I’ve been doing a few quick tabs and videos as inspiration hits. I’ll be posting collections of them on here. Or you can keep up with them on my social media: Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr.
It’s been another golden year for the ukulele. Time to wrap it up with some of my favourites to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Feel free to share yours in the comments. Particularly if it’s something I’ve missed.
And for a more lengthy look at the year’s ukulele music have a listen to my Ukulele 2015 Spotify playlist.
I’ve featured a few songs by, Nashville folkies, The Vespers in the past but they’ve been a bit cutesy for my taste. With their latest album Sisters and Brothers they’ve really hit their stride. There are half a dozen tracks on the album that rank amongst my favourites of this year including this ukulele song .(I feel the need to point out that the album version doesn’t include the questionable bass solo that’s in the live version.)
Runners Up
Sufjan Stevens – Death With Dignity
Brit Rodriguez – Chapel Insomnia
Cammy Enaharo – Not For You and I
Queen Porter Stomp – Just Come On
Keston Cobblers Club – Won’t Look Back
And prize for Most Predictable Choice of 2015 goes to… me for picking this. I’m a huge fan of everything the Cobblers have put out and this year’s Wildfire is no exception.
Runners Up
James Clem – Sugar Moon – Old school tunes played with old school class.
Elof & Wamburg – Byen Sover – Second album from the Danish duo cementing Tobias Elof’s place alongside the best uke players in the world.
Seeso – Kuya – Long awaited debut of Narciso Lobo.
Kimo Hussey – Low “G” – Instrumental covers played with understated ease.
Owl & Mouse – Departures – Debut album of antipodean indie poppers.
It’s totally cheating for Hawaii Music Supply to have Corey Fujimoto demonstrate their ukuleles. He makes everything sound incredible. But it does mean we’ve been spoilt for blazing ukulele tunes from him this year.
Runners Up
Mathias Chanon Varreau – Coquette
Herman Vandecauter – Santiago de Murcia
Jonathan Lewis – The Blarney Pilgrim
Wilfried Welti – Danserye, Entre Du Fol
Andy Eastwood – Danse des Mirlitons
Thailand isn’t a place you usually think of when it comes to high end ukulele making. But Rebel have changed that this year. The team grew out of makers trained by KoAloha to make their lower end ukes (KoAlana and Opio). And they certainly picked up KoAloha’s flair for making gorgeous instruments.
You can read an interview with Rebel here.
Runners Up
KoAloha Red Label Solid
Kanile’a Po’okela
Antica Ukuleleria
Flamethrower ukulele
This one wins just for making me feel like a cool 50s jazz guy when I played it. It took me years to get it to a point where I was happy with my version of it. I love the tune and I really wanted to do it justice.
Runners Up
Back to the Future Medley – Only Back to the Future could make me think Huey Lewis was the epitome of cool.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Paul’s Dance – Really shows what you do can when you concentrate on playing well rather than playing fancy.
Mark Ronson – Uptown Funk – Really shows what I do when I concentrate on playing fancy rather than playing well.
With Percy Sledge, Ben E King and BB King dying in quick succession this year it started to feel like a whole era of music was passing away.
Runners Up
Adele – Hello
Eagles of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard
Hall & Oates – Rich Girl
Asylum Street Spankers – It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie
Conflict of interest warning: If you buy it through this site I get a kick back (and I am purely interested in money – you can tell by the way I ditched working as an accountant for the lucrative world of ukulele blogging).
I’ve been a fan of Jonathan Lewis’s campanella arrangements for a while. So I was delighted when he released a tab book so I could try to get my fingers around them. Here’s my stab at his arrangement of Blarney Pilgrim.
Runner Up
Sam Muir – The Little Book of Giuliani – You can buy this one safe in the knowledge I don’t get a penny. And I recommend you do if you’re up for some challenging classical guitar tunes rearranged for ukulele.
When I first stumbled across Owl & Mouse I had deep suspicions they were a fake band in a Belle and Sebastian movie. Turns out they’re a Brisbane band formed around sisters Hannah and Jen Botting (sisters to Bill Botting of Australia’s other indie ukulelists Allo Darlin). Their debut album Departures is packed with great melancholy indie pop in the vein of B&S and Camera Obscura.
Runners Up
Nakisha Esnard – Anyone for ukulele reggae opera?
The Prettiots – Too cool for school New Yorkers.
How did Kimo Hussey get to be such a classy bastard? Every note he plays on this is perfect. And he knows not to play anything when nothing is needed.
Runner Up
Sir. O & Lir Shilton – Stand By Me – Another beautifully understated performance.
I like my music moody and depressing. And I don’t the ukulele is really suited to cheerful music. So I thought I should give cheerful music its own category to offset my bias. And the music of the Jive Aces is always fun enough to put a smile even on my grumpy, curmudgeonly maw.
Runners Up
Danna Richards – Smile
Katzenjammer – Shine Like Neon Rays
Runners Up
21 Pilots – We Don’t Believe What’s On TV
Dingus Khan – Milk of Every Mammal
williwaw – chin down
Runner Up
RedBand Porch Songs – Long Black Veil
Runners Up
Hippo Campus – Bashful Creatures
Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle
Young Thug – Barter 6
Tallest Man on Earth – Dark Bird is Home
Screaming Females – Rose Mountain
As you might have guessed from my Steven Universe post, I’m a big fan of Rebecca Sugar’s songs. And this is a new gem from the Adventure Time miniseries Stakes.
You might be unfamiliar with some of the chords in it. But don’t be intimidated. There’s nothing too difficult to play.
You can use this as the main strum:
d – d u d –
Mix that up with a few chords where you just play one down strum per chord.
As she often does, Rebecca posted their ukulele demo of the song on Tumblr. I like it even more than the final version. There’s some lovely fingerpicking on it.
The tune uses the same basic chords as the final version except she’s tuned down half a step. But I prefer to keep it in standard tuning and play in the same key as the final version.
I pick it thumb and two finger style. Here’s how the intro looks slow then up to speed:
Buy Adventure Time: Stakes on iTunes
Rebecca Sugar’s Tumblr
Steven Universe tabs and chords
Eric Clapton’s Lewis Fine resophonic ukulele (right) is up for auction (Thanks to James).
Ukulele-playing retirees fight back after Honolulu Police shut them down (via Herman VDC).
James Hill is feeling so fly like a G6.
If you’ve been on the fence about getting Guitar Pro (the tabbing software I use) it’s 20% off this weekend.
New Music
– Krabbers has started a podcast Unplugthewood featuring acoustic music with a ukulele slant.
– Sophie Madeleine might be retired but a bunch of previously unreleased demos have turned up on Spotify (complete with hideous artwork). She’s not too happy about them being released but I think Joybringer and We’ll Meet Again are well worth a listen.
– Experimental double bill by williwaw with all proceeds going to the Scottish Association for Mental Health.
– A new live Lo-Fi Story Time from Todd Mauldin with short stories and ukulele.
While the Americans are howdy-doodying around the turkey I’ll take the opportunity to post a vintage UK sitocm theme.
Men Behaving Badly on Amazon
AlanLisk.com
More TV theme tabs
If you’re looking for something festive to learn here’s a complete rundown of everything Christmassy on the site.
I’ve written 3 collections of easy Christmas tabs: How to Play Christmas Ukulele, Christmas Ukulele 2 and Christmas Ukulele 3.
You can pick up all three for the price of 2 by buying the whole Christmas Trilogy at once.
12 Days of Christmas
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Christmas in July – Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Fuck Christmas – Eric Idle
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Lumberjack Christmas/Christmases Past – Sufjan Stevens
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Run, Run Rudolph – Chuck Berry
Santa Baby
Santa Will Find You – Mindy Smith/Tripping Lily
Silver Bells – She & Him
Somewhere Only We Know – Keane/Lily Allen
Space Christmas – Allo Darlin
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch
Away in a Manger
Carol of the Bells
Christmastime Is Here (from Charlie Brown)
German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Little Drummer Boy
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
Various – Wilfried Welti’s Musikalisches Naschwerk für Solo Ukulele
We Three Kings
White Christmas
I think the best response to Batclan is to look out for the people around you and check where the fire exits are when you go to shows. And to keep making and enjoying music that celebrates fucking and satan.
Just down-ups for the most part:
d u d u d u d u
But change from A (or D) to C for the last u d u. It sounds like this slow then up to speed:
The only other part is one down strum in the, “boy’s bad news,” bits.
Gus Raucus (of GUGUG fame) has been sharing his spreading the uke love to the BBC with his fabulous video overview of 100 years of the ukulele along with Highs and Lows of the Ukulele and 5 Steps to Ukulele Fame.
An excellent edition of the Song Exploder podcast with Stephin Merritt discussing the making of one of my all time favourite ukulele songs Andrew in Drag. According to Stephin, “They don’t have ukuleles in Germany,” so all those ukulelist who claim to be from Germany are part a ukulele version of the Bielefeld conspiracy.
New Releases
– Ukulele Duels by Kara Square. An album of duets between a ukulele and different instruments. It’s pay you like.
– Names of Things and What They Do by Gentle Brontosaurus.
Ukes
– Rebel Alchemist tenor uke.
– Baton Rouge adds to left-handed ukes.
An in depth account of the UOGB vs UKUO court case.
Neil Gaiman reacts to Amanda Palmer playing Enter Sandman. Video here if you want to make your own reaction. And tab for Enter Sandman here.
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