2010s & 2020s
His first New York solo art show opened at Fuse Gallery in August 2011 and ran until September 21, 2011. In 2013, Yow released a solo album that had been in production for almost 15 years on Joyful Noise Recordings. The album was titled Tonight You Look Like a Spider. Yow stated that he'd been inspired to do the album by Mike Patton, and described his compositional process in an anecdote:
I rented a saxophone for 2 months, I borrowed some guitars and some drums, I rummaged through the kitchen, I squeezed a fat cat, I poked and prodded and ended up with my very own music. It's real good, if you like that kind of shit. I named it Tonight You Look Like A Spider after a spider I saw one night.
In 2015, Yow performed two shows with Flipper, substituting for vocalist Bruce Loose who had to retire from live performance due to health issues. Yow reprised his role with Flipper for the band's 40th Anniversary Tour in 2019, with the shows being openly billed as Flipper with David Yow.
Yow has also appeared live with other bands, including Cop Shoot Cop, Shellac, the Dicks, the Melvins, Girls Against Boys and has contributed vocals to various albums and recordings by Helmet, Pigface, and others. Yow has appeared in two music videos for punk supergroup OFF!, 2014's "Hypnotized" (as a Hollywood street performer) and 2021's "Holier Than Thou" (as a corrupt Catholic priest). Yow also recorded a commentary track for Tool's DVD single "Schism" in 2005.
In 2026, Yow contributed vocals to a cover of Captain Beefheart's "Hot Head" by Orcutt Shelley Miller, and performed it and Scratch Acid's "Cannibal" with the trio at London's 100 Club in April of that year.
