It’s been four days and twenty hours since Peggy Sue got a mention on here. An oversight that must be rectified immediately.
Also this week is Fairport Convention (or what’s left of them) paying tribute to their ukulele heroes, Franny Deschanel’s best song yet, a bit of Justin Timberlake and plenty more. Read the rest of this entry »
They’re not available yet, but I’m already uke-lusting for a Kala UBass. Rigk Sauer has put up a couple of clips: Stand By Me, Tiger Rag.
It’s not often you see baritone Gibson ukuleles up for sale but here’s a rather handsome Gibson UB-1. Good to see they went with the guitar-style headstock rather than the more clunky ukulele headstock.
On the subject of lesser-seen baritones, here’s a baritone banjo ukulele.
Leolani have combined three of most hated design features into one hideous ukulele: dolphins, writing ‘Hawaii‘ on the instrument and the half-pinapple-half-not shape. It’s turning into a arms race between companies to see how many dolphins they can fit on a ukulele. Stop the madness before it kills us all.
Shag ukulele postcard.
John Kavanagh has died after suffering an asthma attack whilst scuba diving. You can read tributes to him on Flea Market Music
Mighty Uke trailer and an interview.
Top notch ukulele tabs from Ukulele Dav
Dusty Strings UkeFest in Seattle features Ralph Shaw, James Clem and Kimo Hussey. You’ll also be able to catch James and Ralph at the Portland Uke Fest along with others including James Hill and Victoria Vox.
Kiwi by Proxy has a podcast with members of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra.
MP3: Craig Robertson covers Dido (what the hell?), 100b has a track from The Half Sisters.
KDUS points up some famous uker photos.
Armelle continues her worldwide ukulele search with Eastern Europe and Francophone countries.
Ukuleliens (via Ukulelia).
Zooey Deschanel’s 5 favourite uke chords in the latest edition of Thinkin’ Man’s Hotties for Brainiacs.
“Follow Ukey as he not only learns to play his ukulele, but becomes world famous and brings one thing to the world that everyone has wished for more than anything else!” Ukey and His Magical Ukulele
When Sophie Madeleine gets as famous as she’s obviously going to be, I fully intend to take all the glory for discovering her. Seeing as how I get none of the credit (or blame if you’re so inclined) for discovering Julia Nunes.
I’ll try to resist the temptation to dork-out on the chord progression as much as I did for The Ukulele Song*. But there are plenty of moments worth looking at. Like the flamenco like D – Eb-5 in the intro. And the extensive use of the IVm chord (C minor rather than the more common C major). And when they do the IV-IVm (which is pretty standard) they put the chord change between phrases rather than in the middle of it (where it’s usually used by lesser songwriters such as The Beatles).
And then, of course, it’s the Jim’ll Fix It style ba-ba-baa chorus.
Buy Sophie Madeleine’s stuff on BandCamp.
* I failed to resist.
More Sophie Madeleine
Sophie Madeleine interview
Beard Song (Chords)
The Stars (Chords)
Take Your Love With Me (The Ukulele Song)(Chords)
I wasn’t going to write a review of the Mahalo Flying V. My brother got me one for Christmas. It was a nice thought and he wasn’t to know it’s the WORST UKULELE IN THE WORLD.
The Look: It does look good. Even close up. The way the neck attaches to the body is a little inelegant, but nevertheless.
… erm… The intonation isn’t too bad for the price.
The Sound: The sound is awful. Weak and flat.
Playability: It’s very hard to play without buzzes and scratches. The neck feels nasty. It’s almost impossible to find a comfortable strumming or picking position. Which brings me on to…
The Shape: The shape makes it impossible to hold and strum comfortably.
When you’re sitting down it’s hard to avoid getting spiked in the groin. Which isn’t an experience I enjoy (and anyone who tells you I do enjoy it and that I regularly pay for exactly that experience is lying).
The only way I’ve found to play it standing up is to stick my arm through the middle of the V. Which makes strumming tricky, picking impossible and you look like a divot.
Tuning Pegs: Argh! Cheap friction pegs.
Strumming Test
Picking Test
Intonation Test
If you are thinking of getting a Mahalo Flying V as your first ukulele please, please, please don’t. I can’t think of a worse ukulele to learn on. If you must have a ukulele that looks like a guitar, get a Mahalo Les Paul instead. They’re a much better instrument.
If you have a decent uke or two already, get one for the novelty value. But buy one of these while you’re at it.
For her latest album, Wax Works, Madame Pamita eschewed modern recording techniques like Auto-Tune, digital manipulation and, erm, electricity. Instead she sang and played down tin horns on to wax cylinders. Then, like the old-timey musicians of yore, released the album for digital download.
Suggested Strumming
d – d – – u d u
Madame Pamita is currently bringing her brand of prognostication and rural blues to the UK. You can find the dates here and you can buy her songs on madamepamita.com on a ‘pay whatever you please’ basis.
I’ve only been here a few months, but I’m already starting to hate Derby. For one thing, there are only ten people in the entire city with good taste in music. I can say that with some authority because that’s how many turned out to see Peggy Sue recently. But those of us who did turn up were treated with some excellent uke action from the Peggys themeselves and from Charlot Webster. Who was kind enough to answer a few questions.
You play a wide variety of instruments. Why have you settled on ukulele as your main one?
I sort of settled by accident I suppose. I used to mostly play keyboards at my shows and I bought a uke to have something more portable and then slowly my ukes have taken over the set!
It seems like there are a lot of ukulele acts in Brighton. What’s the scene like there?
The Brighton scene is weird because there is just SO much music in such a small space.. & Brighton is known for being “kooky” which is a category that the ukulele unfortunately falls into quite alot, so I tend to steer clear of that.. But when I first started playing uke I went to a night run by the Bobby McGees which was a ukulele open mic and that was such a friendly night – they are awesome.
What’s the idea behind the Mixtape Exchange? And what makes for a great mixtape?
It’s something I run at my shows and by post, you put a tape in the box and take one out at shows, and by post you send one to the address and i send one back. Basically it’s just a good way to spread the art of the mixtape! It’s not soley to share music.. That’s what the internet and filesharing is for. It’s to spend a lot of time crafting a tape of songs that excite you. A lot more time, effort, and usually thought goes in it that way. Often I prefer making the tape to recieving them simply because it involves a night of listening to my awesome record collection. For me a great mixtape has a range of music, and a pretty sleeve note.
What’s in your ukulele collection?
Betty is my acoustic made by Mele. I got her from Duke of Uke in London and she is so beautiful. Buddy is my electric, he is pretty fucking cool. I don’t know what make he is, he was a gift from my father.. I swapped my first Stag uke with my dad because he had one that was much nicer, and i put a pick up in it and named him Eric, but at the moment i’ve leant him to the band Peggy Sue ’til they get round to buying their own. & my dad still has my stag.. but don’t tell him Peggy Sue have Eric or he will be jealous! I am glad they do, though.. Eric got to go to New York and be on their album which is nice for him.
How can people get hold of your music?
The best way is buy a record at a show. I am rubbish at internet money stuff so same as my mixtape exchange I sell merch through post. Selotaped coins in an envelope or a cheque. Perhaps soon I will update…
You can listen to Charlot’s music on MySpace and visit her mixtape exchange here.
Jayne left a comment on the original chords for Sesame Street suggesting an easy version of the chords. And, since it’s a song the kiddies might be interested in playing, I thought I’d go for it.
Suggested Strumming
For the first part you can use:
d – d u d – d u
For each chord until you get to G7. Then do just down strums for that. Back to the pattern for F7. Then just one down strum for the G7, Bb and F. After that you’re back to the pattern.
It looks like Soko has retired from music making. Judging from her MySpace you’d think she’s given up on everything. But before that Shoot the Player recorded a session with her. Fittingly enough in a graveyard. If you need cheering up after that, check out StP’s session with the adorable Ben Lee and Tallest Man on Earth’s incredible version of Stepstone.
This week’s videos also include Tripping Lily (whose new album looks like it’s going to be a treat), Bruce Springsteen, Ukulele Ike (in a very strange clip) and Sarah Kinlaw continuing to be an astonishing songwriter. Read the rest of this entry »
Ukulele Friend has this interesting Martin 2M from way back in 1916. It’s interesting to see the things that aren’t set in place yet: such as the sideways stamp in the soundhole and the bright white binding. You can see the differences against this later Martin 2M.
Dolphins seem to be the sea creature of choice for ukuleles, but this French piranha styled ukulele is more my speed.
Ukulele kitsch: Uke lamp.
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