Moonlitkitty of the essential ye-ye girl blog Spiked Candy got in touch with me today to let me know that Bust Magazine has an article dedicated to the distaff side of ukulele. It features a number of acts that are well worth checking out:

Lady Carol (of the Moon): I’ve already featured Lady Carol and it’s great to see her getting more attention.

Miranda Mahalo:I’ve been a fan of Miranda for a long while. It was clear from the MySpace videos she made just a few weeks after she learnt to play that she was talented.

Paper Dolls: Trio featuring Uni and Her Ukelele that, “know every song ever written except three.”

Rose Harting: I must admit a completely new name to me and one I’m very happy to have discovered.

Sweet Soubrette: If you haven’t seen her MUD videos yet, get your arse in gear.

400 kids and Jack Johnson attempt to break the record for most ukuleles played at once. See the video evidence here. The record may not last long. From what I can make out, the Yokohama Hawai’i Festival are planning to have 1,000 people ukeing at once this weekend. Someone should tell the San Diego Ukulele Festival – they’re attempting to break the same record but only had about 300 visitors last year.

Oscar Schmidt (Washburn) are releasing six new ukuleles including this reproduction of the 1920s bell ukulele.

A review of Beyond the Break (7 Dances for Ukulele) which features music from Jake Shimabukuro. The ukulele outshines the dancing. “For though plenty of excitement came out of the speakers, there was little fizz in the dancing. Make that no fizz. “While Shimabukuro was tearing up his tiny strings… the eight dancers in assorted slacker-wear moped about in a laconic fog.”

whiteboydancefloor has a track from the forthcoming album by Jens Lekman Night Falls Over Kortedala and a cover of Agnetha ‘ABBA’ Faltskog.

Join the campaign to get a Hollywood star for Ukulele Ike.

Hear a 13-tone equal-temperament ukulele i.e. the octave is divided into thirteen equal frets rather than twelve.

Tanguy Ukulele Orchestra has three new computer game related tracks.

Ukulele brings politicians together.

Transsexual escort‘s tale of new ukulele acquisition.

I ran across the chords for Popeye the Sailor Man on Alligator Boogaloo and decided I had to work out the tune. This is the easiest way to play it:

But if you play it like this:

You can mix it up with this tune and everyone who hears it will instantly fall in love with you.

The art ukulele by Amy Crehore that I mentioned on Friday caused a bit of a stir on the intertubes after it was picked up by Boing Boing, so I thought I’d take a look at some of the other b-uke-iful creations out there.

My personal favourite is this uke by Christoph Mueller. Hank Williams III calls Mueller’s art, “bad ass work,” and I can’t help but agree. Be sure to check out his Flickr and Saatchi Online.

Flea Market Music’s art gallery features a selection of ukes including one of Peter and Donna Thomas’ ukulele books.

Duane Hielman’s Picasso style uke is a thing of wonder. He also makes many high quality conventional ukuleles as Black Bear.

Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center display a gallery of painted instruments including this uke.

Fluke ukuleles seem to have inspired many artists and the Fluke Museum has a number of examples including this carved koa fluke.

Ron Phillips makes Deco inspired resonator instruments such as these drool-worthy ukuleles.

Ukuleles and smiles are so often seen together such as on this uke.

Update: Robert Armstrong has created a number of painted ukes and has some creative uses for soundholes – such as the yowl-a-lele.

I’m sure there are plenty I’ve missed. Let me know your favourite.

A huge thanks to the awesome Jenny Flame of Ukulele Nation for her help putting this post together.

Whenever I spot Gus and Fin in my YouTube Subscriptions I get as excited as a sack full of hyperactive puppies. They are certainly the most punk ukulele players around. As well as the fantastic sound they make, the editing of the videos adds another dimension. So much so that it’s not surprising that Angus McIntyre (the one without a beard) is a TV producer in his civilian life. Given that he produces for the BBC, you have to wonder if he even owns a ukulele or if it’s all cleverly edited scam.

The story of this song has spread itself over many wars. Mel Tillis was inspired to write the song by a true-life paralysed World War II veteran and his frustrated wife. The setting was updated to the Korean War for the song. It became a hit for Kenny Rodgers during the Vietnam War.

The song uses chords straight out of Baby’s First Uke Chords. Don’t be panicked by the Fmaj7; on the uke it has exactly the same shape as an Am. The only thing that might confuse you is that in the GUGUG version the ukes are tuned up a semitone to g#C#FA#. So if you want to play along you’ll have to do likewise or use a capo. I’ve written the chords as they would be in standard C-tuning to avoid confusion.

Buy the Kenny Rogers version

Rabbit Muse – Sixty Minute Man (mp3)

Rabbit Muse – Rocking Chair Blues (mp3) via Digital Library of Appalachia

The blues isn’t a genre you immediately associate with the ukulele but the popularity of the blues and the ukulele coincided in the 1930’s and a few, most notably Papa Charlie Jackson and Geeshie Wiley, picked up the instrument. Probably the foremost blues ukulele player was Lewis “Rabbit” Muse.

However, Muse’s music goes far beyond the blues incorporating folk, jazz and pure entertainment (including playing kazoo and tap-dancing) which came from his early inspiration of minstrelsy.

Muse, born 1908, learnt soprano ukulele from a childhood friend before transferring to baritone and setting out on a career that spanned seven decades. Despite this long career he recorded only two albums: Muse Blues in 1976 and Sixty Minute Man in ’77. Both these albums are, sadly, out of print and have never been released on CD. A couple of his earlier recordings appear on the compilation Western Piedmont Blues which also appears to be unavailable

Until the record industry comes to its senses we will have to content ourselves by downloading a few poorly recorded performances on the Digital Library of Appalachia. Unless anyone knows how to get hold of his recordings.

Read more on Rabbit here.

UPDATE: Ten years later and it’s a little easier to find Rabbit Muse tracks online. Stefan Wirz has uploaded a selection of them to YouTube (thanks to Howard for the heads-up).

Baby Elephant Walk Duet (Tab)

Baby Elephant Walk Duet (MIDI)

I know it’s starting to look like I’m tabbing the score to the entire 18 series of the Simpsons, but it’s only a coincidence. This tune was written by Henry Mancini for the film Hatari! to depict the lumbering and unsteady movements of large, unwieldy animal – so perhaps fitting that it was used to accompany Homer dancing.

In this arrangement, one uke takes the background riff. This is a fairly standard 12 bar blues pattern – if you slowed it down and gave it some swing it could be a Muddy Waters song. However, the spritely melody (played by the other ukulele) takes the tune a long way outside blues territory.

A quick word about the repeat signs for those of you unfamiliar with them. Play up to bar 16 where you’ll see a double line with two dots. These indicate that you should go back to the earlier set of double bars (or, if there weren’t any, to the beginning). Then play from there straight through the bar lines and on to where it says D.S. al coda – indicating to go back to the squiggle (bar 5) up to where it says Da coda. From there you jump straight to the mod-style target at bar 32 for the classic ‘and many moooooo-re‘ ending.

A very good week for ukulele performances. I usually try to restrict myself to four or five videos. Couldn’t do it this week.

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Jake Shimabukuro is to release a new EP entitled My Life. The tracklist includes Over The Rainbow, In My Life, Going to California and Time After Time. Via Honalulu Advertiser. Pre-order on Amazon.

La Blogotheque has a series of beautifully shot videos Daniella ‘Rio En Medio‘ Stech-Homsy singing and ukeing in the streets of Paris.

Musicguymic has the new and strangely shaped KoAloha Sceptre. Quite possibly the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.

MP3 Blogs: Not Quite Rocket Science offers up a podcast full of charming lo-fi uke songs from the likes of Magnetic Fields, Jakob Borshard and Beirut. While Songs:Illinois presents mp3s from occult banjolele playing psychic Madame Pamita and Cover Freak has a list of the top 5 ukulele cover versions.

Amy Crehore has produced her first art ukulele.

A collection of rare and unusual Flukes and Fleas.

Nellie McKay is to provide a ukulele version of PS I Love You for the forthcoming film of the same name.

Another picture in the Lewis Carroll machete series. (Thanks to Rufus).

The nominees for the Mercury Music Prize were announced yesterday and, despite the lack of ukuleles, it’s a strong line-up. It’s the only event in the year I gamble (and lose) on and this year my money is on Bat For Lashes.

Playing the harpsichord riff on the uke demonstrates just how useful the re-entrant tuning can be sometimes.

By giving each note it’s own string you can let the notes ring into each other recreating the sound of the original much more effectively.

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