The uke community obviously has a big love for woolen puppets. Last year it was Rod Thomas’s sock puppets and this year’s winner is the adorable Japanese duo U900.

It’s a deserving winner and I caught up with U900’s human representative Yosuke Kihara to learn more about them.

What’s the history of U900?

Rabbit U was knocked out by The Ventures guitar sound and wanted to be a guitar hero. But guitars were too big for his body and he had to give up his dream.

Then he started making a trip to find what he wants to be. On its way in Hawaii, he found a ukulele and decided to play this instrument.

After coming back to Japan he’s got a fateful encounter
—- one day in a park of Tokyo he met a guy playing the ukulele
—- it was Bear 900 who also picked up a ukulele for the same reason.

The two guys have got good vibes each other and started a ukulele band U900.

Usagi-no U (Rabbit U)
– Lead vocal & Ukulele
– Character: Cheerful and like to be eye-catchy. Quite indifferent about things but easily moved to tears on the other hand.
– Favorites: latest hit pops (a fan of Beyonce nowadays), carrot juice, dancing, playing tricks.

Kuma-no Kulele (Bear 900)
-Vocal, keyboards & others
-Character: not talkative and looks absent-minded, but well organized in fact.
Good at caring people and making things.
-Favorites: progressive rock & fusion, toast with honey, practicing instruments, taking a nap.

Who is it playing the ukulele on the tracks?

U900 themselves are playing as you see on the video.
(Like other people such as Micky Mouse plays instruments!)

What is it about the Ventures that appeals to you so much?

The Ventures is the first musician who turned us on and lead us to music. But of course we like many of other overseas artists & music.

Your obviously a very talented animator, what’s your background?

I’m a professional illustrator & animator and creating characters and those animations for books, TV programs, etc. And I make video games, too, like this : RIBBIT KING

And of course I make amigurumi (soft toys) by knitting !

Will you be releasing your stuff in the US and Europe? Will we be able to get it on iTunes in the future?

We’d love to introduce U900 and if any one is interested in releasing their album please contact our Japanese label, Pony Canyon.

What can we expect to see and hear from U900 in the future?

U900 has released 2 CDs so far and another album will be out thie year. And new video for Web like YouTube is under planning. I’m pleasing that U900 wins The Ukulele Video Of The Year!

Hope our music will be reached people all over the world.

Visit U900 on MySpace. Buy Ukulele Ventures on Amazon. Find tab for Diamond Head here.

I went to see the Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll last week. Enjoyable film – mostly for Andy Serkis’s performance. And he was a hell of a guy: probably the only person with balls big enough to take the piss out of Mick Jones to his face and one of the few people to ever write a great protest song.

Ian Dury is, obviously, irreplaceable. Which hasn’t stopped the Blockheads replacing him. With the best will in the world, Derek ‘The Draw’ Hussey isn’t up to the job. The vocals and lyrics might not be much cop, but there are plenty of nice musical moves going on. The tasty ukulele intro in this version is played on a low-G uke, but it works pretty well in standard tuning too:

The ukulele intro doesn’t feature on the recorded version, but there is a uke on it playing the chords. The chord progression is quite a neat chromatically descending figure topped off with a classic turnaround.

Michelle Blades – sleepless (MP3) via Last.fm

More than anyone else, I look forward to seeing new videos from Michelle Blades on my YouTube subs page. Her songs are stunningly inventive and keep getting better and better. She’s just released a new albumOh, Nostalgia! so it seemed like the perfect time to ask her about improvising, Panama and Kerouac.

How did you come to pick up the uke? What appeals to you about it?

I grew up around guitars my whole life and would always fiddle with them but they never really kept my interest for very long. Then one day when I was sixteen I was humming a tune while walking to a set of monkey bars by my house and thought a ukulele would be nice.. they’re small and seem like fun, so I bought one the next week. I never put it down, haha.

I guess the uke has such widespread traditional ways of being played, there’s kind of this expectation as to what kind of genres of music you play once you mention you play a ukulele. That makes it really fun to just experiment on them and kind of throw people off, play differently. They’re a fun thing.

I read you improvise most of the set when you play live. Is that true? How on earth do you do it?

Haha I don’t know. I just kind of start singing or playing whatever is in my head and follow along until some theme emerges and it falls together. Improvising feels like the best way to be honest or sincere about whatever you’re singing about.. It’s easier for me to just improvise a song and memorize it than sit down and write one. Most of the videos on youtube are improv songs I wanted to record so I can memorize them later.. haha. I think the best way to explain it is it’s like falling in love. It’s scary but you just want to go about it naturally without forcing anything and you don’t know what you’re doing but it all goes about quite well, usually, and nothing is grander.

What are your top songwriting tips?

Since I usually improv the stuff, I think Kerouac said it best when he created the “rules” for spontaneous prose. Here’s a few that would answer the question:

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
19. Accept loss forever
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time

You were born in Panama and your uncle is Ruben Blades, how has that background influenced your music?

Spanish was my first language but when I moved to the states and learned english I was kind of enthralled with this new language. I got real into folk and post-rock and punk and whatnot and never really acknowledged my roots, I guess. It wasn’t until I was sixteen when I first started making songs in spanish and listening to my dad’s music and my uncle’s music and Devendra. I was still new to the uke and was still strumming G’s and Em’s but eventually I got real into classical Spanish and Flamenco music and all that crazy finger picking.. so it changed the way I played.

Just recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Cuban folk music. Pretty awesome.

Which three songs should everyone listen to?

Ah..

1: Bur Oak by Bowerbirds
2: Jump for Joy (take 1) by Duke Ellington
3: Maria Cristina by Duo Sauces
3.5: By Balloon or Sinking Ship by Jordan O Jordan

You’re coming over to Europe soon, what are your plans while you’re over here?

Play music, make music, take lots of pictures and make friends! ..and stay as long as possible. I’ve never been there and I can’t believe I get to go to play music. Oh, and eat.

MySpace you can stream and buy Oh, Nostalgia! on Think Indie

Ever since the Blue Peter/Cookie scandel, I haven’t been able to hear the word ‘cookie’ without sniggering. It certainly makes the Cookie Monster about a million times more funnier. But Laura Jansen does such a good job of playing her Cookie Monster cover straight, I was quite moved by it.

But the most exciting video this week comes from Sarah Kinlaw. I’ve featured a few of her videos before but she hadn’t posted in a long time. It was worth the wait. She’s back with a friend. a cate band name (SoftSpot), a beautiful video and an incredible sound. There’s not a great deal of uke in, but enough for me to justify posting something this jaw-dropping.

Also this week Benny Chong and Byron Yasui duetting, a cover of an obscene Zappa song, an experimental ‘tone-poem’ from James Hill and plenty more.

Read the rest of this entry »

A bit of a change to the usual schedule. Sophie Madeleine emailed me the other about her next video and asking for my help (to be honest, with all the Valentines and, “you are my favourite,” talk, I’m pretty sure the whole thing is just a ruse to get in pants). She wants a bunch of people to video themselves playing their ukuleles along with You Are My Favourite and send them to her so she can splice them together. Sounds like a fine idea to me. Here’s how you can get involved:

– Learn the chords (you can find those up there).
– Download the backing track:

Backing Track (MP3)

– Play along with it and video yourself (the rule is ‘nothing offensive’ – so all the kittens in my video died in vain).
– Make a video in .mp4 or .m4v format and under 100MB in size
– Upload the results to senduit and set it to expire in a week.
– Email Sophie with results.
– You’ve got a month to do it (until the 13th March).

The Chords

Here’s the chord chart:

The chords are written up in two ways: standard tuning and f Bb D G (i.e. every string tuned down 2 frets). Whichever you choose, make sure you’re in tune.

If you’re playing in standard tuning, I’d recommend playing Am (2000) instead of Fmaj (5500). It makes it much easier to play and sounds close enough – it’s only missing the F note which is picked up in the backing track for the most part anyway.

Suggested Strumming

The main strum is this two bar pattern:

d – d u – u d u
– u d u – u d –

Which is shortened to just the first bar for the Ab – F change in the verse and the, “I hope that I’m by far…” part in the chorus.

The only other strumming pattern is in the bridge. That’s all down strums.

Tuning Notes

Here are the notes f Bb D G for you to tune to:

When you’re tuning down, it helps to loosen the strings too far then tighten up to the note.

Buy You Are My Favourite on BandCamp

Quite a few lust-worthy ukes on eBay at the moment, but the one that really lubes my wallet-slit is this Mya Moe Tenor resonator.

Some fancy soundhole decorating on this G-String Hibiscus and this a href=”http://ukulelehunt.com/buy-ukulele/brands/pahu-kani-ukulele/”>Pahu Kani.

Another formerly Formby ukulele.

A while back I was wonder about a, no longer listed, ukulele that was advertised as Nunes but looked later. I think it must have been a Supertone ukulele – which looks mighty fine in its own right.

World War I decorated banjolele.

The Kala U-Bass now comes with a spruce top.

Jake Shimabukuro has performed at TED and impressed Bill Gates (who plays the uke himself after taking lessons from Warren Buffett).

Thanks to Ken and Krabbers, the ukulele festivals list has a few new entries.

Herman Vandecauter demonstrates ukulele resgueado.

Shelley Rickey is putting together an exhibition of painted ukuleles. It’s yet to seen whether any of them will feature Lisa Simpson making out with Astroboy.

Ukulele half-strap.

A portrait of Harry.

In the comments: nutcrakerkuge schools in the Japanese behind the name U900: “U900 if read in Japanese (numbers have various ways of being pronounced) reads: oo-ku-re-re, or UKULELE! Kinda like english folks make words with phone numbers, but more directly. Another example is 39…san-queue…thank you.”

Ukulele promos are vastly superior to their non-uke cousins: L’Uke poster and flyer, Uke Valentino flyer, 30 ukulele, 30 artists

There are a lot of ukuleles cropping up in adverts at the moment. This one from April Smith was used in an ad for Trojan condoms. Which changes the meaning of the song into something along the lines of, “Don’t worry honey. While you’re gone, I promise to use a condom with the many, many people I screw. Love ya, bye.”

I actually paid for this album to be made (check here if you don’t believe me) and it was worth it just to get this uke-featuring song out there. It’s an insanely catchy tune. Listen to it a couple of times and you’ll be stomping around singing the chorus.

Suggested Strumming

The easiest thing to do is follow the guitar and just down strum on the off-beats:

– d – d – d – d

On the last down beat, you can play a C# chord (same as the D but one fret down) and slide it up. But be sure to keep all the other strums short by cutting off the chords.

When the uke comes in you can go for something more tricky like this:

d – d – – u d u

Pre-Order Songs For A Sinking Ship

UPDATE: Ukulele Festivals 2013

There are more ukulele festivals then ever this year so I thought it’d be useful to have them all listed in one place. I’ll be updating this page, so if you’ve got something that needs adding to the list send me a message or leave a comment.

United Kingdom and Ireland

2010 London Uke Festival

Location: TBA
Date: TBA
Performers: TBA
Website: http://www.londonukefestival.com/
Local Amenities: Map

Wukulele Festival

Location: Worthing, West Sussex
Date: 8-10th October 2010
Performers: Bob Brozman
Website: http://www.wukulelefestival.com/
Local Amenities: Map

Ukulele Festival of Great Britain

Location: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Date: June 19 and 20, 2010
Performers: The Re-Entrants, GUGUG, Hot Potato Syncopators, Winin’ Boys, Ukulelezaza, Steven Sproat, The Uke Box, L’ Uke, The Anything Goes Orchestra
Website: http://www.ukulelefestival.co.uk/Home.aspx
Local Amenities: Map

Colliers Wood Ukulele Festival

Location: Colliers Wood
Date: 17th April
Performers: Helen Arney, The Marauders, Brockley Ukulele Group
Website: http://collywoodukulele.com/
Local Amenities: Map

Hollesley Ukulele Festival

Location: Hollesley
Date: 23-26 July
Performers: The Re-Entrants, The Anything Goes Orchestra
Website: http://www.ukulelecosmos.com
Local Amenities: Map

Belper Ukulele Day

Location: Belper Town Football Club, Belper
Date:
Performers: The Re-entrants, The Anything Goes Orchestra.
Website: ukulelecosmos.com
Local Amenities: Map

Ukelear Meltdown III

Location: Star And Shadow Cinema, Battlefield, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, UK
Date: February 27 and 28, 2010
Performers: Ukelili (USA), Abdul Khan and The Projections (Pakistan/UK), Lady K & The Kooky Kitchen (Finland), Piecans (UK), Dirty Diamonds (UK), Vacation Pioneers (UK), Eilidh Macaskill (UK), Sekksyunkel (UK), Williwaw (USA)
Website: http://ukelearmeltdown.wordpress.com/
Local Amenities: Map

Europe

Ukulele Village

Location: Sarzana, Italy
Date: 21-23 May
Performers: TBA
Website: TBA
Local Amenities: Map

Ukulele Bazar

Location: Paris, France
Date: 17 April
Performers: TBA
Website: http://www.ukulele.fr/
Local Amenities: Map

United States of America

Lone Star Uke Fest 2010

Location: Aloha, Texas
Date: April 29, 30 & May 1, 2010
Performers: Texas Swing with Aloha!, James Hill, Gerald Ross, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Kimo Hussey, Debbie Porter, Pops Bayless, Mark “Spanky” Guttierez, Ukulele Bartt and Dennis McBride
Website: http://www.lonestarukefest.com/
Local Amenities: Map

UkeFest 2010

Location: 71 East Yale Avenue, Denver
Date: February 6, 2010
Performers: James Hill and Anne Davison, Canote Brothers, Boulder Acoustic Society, Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Eleanor, Ukulele Loki, Denver Uke Community, Moe Dixon
Website: http://www.swallowhillmusic.org/festivals/UkeFest2010/
Local Amenities: Map

Tahoe Area Ukulele Festival – 2010

Location: John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks, Nevada
Date: March 19 – 21, 2010
Performers: Jake Shimabukuro and James Hill
Website: http://playuke.net/
Local Amenities: Map

New York Uke Fest 2010

Location: Baruch College, 55 Lexington Avenue, New York City
Date: May 12 – 16, 2010
Performers: Bill Tapia, James Hill, Li’l Rev, Deni Bonet, Victoria Vox and Mihana, Zee Avi, Kazuyuki Sekiguchi-san
Website: http://www.nyukefest.com/
Local Amenities: Map

Gorge Uke Fest 2010

Location: Hood River, Oregon
Date: February 19 – 20, 2010
Performers: Moe Dixon, James Hill, Victoria Vox, Langley Ukulele Ensemble
Website: http://www.gorgeukuleles.org/
Local Amenities: Map

Ukulele World Congress

Location: Needmore, Indiana
Date: June 4 – 5, 2010
Performers: TBA
Website: http://ukuleleworldcongress.wordpress.com/
Local Amenities: Map

Hawaii

40th Annual Ukulele Festival

Location: Kapiolani Park Bandstand in Waikiki, Oahu
Date: July 18, 2010
Performers: ukulele virtuosos, internationally known musicians, local celebrities, talented ukulele players from around the world and a ukulele orchestra of over 800 students
Website: http://www.ukulelefestivalhawaii.org/en/oahu/index.htm
Local Amenities: Map

10th Annual Waikoloa Ukulele Festival

Location: Queen’s Marketplace in Waikoloa
Date: March 6, 2010
Performers: TBA
Website: http://www.ukulelefestivalhawaii.org/en/waikoloa.htm
Local Amenities: Map

8th Annual Kauai Ukulele Festival

Location: Kukui Grove Center in Lihue, Kauai
Date: April 17, 2010
Performers: Lihue Seniors, Aldrine Guerrero, Hanalei School, Kapa’a Middle School, Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School, King Kaumuali’i Elementary School and more
Website: http://www.ukulelefestivalhawaii.org/en/kauai.htm
Local Amenities: Map

4th Annual Maui Ukulele Festival

Location: Maui Arts & Cultural Center, One Cameron Way, Kahului, HI USA 96732
Date: October 10, 2010
Performers: Herb Ohta Sr. (Ohta-San), Jake Shimabukuro, Holunape, Raiatea Helm, Manoa DNA, Paula Fuga, Richard Ho’opi’i, Brittni Paiva, Kelly Boy Delima, Derek Sebastian and more
Website: http://www.ukulelefestivalhawaii.org/en/maui.htm
Local Amenities: Map

Ukulele Picnic in Hawaii

Location: Kaka`ako Waterfront Park
Date: February 13, 2010
Performers: Bill Tapia, Herb “Ohta-san” Ohta, , Herb Ohta Jr., Pali, Holunape, Manoa DNA, the Roy Sakuma Ukulele School, Iwao, Kiyoshi Kobayashi & the Ukulele Orchestra of Japan, Sekiguchi Band featuring Kimiko Wakiyama
Website: http://www.ukulelepicnicinhawaii.org/media.html
Local Amenities: Map

Australia and New Zealand

Melbourne Ukulele Festival

Location: Northcote and Brunswick
Date: February 26th – March 2nd 2010
Performers: Tyrone (Brisbane), Betty’s Driving Force, Uni and Her Ukulele (San Francisco) & Meredith Axelrod (San Francisco), Old Spice Boys (Byron Bay), Anthony Leonard, Jim D’Ville (Portland, Oregon USA), Azo Bell, Ukeleus (Canberra), Spiderfish Stew (Fremantle)
Website: http://ukulelesafari.com/index.php?pid=11397
Local Amenities: Map

Cairns Ukulele Festival

Location: Cairns, Australia
Date: July 3 – 4, 2010
Performers: James Hill, Daniel Ho, The Old Spice Boys.
Website: http://cairnsukulelefestival.net/
Local Amenities: Map

The Blue Mountains Ukulele Festival

Location: The Blue Mountain Hotel, Lawson, New South Wales 2783, Australia
Date: January 30, 2010
Local Amenities: Map

You might be wondering what happened to all the big plans I wrote about in the 1000th post. Yes, I talked a big game and, yes, so far I’ve delivered nothing. But a few things have been happening.

Firstly, the new theme is on its way. It’s scheduled to go live on the first of March. It’s looking fantastic, so it’s worth the wait. The new theme does demand a whole bunch of new pages so there’ll be a few posts cropping up that will be part of that (thus completely going back on my ‘fewer posts’ plan). Also, the Buy a Ukulele section is going to change its name to ‘Ukulele Review’. There be a ratings system and I’ll be bribing people to leave reviews of their ukes and uke related stuff. As part of this, it struck me I should probably set up a page for every ukulele in existence. I mean, how hard can it be? Turns out very hard. I’ve hired someone to help with this section and it’s still going to take a long time.

The ebooks I mentioned have been put on the back burner for now but there is something new coming along – hopefully next week.

After the feedback, the private forum idea has been abandoned and the tutorial videos were never going to happen. I’d like to be able to do the ukulele-trip thing and I have a concept brewing, now I just have to get over my laziness and social awkwardness. So that about wraps up the plans.

There is a reason why I’m so far behind on my plans. My Dad died on the 30th December. This blog owes a lot to my Dad; from him driving me to guitar lessons when I was a kid to not beating some sense into me when I ditched a steady job in favour writing about the ukulele for a living. So it only seemed right that I arrange a tune in honour of him.

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.