it requires no context to appreciate but here's some extra info on the making of from vocalist Kyle Numann:
It was the summer solstice, and I asked my wife Emily "will you bury me in the backyard tonight?". Despite us having a healthy relationship, she said yes.
We'd just finished making a new flower bed in the front yard and had about 40 square feet of topsoil and dirt heaped in a pile in the backyard. For years I'd had a loose vision of a scene of human faces emerges from the earth, and I figured this was as good a chance as I'd get to capture something that would satisfy the creative itch.
We filmed it using a smartphone, with natural light and only an on-the-fly idea of framing and pacing. This ended up setting the tone for the rest of the video: filmed with handheld smartphones, pulling scenes together as we could, using only practical effects, and considering the editing stage as a 'canvas' to bring all these disparate scenes together to form a full visual flow.
The face emerging from the dirt is striking but they continue the trend with plenty of variations with other members of the band. And on top of all that striking imagery, the song is quite compelling as well!
Cloudmouth has a history of interesting videos worth watching (I suggest this one and this one specifically) but something about "Take Me To a Lake" really levels them up. Ya love to see it.
just recently stumbled on this and am intrigued. I have no problem building websites but one that actively updates itself is a pretty neat trick for musicians.
had never heard of this before but it was a challenge to read the contents of ancient papyrus scrolls that had been carbonized in volcanic ash. they somehow managed to actually do it.
