I almost broken my golden rule this week by posting Taimane’s cover of Eleanor Rigby. But in the end she got elbowed out by some less expected covers of tunes by NWA, Iron Maiden and Rodrigo y Gabriela.
Also up is a performance by Heather Smith at the Chicago Ukulele Cabaret. You can read a rundown of the event here (thanks to Anne for alerting me to that) but the main reason to read it is to see Ted from the original Ukulele Cabaret getting uppity about them stealing the name in the comments.
A couple of interesting ukes from Mike Chock: mango and papaya. How do you feel about the increasing number of weird ukulele shapes? Every time I see one I squee a little but it quickly becomes a bit of a novelty. The guitar-shape of the ukulele is more an accident of history than anything but it is classy.
And in a similar vein M’s Craft surf ukulele.
The Kala travel ukulele now comes as an electric.
Photos: Banjo and homemade ukulele, Swimsuit girls with ukuleles.
The new U900 record, Ukulele Beatles (oof), is available for pre-order on Amazon Japan (Thanks to Nutcrackerkuge for that).
If you missed the first of Bossa’s Ukulele! Radio Shows you missed some killer tracks, a chat with Armelle and an awkward interview with the world’s handsomest ukulele blogger. Make sure you don’t miss the next one on Wednesday 26th May, 7-8pm UK time.
Gary San Angel, producer of The KoAloha Story and he’s got a new project he wants you to be involved with:
The project is called, “My KoAloha Story”. The concept is simple. I’ll be sending a HD camera out to trusted individuals around the country and the world. Individuals would film themselves telling a story, playing a song and perhaps giving their own testimonial about their own KoAloha story. KoAloha as you know is a unique company and many KoAloha uke players have had very inspired and moving experiences in relation to their instrument.
So if you have a KoAloha story of your own, you can find out the details on his website.
Jake Shimabukuro at TEDx Japan.
Lots of uke building courses going on if you can make it to Vermont, Wales, Finland and Hawaii.
If you fancy a trip round Scandinavia with a bunch of ukulele players.
Boulder Acoustic Society are raising funds to release their new album. I’ve signed myself up for one of their ukulele player packages. If you really want to splash the cash, you can get yourself a one-off Mya Moe Ukulele.
10 ideas for recording amazing guitars (and ukuleles).
How to play Chuck Berry GUGUG style.
Bill ‘Compo’ Owen tries to do a Formby.
First off, if you’re interested in playing classical music on the ukulele then John King’s The Classical Ukulele is an absolute must.
But here are some of my efforts:
Bridal Chorus (Here Comes the Bride)
Carl Orff – O Fortuna from Carmina Burana
Chopin – Funeral March
Danse Macabre
Ferdinando Carulli – Andante
God Save the Queen, Rule Britannia
Masaniello, Galope
Ode To Joy: Easy Classical Strumming
Ode to Joy: Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain Version
Ranz de Vaches “>Ranz de Vaches
Sakura Sakura
Waltz, Danca Camponeza
I’ve also done an ebook of classical ukulele tabs:
And there’s Wilfried Welti’s excellent book of classical tabs.
As promised, here’s a rundown of the third year of Uke Hunt in case you missed anything significant.
John Kavanagh passes away.
Moustaches of the World ukulele.
Mahalo Flying V is the worst ukulele I’ve ever played.
Peggy Sue put out my favourite ukulele song of the year.
I wrote up Rocky and Balls and Black Kids
The London Uke Festival takes place.
I caved and tabbed I’m Yours which directly resulted in me ending up in hospital.
I’m still proud of getting Naked As We Came onto a uke.
Ukulelezo does my all-time favourite ukulele cover.
The Bobby McGees get a week to themselves.
I write up John King’s arrangement of Larry O’Gaff and Elliott Brood.
I released How to Play Ukulele Strums which I’m really proud of. I think that and How to Play Blues Ukuele are the best I’ve written.
Uke Hunt t-shirts are a massive disaster.
I interviewed Bob Brozman – a massive musical hero of mine.
Channel 4 news ask if everyone will play the ukulele.
Steve Marriott ukulele video crops up.
Keyboard riffs for ukulele include Axel F, A-Ha and Biz Markie.
Kate Micucci and William H Macy get laid.
Extensive discussion of the exact recipe for Katzenjammer’s Cherry Pie is put to rest by Katzenjammer’s Marianne.
I chatted to The Beatles Complete on Ukulele guys.
Tabs and chords for Queen’s Good Company.
I chat to Will of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain about their Prom night.
Best ukulele-featuring film ever released.
The Lancashire Hotpots turn emo.
Easier arrangement of Indiana Jones. Tabs for U900/The Ventures: Diamond Head, Walk Don’t Run and Hawaii Five-O
Lulu and the Lampshades are confused by the Proust Questionnaire.
James Hill busts out some killer dance moves (Ladies, please ensure you have a dry pair of underwear on standby before watching.
I write up the chords for the Bushman contest winner.
Riffs for ukulele include Cochise, Master of Puppets and – a personal favourite of mine and no one else, Death of Auto-Tune.
I write up Mr B’s Chap Hop History.
My version of the Upstairs, Downstairs theme appears on Radio 4 (MP3 link) without acknowledgment – if I paid my license fee, I’d stop.
Tabs include Music for a Found Harmonium, Harry Potter and In the Mood.
The ukulele quiz was too difficult.
Christmas shenanigans: Garfunkel and Oates… twice, U900 covering the Ventures and the long overdue blog debut of Half Man Half Biscuit.
I was away most of the month but I did write up Coronation Street and tUnE-YaRdS’s Hatari.
U900 win Ukulele Video of the Year.
I cobble together some ukulele lessons.
SoftSpot release my favorite ukulele video of the year so far.
Tabs and chords include Hoppipolla, April Smith’s insanely catchy Colors, The Who’s Red Blue and Grey and the best kids’ song in the world.
Uke Hunt gets a makeover.
I attempt to bring together every ukulele club and group in the world.
I interviewed Cory McAbee and no one cared. But I did. A lot.
Christoph Waltz humpink a ukulele.
Chords for Paul McCartney and OK Go.
10 things you hear about ukuleles that might be bollocks.
Musical snippets to make you look like a smart-arse.
I cave over Hey, Soul Sister and pay the customary Fall-feit.
Jonsi’s Go Do is very lovely.
I was quite impressed by Billy Corgan’s ukulele playing. He certainly seems to take it more seriously than most of the guitarists who jump on the bandwagon and make a hash of it. For a start, he isn’t using a pick. And he throws in some classic ukulele stuff like diminished chords and a triplet strum. It’s enough to forgive him for playing a Fender and braiding Jessica Simpson’s prayers.
The reason, as can be heard in the full intro to the song, is that he learnt ukulele from a Hawaiian friend. Nice work, Hawaiian Corgan-buddy!
Suggested Strumming
The strumming skips around quite a bit so I’m not going to go through all of it. This is the main one:
d – x u d u x –
Do that for each chord in the verse until the end D7 – G7. Here you get a typical Hawaiian turnaround. Here the C chord doesn’t quite fill the bar. Instead of the final ‘-‘ on the C chord you do an up strum on the D7 chord. So you strum this:
u d u –
And the same for the G7 chord.
In the chorus it’s all triplet strums on the C – Fm moves.
Now taking tab requests for this.
Buy Smumpkins stuff. (If you don’t own Siamese Dream, what are you playing it?)
Writing a compelling story is a tricky task. Writing tunes that sound good from the first listen is a huge challenge. Doing both at once is near impossible. Perhaps that’s why there have been so few decent operas in the last century or two.
But the challenge hasn’t stopped Annie Bacon picking up her ukulele and writing her ‘Folk Opera’. And it’s a good job she wasn’t intimidated as it’s a huge success.
I caught up with her to pump some more information out of her.
How long have you been playing the ukulele and how did you get started?
In December of 2008 I was recording some of my friends songs down in Los Angeles, and another friend lent me her uke in case we needed to use it on the songs. I had never played, and didn’t know the proper tuning or the chords patterns, but I just tuned it to an open G and wrote my first uke song two days later. (The exact version you hear in the video of “Why Do They Cry?”) It was love at first strum.
Can you tell us a bit about the Folk Opera, the idea behind it and the story.
The Folk Opera is a story about folks, using folk music to tell the story in an operatic form where everything is sung. It is both a comedy, a tragedy and a love story (between two elders). It is mostly a story about loss – of memory, time, people and places – but also contains within it (as all good tragedies do I think) the kernel of its own triumph.
I don’t know why I wrote it. I just decided I was going to write a folk opera while I was traveling – thought I was making the genre up, turns out I was not. But the story came from two disparate experiences from my earlier years that became the plot around which I created characters, relationships, emotions and histories.
I’ve read The Folk Opera was created during a 6-week trip to the Middle East and Southern Africa. How did these places influence its writing?
The two places influenced the writing in that they gave me a place far away from the life I am so entrenched in here at home. Musically, I deliberately rejected any outside influence as I was trying to stay true to the Americana Folk style. But then of course there was the beauty and the stark different-ness of the two places, which always piques and heightens my creativity.
How is the Folk Opera different from your other performances?
My other project – with a band I call the OSHEN – is pretty much rock n roll. There are some folk/Americana influences for sure, but it’s mostly rock. The instrumentation is almost all electric, and I play the guitar. Also the music I write for the OSHEN is typically very personal and reflective on my own life and experiences while the Folk Opera was a world entirely without myself, and entirely acoustic. Right now it’s performed with ukulele, upright acoustic bass, and fiddle with 3 different singers.
In addition to my own projects I sing with the Elationists Centennial Band (www.elationists.org), and with Savannah Jo Lack (www.savannahjolack.com), and I play upright bass with Wolf + Crow (www.myspace.com/wolf.n.crow). In all of these I am a player only and not a songwriter, which provides a nice balance to the other projects.
What was your most unforgettable experience with regards to the Folk Opera?
Two things come to mind:
First, a most memorable morning while I was staying at a friend’s place in northern Namibia in a little cottage on the Teachers’ College campus. Late in the morning I woke up humming melodies and with twitching fingers. I barely had time to get my computer open to record what was coming out. With Africa out my window, three songs (one of which I think is the best song in the Folk Opera) just rushed out in a matter of minutes, as though my fingers knew the chords, and my lips knew the words from a long time ago.
The second was after a performance we did at a little spot in San Francisco. It was not our best show ever – things were loose for sure. But at the end the drummer for the band playing after us came up to me and he had tears streaming down his face and he was just looking at me, like he didn’t even know what to say but felt compelled by the enormity of his emotion to try to say something. My goal with all of my music is to make people feel things (anything) and this was a stunning moment of realizing success in my goal.
What plans have you got for The Folk Opera and for your own music?
For the Folk Opera our plan is to get it on a stage in the next year. There are still a couple of more songs to write to really flesh out the body of it and to bring it to full length. There’s also a lot of orchestration left to get down. I think one of the ideas is to get it on A Prairie Home Companion, a popular radio show here in the States. Ultimately, though, I want to put it down in such a way that anyone anywhere can pick it up and perform the whole thing completely on their own.
As for the OSHEN – I’m just back from a West Coast tour. The plan here is to just keep playing as long as people will keep listening. More recording, touring, writing, performing; lather, rinse and repeat.
If you want to make sure the opera makes it onto vinyl you can pre-order stuff via Kickstarter (I have done so I can wholeheartedly recommend you do to).
You might have already had a sneak preview of this post, but here’s the finished article.
Today’s tube includes Ukulollo with Siwar from Ukuleles for Peace. They’re currently offering a pineapple ukulele for the best ukulele song. You can find out more in this video.
Also featured is Miss Jess. Her fantastic EP, Jammin’ at Jacksons, is now available on iTunes so you have no excuse for not picking up at least a couple of tracks (Philadelphia and Finally Mine are indispensable).
Also up is Salwa Azar, Zooey Deschanel, some blinding bluegrass and plenty more.
I’ve probably missed a bunch of videos while I’ve been away on holibobs so I hope you’ve been following UkeToob.
There’s another video you should be aware of: Eliza Doolittle’s Skinny Genes. Looks like she’s being set up as the English Miley Cyrus.
I didn’t know much about Locals ukuleles but Noela Castro left a comment on the site with some info, “Aloha, I am the maker of Locals Ukuleles. I work out of home garage in Makakilo-Oahu, Hawaii. Just a little about myself and how I got started. I started back in 1996 with K.C. Moore of Kelii Ukulele Company. Kelii just started his company about 2 month before I started with him. It’s been 12 years of helping him to build the Kelii product to a household name in this industry. Every ukulele that went through there had my detail finish on it. Along with shaping all necks, which after got its final C & C machine made copies, to bridge design, head stock, intonation and so on. In 2008 it was time for me to move on and fulfill my own dreams and goals. So here we are today, “Locals” Is just one label I started. In May of 2010 be on the look out for “Ka’Ohana” Ukuleles. I am proud to say as a 60% blood Hawaiian, that these ukuleles have a true Hawaiian sound with the finest quality of craftsmanship. And, to all of you who bought one of my ukulele’s, I say with much Aloha and Mahalo for keeping our culture and heritage alive today. Aloha ”
In the last window shop I mentioned the suspiciously cheap Ashbury AU-34S. Brian sent me a message with his experience, “I bought an Ashbury all Koa Tenor at Hobgoblin a couple of years ago for
£150. The wood is sooooo thick (perhaps 3rd grade koa can’t be cut thin). It has a built in amp that runs of a 9v battery which weighs a lot, and it has machine head tuners like the AU-34S. It is as heavy as a brick! But to be fair it does sound good.”
The Kala UBass has proved to be a huge hit. Even finding its way into the hands of the likes of Raul Malo and Jermaine of Flight of the Conchords. So it’s no surprise they’ve been filling out the range. Their latest prototype is a UBass with a slotted soundhole.
In other Kala news, I’ve caved in and bought a Pocket Ukulele. So expect a review of that before too long.
Strange girl w ukulele.
Bossarocker is doing a ukulele show for Chorlton Arts Radio (a non-profit community radio station) and is looking for people to contribute their ukulele tracks to be played on the show. If you want to be featured, you can find more details here.
Classical ukulelist Herman Vandecauter has started a blog where you can find MP3s and such. Although not, as yet, his neighbour’s self portrait.
PBS special on Kamaka ukuleles.
Podcast of the SXSW Ukulele for Geeks talk.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are rather annoyed at the United Kingdom Ukulele Orchestra.
Mary Lou Dempler is looking for donations of (used or new) instruments and books for Boys’ Haven. If you can help out, contact her here.
Lil Rev will be releasing a new book titled 101 Licks for Ukulele according to the Humble Uker.
Mia Farrow ukes it up in Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo (thanks to Joe Zane for the correction on that).
I’m not quite sure what’s going on with Le Soir’s Ukulele Sessions. The old site disappeared. A new one has reappeared here. But I couldn’t get any of the videos to work.
Got a Ukulele isn’t impressed with the Duke of Uke.
Listen to a full James Hill show.
A mind-map of famous people who uke.
MP3s: Pegasus Bridge do a couple of their tunes on uke, Mad Mackrel has an MP3 from Lille, Stereogum has a track from Buke and Gass.
Photos: Mighty Boosh ukulele, Mallardy.
In the emails: In response to the birthday post, Dave made a great suggestion: “A uke ‘learning’ community / forum”. I think it’s a really interesting idea to have a forum that’s solely based on helping people play better but I’m not sure if it would take off. I’d love to know what you think of the idea in the comments.
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