Label: Hardly Art
Released 4/3/20
When asked to describe himself, WHITMER THOMAS—comic, musician, skateboarder, infamous BLINK182 fan—will tell you, “I’m always gonna be the one whose mom called him ‘the Golden One,’ right before she died.” This is where his debut HBO comedy special, The Golden One, finds WHITMER: age thirty, investigating this sense (curse?) of destiny-as-identity. It’s been thirteen years since he left Alabama for LA, becoming a linchpin for LA’s young, independent comedy scene with Power Violence, the monthly show he hosted with friends. But he became haunted by the question: had he already peaked, just like his mom, singer in a local band with big ambitions that never made it out of the Flora-Bama Lounge in Gulf Shores? Rather than shy away from all that messy self-mythology, WHITMER tapped the source of it all through writing this one-man show featuring his own original music. Songs from The Golden One, a companion album of songs from the special, features WHITMER’s darkwave bangers, synthesizing relatable content: millennial anxieties, therapy-speak jokes, and the annals of his own childhood tragedies.