Lots of ukulele MP3s: Pitchfork has a track from the tUnE-YaRdS (you can pick up the album on a ‘pay what you like’ basis here – it’s very good) and Dent May’s new video. A new instrumental from Bosco and Honey with Gensblue. New EP from Existential Hero (aka Steven Ray Morris of Foggy Ruins of Time). The Obama ukulele songs keep coming, this time from Jon Braman. Masters of Song Fu #3 features uke songs from Molly ‘sweetafton23’ Lewis, Mike Bordet and Jutze Schult (and a non-uke track from Garfunkel and Oates). If the thought of four years worth of Beatles covers on the ukulele doesn’t make you want to punch your ears into your brain, check out this blog.

Bette Midler strums out on Loose Women (Warning: may contain traces of Leslie Garrett). And, no, I wasn’t watching this live. And anyone who tells you that I was because Loose Women is my favourite show and I’ve been in the audience three times is lying.

Send your valentine a ukulele ecard and subtly hint they should be more loose with their wallet and less loose with their tongue.

Lily Allen’s The Fear on Uker Tabs.

Top notch ukulele poster.

Jake does an informercial for Analysis Plus cables (and he isn’t kidding about them being “pretty pricey”: Holy crap!).

Tripping Lily‘s Monica Rizzio officially uke crush #1

The DEA try to prosecute ukuleles on trumped up charges. “INTELLIGENCE ALERT – COCAINE IN A UKELELE” (about halfway down the page). May I refer the court to Photos 15 and 16 which clearly show a charango. Case dismissed.

Dr J does some interesting audio-nerd analysis on the Grammys. Apparently, Taylor Swift wins at microphones. She obviously knows a thing or two about sound quality; she’s a uker.

The always fiercely contested ukuleles and homemade flower-trousers round of Mr Tahiti.

I’ve been enjoying The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele (despite a bit of demoitis one some of the tracks). Some very welcome straight-faced ukulele pop to pass the time while Stephin Merritt plays other instruments. Particularly good is the album’s standout track is You Can’t Force A Dance Party.

Nothing much to worry about with the chords.

Strumming Pattern Suggestion

Once the song gets going, here’s a strum that will get you through:

d – d – – u d u

More Dent May

Meet Me in the Garden (Chords)
Oh, Paris! (Chords)
Love Song 2009 (Chords)

Here are a couple of PDFs of blank ukulele tabs for you to print out and scribble on.

Blank Ukulele Tab (PDF)

Big Blank Ukulele Tab (PDF)

I bet the tweenage girls are squealing themselves hoarse over wee Christofer Ingle and his magnificent hair. But in December he took time out from his punishing hair care routine to record an EP of ukulele pop songs Me & My Uke. And he’s currently recording an album with fellow ukulele-EP-releasing runtogetherbandnamefrontman Forrest Kline of Hellogoodbye.

Trouble is a fairly simple three chord affair. The only tricky thing is the chord inversions I think he’s using. You could make it easier by using the more standard chord shapes: 0331 for Eb and 2010 for F.

The strumming for the verses is dead easy as well. The easiest strum of all, Strum #1 from the Strum Bible: all down strums. Just make sure you release the chord right after you’ve strummed it to get that sharp sound.

The strumming in the chorus is much trickier. It’s down, down, up, up, down, up. I’m experimenting with showing strumming patterns, so let me know if either of these make sense to you (top line counting, bottom line strumming):

1 … and … 2 …. and … 3 … and … 4 ….. and
down ……. down up ……….. up ….. down up

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
d .. d u .. u d u

For the first chord in the chorus you just play the Bb on the first strum, then you mute the strings (by resting your hand on them but not playing them) and strum the same pattern.

Madeline Ava – Symphonies in Silence (MP3)
Madeline Ava – Very Punny (MP3)
Madeline Ava – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One (MP3) via madelineava.com

I first came across Madeline Ava on UkeTube and it was obvious she had a way with open and affecting lyrics. That was confirmed when I came across her CLLCT page (UPDATE: now sadly defunct). She has three albums there – keep that in mind when she discusses how long she’s been playing – including a cover of the entire Neutral Milk Hotel album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and an album of original songs Songs I’m Too Nervous to Sing for My Mom. The album is packed with poignant lyrics set to lo-fi, Kimya Dawson-style songs. It also features a tribute to puns; a surefire way to appeal to someone who names their blog after an obscene pun. So I threw a few questions her way and she was kind enough to answer.

How long have you been making music and how did you get into playing the ukulele?

My dad got me a ukulele for Christmas a few years ago. I ignored it based on the assumption that it would be really hard to learn. During the summer I picked it up out of boredom and realized that it was actually pretty simple. I actually learned my very first song courtesy of Ukulele Hunt! I started writing my own songs the summer of 2008 and played my first show that September, so this is still pretty new to me! I fell in love with the ukulele, for sure.

Some of your songs seem very personal. Are you ever worried you’ve shared too much in them?

I’m often embarrassed to play some of my songs for that very reason, but I’m embarrassed by so many things! I think being open with people you care about is something that can never be pushed too far. Sometimes I say things that I don’t mean – but my songs are always exactly how I feel… and without music some important thought might never see the light of day.

Why did you choose to cover the whole of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea?

Neutral Milk Hotel has been like a soundtrack to my life as well as my friend’s lives. We’ve spent many nights listening to them or playing their songs on our own instruments. So on one level, it was because of their personal influence. I also just like the idea of taking something huge and elaborate but making it accessible to everyone. People should realize that important music can happen without theatrics. Anybody can make something epic.

Which three songs does everyone need to hear?

Anxious and Worryin’ by Defiance, Ohio: The vocals are soft but strong. The instrumentation and lyrics absolutely blow me away every time!

Start Today – Gorilla Biscuits: People shouldn’t be so afraid of hardcore music! This song is melodic and optimistic… two things people might not expect of the genre.

Going to Georgia – The Mountain Goats: Darnielle could sing anything and it would bring a tear to my eye, but this song is endlessly beautiful.

What’s your all time favourite pun?

If you’re American what are you when you’re in the bathroom? European!

What plans have you got for the future?

I plan on touring a bunch of nice DIY venues this summer with some music-making friends of mine. One of them, Max Weiss, is another ukulele player and is doubtlessly a boy wonder. Outside of the music world, I plan on graduating high school and having tons of pet goats.

You can download Madeline’s songs on CLLCT and friend her on MySpace

MP3

It’s quite possible that my biggest musical influence is Bagpuss. I was completely insane for Bagpuss when I was little – particularly the music. Songs in general had a really big emotional impact on me as a kid. I had to ban my mum from singing the Spaghetti variant of On Top of Old Smokey because it would make me cry. I couldn’t work out why I cared that a meatball had rolled off a table and it wasn’t until years later than I figured out that it wasn’t the lyrics making me feel sad but the music. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I was massively influenced by the music I heard as a kid and I still love the music in Bagpuss (provided by Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner).

So I was sad to hear, on my birthday, of the death of Bagpuss creator Oliver Postgate. If you’ve no idea who he was, check out Charlie Brooker’s tribute to him. He was such a gent even Russell Brand acted semi-respectfully in his presence. So I’m paying respect to him in the only way I know how: via the medium of ukulele tabs.

It’s a really simple little tune to play. Despite the strumming directions, I’m actually fingerpicking and doing fake strums (picking each string in sequence to sound like a strum) to accentuate the melody notes on the A string. You could just use normal strums but I’d recommend using your thumb to give it a warmer sound.

Buy Bagpuss: The Songs & Music

Hi! My name is Al and this is my entry into the Frunky McNorman World Bring The Mmmbop Blog Posts About 80s Ukulele Videos Ukulele Video Contest.

Read the rest of this entry »

Plenty of ukuleles this week to make me wonder whether it was a good idea to send all my money to the Palin Political Action Committee.

More of MGM’s NAMM finds this week including a seriously sexy spalted curly mango pineapple ukulele from Pono and Orcas ukulele strings (big in Japan apparently).

Rare chance to buy an Island Surf Fluke.

If you’re bidding on this “beautifully made and wonderfull tone” ukulele on eBay UK, be careful. It looks like an Antoniotsai which usually go cheaper than the current bidding price and have a pretty poor reputation.

Why aren’t all tuners metronome/tuners?

Ukulele kitsch of the week: vintage Hakata Hawaiian Urasaki dolls.

Kate Micucci made a very big impression as the Scrubs ukulele girl. She was the second biggest Google Trend of the day (officially ‘Volcanic’) and the day after was the second busiest day of this blog’s history.

Warren Buffett discusses the possibility that Obama’s election is a turning point in the struggle against ukuleleism, teaching Bill Gates to play the ukulele and how the ukulele is the new stimulus package. Someone give that guy a million cool points.

Sweetafton puts MP3s of MyHope and Road Trip up for sale. And Ukechick has also released an EP on Amie Street under the moniker cc.tran.

WIUO take New Zealand by storm.

Amy Crehore finds Man Ray’s banjolele and discusses her Dreamgirls & Ukes show.

It’s the summer hit of the winter. “Coz it’s a lovely sunny day.” No, it ain’t.

To be fair, he did originally release it last summer but it’s only made a splash on its re-release on the back of the album Love, Ire & Song. The album is full of neat little lyrical twists (and less sweary than previous stuff) which makes you wonder why he spent so much time making hardcore punk with kneejerk where you couldn’t hear any words.

The chords for the song are fairly straight forward (except for the dreaded E) and there’s a nice strumming pattern in the verses: