You might have seen videos of the automated ukulele player. You can now join George Harrison and the bloke who directed The Goonies in the elite group of owners and buy one on eBay.

A pair of fine custom ukuleles: William King sopranino and Mike DaSilva soprano.

The MUKUDO: headless electric tenor ukulele (Thanks to Phredd).

Swagerty are known for their weird and wonderful ukuleles but this is a new shape on me. Not their most attractive uke but at least it’s cheaper than cheaper than a handful of Swagerty decals.

There’s a big hoo-haa over the Hawaiian music Grammy award – turns out someone cares (via Ukulelia). Daniel Ho, whose all-ukulele album is nominated this year, has won every year since 2006. He’s the living embodiment of the elevator-musicification of Hawaiian music and people aren’t happy.

AV Club interview ukers including Aaron Keim and Danielle ATS. “Why not just play guitar like a “normal” musician?”

Jake brings his ads.

Singing Ukulele.

Instrumental version of To Make You Feel My Love on Uker Tabs.

MP3s: Jake Wildwood has a new album out and you can download it – and all his other records – free on his website, After the Lung Collapsed has a couple of tracks from Mr B and Neon Musical Insight has one from Doug Hoyer.

An interesting one here. David is using the iRealBook ipod app to back himself up. It has chords, bass and drums for a bunch of songs plus you can punch in your own. I wasn’t sure about shelling out the fairly high (for an app) price before but I went for it after I heard this. I haven’t had chance to use it much, but I’ve had fun messing with it. The downside is that it doesn’t give you any notation (standard notation or tab of any kind) so you have to do your own research. Lucky for us, David was kind enough to tab this one out.

Two recommended versions to buy: Dinah Washington’s is best, but Willie Nelson and Diana Krall do a fine version too and that sticks closer to the melody so probably better for tune-learning purposes.

More from David:

The Stripper
Mississippi Blues
In the Mood
The Whistling Milkman

Voting Closed

The nominations are in and there’s a big shock already, after the last two years of fluffy winners, all this year’s nominees are human (with the possible exception of Jonsi). Other than that, it’s a good mixture of stuff running from virtuoso performances to strums, big groups to solos, international superstars to bedroom performers, cute ukulele girliness to big-hairy-man territory.

I must admit to a fuck-up on my part: Keston Cobblers’ Club’s You-Go was from 2009. Sorry to anyone who nominated it.

Make your choice on whatever criteria you like (I’m going to vote for the one I enjoyed most). Vote closes February 15th at midnight Hawaii time. Feel free to canvas for votes for your favourite (or yourself) on the net. No prize other than glory and admiration. All I ask is that you watch any videos you’re not familiar with before you vote.

The Nominated Videos

Slightly shorter shortlist than usual this year.

Secret Home Party – Reciprocation
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – Short People
Manitoba Hal – Poulet Shack
James Hill – Billie Jean
Jónsi and Nico Muhly – Go Do
Bella Hemming – (She might love you if you learn to) Play Guitar

The Result

1. Manitoba Hal – Poulet Shack: 411 (33%)

2. Bella Hemming – Play Guitar: 400 (32%)

3. Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – Short People: 236 (19%)

4. James Hill – Billie Jean: 137 (11%)

5. Secret Home Party – Reciprocation: 40 (3%)

6. Jonsi and Nico Muhly – Go Do: 31 (2%)

The nominations for 2010’s video of the year are in, being tabulated and you’ll have a chance to vote on them tomorrow. This year it’s going to take some pushing and shoving to get a list of ten and this one is just on the brink. After the howls of protest when I didn’t include it in my ‘best of the year so far’ posts I thought it would be in easily. If I’d gone through with my plan to institute the Smash Hits Poll Winners award categories, he’d have got Most Fanciable Male by a landslide.

Suggested Strumming

There are lots of bits in the song where it’s just one down strum left to ring. The main part of the song you can go with this two bar pattern once for each chord:

d – d u – u d u
– u d u – u d –

One exception is the intro. For the first quick F you might want to use this version of F and C with this pattern

F C
d u – u – u d u
– u d u – u d u

And the quick bit at the end of the intro, do this once for each chord:

d u d u

The other is in the bridge section. In the session version he’s doing a bit of strum blocking with the thumb stopping the g-string ringing and the other fingers covering the E and A-strings. If you don’t fancy doing that, you can just play the C chord with the main strumming pattern.

Twiddly Bits

If you want to recreate the piano bit in the intro you could do it like this:

Visit Antarctica Takes It!’s Bandcamp and you can get this track free and buy the album.

Darren Hayman went against the grain and spent January recording one track every day. A few of them featured ukuleles but not the one I’ve chosen. I’ve bent the rules to allow my favourite of the month: a tenor guitar song with Elizabeth ‘Allo Darlin‘ Morris. Another of his duets was with Helen Arney who also puts in an appearance this week (and will be on Robin Ince’s Uncaged Monkeys tour which I’m definitely probably going to).

Also this week: the UOGB with one of their less familiar covers, a wonderful video from The Fancy Dress Party, Johnny Marvin under the name Honey Duke and someone who shares my first name (even spells it correctly) and my love of cardigans.

Read the rest of this entry »

No doubt about the hottest uke item on eBay this week: a Kamaka Jake Shimabukuro Signature ukulele. In 2006 Kamaka announced they’d be making 100 ukes to Jake’s specifications, individually tested by him and with his signature. And they were going to decide who gets them by lottery. The seller obviously isn’t a player and seems to have made a shrewd investment and is selling it now Jake is very big. If the seller gets the asking price, there’s a very nice $11,500 profit in it.

When I was a kid there was a big craze in the UK for American Football. I was a Bears man (because of The Fridge) and I demanded a Wilson Football for Christmas. It turns out that Wilson turned their hand to ukuleles with Ashland ukuleles.

An interesting new eBay shop in the UK: UkeniqueUkuleles. No seller feedback as yet but they’ve got some promising items off the bat.

Photos: I usually skip over the Hawaiians-in-grass-skirts photos but I found this one interesting. Girls w/ ukuleles in yard.

Bossarocker is booking acts for the Uke Hunt podcast live sessions. So if you can make it to Manchester get in touch with her.

New records from Garfunkel and Oates and Spring Breakup (Mathias Kom on ukulele duties). The opening track, The Effect I Have On Women, is brilliant and a must for anyone missing Magnetic Fields’ ukulele days.

I added this to last week’s news late so in case you missed it, Eddie Vedder is planning an all uke record.

On Uker Tabs: Tears in Heaven by Claudio. You can find more of his arrangements here as well as a round up of ukulele Android apps and an excellent avatar.

Tiny ukulele.

Can the Green Bay Packers spell ukulele? (at 1 minute 20) Whoever wrote the article was struggling.

More to add to the ukulele-at-the-movies list: The Living Wake and A Thousand Clowns.

Photos: Ukulele, Banjolele com um tom de cavaco, Destroy!!, black metal.

I need your opinions in the comments because I want to settle this. Instrumental versions of songs (as opposed to versions of tunes that are instrumentals already): a worthwhile pursuit or inevitable cheesiness and boredom? I’ve done a few songs made instrumental and I think it’s hard to make them work unless the song behind it is very strong. I wouldn’t have chosen to do this one myself, but I had to respond to a plea from a damsel in distress. ABBA were obviously top-notch songwriters so I think this one just about works.

Annoyingly, my Sceptre has developed a buzz on the open A-string. The action has always been a bit too low. Now watch me leave it months before I bother doing anything about it.

I’m sure 2010 will got down in ukulele history as the year of Hey, Soul Sister (don’t even think about it: released November 2009). But I’ll be remembering the year for the diversity, skill and invention on display from the ukers. And it’s heartening to see that, despite all the mainstreamification and talk of the uke being for big get-togethers, it is still an instrument played by weirdos.

The real purpose of the vote: to get people watching excellent musicians. So if there’s a video you think has been cruelly overlooked, be sure to give it a nomination because I’ll be watching anything I missed first time round.

For the first stage, everyone gets to nominate up to 5 videos – leave them in the comments. From those nominations, I’ll cobble together a list of ten (ish) that will be voted on next week. Use whatever criteria you like. I went with whichever videos/songs I enjoyed most.

The Rules

The rules remain as ramshackle as ever:

– There has to be a ukulele in there.
– Videos must have been originally uploaded in 2010.
– Videos must be publicly available online.
– Maximum of five nominations per person.
– Post your nominations in the comments.
– Nominations close midnight 7th February (Hawaii time).
– Ten acts with the most nominations go into the final vote with their most nominated song going forward.
– No prize. Just the love and admiration of the heaving masses.
– No sucking up by voting for me.

Don’t panic if your comments don’t show up right away. First time commenters and comments contains a few links can get held back for spam checking.

My Nominations

Serious problems narrowing it down to five this year. It kills me to leave out Manitoba Hal.

Little6ster – I Wish…
SoftSpot – Half a House
Jónsi and Nico Muhly – Go Do
Kaki King – Falling Day
Secret Home Party – Reciprocation

Videos You May Like

To jog your memory, here are some more videos that have caused a stir in the comments, on the net or in my pants:

Keston Cobblers Club – You Go
Brett Domino – Justin Timberlake Medley
Manitoba Hal – Poulet Shack
4DJB25 – Esmerelda
Savannah Smith – Ventriloquism
Sanfordandsong – Flim
Matt Griffo – One Love
Jim Boggia – Thunder Road
Ben Lerman – Ben Lerman Plays the Ukulele
Ukulollo – Knight Rider
U900 – Twist and Shout
Agathe and Fine – Rambling Man
The Ooks of Hazard – Kids
Lila Burns – Young Hearts, Young Minds
White Hinterland – No Logic
The Bobby McGee’s – Bang Bang Bang
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – Short People
Jake Shimabukuro – Bohemian Rhapsody
James Hill and Victoria Vox – Billie Jean
Yoyoyo Acapulco – Orange
Mike De Velta – Fuller’s Hill
Bella Hemming – Play Guitar
Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer – Songs for Acid Edward
Antarctica Takes It – C&F
Sophie Madeleine – The Rhythm You Started
Veronica Sbergia and Max di Bernardi – Take It Easy Greasy/Dirty Mother Fuyer