I try not to feature two videos from the same act in a week, so I’m fudging it by having one video from Rocky and Balls and one from just Rocky or Balls (I give it about 3 weeks until they’re on Boing Boing). Along side them are plenty of old friends (including GUGUG, Jake Wildwood, the Bobby McGees and Rod Thomas doing a mashup of Same Old Lines and The Sign) and new faces (including Olivier Ruldry with some seriously smooth picking).
And I wanted to post this video because those two are superstars. But, well, I really hope she thinks she’s singing about lollipops. Read the rest of this entry »
The Germans seem to be heading the field when it comes to great looking electric ukes. As well as RISA, there are these Rocktile FRAME ukuleles. They obviously take a few design cues from Eleuke, but end up looking more stylish. And on the subject or RISA, if you’re a fan of the ‘melted telecaster’ shape there’s this acoustic version. Which utilizes the Fluke headstock shape to have geared tuners without the ears.
Out of season it may be, but it’s not often you get a chance to pick up a Black Bear Christmas Bell ukulele.
A banjolele, “that once belonged to The famouse Pete Waterman.” He took it in to be repaired and never bothered picking it up again. Apparently.
Another new wood for the uke with Kanile’a using macassar wood. Certainly looks great.
A Spanish ukulele with an Isle of Man inlay*. You’d have to cover this on it.
If you’re bored of the standard ukulele hangers, check out this Tiki uke hanger set.
Kitsch-tastic hula girl print on this ukulele.
* According to Wikipedia, the same symbol is used in Galicia. But that’s the opposite end of Spain to Valencia – where the uke was made – so the mystery remains.
The album version of Meet Me in the Garden has the uke turned down and guitar and Gainsbourg-ness turned up compared to the demo version but with the 6th and major 7 chords it still keeps a very island theme.
Suggested Strumming Pattern
For the Eb6 and B7M chords:
d – x u d – x u x u x u d u d u
The x’s are chnks (bring the underside of your strumming hand down on the strings to mute them).
No need to stretch to outlandish reasons to buy a new ukulele for this one. I needed a tenor (and, no, a Fluke with a tenor neck doesn’t count) particularly for fingerpicking. The Ukulele Shop had a sale on the Ohana TK-35G and after watching Ken Middleton’s review of his tenor Ohana.
Sound: A lovely warm tone to it. The sound is plenty strong enough for single note playing. But when you’re strumming chords, the sound isn’t as sharp and defined as I’d like.
I’m not too sure how useful MP3 examples are once they’ve been through all the equipment, but here are some anyway.
Sustain Test (open C string then A string 12th fret) using the Aquila strings it came with.
Construction: Solid mahogany body. Rosewood fretboard. Rosewood binding on body, soundhole and headstock. Chrome geared tuners (MGM lists them as friction tuners – unless there’s some funky mechanism in there, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case). Genuine bone nut and bridge (that’s how it’s listed but they seem quite plastic-y to me – and obviously to Ken too; he refers to them as being plastic in his review). It’s reasonably well put together but not perfect – more on that later.
Playability: Like Ken mentioned in his video, the action is very high. I wouldn’t say it’s ‘unplayably high’ though. I quite like the high action – it means a whole lot less fret buzz and cleaner fretting. But it does mean it’s not an easy instrument to play. I’m tempted to lower the action a little.
A gripe I have with it is the fret marker is at the ninth fret (guitar style) rather than the tenth fret (ukulele style). It has thrown me off on a number of occasions and I’m still not used to it. Looking at the Ohana ukuleles on eBay, it seems like TK-35G is the only model with this. Very annoying.
Intonation: I’ve got no complaints here. It’s playable all the way up the neck.
Looks: It’s a pretty sexy ukulele. The mahogany and gloss finish look great. But, like most of the girls I go for, it’s pretty on the outside and a complete mess on the inside. There are splashes of glue all over the place and some splintering around the joints. It is the sort of slapdash stuff you’d expect from a Chinese made instrument, but it doesn’t worry me unduly.
Overall: I’m very pleased with it. It is my first choice fingerpicking uke. It was less than £150 for a solid tenor ukulele and a very sturdy case – I’m a happy bunny.
UPDATE: Neal took his version down so here’s ukuleletim’s.
Gossip would have to be my favourite ukulele instrumental from last year and, judging by its strong showing in the Ukulele Video of the Year vote, quite a few other people as well. So, of course, I had to have a go at working it out and it’s as much fun to play as it is to listen to.
The tune is based on a A blues progression (A, D7, E7 with occasional bits of F7) with the single notes from with minor pentatonic scale mixed up with plenty of major notes.
It’s a great tune to play around with. I’m working up my own white-boy funk version. Here’s what I’ve jammed together so far:
Allegedly formed at a, “ukulele fantasy camp,” the Honey Brothers have grown to become the undisputed, “masters of Hawaiian-Appalachian Glam Rock.”
Despite the obvious stars of the band being the ukulelists: film maker Ari Gold (who isn’t off of Entouragelest the name confused you) and Andrew Vladeck, most of the attention is inexplicably directed at the bands drummer: actor and professional handsome man Adrian Grenier (who is off of Entourage).
The band started out as an acoustic, ukulele driven trio. But when Grenier joined them on drums, they developed more of a rocky sound. However, the ukuleles are still very much in evidence and it creates an usual and interesting tension between the indie rock moments and the traditional ukulele stylings.
Nothing taxing in the chords, but some of the changes come in unexpected places.
On the C Dm F G parts:
d – d u for each chord (but I like to do d u d u for the G chord)
On the C Dm F C parts, the F chord is half a best shorter. So you play d u d on the F chord then u on the C chord. Like this:
For the chorus d – d u will see you through the G and C chords. For the Dm chord, she gets a bit funky with it and doesn’t strum until the second beat. For example, the bar starts on the word ‘smiled’ but she doesn’t strum until the word ‘while. So you get this sort of strum pattern:
– – d – – u d u
On other parts of the song, she does play the first beat (with a down strum).
Phew! Let me know if this stuff is helpful to those of you wanting strum patterns – I’m still feeling my way around describing strum patterns.
This favourite new find of the week is The Half Sisters who make up for a load of girly jaw-flapping and squeeing with a couple of great songs and plenty of Peggy Sue style shounting (shouting + counting = shounting).
And, of course, there’s love in the air for Ukulele Ike’s dogs and Ukulelezo’s insect people while Erin Lang gets the best Valentines gift ever. Read the rest of this entry »
Jeff the Humble Uker is thinning out his ukulele collection to make way for a Da Silva. You can check out the booty – including a RISA solid, Gretsch, Hamano and Vintage ukuleles along with some uke DVDs – on his seller’s page.
A couple of ultra-sweet vintage ukuleles with hefty price tags: Gibson Style 4 and Lyon and Healy 3K.
