Masks and Monsters

Masks and Monsters is the pandemic record. Fourth in the early Scoobert run, after Dragon Ball $d.

On October 5, 2026, Spotify showed these plays. The numbers move. A blank cell stayed blank. Where a single showed the same figure, it is one count. It Can Get Worse had no count (1:59). Snuggle With Shaggy 1,284 (2:00). Creature Comfort 3,105 (3:53; the single is 3:58). When It’s Over 1,674 (2:40). Pandemic Blues had no count (1:13). A Good Life 2,759 (3:23; the single is 3:24). Wash Your Fucking Hands had no count (0:59). Flip Flop Phil had no count (2:10). Quarantine and Chill had no count (1:59). My Mind Is Slowly Slipping 11,693 (4:07). Shaggy’s Anthem 5,845 (4:07). Happy Birthday 3,274 (4:12). Coca Cola had no count (3:46). Corona 1,272 (2:43). I Am a Slave to the Yeast had no count (1:00). Why, How, Yeah, Yeah had no count (2:46). Mystery Machine 4,583 (3:59). Derrida Makes a Différance had no count (3:33).

Finding $D is the one-day lab notebook. Swami’s is the collage LP. Dragon Ball $d is the narrative hip-hopera. Masks and Monsters is the pandemic self-portrait. Luke Francis Walton wrote, played, mixed, and mastered the whole thing in North Park, San Diego, while the world was very small. Babidi (Taylor James / J MESA) cowrote and sings on Quarantine and Chill and My Mind Is Slowly Slipping. Gokudaxij (Eric Radloff) cowrote and sings on Happy Birthday. Everything else is Luke. Cover art by Grizzard Graphics.

Bandcamp Masks & Monsters (LP) dropped August 11, 2020 ($8 or more, 24-bit/88.2kHz). Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer all list 18 tracks, about fifty minutes. The visual album calls it explicitly “my full pandemic record.”

The cartoon shell is still there: Shaggy, Mystery Machine, monster language, goofy title logic. Track titles include It Can Get Worse, Creature Comfort, When It’s Over, Pandemic Blues, A Good Life, My Mind Is Slowly Slipping, and Corona. Masks work literally (COVID) and mythologically (Scoobert’s older costume-and-avatar world). Last Day Deaf caught the naming story; the Critical Meme Reader later treated the record as memetic production in practice.

The closer is Derrida Makes a Différance: cosmic nihilism, matter puns, family as grounding. What comes next is Little Hug: re-entry after the pandemic record.