LA Daily News talks to Jim Beloff and Dan Sawyer about the ukulele’s gaining popularity.

Is this the earliest photo of an ukulele? It is according to this great article by John King. The photo was taken by Lewis Carroll and features Alice (of Wonderland fame), on the left, and her sisters holding machetes – the Maderian precursor of the ukulele.

The Idler magazine Ukulele band announce lit festival appearance. Rehearsals for which have a habit of starting late.

Why didn’t I think of this?

For when only real style will do. Buy on Flea Market.

What do you do with the offcuts from ukulele picks? Turn them into trivets and sell them for $196.

Dreamtime has a dark and atmospheric podcast telling the tale of Stagger Lee/Stack O’Lee and playing versions of the song including that by Ukulele Ike.

A Saint not playing the ukulele and Lee Morse not playing the ukulele either.

Uke Hunt is two months old today – still not in full control of its faculties and gurgling incoherently. Like most blogs, the only person reading it was its mum. So you may have missed some of the early posts. Here’s a rundown of the eleven (yes, eleven) most popular posts so far:

1. Julien Doré – Cet Air-Là: Sexy Frenchman covering France Gall/April March.
2. Top 10 Free Ukulele Software Downloads: People like free stuff.
3. Simpsons Ukulele: how do you play the ukulele with only three fingers?
4. Pink Panther: some people may put this post’s popularity down to a killer tune. I say it’s all down to the handsome guy in the video.
5. UkeTube 5: Fantastic videos from Bob Brozman, Bosko and Honey, The Winin’ Boys, Earlyguard and Cool Hand Uke.
6. Rick Sauer – Tequila: Excellent arrangement by Mr RISA.
7. Various Artists – Creep: Everyone’s playing it, everyone was searching for it.
8. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
9. Stephin Merritt – Smile: Everyone you despise will die so smile.
10. Earlyguard – Blue Smoke: Very effective tune, great for those learning fingerpicking.
11. Ukulele Flash Cards: Cut out and test your chord knowledge.

A big thanks to everyone who has commented, linked and emailed. It makes it seem like this blog isn’t a colossal waste of time.

Last Friday, the Tatamimats‘ resurrected their Dark Side of the Uke show which inspired me to tab out the riff to Money despite it being one of the least uke-friendly riffs in history. The only way you can sensibly play it along with the original song and the Tatamimats’ cover is on the baritone.

The opening riff is in the unusual time signature of 7/8. I find the most comfortable way of keeping track of it is to count it as four beats then three. So I’m counting 1,2,3,4,1,2,3 for each bar.

The timing then switches to 4/4 with one bar of 2/4 for the other section of the song:

If you’re desperate to play the riff on the soprano ukulele, it is just about possible to so long as you play in F and you’re willing to cheat a note. The main riff goes like this:

With the other section (and here’s the note finesse) being:

Or you could keep it simple and vamp along with the original with a Bm chord.

Buy Dark Side of the Moon US

Warning: Some of these songs contain language and themes not suitable for children. The others contain language and themes not suitable even for drunk Russian sailors.

The UkuLady’s hilarious songs are a regular highlight of YouTube’s stream of uke videos but it turns out I was familiar with her work long before YouTube was a glint in geek’s eye. She earns a crust as a voice-over artist and is responsible for the heavily bleeding nurse Lisa Garland in Silent Hill and the babbling teenage girl in The Sims 2. But on to more important matters.

I love these songs so much I couldn’t help but work out a bunch of them. Transcribing these songs was made considerably more difficult as I broke down laughing at regular intervals. So if I’ve got something wrong, that’s why.

These songs are played in d-tuning (aDF#B), so if you’re a C-er tune up to play the chords as written or ignore my chord diagrams and play your regular chord shapes.

The mp3s of these songs (along with many more) are at UkuLady Songs and be sure to visit UkuLady’s UkulUniverse.

UkuLady – Oops! (mp3)

The great thing about this song is that it becomes topical every time Britney has another breakdown. It’ll never get old.

UkuLady – Poor Lindsay Uke (mp3)

Part of the Poor Starlet triptych and my favourite UkuLady song. It reminds me of the old folk song John Henry but instead of a guy dying attempting to keep up with a steam hammer, it’s Lindsay Lohan becoming broke and doing irrevocable damage to her lady’s garden attempting to keep up with Paris Hilton.

UkuLady – Another Love Song (mp3)

I enjoy the non-comedy numbers she does. This one is really sweet.

UkuLady – Different Strokes (mp3)

A kick ass song from the 80’s.

Bitch – Two Girls Strong (video) via Bitch Music

Bitch first came to prominence as half of the queercore duo Bitch and Animal (tip:turn safe search on before googling ‘bitch and animal). After three albums, the two split to follow solo careers. Bitch released her debut solo album Make This/Break This last year.

Highlight of the album is the ukulele song Two Girls Strong (probably one of the sweetest songs I’ve ever heard about border guards rifling through your strap-ons). The manly figure in the video is Bitch’s longterm girlfriend Daniela Sea (star of the L-Word) who now forms part of Bitch’s band Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion.

Bitch – Unstick (mp3) via Kill Rock Stars (not a uke song)

Buy Make This/Break This US

After writing about her on Monday, I immediately started working on this tune and was given a further boot up the backside by Susan ex-Tobacco.

The song is fairly easy-going on the left hand. You don’t need your left hand at all for vast parts of it. The right hand might require a little more work. Carlyle uses her thumb to play all the notes. This works well enough for most of the song but, I have to say, verges on the utterly insane for the tremolo section (the ‘Oh my God, I can hardly breathe section’). She just about manages to pull it off but I strongly recommend you use your index finger. This will make the timing much easier to control.

Buy Baby Bloodheart UK

On second thoughts, if you’re in the US don’t buy it there – the import price is the equivalent of launching a rudimentary space program. Get it on iTunes instead.

A week in which I watched the ukulele played on stilts, Taimane mix with Scientologists and an explanation of the difference between a ukulele and a tortoise which left me even more confused than I was to begin with. Nevertheless, there were still some fantastic performances. See them behind the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tatamimats‘ Dark Side of the Uke is causing a big stir. It may be because I’m not a Floyd fan, but I can’t see what the fuss is about.

Long forgotten uke-comedian Archie ‘The Uku-Laddy’ Bester gets a MySpace.

Robot crotches are confusing.

Photographic proof that ukuleles make you happy on nerd’s eye view.

Seven year old boy comes a cropper after getting over excited at a Langley Ukulele Ensemble gig.

AA Gill is a twunt. But you probably knew that already.

A Quick Question

When I’m posting, I’ll quite often put the chords in a pdf and put a short bit of tab – an intro, a solo, a riff – in the post itself. Does anyone find this confusing/annoying? On my Julien Doré post some of the comments in French seem not to realise the tab for the outro is right in front of them (I think that’s what they’re saying – I don’t speak French). Is it a language barrier problem or is everyone baffled?

You may not recognise the name ‘Alan Hawkshaw’ but if you live in the UK you’ll certainly be familiar with his music. As well as writing the classic Grange Hill theme, he also came up with the bada-bada-biddly-do-boooo for Countdown.

The 70’s was the golden age of TV theme making. Today, they all seem to be tuneless slabs of thudding beats. I must have heard the Big Brother theme tune hundreds of times but I can never remember how it goes. I suspect I’ll still be able to hum the Grange Hill theme and the Rhubarb and Custard theme on my death-bed.

The Grange Hill theme isn’t particularly uke friendly but I enjoy playing it and it will always get a giggle from Brits of a certain age. I’ve tabbed it out for one uke but there are at least three guitars playing on the original. If you have a uke-playing friend, get them to play the riff in bars 2 and 3 over bars 4 to 8. If, like me, you have no friends, you could attempt to combine the two parts – playing the riff during the long rests – or miss out that section entirely.

Beirut – Postcards From Italy (mp3) via beirutband.com

My recent Fluke acquisition reminded me of the video for Beirut’s Elephant Gun. While I was checking it out, I came across this impromptu performance Postcards From Italy and decided I had to work out the song.

Beirut mainman Zach Condon’s choice of ukulele wasn’t entirely voluntary. In an interview with Pitchfork he explained that after falling of a bridge age 14, “my left wrist is an inch-and-a-half shorter than my [right one] and doesn’t quite have the mobility to wrap around a guitar neck without a bit of pain.” I’d say falling off a bridge was a small price to pay for avoiding the fate of becoming a guitar player.

Postcards From Italy is divided into two halves. The first half has this riff repeated:

If you’d rather strum chords through this section, moving between F and A will do it for you.

As the lyrics shift from the nostalgia in the first half of the song to the anticipation of the second half, so the music shifts with it. There is a small correction I would make to the fingering of the chords in the chart. It suggests playing the C chord with your third finger. But using you pinkie (little finger) allows for a much easier transition into the Bbadd9. You could keep your pinky there through all the chords (creating a Dm7 rather than Dm). It creates an effective drone through the chord changes.

The rhythm for this second section is not played the same every time, but I play the basic pattern like this:

The up arrows indicated down strums and the down arrows indicate up strums (don’t look at me, I didn’t invent the system).

Here’s the rhythm played slowly, then up to tempo.

More Beirut on Uke Hunt

Buy Gulag Orkestar UK US

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