Because of the amount of money and people it takes to make a film, it’s very rare you get someone who is willing to try completely new ways of doing things. Cory McAbee’s latest film, Stingray Sam, is made up of six 11 minute episodes, designed to be watched on mobile phones as well as cinema screens and was released for download minutes after its premiere (which itself was streamed live on the web).

And he’s quite a renaissance man. He writes, directs, stars in, provides the music for (with his band The Billy Nayer Show), choreographs and even paints his films. Most pertinent for us, he is also a keen uker. Stingray Sam has two scenes of McAbee ukeing for his real life daughter and on-screen co-star Willa Vy McAbee (check out Lullaby)

And he was kind enough to answer a few questions for us.

How did you come to pick up the ukulele? What keeps you playing it?

My best friend, music/film producer and drummer for The Billy Nayer Show, Bobby Lurie, brought me one from Hawaii. A girl I knew had an antique booklet on how to play the ukulele. It had some basic chords and the sheet music for “Frankie and Johnny” and “Old Black Joe.”

The scenes with you playing the ukulele for Willa are adorable. Is that something that goes on at home as well?

It used to happen a lot. That was the inspiration for that scene. Music happens around the house spontaneously. My 2 year old son also likes to contribute. Mostly he loves to dance. He has a crush on a cartoon mouse named Angelina Ballerina.

Do you approach writing songs for the films differently to writing Billy Nayer Show songs?

Songs usually occur for different reasons. The ukulele piece entitled Lullaby Song in Stingray Sam was written for the film. Most of the songs for Stingray Sam and some of the music for The American Astronaut were written on the ukulele. I think part of the reason was that I can leave a ukulele sitting on my desk and reach for it without preparation.

Stingray Sam is made to work on small screens and is in YouTube sized chunks. And I, like many people, discovered American Astronaut on YouTube. How do you feel about people sharing your stuff on the net?

People share it for different reasons. When they share it because they like it, I’m happy, as long as they don’t put the whole thing up. The people who do that mean well, but it works against filmmakers. There are also now a lot of sites that aggressively advertise their websites using my films. They give my work away for free to sell ad space, subscriptions and so on. It would be a fulltime job to fight them. They protect themselves by working from countries that don’t have copyright laws. US sites link to those so they take no blame. They post every film they can get their hands on.

What advice would you give to people who are making their own music and videos and putting them up on the net?

If it makes sense for the kind of work that you do, then it’s perfect. But what’s good for one artist isn’t always good for another. For example, the Grateful Dead became enormously famous through live events. It wouldn’t have happened for them on youtube. Or so I think.

You’re one hell of a mover. What are your top dancing tips?

I usually make it up when I’m writing. Sometimes I come up with a dance a day or so before a shoot. When I work with other actors we work together on their moves based on what they can do. Thanks for saying that, by the way.

What can we expect from you in the future? More Stingray Sam? More episodic films? Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest?

I’m hoping to begin Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest within a year. I’ll keep you posted at corymcabee.com. There’s a link to everything I’m working on posted there.

The Mural and the Mint – Virgin Mouth (MP3)
The Mural and the Mint – I’m on Fire (MP3) via their website.

The Mural and the Mint are named after, their hometown, Philadelpia’s association with public art and the production of money. There’s an interesting comment

Philadelphia does have more public art than any other American city as a result of our (first in the nation) Percent for Art Program that requires developers to spend 1% of their project budget on public art. This can be spent on sculptures that sit in the lobby or outside the building or on special architectural details for the building itself. We also have a RDA Percent for Art program that requires that 1% be spent on art on any project that is located in an area overseen by the Redevelopment Authority.

It’s an interesting idea – particularly since it encourages businesses to get rid of the money and not care about the outcome. I hope the business men just grab a kid off the street, give them a pile of money and say, “Go do art.” That’s bound to have much more interesting results than carefully selected works.

When I’m made Grand High Commander of Earth, I’m going to institute a law that 1% of all advertising budgets must be used to create jingles. The jingle is a moribund art-form. I can’t remember one since IKEA’s shlomp. It’s all licensed pop songs or arty background music. Where’s the fun in that?

The Mural and the Mint are dedicated to their own public arts project by releasing all their recordings free because they, “believe that this is the only way for them to be heard as music, and not as products in Today’s culture.”

Download their stuff free on their website. If you like it you can donate here.

Ukulelezo has been a favourite on here since I first featured one of her videos two years ago. What I didn’t know then was that she’d turn out to be such a witty and unique songwriter.

I dragged her away from her constant toil recording her debut album to talk about songwriting, puns and winning the Bushman contest.

How did you come to play the uke and why have you stuck with it?

I, like many people, picked it up on a lark at my local music store. My first uke was a J. Chalmers Doane designed Northern. It looked cool and it sounded fun. I’ve stuck with it, first and foremost, because I love it. It has been the most fantastic creative vehicle for me. But a big part has also been the support and friendship I’ve found in the amazing ukulele community. If you had told me two years ago, that I would play the ukulele and have all these great friends all over the world, I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet here I am, reduced to a cliché but, having the time of my life.

You’re a very distinctive songwriter. Who are your songwriting influences?

I grew up going to summer music festivals so I have a great fondness for the whole singer songwriter experience. Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell were the first artists I heard as a child and I have always loved old bawdy blues songs and folk tunes from all over the world. I would say songwriters such as Ani Difranco, Jonatha Brooke, Dar Williams, Jonathan Coulton and author Tom Robbins have been my greatest influences in the last 15 years. But I cannot discount the effect of all the wonderful musicians in and around the city I live. I’ve been blessed to know some pretty amazing songwriters within a 100 mile radius of my home. Lately I’ve found a lot of inspiration in the conversations I’ve had with people. I am truly influenced by everything I’ve ever heard, read or seen.

Your songs seem to have moved away from the tongue-in-cheek to more heart-felt. How do you see your songwriting developing in the future?

I think I needed to give myself permission to write the more personal and heart-felt songs. It took me a little while to get past the happy, quirky feel of the ukulele and realize that I could write songs with a more serious bent. I’m not really sure where my songwriting is headed. That’s the beauty of it. I’m open to any and all directions. I’m just going to keep writing.

How did you feel when Optional Accessory won the Bushman contest?

I felt fantastic. It totally deserved to win.

When will you be releasing your album from you and what can we expect from it?

Arg. The album is hopefully coming out in the next few months. I’m in the process of trying to finish a bunch of songs so it doesn’t feel like a fractured offering. It will most likely include a lot of old favorites with a smattering of new tunes sprinkled in for good measure. How’s that for a non-committal answer? Basically, I’m working on it.

You’re the only person I know that comes up with more obscene puns than I do. What’s your favourite?

I do have a fondness for puns. That is very true.

“Happiness is a worn pun.”

Subscribe to Ukulelezo’s YouTube Channel

As far as I’m concerned, the UOGB’s performance at the Proms is the high-water mark of the ukulele revival (so far).

If you’re not familiar with the Proms, they’re a series of straight classical music concerts that have been held at the Royal Albert Hall for the last 115 years and culminate in a display of chinlessness and nostalgic faux-nationalism at the Last Night of the Proms. They’re about as establishment as you can get. So having the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain play at the Proms is similar to the Queen breaking out an Abbott Monarch for a rendition of Five Foot Two.

If you hadn’t guessed from the last paragraph, I’m not much of a fan of the Proms. They represent a staid, backward-looking, elitist side of Britain. Which begs two questions: Who the hell put the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on the bill? And why was I so pleased they were part of it?

Part of why I enjoyed it is that the music feels slightly homemade. The Ukes are good musicians but they’re certainly not virtuosi. George quotes of one fan’s response to his fears of not getting all the notes right, “We don’t come to your concert to see you get the notes right.” No matter how big they get, there’s still a sense that they’re one of us. Playing inappropriate tunes on the ukulele just for the fun of it.

And that idea reaches its natural conclusion with 1,000 audience members playing along with Ode to Joy. Anyone watching that hoping to hear the right notes is going to come away disappointed. But the sight of 1,000 people cheering and waving out-of-tune ukuleles feels like a vindication of everyone who has picked up an instrument (or a paintbrush, or knitting needle or a saw) and decided that making their own entertainment was more important than switching on the telly to watch someone competent.

Is should probably talk about the DVD itself. If you want a proper write-up, I highly recommend you read Acilius’s review. He asked a question: “Is it really worth paying £15.00 plus postage?” His answer was an emphatic yes. Mine is a bit more circumspect. It’s a must buy for anyone who, like me, wants to own a bit of ukulele history and UOGB completists. But people who just want a flavour of the Ukes would be better off with Live in London #1 and #2.

Buy Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain Prom Night on their website.

Michelle Blades – sleepless (MP3) via Last.fm

More than anyone else, I look forward to seeing new videos from Michelle Blades on my YouTube subs page. Her songs are stunningly inventive and keep getting better and better. She’s just released a new albumOh, Nostalgia! so it seemed like the perfect time to ask her about improvising, Panama and Kerouac.

How did you come to pick up the uke? What appeals to you about it?

I grew up around guitars my whole life and would always fiddle with them but they never really kept my interest for very long. Then one day when I was sixteen I was humming a tune while walking to a set of monkey bars by my house and thought a ukulele would be nice.. they’re small and seem like fun, so I bought one the next week. I never put it down, haha.

I guess the uke has such widespread traditional ways of being played, there’s kind of this expectation as to what kind of genres of music you play once you mention you play a ukulele. That makes it really fun to just experiment on them and kind of throw people off, play differently. They’re a fun thing.

I read you improvise most of the set when you play live. Is that true? How on earth do you do it?

Haha I don’t know. I just kind of start singing or playing whatever is in my head and follow along until some theme emerges and it falls together. Improvising feels like the best way to be honest or sincere about whatever you’re singing about.. It’s easier for me to just improvise a song and memorize it than sit down and write one. Most of the videos on youtube are improv songs I wanted to record so I can memorize them later.. haha. I think the best way to explain it is it’s like falling in love. It’s scary but you just want to go about it naturally without forcing anything and you don’t know what you’re doing but it all goes about quite well, usually, and nothing is grander.

What are your top songwriting tips?

Since I usually improv the stuff, I think Kerouac said it best when he created the “rules” for spontaneous prose. Here’s a few that would answer the question:

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
19. Accept loss forever
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time

You were born in Panama and your uncle is Ruben Blades, how has that background influenced your music?

Spanish was my first language but when I moved to the states and learned english I was kind of enthralled with this new language. I got real into folk and post-rock and punk and whatnot and never really acknowledged my roots, I guess. It wasn’t until I was sixteen when I first started making songs in spanish and listening to my dad’s music and my uncle’s music and Devendra. I was still new to the uke and was still strumming G’s and Em’s but eventually I got real into classical Spanish and Flamenco music and all that crazy finger picking.. so it changed the way I played.

Just recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Cuban folk music. Pretty awesome.

Which three songs should everyone listen to?

Ah..

1: Bur Oak by Bowerbirds
2: Jump for Joy (take 1) by Duke Ellington
3: Maria Cristina by Duo Sauces
3.5: By Balloon or Sinking Ship by Jordan O Jordan

You’re coming over to Europe soon, what are your plans while you’re over here?

Play music, make music, take lots of pictures and make friends! ..and stay as long as possible. I’ve never been there and I can’t believe I get to go to play music. Oh, and eat.

MySpace you can stream and buy Oh, Nostalgia! on Think Indie

This is the second time I’ve interviewed Amber Nash. My excuse – if I need an excuse beyond her being bot-rockingly awesome – is that last time she was part of ukebucket and this time she’s half of Shiny and the Spoon.

Shiny and the Spoon have just released their new EP. You’ll be familiar with many of the songs if you’ve been following Amber’s YouTube channel (although still no sign of Pig Latin despite my protestations).

Here’s her lowdown on the EP, independent recording and being a girl.

Who’s Shiny and who’s the Spoon?

This is something that Jordan and I go back and forth with, mostly to be combative:) I guess I’m Shiny and he’s the Spoon. The name of our band really came from nowhere. We both just really liked the way it sounded and didn’t, at the time, realize how weird of a name it was. It wasn’t until Mark Utley, frontman for Magnolia Mountain, made our logo that the name started to make sense. It’s sort of a nursery rhyme, “dish ran away with the spoon” and “the cow jumped over the moon” sort of thing. I guess we like working backwards.

How would you describe the new EP?

It’s quirky, just like us. There are some “found” sounds, good melody lines, and some sweet, sweet harmonies. It’s playful, but understated…it doesn’t necessarily ask anything of the listener, just to enjoy it. We turned on a faucet, hit a doorframe with a ukulele case, messed with crazy reverbs, and really just made it what we wanted it to be. It reflects our personalities.

How’s it been recording and releasing your own music?

Hell and Heaven and everything in-between. The great thing about recording on your own is that you have complete control over everything…and the bad thing is that you have complete control over everything. Because we are a completely independent band, our progress kind of goes with the schedule of our whims and moods. But I’m glad we did it on our own. We’ve grown with the music, musically, technically, and emotionally. We really tried to make the EP as organic as possible, from the way the songs sound to the packaging. The front and back cover are hand-drawn by Mark Utley, and we do our best to make sure that the tracks sound as close to what we’re like “live” as possible. Apart from a faucet trickle, a trumpet, some hand percussion, and a bit of reverb on some tracks, it’s pretty much just us, raw. We’re really happy with it. There was nothing like going to the pressing company to pick up our EP, printed, pressed, and shrink-wrapped, after all the work we put into it.

What happened to ukebucket? Are you still a going concern?

ukebucket is no more! It is, however, still my handle on YouTube. The ukebucket boys are incredibly talented, but like many things, you grow, you change, and you move on. It’s impossible for us to collaborate because of many things…they live in Florida, and now we’re all busy with our own things. I know Rikk Palmer is doing his solo music thing, and I’ve got Shiny and the Spoon. I still listen to Bad Ukulele… sometimes and smile.

Which three songs does everyone have to listen to?

Simple Song, Two Pennies, and Good On You

A couple of your videos have gone ‘cute girl plays the ukulele’ style viral – how do you feel about that whole trend? Do you think the shock that girls can make music will ever wear off?

You know, like many things, I think it’s just going to come and go in waves. I absolutely love the ukulele. I love the way it sounds, how versatile it is, the way it looks, etc. It’s the only instrument I’ve ever been really passionate about. It allowed me to write my own songs. If it can do the same for others, cute or not, I say more power to them. YouTube is, obviously, not a site that is restricted for “professional and serious” musicians. It acts as whatever medium you want it to…a blog, a diary, a way to promote your music, etc. If that can help others unleash their creative side, whether they be male or female, I think that’s a good thing. And if it comes as a shock that women can make good music, well, I guess, my only comment is, where have you been???!!!!!

Keep up to date with Shiny and the Spoon on MySpace and buy the EP on CD Baby or on iTunes.

Last year, the ukulele world lost two of the classiest players and arrangers for ukulele: John King and John Kavanagh.

John Kavanagh’s arrangements of ragtime tunes on his album Parlour Music were a particular inspiration for me. He managed to make those insanely tricky pieces sound clean and elegant. So I was very privaleged to have been able to exchange emails on our shared passion for playing ragtime on the ukulele and delighted when he was generous enough to say nice things about my Ragtime arrangements – in this excellent article on Ragtime ukuele – despite my obvious noob status.

The same mastery of ukulele arrangement is on display on the album he was working on when he died Small Rooms. The album has been completed and released by John’s friends and family – who have done a great job with it – and it’s well worth checking out. You can stream clips of it on johnkavanagh.net and buy it here

John’s ukulele lessons:

Finger and thumb strum lesson
Getting that bluegrass sound

Phredd, being a purveyor of goofy songs for kids songs and worship songs, is an act I would expect to hate. Yet he has a knack of winning over grumpy atheists like me and Craig Robertson. I think it’s because his songs sound naturally fun. It’s so easy for this sort of thing to sound forced and done by the numbers. But he always gives the impression that this is what he’d be doing anyway. You certainly don’t get an attitude of, “That’ll do, it’s only for kids,” that a lot of children’s acts come with.

Phredd has a brand new album out, Phreddtastic!, which is packed with good-timing tunes about about monkeys, pirates and monkey pirates.

Highly recommended for anyone who gets the occasional urge to dance around their bedroom like a monkey pirate (no matter how grown up and grumpy they pretend they are the rest of the time).

Essential tracks: Zoo in Space, 4 Monkey Pirates, 42 Monkeys.

You can get the CD on WJTL, pick up the MP3s on iTunes, subscribe to his YouTube and visit him on Phredd Central.

Christmas with the Ukulele Orchestra Great Britain

Everything you’d expect from a UOGB record: excellent musicianship, humour, a traditional English murder ballad rubbing shoulders with 70s glam rock.

Interesting fact: Acilius informs us that the Fiducula inter Angelos on the cover means, “Miniature lyres among the angels.”

I wrote a summary of it here. Grab it here.

Merry Christmas from Allo Darlin’

Most Christmas records aim to capture the bonhomie of a huge Christmas party by slathering their songs with sleigh bells, string swells, parping brass and growling Bonos. But Elizabeth Darling recreates an intimate and romantic little Christmas and does it beautifully.

You can listen to it here and buy it on MySpace.

Mad Tea Party – Oh Sh*t It’s Christmastime

Ukuleles, rockabilly guitar licks, copious swearing. Yep, my Christmases are like that too. Download it free on BandCamp

Ballard C Boyd – Christmas With U

Ballard C Boyd is the director behind the videos for Uke Hunt faves Date an Asian by Jen Kwok and Mal Blum’s Ode to Kulele. But once a year he records an EP of ukulele Christmas tunes for the whole internet to enjoy.

They’re all well worth listening to but my personal favourite is 2007’s Christmas with you. You can download it here free and read my interview with him last Christmas

Galapaghost – You’re All I Need (MP3)
Galapaghost – Lost Generation (MP3)

I’ve featured a couple of videos from Galapaghost. He has a great way with a tune. So I threw a few questions at, Mr Galapaghost, Casey Chandler and he was kind enough to bat them back to me.

How would you describe the music you make?

I guess I would describe the music I make as ukel-indie rock. It’s hard for me to put a label on it because I take from a vast number of very different influences. making my writing kind of ambiguous at times. I basically try to take serious and sometimes dark themes and put a more fun spin on them, making the songs lighter and more approachable. After discovering the ukuelele, I realized it was the perfect instrument for me to maintain this innocence I want in my songwriting because a song can only be so dark with a ukulele.

How did you come to play the ukulele?

For my 22nd birthday last June, my parents bought me a ukulele. Before this I had always thought the ukulele was kind of a joke instrument, like the lost lonely runt of the guitar family. But then once I started playing it, I realized that it was just the forgotten child of the family that needed to be cast into the spotlight. Once I began playing it, it opened up an entire new style of writing for me and quickly became my main songwriting instrument.

How is writing songs on the ukulele different from writing on guitar?

Writing on ukulele is much different from writing on guitar because your options are much more limited on a ukulele. It’s just a much simpler instrument, which I really like. I’m used to writing songs with hooks, but on ukulele you pretty much have to just play chords. It was really good for me though because it opened up my vocal range more, since I couldn’t rely on riffs. I mean I guess I could’ve gotten a flying V electralele (which actually do exist) and written some badass stuff on that. Maybe that’ll be my next genre: Metalele.

Which three records should everyone listen to?

Wow. For a music nerd as myself, that is an EXTREMELY hard question to answer. I’ll do my best, though. Normally, I’d probly just list every single Beatles and Radiohead album, but I’ll just go with the 3 albums that influenced me the most: 1. Radiohead – The Bends. 2. The Beatles – Rubber Soul 3. Midlake – Trials of Van Occupanther. All these albums changed me musically forever.

You’ve got a degree in music production. What would be your top tip to people recording their own music?

Haha, well when I imagined recording my own first EP, I never thought that i’d be recording with just an Mbox and a 57, but that’s all it took and I’m surprisingly satisfied with how it all came out. So i guess my advice would be DON’T WAIT AROUND! Just make it happen. Make it happen NOW.

I had always been in these bands that were so fixated on making the “perfect album” or trying to create the “perfect show”. It’s a load of crap to me. I mean yeah you have to have a good recording (whatever that means, look at Iron & Wine, his first 2 albums were recorded in his bedroom with a tape recorder! and they’re great!) and a good live show, but the truth is people like to watch bands develop and progress. As long as the songs and the vision are there you’ve got a decent shot. I would say to people out there in my position, just go for it.

Don’t worry about making a “perfect recording”. That’ll come later if the the songs are there. I don’t think I’ll look back and wish I had done anything recording wise differently because my lack of recording equipment, which I can’t afford I guess kind of fits the whole theme of my EP Our Lost Generation.

The songs on Our Lost Generation are very sparse and delicate. Is that out of necessity or is that you ultimate vision for Galapaghost?

Yeah the songs are very sparse and delicate on my EP. That’s mainly my vision for the recordings, but also partially due to serious lack of recording equipment. I want my songs to come off as simple and too complex where the listener gets overwhelmed. I actually think that some of my recordings can be quite dense, like in the song Lost Generation, i have drums, bass, 3 guitars, ukulele, 3 part harmonies and hand claps, but it doesn’t feel too overwhelming to me.

What are your plans for 2010?

My plans for 2010 as of now are to move back to my hometown of Woodstock, NY in February because I can’t really handle the stress of the city anymore. I’m planning on moving back there til around June and then I’m moving to Austin, TX in the summer. I’m very excited, I have a big year coming up.

Visit Galapaghost on MySpace and on YouTube