2011 Festivals, Bushman 2010: Friday Links

The 2011 uke festival lineup is starting to take shape. The London Uke Fest is moving from a one-day, act-focussed event to a three day, strumalong and campout. And are changing the name to the London UkeyLove Festival. The organisers are looking for your feedback (they lost me at camping). A new festival on the scene is Le Fiul which aims to be a UWC (but with more pleasant views).

I had a bit of a moan when get-tuned switched to a very confusing layout. So it’s good to see a new, much better presented ukulele tuner (and a nicely written explanation of tuning too).

Bushman 2010 is under way.

You know your marriage is in trouble when your husband buys a ukulele. But you can always swap him for ukulele of your own.

New York Times have an excellent photo of the UOGB in action (and a review).

I think this might be a new record: three songs in a row inaccurately identified as containing a ukulele. And then there’s this comment: “It’s really a simple instrument. It only took me a couple months to fully learn it.”

I’m very pleased to see some Moondog tab on Uker Tabs.

MP3s: Galapaghost has his new EP available for free,free track from Craig Robertson’s new one, Paul Smith (off of Maximo Park) has a uke track on his new solo album.

Videos of interest: “Can I see yours? This is mine. Yours in much better than mine. My goodness.” (Thanks to Lorraine), Charlotte Church and her new bloke uke it up, how to woodshed on a ukulele (she’s breaking rule one: no smiling).

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19 Comments

  1. Acilius November 5th, 2010 3:31 pm

    The interesting thing to me about that Sam Francisco Chronicle piece was the sentence “We’re well on our way to a ukulele meltdown.” Right in the middle of the article, no reference to the Ukelear Meltdown festival, just thrown out there as if everyone will get her point if she says “ukulele meltdown.”

  2. Hello Jodi November 5th, 2010 4:25 pm

    I’m going to Le Fiul! But, like UWC, I will go to great lengths to avoid anything resembling camping. I don’t care if it’s France, we’ve had plumbing for a while now. I am not sticking my DEET covered fingers in my eye to remove my contact lenses.

  3. Paolo November 5th, 2010 4:55 pm

    Surely, they lost you at ‘festival’, Al!

  4. uke66 November 5th, 2010 5:10 pm

    So Charlette Church is trying to rebuild her spiraling out of control career by associating herself with the new trendy popular ukulele thingy.
    She needs to watch Sophie Madeleine to see how a voice and a uke should blend together.

  5. Donnie Bubbles November 5th, 2010 8:45 pm

    Anyone who signs up for the Bushman newsletter can vote: http://bushmanmusic.com/uke-newsletter.html

    Maybe more UkeHunters voting could improve the results of the contest this year….

  6. Michael November 5th, 2010 11:40 pm

    the ukulele swap thing was a happy find

  7. Ron Hale November 6th, 2010 5:58 am

    London UkeyLove Festival? Is the London ukulele scene run by women, Al? This sounds like something
    Tricity Vogue would come up with.

  8. Ken Middleton November 6th, 2010 8:03 am

    I think that next year is going to be an exciting one for European festivals. There is sure to be a big festival in Dublin in 2011 and in all likelyhood one somewhere in Italy. There will be smaller, more intimate and ultra-frienldly events in Paris and Belgium. The German festival fell through this year, but Rigk is not going to want that to happen again, so I would definately look for one there.

    This year’s biggest, and probably most successful European festival was, of course, the Festival of Great Britain in Cheltenham. Next year’s acts will include The Re-entrants, James Hill and UkuleleBartt. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, it is going to be held on the same weekend as Le Fiul, in France. However, these are two different kinds of events and I’m sure both will be well-supported and wonderfully successful.

  9. Woodshed November 6th, 2010 3:57 pm

    Acilius: A couple of people picked up on that phrase when I tweeted the story (also apparently unaware of Ukelear Meltdown). Interesting.

    Jodi: People of a certain class should never been seen in tents.

    Paolo: Yeah, that too. And again at three days.

    uke66: Can’t they just be two kids in love? Even if I put on my cynical hat, it’s more likely that he’s riding on her fame.

    Donnie: I long ago stopped caring who won.

    Michael: It gave me a chuckle.

    Ron: I don’t think Tricity has anything to do with running it. The main guy is Quincey (and he’s definitely a guy).

    Ken: I didn’t really get the appeal of Cheltenham. The bill was so one dimensional.

  10. Ken Middleton November 6th, 2010 5:17 pm

    I know what you are saying, Al. But for many people now, the success of a festival is not measured by the people performing. It is the whole event: sitting outside in the sunshine eating and chatting, trying out other ukes, jamming with new friends, open mic, the busk, mixing with the performers, the general atmosphere, etc. For some, the bill is almost irrelevant.

  11. uke66 November 6th, 2010 8:28 pm

    My cynical hat’s bigger than your’s, but I can’t agree. He’s a ukulele player and all uke players are nice people. No way would he do that, would he? Noooo! ;)

  12. byjimini November 7th, 2010 10:06 am

    I see Bushman still haven’t invested in a web designer.

  13. byjimini November 7th, 2010 10:16 am

    Or improved their customer service; glad I did a Google search before impulse buying a Bushman Jenny Soprano. Nearly got suckered in by the low price.

  14. Le FIUL November 7th, 2010 12:07 pm

    @Al: Thank you for having announced our festival.

    @Jodi: Camping will be free for the participating ukulelists but we’ll add a list of preferred accommodations on our website.

    @Ken: I’m convinced both the Festival of Great Britain in Cheltenham and Le FIUL will find their audience. Again the ukulele is victim of its own success and in the end it’s a good thing for all of us.

  15. Woodshed November 7th, 2010 1:38 pm

    Ken: Hmm. I still think they were quite pretentious calling it the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain.

    byjimini: I have heard a few bad things about Bushman’s customer service (a thread on UU in particular). I’ve never been particularly interested in Bushmans anyway.

    Le FIUL: You’re welcome.

  16. Lindy Danny November 8th, 2010 1:57 pm

    I would have posted a correction to that GoErie.com article, but it costs $2.99 to sign up for the site and leave comments. I can’t convince myself that it is worth that to correct such an obvious lack of research.

    ~DB

  17. Woodshed November 10th, 2010 10:57 am

    Lindy Danny: Holy crap! Who would pay that to comment?

  18. Quincy November 26th, 2010 5:48 pm

    Definitely a guy.

    Al cheers for the mention…

    And to all the 100s of people who have responded and spread the market research around.

    Its very interesting looking at the responses to the London Uke/UkeyLove festival idea and that is why we did some market research.

    The last one was so amazing we wanted to get a sense of what people are thinking.

    As a team we are looking at all the options from 1 dayers to weekenders.

    Off course you can’t please everyone but we do hope that those who do come to what we will put on will feel part of something special.

    That is always our goal, an amazing event.

  19. Woodshed November 27th, 2010 2:27 pm

    Quincy: Good luck with the festival. Hope it goes well whatever you decide on.

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