NEW YORK — Local ukuleleist Avery Starnback celebrated with friends and family after landing their dream job of scoring a campaign video on the popular online crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, friends and creatives confirmed.
“I am truly thrilled to have been chosen for this incredible project. I had uploaded some videos playing my uke to YouTube in hopes of getting my name out there, and one of the 16 people that watched it must have been the creative genius behind Stink Stack,” Starnback said of the campaign to raise funds for a community card game about farts and their respective smells. “I’m going to give myself a little more time to feel these feelings and then it’s time to get to work. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m thinking of incorporating some handclaps and glockenspiel—real experimental stuff. Follow your dreams kids, when I first started playing three months ago I never could have predicted I’d be where I am.”
Aspiring card game designer Dylan Baxter explained why he tapped Starnback for this particular project.
“When I first conceived of Stink Stack, I knew our Kickstarter backing music would have to be done by someone with an equally distinct creative vision,” said Baxter. “I watched all nine videos on Avery’s YouTube channel and I knew we were dealing with a uke-slinger a cut above these other Mrazes. And once I got a taste of that unwavering basic strum pattern in person, I knew it was a lock. Plus [Starnback] only gets paid if we reach our funding goal at the Diarrhea Expansion Pack level, so it’s a win-win.”
Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor helped shed some light on the company’s video production process.
“Here at Kickstarter headquarters, we maintain a stable of fresh four-string talent, sort of a ‘Wrecking Crew’ of ukulele players,” said Taylor. “We put the campaign videos onscreen in the recording studio and just let these cats cook. Last week one of our players slipped into a uke trance—we knocked out twenty videos in one afternoon. It was like watching Miles Davis in his prime if he were promoting a water bottle that connects to Wi-Fi. Without these geniuses, we might never be able to show the world a folding table that lays as flat as a DVD case.”
At press time, Starnback had exited the project after being “called up to the big leagues” for a laundry detergent commercial.