The August 2024 Cab Post
Ringing eardrums, a book cover, a musical month
Recap
Hello peeps! I hope you're doing well! I’m coming down from an extremely busy, very musical month of August. In the span of a month, I saw Rancid, the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Descendents, Good Riddance and NOFX live, which is the equivalent of an entire wall at a 1997 Music World store. I also saw a demolition derby at a county fair and it was AWESOME. In any case, I had my quota of port-o-potties and of lukewarm beer for a while.
The second book in the series Enquête de peur by Maude Alexandre, titled La Dame Blanche has just been just came out. I can finally show you the finished cover, which I worked on this spring. This is one of the most complex color renderings I've done in a long time. Figuring out how to make a white ghost “pop” in front of headlights was a hell of a challenge.
As I was trying out a new Molotov paint marker, I realized that I really liked drawing on post-its. There's something very liberating about scribbling on just about the worst paper support possible—even an index card has more flair than a puny, curved post-it. I like to stick them in the square Moleskine that I bought and disliked from the get-go. I hope to fill it eventually!
Here’s a little illustration to mark a “buy local” initiative that has gained success over the years. In addition to encouraging people to go visit their bookstore (which goes without saying) I wanted to speak on behalf of the human creators from around here, still alive, who meet in cafes, hold brainstorming sessions, send emails to each other, etc. Again this month, I saw a few Quebec publishers attempt to casually release AI-generated books and magazine covers. It’s such a bad look, you guys. I hope that a general disdain for this type of practice makes its way among readers here, and elsewhere.
Announcements
I applied for the Montreal Loser Jamboree, Foufounes Électrique’s alternative flea market. I haven't received a response yet but if I make it in, I'll let you know for sure!.
Starting in November, Patreon will charge a 30% fee on any subscription made through the app on Apple iOS. The choice of charging 30% more or absorbing these fees is up to each creator. This measure will not affect existing subscriptions or subscriptions made through a browser or Android platform. I therefore encourage you to support your favorite creators and artists via any means other than the Patreon app on Apple.
That’s all for the month of August! I'm going to rest my ears and enjoy the beautiful September light. See you again next month!
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Cool Stuff
As I said earlier, I'm in a musical mood lately. I watched High Fidelity and Baby Driver, in addition to seeing the Blues Brothers movie for the first time. What other music-themed movie should I watch, do you think?
Also, a bunch of good albums:
- Flight b471 by King Gizzard. Imagine the chase scenes from Mad Max in the Australian wasteland, with cartoon cars, animals with instruments like bottles and banjos. Oh and instead of trying to blow each other up, they’re actually jamming.
- Huge crush on this brand new, moody, electrifying and super catchy album by GIFT, entitled Illuminator. For when you run after the protagonist of the story just before he boards the shuttle to Mars, and they look back at you.
- An album to cut class to, even if you haven’t been in school for twenty-plus years: Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot by Liquid Mike. It sounds like Blink, LIT, Pup, Sum 41 and other bands with names that are worth nothing at Scrabble.
OK, bear with me and look beyond the very click-baity title of this video series by Brandon Shaw, a DJ and music connoisseur, Using this iPod for 30 Days Changed my Life. He challenged himself to listen to music exclusively on an iPod for 30 days. It triggered a series of changes in his life and raised questions about the place of technology in our musical and daily habits. The first episode contains an interview with Kyle Chakya, the author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, which I've been wanting to read for months. There are 4 videos in the series, but listen to the first one, I swear you won't regret it.
Personally, I'm not ready to quit Spotify for one and only one reason: making and sharing playlists. I Made You a Playlist.
A playlist that looks a bit like the (enhanced) content of the three iPods I've had in my life. It’s a work-in-progress.
Cool artist: Valentine M. Smith
Are documentary recommendations okay? I love Hype!, the doc about the rise of the Seattle music scene. I believe Tubi still has it available for free.
Because of that NOFX final tour, I've gotten into the work of Joel Abad, the guy who did the artwork for this tour's graphics. His work is slick, but it has enough grit to get the punk feel across.
I make playlists because I love making covers for them. I get to live out the album cover desires I had when I first got into illustration and graphic design. :)
I would recommend the Spawn Movie soundtrack