.. Skint's Homepage .. 8/16/03 I apologize that it has been so long without any new news of your favorite band, Skint. In reality there really is no news. Unfortunately we have decided as a group to put Skint on pause to pursue our own individual needs for the moment. If and when we get back together for more writing and singing and recording and performing I will let you know. We hope to at least follow through with the recording of the last three songs, as all of us would like to see these saved for posterity on flimsy pieces of plastic. I can give you some news on what the various Skint members are doing now. And I'll do so in this nifty little list.... ..Justin.. Justin has been trying out and playing drums with some local Boston bands. Recently he has fulfilled the drummer position in a new band called The Baby Reds (www.TheBabyReds.com). Most recently he has played one gig down in NYC and another locally at the Abbey Lounce in Cambridge. Please come and watch him beat the skins (or caress them gently, if you prefer) at their next gig which is also at the Abbey Lounge on August 26th. ..Alex.. After some hiatus Alex decided to go back to his metaphorical third wife, slam poetry. He wrote some new poems, frequented some open mics in Worcester, Boston, and Providence, and built himself back up to super-duper slamtastic poetified. This time around his eyes were set on the Providence Nationals team because of its astounding ability to draw and nurture talent. It was a very close competition, but he made it through the finals and onto the team. They just finished the National competition at the beginning of this month (August) and did well, though they did not take home the prize. I'll let you know if there are any slam events on the horizon so you can check him out. ..Cappy.. To be continued.... ..Paul.. Coming soon.... 2/5/03 Well, our woe with bass players knows no bounds. Unfortunately Jamie had a bit too much on her plate in order to fill in as our low-end theorist... what with being a full-time stock broker, playing in another band that gigs regularly, taking two classes towards her Masters, and playing in a soccer league. Me? Well... I got this paper route..... No hard feelings with Jamie, though. She's an old friend and will remain so, though we are again faced with the time consuming task of finding a replacement that thinks, walks, talks, and slaps like us, not to mention the time for them to learn our material up to this date. If anybody who reads this site -- either by stumbling upon it or by being given the link -- plays the bass or knows someone who does and would like to join our outfit please feel free to contact us. For information on our sound or our mantra (or lack thereof) please consult the rest of this site. You may download the three songs we have available in the "mp3's" section and groove, dance, stumble, or sit and stare in comatose to your heart's delight. In other news, we will hopefully be going back into the studio with old friend and collaborator Brian Knoth of mindsu!te within the next few months. We hope to lay down three more tracks to fill out our demo and upgrade it to "EP" status, which I hear will make us cool. In yet other news, because of the refurbishing of our stage lineup (and our general dissatisfaction with the name "Skipt") we will probably be changing the name again. However, though we have a number of potentials, the name change will not be made public until I address the U.N. Security Council in a couple of months. Stay tuned... 11/20/02 Though the bugs, location, and content haven't been fully worked out yet, this marks the beginning of Skint's new website. Hopefully soon we'll have our domain name for webhosting and mail, and content will come in time. No upcoming gigs to list currently, though we hope to be playing out and around the Boston area by the end of the year. Any news on shows, recordings, break-ups, nuclear attacks, or anything else will be posted here in the future, but with the absence of any concrete subsequent plans here is band news from the past year. News: In February through April of this year we sat down with our old friend Brian Knoth to record our first demo with mindsu!te studios in Boston, MA. With only three songs to record it took a bit longer than was expected, though we are all pretty satisfied with the results. The songs are available for download in the "mp3's" section of this site. In May, Alex secured his place on the Boston Cantab's National Slam team, becoming one of the four member crew (along with dozens of teams Nationwide) to go to the National Slam Competition held this year in Minneapolis, MN. The actual competition took place at the beginning of September. Unfortunately they did not fare well, though, on a positive note, Alex seemed to use this red badge of failure as an impetus to start pulling his weight in the band. After rehearsing most of the summer and accumulating more original songs we finally played our first gig on September 8th at the Java Hut in Worcester, MA. Alex has been a long time staple at their weekly poetry slams and open mics and was able to get us a feature directly following the nightly procession of poets. The show was a success and we were lauded for bringing a whole truckload of funk into the rapidly decaying spoken word scene... ;)   Here is a review from The Poet's Asylum website regarding our night at the Hut: "Alex Charalambides showed us what a rock star poet (or is it poetic rock star) does for fun. Backed up by the band Skint (that would be Paul, Justin, Wallace and Cappy) he kicked out a hard core set of his best work. A lot of hard work went into making it look oh so easy as Alex cruised through rockin' performances of The Poet's Tree, New Car, Please, and my personal favorite, Drugs. This was one of the most unique poetry features the Asylum has witnessed in a long time. Sweet stuff. The band laid down a slippery funk groove with jam underpinnings, and generally rocked tightly behind Alex... more will be heard here in the future.... remember that name!" About a week after our first gig our bass player, Wallace, quit the band. We needed a bass player to step in immediately because of another gig we had scheduled for the 22nd of September at a Slam Poetry Festival out at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Old friend and fellow musician Jamie Bannister (from ex-Boston band One Flew East and current Boston band Groove Trust) graciously stepped in. Though the tunes are a bit complex she was able to hammer them down in about the same amount of time it takes Cappy and Alex to drive from Boston to Worcester. The show went over well, and afterwards Jamie offered to sign on semi-permanently as the new bass player for Skint.