There are many American shows I know only by their parodies on other American shows. The Captain and Tennille, Laverne and Shirley and Gilligan’s Island: I’ve sat, stone-faced, through parodies of them all. So when I was asked to tab out the intro to Gilligan’s Island I was a little reticent. Until I heard it and realised it contained a snippet of one of my favourite tunes to play on the ukulele.

The tune is quite unconventional in that it raises a semitone on each repeat. But my favourite part is the interaction between the lyrics and the music that occurs (even if it is done in a rather obvious way). The challenge is to make these parts stand out from the melody and give each it’s own distinctive flavour.

Buy Favourite TV Theme Tunes

You can get the chords on Alligator Boogaloo but, like my version, you’ll have to capo at the first fret if you want to play along with the original. Also, you’ll have to raise the chords on Boogaloo by a semitone in the second verse.

Requested by James

As they mentioned in their very first ukulele love-in, Bosko and Honey developed their uke playing a long way from other uke players and had never met another uke player before their sojourn to the New York Uke Fest. They’re planning to make up for that by spending most of next year touring the globe, meeting and jamming with other ukers and documenting their travels for YouTube and a DVD.

They’re going to be visiting the east coast of Australia, Japan, the USA, the UK and Europe (which covers everyone who has visited this blog ever apart from one person in Djibouti). So if you want to be one of the strange and exotic animals they observe on their safari – or you fancy jamming with them or putting them up for the night – head over to their website and shoot them an email.

Ukule Flambe – In The Jailhouse Now (mp3) via their website

I knocked up this tab for the intro to In The Jailhouse Now. Some of the positions are different to those Bosko uses.

The chords for the song follow a similar structure – but with a D on the ‘They’ve got him in the jailhouse…“

Earlyguard is a big favourite here at Uke Hunt. I’ve already tabbed his tunes Busy Bee and Blue Smoke. Yesterday he released an album of his ambient and atmospheric tunes Time To Relax which you can download it for free at his MySpace.

Earlyguard’s music is far removed from the ‘rata-tat-tat’ delivery of most ukulele songs. When I asked him about how he developed his style he was typically self-effacing, “I’m not able to play the usual style. My fingers are too slow and my knowledge of the usual playing techniques is still at the very beginning.” His style is very distinctive. It’s the first style I know of that is unique to the electric ukulele (rather than sounding like an amplified acoustic-uke or an electric guitar). All but two of the tracks on Time To Relax were record with his trusty RISA Uke-Solid.

It’s hard to believe but Earlyguard (the name is a translation of his surname, Fruhwacht) only started to play the ukulele at the beginning of this year after commandeering a ukulele he had given his daughter for Christmas. Since then he has produced new tunes in rapid succession. As well as the tunes on this album, you can hear many more on his MySpace and his YouTube channel.

Earlyguard’s influences may not be what you’d expect, “I love music of all styles. The Beatles as well as Metallica for example. I don’t like ‘New Age’ music that much but it’s funny that my own music could be described that way.” Indeed, it was The Beatles that inspired his uke playing, “Watching the beautiful Concert For George tribute on DVD where Paul McCartney played Something on a ukulele – this was the point for me – the wish to play this lovely instrument took over.”

As well as his solo work, Earlyguard is one half of Earlywolf, “Earlywolf is a relationship with WS64 and some friends as guest musicians. It started at Ukulelenboard where I posted a song at the ‘membersound’ section in January. WS liked it very much and asked if we could do some songs together. I recorded many songs in the past years (2004-2005) with my GarageBand software and WS took the single tracks and re-recorded and re-arranged them. His musical skills are extraordinary and so he did a fantastic job I think. On some songs we asked some friends to play a solo or do better vocals than me and it was great fun to work this way.” You can download the resulting album free at earlywolf.com.

I’ve only had Earlyguard’s album for 24 hours but I’m already chilled out and relaxed. I highly recommend you take a little time to relax and head over to his MySpace and download it.

I couldn’t resist arranging this tune for the ukulele. Having suffered through a few debilitating bouts of Neighbours addiction, I knew the tune embarrassingly well. For those of you in the developed world who don’t know, Neighbours is a low quality Australian soap full of questionable storylines, over acting and unnecessary bikinis.

The tune was written by, theme tune legend, Tony Hatch – also responsible for such classics as the Emmerdale Farm and Sportsnight. It has undergone a number of changes (you can read a frighteningly indepth history of the Neighbours theme tune here) which have always failed to bring it up to date – check out the most recent monstrosity.

The tune is so nostalgic that it’s impossible to modernise but so strong that it’s impossible to replace. That’s why my version is based on the old school theme tune. There are plenty of old-time, sentimental chords in this song for you to get your teeth into. If 80’s schlock ever comes back into fashion, this tune will be a goldmine.

Apologies to Americans who have no idea what this post was about. I’ve got the Gilligan’s Island theme coming up for you people.

Download mp3s of all the versions of the theme tune

Buy Neighbours: the Music

The best of the week’s ukulele videos over the fold

Read the rest of this entry »

Musicguymic has new KoAloha Sopranino ukuleles. Only nineteen and a half inches long. Aww bless.

San Francisco’s MoCFA is currently holding an exhibition on the Evolution of the Ukulele. It includes a two day ukulele festival featuring Jake Shimabukuro, The Paper Dolls and many others. If you can’t make it, you can still read another excellent article by John King.

Temporarily Distraught has the artwork and tracklisting for the forthcoming Beirut album.

BlipTV has an interview and performance from UOoGB and mad ukulele/bikini skills.

Hipsters/dupes can tune their ukuleles with their iPhones.

BKLYN Song of the Day has an mp3 of Bob Brozman and Rene Lacaille collaboration. Highly recommended.

Fretboard Journal alerts us to the danger that scented plugins pose to the happiness of your instrument.

Flame On! Rock Uke – a death metal ukulele.

Jenny Flame of Ukulele Nation has discovered a family history of ukulele. She was digging around in old family photos when she came across these two amazing photos of her great aunt in the 1940’s. It’s quite clear her great aunt knew how to rock the ukulele and tilted hat look back in the day.

SophiSoph – Smile (mp3) via her MySpace

Friend of the blog, Brian Osmucon emailed me this morning to let me know about his daughter’s music and blow me down if she isn’t great. As well as having a knockout voice, she’s chosen as excellent song to transfer to the uke in the form of Lily Allen’s Smile.

It doesn’t harm that the song only has two chords (Gm and F).

Lily Allen has a habit of writing songs that only have two chords – it gives her more time to spend on her true passion of kicking people down and stabbing them in the ear. LDN is another song with just two chords. This time F and C. You can play them in the usual open position, but if you play them this way:

Then you can recreate the guitar stabs by releasing the pressure from the chords (but keeping your fingers on the strings) just after each strum.

And if you want to play the intro, give this a bash:

Buy Alright, Still US UK

A quick round up of the most popular tabs on Uke Hunt in its three months of life in case you happen to have missed something important.

1. Beirut – Postcards From Italy

2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

3. 12th Street Rag

4. Pink Panther

5. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

6. Rigk Sauer – Tequila

7. Brian Hefferan – The Entertainer

8. Brian Hefferan – Sailors Hornpipe

9. Earlyguard – Blue Smoke

10. Tetris duet

There’s a list of all the tabs and chords on this page.

Flight of the Conchords – Mermaids (Chords)

I woke up this morning to an excited email from Uke Hunt’s official FotC correspondent Jenny Flame telling me that last Sunday’s episode featured a ukulele song. I immediately dashed over to YouTube, stole the lyrics and started working out the chords.

After Jemaine’s appearance with a ukulele earlier in the series, it was the turn of Bret “Bret Bret” McKenzie (also of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra) to strum the uke. Although he didn’t bother playing the uke with his left hand (I assume it’s a parody of something).

Once you get passed the intro, the song itself only has two chords. The chords have names that sound like a chemical compound but don’t let that put you of. To play a Bm7, you bar your finger across all the strings at the second fret – make sure your thumb is behind the fingerboard to give you something to press against. The Amaj7 is like a normal A chord but with the g string played at the first rather than second fret.

Once you’ve got that chord change down, the only challenge is singing the song without bursting out laughing.

Buy The Distant Future US UK

Grass Stains (mp3)
You’re In Love Again Dirty Version (mp3)
Brains, Brains (mp3)via creebobby.com

Jacob Borshard has a few celebrity fans me (obviously), Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Borshard won a song contest for the film Music and Lyrics (allegedly judged by stars of the film Grant and Barrymore) with the song Grass Stains. As a promotional tool, it easily beat the film’s other promotional gimmick: make your own 80s glam band.

After winning the contest, he made this sexy video for it – entirely by himself and without even a digital camera – and earned himself a restraining order barring him from, “Portland Public School property or any adjacent sidewalk for one calendar year,” while shooting it. (NOTE: if the police start asking you why you’re hanging around a school, “I’m making a video,” isn’t the best defence.)

It’s easy to see why they picked Borshard as the winner. His songs are full of charm, witty lyrics and adorable melodies. Those three so often go along with the ukulele.

You can download both of Borshard’s albums entirely free on his website. The lyrics for the Last Brontosaurus album on his site also have the chords for all the tunes and you can pick up the chords for a couple of tunes in a more easy to follow form on Mike’s Ukulele Page.