Feb/22/08
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Friday Links

Jake Shimabukuro and his haircut appear on Conan O’Brien. Is Conan gargantuan or is Jake the size of an Action Man?

The Paris Uke Fest will be taking place on the 30th and 31st May. The lineup includes Victoria Vox and Michael Wagner.

You already know that weePop! is my favourite record label, but now they’ve become my even favouriter. They’ve got new releases from Jacob Borshard and One Happy Island. I’m sure you’ve already downloaded and fallen in love with Jacob Borshard’s two albums. You can check out a track from One Happy Island on Logical Logic.

An excellent piece on the ukulele in The Guardian. Which is what you’d expect as it’s written by Rock That Uke director William Preston Robertson. “Yes, there are other instruments with greater range, but none that can exist so innocently, so vulnerably, so fearlessly and precisely in that duality of time and space that is both joy and sorrow as can the ukulele.”

New chords on Uker Tabs including Fields of Gold, Theme from Fall Guy and Uptown Top Ranking. Thanks to zymeck and exoticorn for their efforts. Go here if you want to upload your own.

The Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson plays the ukulele to Paul McCartney at the Brit Awards.

More from Trixie Tangway the ukulele sweetheart (a.k.a. Kristen Schaal off of Flight of the Conchords). She even picks up a ukulele this time.

Can you guess what the hell Shaun Keaveny off of BBC 6 Music’s Breakfast Show is playing on his flying V ukulele? Beats me.

Judging by recent reviews, ukulele tracks crop up on forthcoming albums by Van Morrison and, rather unexpectedly, Portishead.

iWantUkeTunes. I stumbled upon this this site today and I’m not quite sure what to make of this site yet. It lets you search for free ukulele mp3s, but it seems to spit out the same few songs whatever you search for. I’m guessing it’s in early stages of development. My advice: do a blank search and pick up any mp3s that take your fancy.

I’ve been working my way through the archives of Amoeba Music’s in-store perfomances. There are some rollockingly good videos (and there’s a live webcast with Kimya Dawson tonight). On the uke front, they have Uni and Her Ukulele.

Message from Stephin Merritt: Don’t play the ukulele, it’s too dangerous.

Uke Hunt is worth $27,662.46. That seems fantastically unlikely.

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10 Comments

  1. Nelson February 22nd, 2008 9:44 pm

    That’s ridiculous!
    You should charge AT LEAST triple that price…
    even then…keep it. ‘Cause there ain’t no better man than you to pilot this ship.

  2. zym February 22nd, 2008 11:00 pm

    I believe Shaun Keaveny is playing the theme from ‘Bergerac’

    Ukes & John Nettles – its a winning combo! :D

  3. John February 23rd, 2008 9:32 am

    mine is worth… errr, nothing. I won’t be retiring to my country mansion from the success of my blog just yet then.

  4. Elijah Wilbury February 23rd, 2008 9:54 am

    Conan is in fact a giant mutant.

  5. unravel101 February 23rd, 2008 10:59 pm

    This site is Priceless!

  6. pam February 24th, 2008 12:36 am

    Jake is about my height (not very tall at ALL) and Conan is, indeed, a giant mutant human.

    Is that Beatles hair?

  7. Howlin' Hobbit February 24th, 2008 2:21 am

    Jake is only a tad taller than me and I’m a shorty. Of course he’s also skinnier and better looking.

    Oh yeah. And he can play circles around me.

    Other than that, we’re exactly the same. :-/

    My blog is worth $1,693.62, which surprises the heck out of me. I’d have figured about $1.98.

    And whats up with that I want uke tunes thing? No way to contact anybody and, even though it’s sort of lame they have all those “Digg me” buttons.

    Things that make you go hmmm…

    HH

  8. Woodshed February 24th, 2008 11:39 am

    Nelson: Don’t worry. I’ve got no intention of selling up.

    zym: You’re right. I would never have got that.

    Ian: You are special :D

    John: Poverty is good for the artistic spirit. So they say.

    Elijah: He really is. He’s still taller than Jake before he steps on the platform.

    Unravel101: Thanks!

    pam: It’s definitely moptop-esque.

    Hobbit: I’m pretty sure the site was set up by Jereme who did Ukulele Videos. His email address is on this page. It looks like early days, so I’m willing to give it time to see what happens with it before passing judgment.

  9. Minamin February 24th, 2008 10:11 pm

    Unfortunately, it seems that Merritt took his own advice on the new Magnetic Fields album, Distortion. What a disappointment.

  10. Woodshed February 25th, 2008 5:37 pm

    Yeah, I was disappointed about that too. But there’s an mp3 of a uke version of Nun’s Litany on Fluxblog. A much better version than the one on the album.

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