Long time friend of the blog, Shigeto Takahashi‘s album Roots Trip is for download on iTunes and on CDBaby. Must have tracks: Hilo March, Kohara March. Unfortunately, two of the best tracks (Peanut Vendor and Rhapsody in Blue had to be dropped for copyright reasons).
Hull Ukulele Group have made their Halloween/Guy Fawkes songbook available to all
Catalogue for Cairns Uke Art Exhibition (via Herman)
Stephin Merritt hasn’t been playing ukulele much recently but he still some nice things to say about it. But the most interesting parts of the interview was him and Claudia Gonson realising they’ve been playing Papa Was A Rodeo incorrectly for the last decade. (Thanks to Paul)
Humble Uker has more animated uke videos with this clip from Phineas and Ferb being the standout.
In the comments: A while back I took down Bess Rogers’s’s I Don’t Worry when it was made available (legit-style) on Abatabs. Since then it’s provoked a couple of negative comments.
I’m a bit ambivalent on the subject. I certainly support artists making money from their work. It’s my policy not to put anything up when there are official uke tabs available. (It helps that they were nice about it and didn’t threaten to send in the lawyers). Also, I’d like to see sites with official tabs on the net. There needs to be an iTunes for tabs. But there isn’t really anything like that for guitar so a uke site like that is a long way off.
On the other hand, I do think you can build up a big fanbase through teaching. Aldrine’s certainly won a big audience on the back of teaching on Ukulele Underground.
One issue I’m not ambivalent on: 95 years is a ridiculously lengthy term for copyright and absolutely has a negative impact on culture. The Economist, those famously anti-business hippies, suggest 14 years is more sensible.
thanks for the link Al:)
With regards to paying for tabs, i have no problem with independent artists trying to make a buck or two, but I remember those heady days of my youth, before the internet was around. My mate and I were 15 years old and learning to play guitars. We used to travel 25 miles to the nearest music shop that sold guitar tablature books!!!!
Being young and skint we couldnt actually afford to buy any of the books (they were pretty expensive at the time)so used to spend hours in there, frantically trying to memorize all the chords & riffs to Smashing Pumpkins songs until we got home!
(which of course, we failed to do!)
Ill say one thing about the free availability of tablature on the net – its made learning the guitar/uke etc a damn sight easier!