👋 Hi! I’m your host Michael Eades. I have a history of dabbling in Internet, music and community. The overlap can be incredibly powerful; in both good and bad ways. I hope to explore those intersections here on the show.
If you’re interested in a not-so-brief history of me: in college I worked at an indie label called Spongebath Records, a darling of Billboard magazine that had a roster of artists and a staff of employees willing to dip their toes into the nascent Internet. We were early with having fan forums and distributing MP3 only albums; way back in 1998.
After college I work with Skyamore to help artists like Aireline, forget cassettes, Lifeline to put together limited edition packaging, shirts and posters. Most of these relics are lost to time but we made things like hand sewn digipaks with rubber stamped covers; proper works of art as far as I’m concerned!
I’ve run a blog called yewknee.com since 2001 that highlights art, technology and music I enjoy. I’ve also curated a podcast called We Own This Town: Music since 2007 that shines a light on music coming out of Nashville, TN that is antithetical to everything you think of when you hear the word “Nashville.”
In 2009, I started yk Records; an indie label with not much of a mission statement or an intended goal beyond simply participating in the joy of releasing music that I loved. The label has over 140 releases to date (a combination of LPs, EPs, singles, physical and digital), with plenty more on the horizon. It is a small operation but I think that scrappiness is what will make this podcast interesting as we all explore together how to make it without major budgets.
