Over the past couple of weeks I developed a new web application, called "Rate My Swag." The concept is simple. You upload a photo, and users rate your swag from 1 to 100. The ratings are aggregated and the photos are ranked, from MOST to LEAST swag.
A couple of months ago, when I drove back to Schenectady from Nashville, I wrote some music. If you look at my previous entry called, "How to track a full album of drums in two days," this was composed/recorded shortly before that blog post.
I recorded the drums for this fake Slint song (titled "Vellum") originally for a song that was supposed to be like a slow-burning, Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque Southern Folk-Rock tune. I was too lazy to write a real melody so I just played some random chords over the top instead. Then I added a bass line and thought, "This is basically a Slint song."
Once it was Slint-ified, my idea for the track was like one of those concept albums that are based around a fictional story. My conceptualized lyrics for this music were going to tell the story of "The Patient." Stay with me... A man works at a local research lab every day, and checks in on a patient who has been in a coma. At the crescendo of the music, he visits work to find the patient has awoken, and in fact, he is the patient himself.
I think I wrote some lyrics but then I tried some spoken word like Slint does, and it sounded bad so I just gave up, because who cares? Instead I figured I'd post the instrumental to see how many views it would get as a fake (though seemingly real) unreleased Slint track. People immediately thought it was real. Here are some of the reactionary comments the video garnered over on YouTube:
"holy fucking shit!" "Where did you get this?"
"New Slint!? i mean they are around lol it could be, Maybe not tho i only hear 1 guitar and 1 bass, a drummer and a repetitive part with no build, nothing else" --"theres 2 guitars for sure if u listen closely" -- "Hmmmm, yea i hear it!"
"this song sounds like this year" "Not slint. I know them like the voice of my mother. Listening to them for ages.But cool, good work. And maybe change the title with your name man." "Is this real?"
Nope, it's not real. Instead of milking any illusion I just posted a comment saying I made it, and that it's fake. But hey, if I can convince someone it's real, maybe it is. - Mike
Four years ago I started skateboarding again after stopping for a while. I actually started skateboarding around age 10 but would start and stop quite a bit, many times for several years.
My return lasted a solid three or four months. At first I only skated stationary (for about a month). I was diligent with a daily routine of skating at 5 AM when no one else was at a public park. I used to skate on a handball court that was decently flat. My goal was to land a series of tricks I wrote down and had pinned up on my wall. These included some easier stuff (front 180 ollie, fakie ollie) and some more difficult tricks (for me, at least) were Fakie big spin, and heelflip.
Eventually I rolled my ankle really hard and I also fell really hard (unexpectedly) and my confidence dipped. But, I was able to document this final hurrah of skating by using a Flip cam, and have the clips on a YouTube page, which is cool.
And at one point during the process I felt I wouldn't be able to land the big spin or the heelflip, but I kept pushing through and eventually one day they both clicked. It was a fun time and I definitely gained a new appreciation for skating through this exercise. I'm not sure I can still pop any tricks, but I fool myself into thinking I can still skate every so often. - Mike
