- Text Clara Malley & Eli Williams
- Design Jasmine Bae
Welcome back to One Offs: a mini segment on Day One FM, where we ask our guests to give their latest takes, gripes and recommendations.
This week, we spoke with Archie Lee Coates IV, co-founder of PlayLab. He gave us an inside view of what it takes to run an “extremely” multidisciplinary creative studio “with no focus.” We discussed:
The lost art of pranks
Archie’s upcoming studio album
Swimming in the East River
Ernest Shackleton’s hiring policies
A very simple filter for work: “Is this something we want to do?”
Tune into the full episode below and scroll for Archie’s one-offs.
Social niche or account we should all tap into?
I’m not the one. No comment.
Offline-ish recommendation?
If you're in LA I'd hit Bacetti. Jeff [Franklin]’s wife works there. If you're in New York, my friend Gabe Stulman’s restaurant Joseph Leonard. It's a gem. They're celebrating 15 years this year.
And then starting two weeks from today, our friend Andrew Tarlow opens his first Manhattan restaurant, Borgo. That is going to be absolutely phenomenal. I've been going to Diner my entire adult life. Basically grew up in Diner and Marlow & Sons. They did our wedding, and they've just been great friends for such a long time.
What’s your screen time like?
Like 100%. 24 hours a day. I am a walking meme in this studio. My phone does not leave my hand. When I’m not on there, I’m just in Ableton Live, which is a whole other screen type situation.
Hot take?
Well I had Chipotle for lunch today. And everybody fucks with a soft taco, but I got hard shell today just to kind of fuck with the universe and see what happened. It was a topic of conversation during studio lunch. They go hard, no pun intended.
Internet gripes/crimes you’d prosecute?
I try very hard to not care, and I try very hard to be devoid of gripes. Because if I’m on the [internet] and then I’m annoyed by something that I’ve willed myself into a position to be casually seeing, it’s not their fault. It’s my fault. And so my gripe is only with myself, which is to give myself and others a lot more grace than maybe I did in the past.
