Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele – You Can’t Force A Dance Party (Chords)
I’ve been enjoying The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele (despite a bit of demoitis one some of the tracks). Some very welcome straight-faced ukulele pop to pass the time while Stephin Merritt plays other instruments. Particularly good is the album’s standout track is You Can’t Force A Dance Party.
Nothing much to worry about with the chords.
Strumming Pattern Suggestion
Once the song gets going, here’s a strum that will get you through:
I bet the tweenage girls are squealing themselves hoarse over wee Christofer Ingle and his magnificent hair. But in December he took time out from his punishing hair care routine to record an EP of ukulele pop songs Me & My Uke. And he’s currently recording an album with fellow ukulele-EP-releasing runtogetherbandnamefrontman Forrest Kline of Hellogoodbye.
Trouble is a fairly simple three chord affair. The only tricky thing is the chord inversions I think he’s using. You could make it easier by using the more standard chord shapes: 0331 for Eb and 2010 for F.
The strumming for the verses is dead easy as well. The easiest strum of all, Strum #1 from the Strum Bible: all down strums. Just make sure you release the chord right after you’ve strummed it to get that sharp sound.
The strumming in the chorus is much trickier. It’s down, down, up, up, down, up. I’m experimenting with showing strumming patterns, so let me know if either of these make sense to you (top line counting, bottom line strumming):
1 … and … 2 …. and … 3 … and … 4 ….. and
down ……. down up ……….. up ….. down up
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
d .. d u .. u d u
For the first chord in the chorus you just play the Bb on the first strum, then you mute the strings (by resting your hand on them but not playing them) and strum the same pattern.
I first came across Madeline Ava on UkeTube and it was obvious she had a way with open and affecting lyrics. That was confirmed when I came across her CLLCT page (UPDATE: now sadly defunct). She has three albums there – keep that in mind when she discusses how long she’s been playing – including a cover of the entire Neutral Milk Hotel album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and an album of original songs Songs I’m Too Nervous to Sing for My Mom. The album is packed with poignant lyrics set to lo-fi, Kimya Dawson-style songs. It also features a tribute to puns; a surefire way to appeal to someone who names their blog after an obscene pun. So I threw a few questions her way and she was kind enough to answer.
How long have you been making music and how did you get into playing the ukulele?
My dad got me a ukulele for Christmas a few years ago. I ignored it based on the assumption that it would be really hard to learn. During the summer I picked it up out of boredom and realized that it was actually pretty simple. I actually learned my very first song courtesy of Ukulele Hunt! I started writing my own songs the summer of 2008 and played my first show that September, so this is still pretty new to me! I fell in love with the ukulele, for sure.
Some of your songs seem very personal. Are you ever worried you’ve shared too much in them?
I’m often embarrassed to play some of my songs for that very reason, but I’m embarrassed by so many things! I think being open with people you care about is something that can never be pushed too far. Sometimes I say things that I don’t mean – but my songs are always exactly how I feel… and without music some important thought might never see the light of day.
Why did you choose to cover the whole of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea?
Neutral Milk Hotel has been like a soundtrack to my life as well as my friend’s lives. We’ve spent many nights listening to them or playing their songs on our own instruments. So on one level, it was because of their personal influence. I also just like the idea of taking something huge and elaborate but making it accessible to everyone. People should realize that important music can happen without theatrics. Anybody can make something epic.
Start Today – Gorilla Biscuits: People shouldn’t be so afraid of hardcore music! This song is melodic and optimistic… two things people might not expect of the genre.
If you’re American what are you when you’re in the bathroom? European!
What plans have you got for the future?
I plan on touring a bunch of nice DIY venues this summer with some music-making friends of mine. One of them, Max Weiss, is another ukulele player and is doubtlessly a boy wonder. Outside of the music world, I plan on graduating high school and having tons of pet goats.
It’s quite possible that my biggest musical influence is Bagpuss. I was completely insane for Bagpuss when I was little – particularly the music. Songs in general had a really big emotional impact on me as a kid. I had to ban my mum from singing the Spaghetti variant of On Top of Old Smokey because it would make me cry. I couldn’t work out why I cared that a meatball had rolled off a table and it wasn’t until years later than I figured out that it wasn’t the lyrics making me feel sad but the music. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I was massively influenced by the music I heard as a kid and I still love the music in Bagpuss (provided by Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner).
It’s a really simple little tune to play. Despite the strumming directions, I’m actually fingerpicking and doing fake strums (picking each string in sequence to sound like a strum) to accentuate the melody notes on the A string. You could just use normal strums but I’d recommend using your thumb to give it a warmer sound.
Plenty of ukuleles this week to make me wonder whether it was a good idea to send all my money to the Palin Political Action Committee.
More of MGM’s NAMM finds this week including a seriously sexy spalted curly mango pineapple ukulele from Pono and Orcas ukulele strings (big in Japan apparently).
If you’re bidding on this “beautifully made and wonderfull tone” ukulele on eBay UK, be careful. It looks like an Antoniotsai which usually go cheaper than the current bidding price and have a pretty poor reputation.
Warren Buffett discusses the possibility that Obama’s election is a turning point in the struggle against ukuleleism, teaching Bill Gates to play the ukulele and how the ukulele is the new stimulus package. Someone give that guy a million cool points.
It’s the summer hit of the winter. “Coz it’s a lovely sunny day.” No, it ain’t.
To be fair, he did originally release it last summer but it’s only made a splash on its re-release on the back of the album Love, Ire & Song. The album is full of neat little lyrical twists (and lesssweary than previous stuff) which makes you wonder why he spent so much time making hardcore punk with kneejerk where you couldn’t hear any words.
The chords for the song are fairly straight forward (except for the dreaded E) and there’s a nice strumming pattern in the verses:
A very deserving winner in my opinion: instantly catchy song, fun video, singalong chorus. And it’s easy to play on the ukulele: there are chords for Same Old Lines here.
I got in touch with Rod to ask him a few questions, and not only did he do that, he also recorded a ukulele version of his song Your Love Is A Tease just for us (you”ll be able to get the original versions of Same Old Lines and Your Love Is A Tease on the forthcoming mini-album Until Something Fits).
When and why did you first pick up the ukulele?
I’ve always loved the sound of the ukulele. I’d gone on a little spree of buying slightly twee instruments (glockenspiel, melodiker) for a live set, and then bought a ukulele on ebay. Then I loved playing it so much I bought a better one, and now my uke with a pick up for playing bigger gigs with my band.
How did the sock-puppet/kids’ TV theme of the Same Old Lines video come about?
I’d been talking for ages with a video director who was meant to do ‘You Get Goodbyes‘ but didn’t. I played him ‘Same Old Lines‘ and he got back to me straight away with the kids’ TV show idea, which I loved, so we worked on it together for a few weeks, and then I turned up at the studio to find this amazing set all built and painted, it was amazing!!
Have you ever been told, “It’s not you, it’s me”? And have you ever used it yourself?
I think everyone’s probably used it to some degree. Yes I’ve been told it! Although in the song it’s not about one particular time, more the line as a palm-off in general.
I heard you were supposed to be on the Today Programme talking about making a living as a musician but got bumped. So what advice would you give to someone hoping to make it in the music business?
Yeah I didn’t realise the show got bumped until I saw the other interviewee – Keith Jopling – blog about it. Advice … well not to expect anything to happen very quickly. Work as hard as you possibly can, explore as many avenues as you can for being creative, be resourceful and I guess set yourself a goal and just keep working at it. I’ve been working really hard at this for years now, and set up my own label to put stuff out. It’s taken a long time and a lot of re-working my live set (from solo acoustic, to band, to solo with loop pedal, to loop pedal plus band) to get people to take notice.
How’s the debut album coming along? And how has it been working with Boom Bip?
The debut album is coming along well! First though, there’s a limited run mini album (first 4 singles plus bsides and remixes) out on March 2nd called Until Something Fits while I finish off the debut album proper.
Working with Boom Bip was amazing. He’s an incredible producer and musician, and I’d been following his work for years, so getting chance to spend over a week working with him and swapping ideas was just great. We’re both really happy with the two tracks we did together. I can’t wait to put them out!
What can we expect from you in 2009?
I’ll be doing a little UK tour around the mini-album release, then I’m playing at SXSW in Texas, which I’m so, so excited about. There’s a Welsh theatre tour in May with Devon Sproule and probably a coupe of festivals come summer. And the proper album will be finished. Maybe even a few more ukulele versions if there’s the demand for it… So quite a lot I think!
