Several years ago, one New Year’s Day I was driving back from the desert. I had just started painting every day a few months before and my album listening had grown as it was cumbersome to get up and change the music after every song when your hands are covered in painting materials. During this time, I felt closer to music than I had in a long time because in this slow, long listening process, it allowed me to relax and deeply hear what was playing on my turntable.

That New Year’s Day,I was in the passenger seat gazing and thought, “It seems like a good time to start going deeper with music.” I turned on a New Order album I don’t think I’ve ever listened to from start to finish. By the second song, I heard things I had never heard before. By the fifth, I was feeling inspired and already dreaming about what album we’d listen to next. And by the time it was over, this project was born.

The first time I started 1 Album A Day, it began with 2 rules.

1. Listen to 1 album a day from start to finish.
2. No skipping.

It evolved to include paintings connected to the albums, an Instagram feed with corresponding photos and videos and a number of occasions where I made everyone listen to albums together and paint. There are now over a thousand paintings each related to the album I heard. I kept the ritual until the pandemic, then one day decided it was a better use of my time to register voters and shifted my practice to postcards and subsequently painting on them.

But 2024 is a New Year, and I thought I’d resurrect 1AAD and tie my listening in with my friend Tamara Palmer’s Music Book Club, a new social community, newsletter/magazine for music culture books, where she’ll be facilitating conversations with the most interesting authors in the music culture space.

The first event will be January 28th with Dan Charnas talking about Dilla Time, a book that I’ve bought not once, not twice, but three times as I keep giving it away, because everyone who sees me read it, wants to as well. Everyone needs to know more about J. Dilla, Detroit and his impact in culture.

Come read, engage and listen to music with us!

Learn more about joining Music Book Club here.