In case you missed it, I released new editions of three of my ebooks this week. If you bought one or more of them before and haven’t received a free update let me know the email you bought with and I’ll send you the update. If you haven’t you can get any of my ebooks at half price by using the code freebooting before 14th May.
New Releases
– Craig Robertson is putting together a “Greatest Hats” collection of songs. Which is excellent news because he’s very prolific and I never know which album to recommend to new folks. He’s going to remaster the tracks but he’s also putting the originals up for free on his blog starting with The Hypnotist and She Likes to Pull the Wings Off Flies.
– Folkie colouring book.
Ukes
– Ukutele – two neck ukulele/Telecater guitar.
– Sufjan Stevens, Bieber and their ukulele.
– Purple People Eater.
– Myka Cocobolo.
FretPen – the tiny-guitar iPhone periphery I mentioned a little while ago – has cancelled it’s Kickstarter. The Kickstarter that used some pretty shady misleading quoting.
The debate surrounding making the ukulele Hawaii’s official state instrument has officially become a farce. The choice between ukulele, steel guitar and ipu was too much for them to handle. One of the senators did realise that this was a decision even a child could handle and suggested putting it to a vote amongst primary and secondary schoolchildren. But they rejected that and decided the best thing to do is drop the bill and forget it ever happened. Politics in action.
Don’t follow Craig on any sites, Al, so I don’t
know what he’s been doing for a while.
But, in terms of videos and albums, he stopped
being prolific ages ago. Not a criticism, of course, just an acknowledgement.
He’s not the only one, of course. This wave
has had it own wavelets in terms of artists, songs, styles, etc.
All of us can name artists that flourished earlier
in this era who just aren’t there any longer.
Also, and this applies not just to Craig, there is
a difference between videos of solo artists and the albums they put out.
I’d watch people just play a uke and sing. Then I’d buy the album and – they’d tossed in everything but the kitchen sink.
Ugh. Just not the same. It’s as if they didn’t
trust the instrument.
So, remember: videos have no necessary relationship with albums. And, as far as I’m concerned, uke videos far outshine uke albums.
This probably applies more to the Saturday video
posts, but watching a uke video, the sort with
a story line of sorts, is infinitely superior to
listening to the album version, which without the
visuals is pretty thin gruel, indeed.
Because it’s the visuals that make a uke video memorable, not the oftentimes lame song.
Has UOGB ever made a story-line video? Well, why not?
(Hey, Lesley, how about a TUKUO story-line video? Uke orchestra performance videos, even with the schtick tossed in, are getting old. And mouldy. You guys are just the ones to do something new.)
Not surprised about the Aloha State. They fought
tooth and nail over just who really deserved a Hawaiian Grammy.
And ended up losing the Grammy altogether. We hashed that out here and elsewhere back in the days when we really did hash things out here and
elsewhere.