I was a bit disappointed to find no ukulele on the album from Zooey Deschanel’s collaboration with M Ward. Particularly after statements like this.

Nevertheless, I love this song.

Suggested Strumming

If you want to emulate the piano, all you need is good old Strum #1 from the Strum Bible: all down strums.

Bob Brozman is a huge musical hero of mine. So when I noticed he was promoting his ukulele workshops in California, I leapt at the chance to throw a few questions his way.

Ukulele Spaghetti was the tune that made me realise what the ukulele was capable of. When did you first become aware of the ukulele? And when did you first realise what it was capable of?

I had been playing guitar since 1960, started uke when I was around 20 years old in the early 70s. First really became aware of uke via Ukulele Ike, collecting 78s in junk shops. As soon as I started playing it, I realized it has all the musical potential for virtuosity that all stringed instruments have!

You’re doing a series of ukulele workshops later this month. What can people expect to learn there?

I want to strengthen people’s uke skills in addition to teaching about how blues, jazz and swing tunes work. We will look at the various right hand techniques of strumming and picking, with a view towards getting more variety and contrast in the sound of your playing. Also we will quickly see how chords shapes relate to each other, and how to use chords to begin soloing and improvising. We will look at standard chord inversions, and also the “slack key” approach of using only 2 fingers to get all majors and minors in any key! Lots of playing in class, and I plan on observing everyone carefully to assure comfort and comprehension!

What are your top ukulele playing tips?

Getting maximum variety with a minimum of effort! Learn to play the same song several ways with different chord voicings and strum/pick patterns.

What are the biggest mistakes you see ukulele players make?

Not believing their own ears, most uke players are better than they think! Perhaps also, not looking hard enough for patterns and similarities all over the fingerboard.

You’ve described the charango as a “Bolivian super ukulele”. What makes it such a special instrument?

The charangos is a 5 course, ten-string cousin of the uke. The double stringing, the octave string pair, and the extra pair of strings provide all sorts of opportunities for expansion, especially if you already play uke. The volume and tone of these is incredible and exotic. Easy to transfer uke skills to charangos.

Many of your collaborations have been with musicians from islands: Papua New Guinea, Okinawa, Réunion and Hawaii. Is there something special that happens to music on islands?

Absolutely! Musical instruments and ideas, not always 100% perfectly expressed and understood, arrive on islands from distant places and cultures, percolate in isolation on the island, then emerge as new hybrid music. That plus the strength of nature so evident on islands makes for wonderful new music. Hawaii was one of the first “laboratories” for this phenomenon.

I’ve heard you talk about the exciting things that happen when a culture first comes into contact with fretted instruments. But it seems like the entrie world is singing Britney songs. Are there any parts of the world where exciting new music is being made right now?

Access to instruments in the third world can be very limited, so there are still places where music is being discovered, re-shaped and created. The poorer the country, the richer the music, in general, also the greater function music has in daily social life. Britney-type commercialism takes us far away from the original reasons for music, but it has not penetrated everywhere!

What can we expect to hear from you in the future?

More crazy music, more beautiful music, I don’t plan on quitting anytime soon!

Entirely selfish question. When doing a ukulele workshop in the UK?

Will be doing a guitar workshop in November 2009, but no uke plans at the moment, unless duty calls…..

Bob’s ukulele workshops will be taking place in Ben Lomond, CA on July 25th and 26th and August 1st and 2nd. You can find out more and register on his website. And you can contact him with a barrage of requests for ukulele workshops in the UK here.

Ah, dogs. So like us.

The chords for this one are dead simple (C, F and G). The only tricky part is the little hammer-on riff:

And that wraps it up for the most tab filled week in Uke Hunt history. I’m off for a rest.

Buy The Bobby McGee’s’s latest album on Cherryade Records.

How does he have any bandmates left?

I have no idea, but I’m glad Eleanor manages to put up with him because this song is a little gem. The uke part is lovely. It reminds me of Romanza and is entertaining enough to be played just by itself.

Buy The Bobby McGee’s’s latest album on Cherryade Records.

Last but not least is the band’s singer/songwriter/uker/costumier Eleanor.

What made you first buy a uke?

I was at a Herman Dune gig at quite a big venue in Brighton and halfway through their set they put down the electric guitars and bass and stepped away from the microphones, I think the drummer probably went and had a cup of tea or something, and the guy with the long beard sang a little song on this tiny little guitar completely acoustically and everyone in the gig was silent, it was pretty full, and we all leant forward to try and hear what he was singing and I thought.. ‘I want people to feel like this when we’re playing!’. So at the end of the gig I went and asked him what his tiny guitar was called..

What are the biggest differences between the songs you write and the songs Jimmy writes? Do you ever write together?

I think it’s quite easy to tell which songs are mine and which songs are Jimmy’s as Jimmy writes all the ones with shouting and swearing and I write the sweet girly ones – I’d love to be radical and say it was the other way round but it’s not! Actually Jimmy writes a lot of sweet songs too and I have one song that’s not on the album about the twins ‘Mary-Kate and Ashley’ which is probably filthier than anything Jimmy’s ever written.. I think some of the best songs we have are where Jimmy’s written his part and I’ve written my part and so there’s a real contrast between the two styles within the same song.

The look is a big part of The Bobby McGee’s. How did that come about?

Me and Jimmy both love dressing up. One of our favourite hobbies is rooting around in charity shops together looking for vintage treasures, and when we were first playing together I used to alter and customise vintage clothes for us to perform in. Then I got carried away and started a little fashion label called ‘Dig For Victory!‘ which is dedicated to making fun clothes from peoples old curtains and duvet covers – you find the most amazing fabrics there. The make-up extends the joy of dressing up, of putting on a different suit and feeling like a different character, and it means that the audience can see from the minute we step on stage what we are about. I also think that if you’re performing on stage you have to make some kind of decision about what to wear and why not give the audience a visual treat to go with the music? Also it distracts from my poor ukulele playing!

Do you come from a musical family?

Kind of. My dad has a very good ear for music and when I was little I used to think that my grandad could play any piece of music on any musical instrument in the world! Then I remember as a teenager playing Tori Amos songs to him on the piano and he couldn’t get the rhythm- it was very disillusioning. He has a real passion for classical music though and music has always been around in my family, as I hope it is in most families, and some of the music my parents listen to which I teased them about as a teenager I’ve grown up to love.

Which three songs does everyone need to hear?

‘1,2,3 steps to happiness’ by Myrtle because it’s about how to be happy and everyone should have a go at that, ‘Cowboys’ by Charles Latham because he is a wonderful songwriter and anything by MJ Hibbet because he plays uke and all his songs make me smile.

How do you put up with Jimmy? And why?

I don’t know!! But I think it’s worth it.. :-)

I might have gone a bit overboard with the Madeline Ava videos this week. But I couldn’t help it. She’s such an outstanding songwriter. And I had to celebrate the fact she has a new website where you can download her stuff.

Also this week is Francois Peglau, Ukulele Bartt ripping up some LuVaBe, Dominator jamming with Brittni, hand-farting and plenty more. Read the rest of this entry »

Quite a number of Martin ukuleles on eBay this week. Particularly catching my attention are this Style 3 Taropatch, this 1926 Tiple and this Daisy 5M.

I’m going to have to buy a Le Domino one of these days.

This week, shame on me, I’ve a g**tar catch my eye. A 1930s Slingerland Songster from Jake Wildwood.

National are the resonator makers. So it’d be interested to hear what their bottom of the range resophonic ukulele sounds like. That one looks like it’s been used to hammer nails into a barn door. But people seem to be bidding on it enthusiastically.

Brand names that don’t suit the ukulele #1: Conqueror. Save it for your range of condoms.

It’s July. Where are people selling ukulele Christmas ornaments?

The Cairns Ukulele Festival seems to have been turned into a political football. It looks like local politicians became involved (always bad news) – and Bosko and Honey are no longer involved in organising it. Understandably, the prospect of funding a ukulele festival didn’t go down well with the uke-ignorant tax payers. This article in the Cairns Post, complete with mocked up photo of the mayor of Cairns, attracted plenty of uke-bashing comments from people with an obvious axe to grind:

“Do the investors in five star hotels, restaurants and first class tourist facilities really want the town to be inundated with combi vans, floral shirts and ukeleles complete with eskies of mung beans, coconuts and happy weed?”

“Now come on everybody what is this woman on ??? we’ve voted and paying for a complete Idiot with the imagination and common sense of a dead cane toad.”

And it ruffled a few pro-uke feathers – as you can tell by the subsequent comments. The counter insurgency obviously worked as the paper then printed this article and this was the front of the magazine. And now the mayor has gone on a publicity offensive. All this entertainment and the festival still an entire year away.

Jimmy has launched a Bobby McGee’s competition where you can win a t-shirt and a special edition of the album.

New Re-entrants CD: The Good, The Bad and the Ukulele.

Preview of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain documentary.

Halifax Ukulele Group has a pdf of camp fire songs.

I’ve only just noticed that Mark Occhionero is offering ukulele lessons by Skype. Seems like an excellent way to do things.

Ben Harper gives the gift of uke (via James Hill).

Video of the Vicenza Ukulele Festival and one of Ukelear Meltdown II including the quite brilliant Cat Green Bike.

A song for those of us in the small Venn diagram crossover between ukulele players and WordPress fans.

If you live outside the UK you can find the UOGB’s Ode to Joy tutorials here.

Zoe finds a simple solution to her ukulele storage problem.

Ukulele fever spreads to Thailand.

How to steal a ukulele in 10 easy steps.

The ukulele vs recorder story is doing the rounds in the UK press again. Here’s what the Telegraph said this week and here’s what they said two years ago. I hope that’s not a typo and the headteacher’s name really is ‘Barabara’ – I hope the kids taunt her with this song. Although when your school is called ‘Rood End’ you’ve probably got all the fun you need right there.

And so ends a rather cynical and world-weary edition of Friday Links. I think it might be due to reading Flat Earth News.

Becca is the latest addition to the Bobby McGee’s and is described by Jimmy as a combination of, “my looks and Eleanor’s ukulele ability.” Not content with that description, I grilled Becca for some more details.

How did you come to join the Bobby McGee’s?

I saw Jim and El play in my Fresher’s week, and then met them through a mutual friend; before I knew it we were sharing a flat and they were badgering me about playing saxophone with them. For a long time I refused, but when they told me they were playing on BBC 6 Music, I realised that my secret ambition had always been to play with them.

You’ve added ukulele to the long list of instruments you play. How does it compare?

I definitely love the uke a lot. It has a style and tone all of its own, and it’s been inspiring to listen to some older ukulele stuff, and realise there’s a long tradition of music which goes all the way back to its home in Hawaii. I like that the uke is still rooted in this particular tradition; it lends itself to a different sort of music than a lot of instruments. That said, all the instruments I play do different things, and while I enjoy playing some more than others, the rest of the band seem to like the overall result.

How on earth do you get a tune out of a saw? It seems like the hardest instrument to learn.

I think it’s a lot like bass, easy to be not very good at (like me!) and very hard to play well (see the Hot Potato Syncopators for example). The basics are not really that tricky: you start by putting the saw between your legs, with the teeth facing in; then you just have to bend the saw into an S shape and find the harmonics with some sort of bow, and then shake parts of your body to make the vibrato sound. If that makes it all sound a bit pervy, it’s because it kind of is!

Which three songs does everyone need to hear?

Since seeing them at Glastonbury I’ve been singing Art Brut non-stop; they were so good. My current favourite is ‘Slapdash for no cash’ about how over-produced music is a waste of time; the whole new record is great but I’d recommend having a look on you-tube for it too, cos Eddie Argos always seems to tell different little stories in the middle. Also everyone needs to hear Eleanor’s song ‘Mary Kate and Ashley’, she hates playing it because it’s really dark and disturbing, but I think it’s an important critique of body culture and commodity fetishism! Sadly it’s not on the new album but hopefully next time. And Graves by The Stars Down to Earth, they’re one of the best Brighton bands I’ve heard for ages, oh apart from the Tulips, who are also great. Argh! Three isn’t enough!

How do you put up with Jimmy? And why?

He really hates it when you pinch him on the bottom of his arms (the triceps is it?); it seems to get him to do what I want most of the time. But most of the time he’s okay actually, I think when he puts the make-up on he becomes more evil! Also I like playing music that’s a bit different; that encourages the audience to take part, have a dance, and hopefully go away and write their own songs. And Jimmy’s very into that, which is great.

Another Bobby McGee’s song with two titles. The longer, less obvious one comes from a headline in The Brighton Argus. What the story was about, I have no idea.

Jimmy’s take on the more obvious title and the song itself: “FOREVER & A DAY: was a phrase whose first “recorded” utterance was in the Shakespere play “As You Like It” (or possibly “Taming Of The Shrew”)…..queue many bad Shakespere jokes during the live performance….The solo…well, you really have to see it performed live to appreciate it…I used to ALWAYS get a cheer when I managed to get to the end without screwing it up!….El said it was more to do with the look on my face than the technical virtuosity of the piece.”

The song got picked up by Film 4 for an ad. Resulting in enough royalties to keep them in face paint and retro dresses for a long time to come.

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