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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dontstaylong - fog burns off

Davis has been putting out a number of singles over the past few months that are worth your time. Slow burns for sure but worthwhile.

ShadowCast for the Nintendo Switch

pretty clever device for letting you output from Switch to your laptop

A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon

A fantastic, lengthy, read from a Game Designer on how QAnon embraces the principles of an ARG but flips them completely to create an unescapable spiral of misinformation. Do read.
Other Record Labels is a podcast by Scott Orr in which he gets to know record labels of all sizes - tiny indies, large indies, major labels, etc. and discusses with them their history and their marketing techniques. Additionally, he provides a number of resources for anyone looking to start a label on their own (or just improve what they're already doing). Obviously this is pertinent to me but there's a lot of great advice about creative endeavors in general that make it a worthwhile listen for any audience.
One recent episode is with Totally Real Records, aka Subinev aka Bryan Bruchman, aka very longtime friend of myself. The episode has a ton of insight into overcoming imposter syndrome and how a "fake" idea can mature into a real one without one even noticing.

It was great to hear Bryan's story of how the label started and I'm really excited for what he's bringing to the table in terms of releases. He has been - and continues to be - an unparalleled champion of a mind boggling amount of music. So I am confident that his own label will be a satisfyingly diverse undertaking.
We're five days out from the inauguration of Joe Biden. I can't begin to express my excited anticipation for a new era of politics. There may be absolute mayhem leading up to it. There may be intense fallout and stumbling once he's actually in office. I don't look forward to those things but I am incredibly optimistic that we're on the path to something far more stable and less chaotic than usual. Can't. Wait. Stay safe out there. Keep wearing the dang mask.
The season finale of Memento Stori just went out and it's one of my favorites from the series. I'm obviously biased towards the work because the host, Rebecca Delius, is my fiance but her writing and interview style are undeniable; even if she isn't your betrothed.
In this episode, filmmaker Dycee Wildman talks about her high school friend Jordan; a songwriter and spitfire performer that passed away tragically in a car wreck. Wildman unearthed the CD of her works and listens to it for the first time since high school on the show.

It's remarkable to note her tension and trepidation up to hearing the music - a feeling a lot of us can relate to. What if your memory of a close friend was undermined by hearing their creative work at a later point in life? I was friends with so many bands in high school and I imagine if I went back and listened to it now, even my strongest nostalgia vibes might not be able to overcome reality. Wildman is in that exact position.

It's a great listen and I think the show, as a whole, is a remarkable look at nostalgia, death and the complex feelings that we get wrapped in. It's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google and everywhere else you prefer a podcast.
If you showed me a thumbnail of the Free Tours by Foot channel, I'd likely give significant pause in terms of my interest. The idea of a tour guide walking me through a neighborhood sounds quite entertaining but the possibility of the guide being unbearable seems more likely than not.

I'm happy to report that is, decidedly, not the case. At least with the episodes I've watched. This 25 tour of the New Orleans Garden District is informative, entertainment and just flat out pleasant.

There are plenty other videos on the channel that cover other neighborhoods - DUMBO Brooklyn, the San Francisco Wharf, Prague Castles - that could certainly be worth your while. I'm partial to the New Orleans content as I am itching for a trip back down there but they certainly cover a great deal of locations.

Big Hug Mug

been rewatching True Detective S1 again. Might need to get this.
The Mute Group have wrapped up promoting their debut album Sinister Hand but they haven't stopped promoting in general. They've just posted a video for their cover of George Michael's "Father Figure." It's an interesting choice of cover but even more intriguing that they mashed it up with Radiohead's "Airbag" and it works incredibly well!

Mash-ups are a pretty normal thing to find on the Internet but an art-rock band doing one as a live performance is a rare treat. And it happens to look fantastic too. Double whammy.

Parler? Not Today

I love everything in the first 3 paragraphs
It's been a helluva week but I think we can all finally celebrate that we've turned a corner and we're headed towards some positivity. That may be famous last words but I'm feeling optimistic that the darkness of Wednesday is behind us. Fingers and toes all crossed.

I'm furious and disgusted and bewildered by so much of the past four years. I won't go embrace a rant here but let's all try to collectively figure out how we can hold more people in power accountable for their actions in a timely manner and, possibly more importantly, figure out how we can agree on what are facts. It isn't hard. Thanks!

Dusting off the Friday Videos.. been way too long. Stay safe out there. Keep wearing the dang mask.
A quick reminder - back in August of 2018, the one and only You Drive album was released. That's the collaborative record between Makeup and Vanity Set and Jasmin Kaset that's quite sublime if I do say so myself.

We're down to 25 copies of the vinyl left. That's it. That's all that remains in the world! So, if you like it you gotta get it soon.

If you haven't heard it, watch this video and keep an eye out for my tiny little cameo at the end. ;)

Cookie Duster - Two Feet Stand Up

Brendan Canning side project from 2012 that I've never heard of. Not on any streaming platforms either it seems.

Unsung IT Heroes

I had not considered any of this. Fascinating thread.
Over the past year I've done quite a bit of thinking about this site, yewknee.com. Its original purpose was to showcase various findings from across the Internet and share them. These days, I rarely spend time casually browsing for visual inspiration and, frankly, platforms like Twitter or Instagram are far better at surfacing that content. A blog like this was always a bit of a curatorial role to surface interesting content but social media helps to remove that need. That's not to say my opinion on what is neat isn't important but it's not a service that is necessary per se.

My day job at Vimeo takes up a great deal of time and I'm generally juggling various projects for We Own This Town and yk Records when I do have some spare time. Beyond that, I'm looking to spend time with my fiance and, ya know, relax a little. It seems that this site has been pushed to the far back burner. If you're a regular reader, I'm sure you can tell.

I'm not sure what this little rant will yield but I'd like to make this site useful or interesting in some way; even if that means scaling it back. I'm 95% convinced the Twitter Likes are going to be removed as we stroll into 2021 and I hope to reduce the visual anchors for most posts. Overall, a bit of a shruggie in terms of what's next here but just know that if you're still reading, something is brewing. If you have preferences on what that might be, let me know.
Just wanted to drop a quick humblebrag on my own site that I'm embarking on my third year of extremely regularly publishing of my We Own This Town Music podcast. Over the course of the previous two years, I've published an episode every single week. That's 104 episodes. That may not seem like a lot but I'm the only person curating the music, recording the VO, editing the episodes and making the artwork. I'm not complaining but I am proud of keeping it up for so long. I may have even earned myself a break! Maybe.

I realize that keeping up with the fringes of the local Nashville music scene is a niche bit of content but if you're interested, you can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google and anywhere else. Please do, I need that validation!
For as long as I can remember, I am in a constant struggle with my laptop to have enough disk space to do the work I need to do. I'm also constantly baffled by this because there's no reason I shouldn't have enough space. With that in mind, I recently came across this quick tutorial on clearing out Adobe Cache files; temporary files buried in the ~Library structure of your machine that can take up tons of space and are, essentially, trash.

While I'm sure they serve a purpose, they don't need to be around forever and if you're struggling with diskspace like I have been, it's not a terrible idea to clear them out. I regained hundreds of gigs of space. While this was a massive relief, it came with a bit of frustration that there doesn't seem to be any way to do this natively. Premiere offers a "clear cache" option per project but who is going to open up every project they've ever worked on clear a cache? You'd think the Creative Cloud app would have an option for this but nope, it doesn't!

TLDR: if you're struggling with disk space, try out the above instructions, you may find supreme relief.

Importing iTunes into clean install of Music

sad to say that Music and iTunes are only vaguely compatible. These instructions helped me tho.

They Might Be Giants - Stormy Pinkness

been on a real TMBG kick lately. This b-side is new to me. 1 minute long and goodness throughout

Disney Research: Realistic and Interactive Eyegaze

Absolutely fascinating and completely terrifying

How to Be a Responsible Music Fan in the Age of Streaming

Damon Krukowski (Galaxie 500) makes for a good read. Nothing too outlandish but certainly worth sitting with.