In case you missed it, the latest Uke Hunt ebook How to Play Classical Ukulele was released yesterday.
One of my favourite uke tunes this year, Keston Cobblers’ Club’s You Go is one of the Storm the Charts tracks. I don’t much care what’s in the charts but it’d be nice if this song were better known. So if you’re in the UK pick up the track from Amazon for 50p (thanks to shameless).
The Boston Globe chats uke with Amanda Palmer and One Happy Island.
Vote for Sophie Madeleine on Ellen Degeneres’s eleveneleven thing (mercifully no login required).
Jake says there’s a video of him playing with Tiny McItchyFace.
In the comments: reckons Martin ukuleles are over-priced: “I will still look for martins, but i refuse to pay a ridiculous amount of money for one. In reality the only reason they are so expensive is because they are very popular and vintage.”
MP3s: Craig Robertson is offering up a free track from his latest album, Tinyfolk and Wisdom Tooth have a new split album up for free, Indiehere have a lovely MP3 from Panic Attract (although they seem to be having problems with the band’s name).
Pictures: grumpy mountain band uke tattoo, ukulele bot.
Martin or Mahalo; Flea, Fluke, or Favilla; or whatever else, at the end of the day, guess what,
it’s still just a ukulele, a litle (usually) 4-string instrument. I see most ukuleles as being overpriced once they get beyond a certain minimum point (which isn’t very high). Perfectly good music making happens on modestly priced instruments. If people want to pay more or much more for a little 4-string instrument, fine, but it’s not necessary for any musical reasons whatsoever.
All the fancy luthiers with all their fancy thises and thats and all their fancy prices, are unnecessary in the same sense that haute couture designers are unnecessary to the real world of clothing and celebrity chefs are unnecessary to the real world of eating – they make toys for a select few,
and the vast rest of us can just blithely ignore them
and not miss out on anything even remotely meaningful to the real world of making and enjoying music.