Washburn Lyon, Leopard Fluke: Ukulele Window Shopping

I’m a bit confused about what Washburn are playing at. They used to make ukes under the name ‘Lyon and Healy’, then they syphoned off the ukuleles to their ‘folk instrument’ section Oscar Schmidt. And now they’re selling ukuleles as Washburn Lyon. And they seem to be exactly the same as the Oscar Schmidt ukuleles. If there’s a difference between that uke and the Oscar Schmidt koa, I can’t spot it.

You don’t see many leopard skin Flukes around. I suspect those bleeding-heart liberals don’t think it’s worth killing leopards to make ukuleles. Damn hippies.

I’ve been eying up this National resonator.

Photos: sad man with busted up ukulele, Shirley Temple.

Oscar Schmidt OU7, Ohana Deluxe TK-70CG

Oscar Schmidt go one louder with the OU7. It looks cool, but if they’re going to keep jacking up the price they’ll have to switch to solid ukes pretty soon.

A ‘deluxe’ and ‘limited edition’ Ohana TK-70CG. Sexy cutaway, but not sure about the pink tuners (and I usually love pink).

One uke that might want to think about adding a cutaway is this Mike Chock Mango ukulele. What’s the point of 23 frets if you can only reach 12 of them? But I do quite like the pear shape.

Every time a vintage Martin 5K crops up on eBay I do a quick ‘pros and cons’ list of selling one of the kids. And in this case the uke has a lovely battered case – making the list dangerously close to even.

We’ve been total idiots. Practicing when all we had to do was learn to play the ukulele subliminally.

Easel style ukulele stand: classy solution.

eBay Window Shopping: Tiny Tim’s Beltona Ukulele

A rather gruesome piece of ukulele history up for sale this week: the ukulele Tiny Tim was playing when he had a heart attack. Complete with the dents that were made at time.

About a month late, but here’s a heart-shaped Valentine ukulele.

Keith Ogata gets more metal with each ukulele.

The new electric Oscar Schmidts obviously owe their design to Gibson guitars. The really interesting part is the sales copy: “Face it — there are thousands of smart, good looking guys just like you that will be at Spring Break. You need to be different to stand out. Since it now costs $75.00 to check a guitar on an airplane a uke might be the next best thing.”

Last week there was some discussion over the accuracy and legality of the new Clearwater ‘Eleukes’. Clearwater are an official Eleuke OEM: so they are redesigned and rebranded Eleukes.

eBay Ukulele Window Shopping

There seems to be an affinity between dolphins and ukuleles. I don’t know why dolphins are chosen so often over other animals. Makala ukuleles deck themselves out with dolphin bridges, there’s this custom ukulele from Todaro and this Tahitian ukulele.

Another animal on the uke: black bears. There are two new ukuleles from Duane Heilman of Black Bear Ukuleles. One’s a concert size the other a baritone. And there are also a couple of his old ukes available from other sellers a Kamaka style pineapple ukulele and a Lyon & Healy 5K Shrine replica with its distinctive bowed-out triangle shape.

After all their exposure from Jason Castro’s performance on American Idol, Oscar Schmidt are going all out with the koa OU280. At $649, it’s a big step up from the budget ukuleles they’re associated with. Also new from Oscar Schmidt is an electrified version of the OU5 (the ukulele played by Jason Castro).

Weymann ukuleles are best know for their banjos and banjo ukes but they also sold wooden ukes made, at certain times at least, by Martin. There’s one on eBay at the moment, and there’s not much argument that it’s a Martin.

Speak of the devil. There’s a rather fine Martin 5K up for sale at the moment… for $25,000. Seems rather excessive to me. Even David Bonsey didn’t go that far.

Friday Links

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.