Click here to watch the best of the week’s ukulele YouTube videos. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, the Berkeley Ukulele Club message board disappeared and took along with it the excellent list of the best ukulele videos in various categories. The list was compiled by Jeff West of the Berkeley Ukulele Club, the Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz and the Deutscher Ukulelenclub. He’s very kindly supplied me with the lists and has let me put them up.
Here’s the first list, dedicated to the distaff side of ukulele.
Karen Langlie (w/friend) / Money
Honey with Bosko / Dance with Me
Kelli Rae Powell / Handmedowns
Sweet Soubrette / Tenderness Has Teeth
Heather Lev / Ukulele Afternoon
Mercedezz (Banjo Uke) / I Will Survive
Honey with Bosko / Baby It’s You
Zoe Woodbury / There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Janet Klein / Tonight You Belong to Me
Revolution is in the air again in Boston. Not content with the seditious act of adding tea to water, Viva La Revo-UKE-tion will be kicking off on Monday with the fantastically named The East Boston Make-Out Club Band, the equally fantastic but more boringly named Michael Wagner, Ed White and Ian Schwartz. All you non-Massachusettsians can check out TEBMOCB’s Davina Yannetty on next week’s edition of MUD. EDIT: I’ve been chided for failing to mention that they’re raffling off a homemade uke.
Win yourself a Bushman ukulele. All you have to do to enter is upload a video of you playing ukulele to YouTube and mention the competition at the beginning of the video. Have a go if you think you can beat this.
Chuck Moore makes some gorgeous ukuleles and lives in even more gorgeous surroundings.
Can anyone on the correct side of the Atlantic tell me what the deal with the Nalts ukulele freak is?
Fin Raucous: not just the toast of the ukulele world.
KDUS does more great work, bringing us Bugs Bunny on the ukulele.
Uke Gal tackles a couple of golden oldies and meets Jake S.
Giggity, giggity, giggity. Just look at those curves. God, I’d love to run my fingers up and down that neck. Those KoAlohas are hot. Oh, and Gina Gershon is in the picture too. (via the New York Post, MANY thanks to Uncle Budd for that one).
Former Test Icicle and current Lightspeed Champion, Dev Hynes with a Mahalo in The Guardian.
Old Blue Bus has mp3s of Miss Ada Powers on the uke and her family.
How do you stop feedback from an ukulele pickup?
Suggest lyrics for a ukulele/fez song and join Howlin’ Hobbit in the Order of the Fez.
Musicguymic boasts that the Kiwaya KTS-7 Mahogany Soprano Ukulele, “has the tone and sound rivaling any Martin ukulele. In fact I think its sounds more like a Martin should than many vintage Martins do.” There’s no doubt it’s as good looking as the Martin Style 3.
Custom uke with a soundhole on the side. I like the look of ukuleles without a frontal soundhole, but how do they sound?A cavaquinho with a nicely carved head.
Ukulele Tone-Gard: The idea is that they keep the uke away from your body letting it ring out more clearly. They’re more common with mandolins (as their not entirely changed description makes clear).
Ukulele bracelet. How much?
Signed photo of Ukulele Ike. How much?
Here’s the complete lineup of the top 10 (or 11 if you’re going to be pedantic about it):
1. Sweet Child O’ Mine.
1.5 Back In Black.
2. Whole Lotta Love.
3. Paranoid.
4. Seven Nation Army.
5. Smoke On The Water.
6. Sunshine of Your Love.
7. Le Freak.
8. Satisfaction.
9. Gay Bar.
10. Iron Man.
I had fun putting this list together and people seem to have enjoyed it so I’ve decided to do 20 – 10 in the near future. Get your nominations in now.
Next up is spooky Halloween songs. If you’ve got any suggestions, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
Even on guitar, this riff is a real finger-twister. Even Slash himself had trouble with this one. It took him a number of retakes in the studio before he could get it right.
Transferring it to the uke certainly doesn’t make it any easier. Gio Gaynor struggles with it in his version and I’ve struggled to play it too. I’ve tried to minimise the amount of jumping around you have to do but it’s still very tough to play.
Best of luck to you if you decide to take it on.
Suggested by West
AC/DC are the gods of riff. They’ve continually churned them out over their 70-year long career and this riff has to be the best of them.
The opening riff, I’ve tabbed in the key of A (it’s the same shapes as the original transposed onto the uke).
Not content with one outstanding riff in a song, they decided this song deserves two. Most bands would base an entire career on a riff this could but AC/DC threw it away as a middle 8.
I’ve tabbed this riff in C (just to confuse/annoy you). The fingering gets a little tricky when the riff moves up to the fifth position. An alternative to the way I’ve tabbed it is to barre across the fifth fret throughout and play it the same as the open riff. Try out both and see which you prefer.
I heartily recommend you check out Baron Von Uke‘s version of the song.
Suggested by Stewart
Almost universally referred to as ‘The Mighty Zeppelin’, anyone who says they’re not the greatest band ever to walk the earth is just plain wrong. The news that they are to reform is about the most pant-wettingly exciting thing to happen since the discovery of fire.
If you’re not familiar with the crosses in the tab, those are dead notes. To play them, you rest your fretting fingers on the strings (without pressing them down) and strum. You should get just a click.
Suggested by West
The final part of my list tracks you might want to grab as your free tracks when you sign up for eMusic.
Josephine Foster
21. Celebrants Song
A particularly out-there freak folk multi-instrumentalist. On this track, baritone uke notes splatter themselves against the wall while her voice mumbles something medieval sounding. It’s quite something to behold.
Foster, her voice and her uke are also part of Born Heller.
Tiger Lilies
22. Hardest Bastard
The Tiger Lilies are one of those love them or hate them groups. The sing twisted music hall numbers in a Monty-Python-woman voice while wearing make-up and bowler hats.
They are responsible for the most blasphemous song every written Banging In The Nails and plenty of ukulele offense-fests.
Ohta San
23. Kaulanna O Hilo Hanakahi (with Jimmy Kaopuiki)
Laid back, sunshine melodies from Herb Ohta.
The Asylum Street Spankers
24. I’m A Bear In A Ladies’ Boudoir
Ukulele provided by Shorty Long mainman Pops Bayless. Do you need to know any more?
Another band with a decidedly ribald sense of humour. They play in a hokum style resurrecting old tunes such as Shave ‘Em Dry (Lucille Bogan’s too hot for the 30s jazz number) and this track made famous by Ukulele Ike. Both these tracks come from their must have EP Nasty Novelities.
As well as old covers they write their own material and cover more modern songs – such as The Beastie Boys’ Paul Revere, Black Flag’s TV Party and Nine Inch Nails’ Closer – in the hokum styles (but do it more convincingly than Hayseed Dixie).
Mahealani Uchiyama
25. Kaveka
My favourite thing about eMusic is stumbling upon great music I’d never have heard of otherwise.
Uchiyama is primarily a dance and that shines through in her music – heavily rhythmic Polynesian and irresistibly dance-able. The tracks are dominated by percussion – even the ukes become percussion instruments.
There are plenty of tracks I didn’t have space to mention ranging from hip-hop ukulele, to Tiny Tim, to wildly avant garde Musique concrete, to Ian Whitcomb’s recreation of ragtime songs. You can check out a list of all the ukulele tracks I could find on eMusic. They even, I’ve heard others say, have tracks that don’t include the ukulele. So go grab your free tracks and scurry away before they start charging you.
Click here to get these tracks on eMusic.
Other parts:
Part one
Part two
Part three
Black Sabbath are the only band to have two riffs in my top ten. Surprising, since I don’t even like them that much.
Whereas most riffs bludgeon their way into your subconscious through endless repetition, this one is played only four times at the opening of the song and not heard again. A testament of how strong it is.
