yewknee
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An internet waystation.

it me - michael eades

👋 Hi, I'm Michael Eades; a long time Internet dweller, design dabbler, dangerously amateur developer, online social experimenter and frequent curator.

Currently working as VP of Product at Smarter Apps. I also keep the lights on at a boutique record label called yk records, a podcast network called We Own This Town and a t-shirt shop called Nashville Galaxy. Previously, I built things for Vimeo OTT, VHX, KNI and Spongebath Records.

This site is an archive of ephemera I find entertaining; tweets, videos, random links, galleries of images.

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find me elsewhere

 

contact

Reach out via threads or good ole email if you have anything to discuss. I do my best to reply in a timely manner.

for the record: "yewknee" is a nonsensical word with no literal meaning but a unsurprisingly nerdy etymology. It is pronounced, "yoo • knee."

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ongoing projects

yk Records →
started in 2009 as a conduit for music that friends had no plans on releasing. now it's a full fledged boutique label focused on releasing quality music from a variety of styles. you know, like a label does. Here's a sampler on Soundcloud and a different one on Spotify. Options.

We Own This Town →
Originally a Nashville area music blog, this site has grown into a full blown podcast network as of 2018. It's an attempt to bring together creative folks about a variety of interesting topics.

I host this show all about Nashville local music outside the expectations of the city. I'm biased but all the shows are good.

Nashville Galaxy →
An online t-shirt shop featuring beloved and defunct Nashville area businesses. Very niche audience on this one but I tend to think niche is good.

some noteworthy other things

Chris Gaines: The Podcast →
published along with co-host Ashley Spurgeon; a limited series podcast that takes an absurdly researched deep dive into the time that Garth Brooks took on a fictional personality named Chris Gaines.

Garth Brooks Chris Gaines Countdown →
to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the time Garth Brooks took on the fictional personality Chris Gaines and appeared on Saturday Night Live in character, I GIF'ed the entire episode. It's a lot of GIFs; please use them.

Whiskerino →
a social network built around communal beard growing for four months. yes, it was as weird as it sounds but equally fascinating and enjoyable.

Moustache May →
an offshoot of the beard growing contest mentioned above. equal amounts of oddball fun but only a month long.

Summer Mix Series →
before all music was streaming everywhere, Internet music fans would swap zip files of music. it was truly a strange and wonderful time.

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HBO Max and A24 to Develop Megan Stalter Comedy Pilot 'Church Girls'

sometimes, occasionally, infrequently - the news is good.

Falsehoods programmers believe about time, in a single list

Nerd humor but still humor. I chortled multiple times.

Kolumbo - Gung Ho

If you haven't heard the solo work of Frank LoCrasto, go check that out. Then hit up his band Kolumbo for a taste of their forthcoming album, Gung Ho. Tropical and funky.. delicious.

Louie Zong - Cartoon Funk

Zong's output is impressive to say the least but generally leans towards smaller EP's of conceptual sparks. Cartoon Funk is a delight but also a rather lengthy record. Def worth a listen.

FLY: Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared Promo

The cult favorite is coming to BBC in September. Not sure this show needs to exist in any form beyond the YouTube series but I’m optimistic that the creators kept control and keep it real weird.
Someone please expand this into a full music video. OR, if it exists already, steer me towards it.
Caught a tweet from a friend that said to check out Caleb Gamman, so I did. Now I'm passing that good advice along to you.

The latest video, "Artifice of Intelligence," is an enjoyable rant about the fear of technology overtaking humanity and how inane and unlikely that is to happen. Gamman is dry, whipsmart entertaining and plenty insightful.

The rest of the content on his channel is also a worthwhile watch but not quite as transparently commenting on technology or society. That stuff is in there, just not as openly. It's good. You should watch.

Tweaks for Twitter

pretty nifty changes here! I'm not a Safari Desktop user but I am an iPhone user, so I may have to give it a whirl.

GT Planar Typeface

the most impressive website you'll ever see for a typeface
Back in the mid 90s, there was a record store and venue in Nashville called Lucy's Record Shop. It was a small space in an area of town with not much around it. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it became a haven for the youth culture at the time to see local bands, pickup 7" records from indie artists and attracted a good deal of smaller (at the time) touring artists like Bikini Kill, Cat Power, They Might Be Giants, Brainiac, and more. One of the regulars at this space was Stacy Goldate, a budding filmmaker who took it upon herself to capture the happenings around her. The film she put together and released in 1996 was entitled Lucy Barks! and has not been available digitally until now.

I worked with Goldate to get a hi-res version of the film and set her up on VHX (now "Vimeo OTT") to make the film available to purchase or rent. All proceeds from the film will go to Oasis Center and Nashville Launch Pad; two orgs that embody Lucy's Record Shop mantra "“no racist, sexist, or homophobic shit tolerated."

This is certainly niche content as it really may only appear to people of a certain age that also happen to live in Nashville and also happened to care about the rock music scene of that time but it's still a fascinating watch. According to Mary Mancini, founder of Lucy's Record Shop, it's also one of the few pieces of media that exists that actually captures the space since digital cameras, smart phones and social media were not ubiquitous at the time.

Happy to have lent a hand in getting this out in the world and if you happen to fall into the niche audience for it, I hope you'll give it a watch. The embed above is a preview of the film - not quite a trailer, not quite an excerpt - but it gives you an idea of the kind of characters you'll encounter.
Over at yk Records today we announced the sophomore album from The Medium, For Horses. The album is set to drop on August 19th and the band released a smattering of promo for it to kick things off. You can hear the first single, "Still the Best," on all the streaming services, you can watch a horse-laden video for the track and you can preorder the LP.
Along with all that, I also overhauled the band's official site at themediumband.com. It's probably fair to say at this point that official websites for bands that mostly exist on social media networks isn't entirely necessary but I still really enjoy the process. It's fun to take the branding assets and figure out how to make them work as an informative site, while adding in a few bells and whistles where you can.

There's plenty of promotion on the horizon between now and August 19th but I hope that you'll dive into the new site, give the track a listen and maybe even follow the band.
Happy to announce the first iteration of a project I've been working on for awhile - Nashville Galaxy. It's a storefront that contains nostalgic t-shirt designs from various defunct spots around the Nashville area. If you've never been a resident of Nashville, the shirts may not make much sense but if you've ever lived here and pined for the return of a particular venue or restaurant, this may be a fun little shop for you to bookmark.

Technically speaking, I've been really interested in the technology behind Print On Demand services. Instead of ordering a bunch of stock of a particular shirt design (and all the various sizes), there are services now that will print your design when you order it. Many years ago, the quality is horrible. More recently, the quality is pretty fantastic. We did plenty of tests for these shirts before posting the site and I'm pleased to report this is world's beyond those iron-on tees you used to get a mall kiosk.

We're starting with 12 designs and have an incredibly lengthy list of additional spots to add. Go follow @nashvillegalaxy on Instagram and submit your design requests via DM if there's something you're hankering for.

I'm considering this posting a "soft launch" - so if you find any bugs or weirdness, let me know and we'll get it all sorted.

Self - Uno Song (Live, 2000)

Blast from the past that I’d never actually seen

The Octopus Project - Moog Etherwave

Been a long time since I checked in on Octopus Project but happy to report they’re still making the quality bleeps and bloops.

1940s NYC

street mapping New York with photos from 1939 to 1941. I just can't fathom the work involved with geolocating all of this. Bonkers.

MakeEmoji

a handy tool and a delight respite on the information superhighway

Intensifying Emoji Generator

the tools you WANT the internet to provide

Cow Tools

Quality internet trivia

Apesli.de

Thank you apesli.de

Mr Show - The Best Of Mr Show

between Season 1 and Season 2 clip episode. Forgot about this!

Keavee Murphy

caught this show at the Julia Martin Gallery and it is _good_. Do recommend.