London Ukulele Festival: Friday Links

The London Uke Festival 2009 will be held on 20th June. They’ll be attempting to break the world record for most ukuleles played at the same time. You can read more about it in this PDF and register on their website.

More festival news: the Milwaukee Ukulele Festival will include Victoria Vox, The Fabulous Heftones, Boulder Acoustic Society and Lil Rev.

Amy Crehore’s Ticker #2 ukulele is revealed. More pictures on Flickr.

Armelle is posting videos of ukulele songs in different languages (and part two is here and part 3 here). If you know of any others let her know.

The tragedy of the T-Rex in t-shirt form.

Ken Middleton has a new job: Official European envoy for Ohana Ukuleles.

Watch the KoAloha Story here – worth signing up to the site for. But skip about the first 1/3 of the main film and go straight to the animation.

Rod Thomas’s award winning song Same Old Lines is now being used in a DFS ad. And Mr Kazookeylele flogs Doritoes.

Trying to win Zooey Deschanel’s heart by building her a ukulele.

‘Ukelele’ spells trouble for Clint Eastwood.

Ukulele Mike sees himself as the Susan Boyle of the ukulele. He also seems to be spamming the hell out of Twitter in the hopes that Perez Hilton and Jessica Alba are fans in the making.

Greenman.

UkeTube: Rocky and Balls

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 more]

Ukulele Video of the Year 2008: Rod Thomas – Same Old Lines

Rod Thomas – Your Love Is A Tease (Ukulele Version)(MP3)
Uke Hunt exclusive.

A very deserving winner in my opinion: instantly catchy song, fun video, singalong chorus. And it’s easy to play on the ukulele: there are chords for Same Old Lines here.

I got in touch with Rod to ask him a few questions, and not only did he do that, he also recorded a ukulele version of his song Your Love Is A Tease just for us (you”ll be able to get the original versions of Same Old Lines and Your Love Is A Tease on the forthcoming mini-album Until Something Fits).

When and why did you first pick up the ukulele?

I’ve always loved the sound of the ukulele. I’d gone on a little spree of buying slightly twee instruments (glockenspiel, melodiker) for a live set, and then bought a ukulele on ebay. Then I loved playing it so much I bought a better one, and now my uke with a pick up for playing bigger gigs with my band.

How did the sock-puppet/kids’ TV theme of the Same Old Lines video come about?

I’d been talking for ages with a video director who was meant to do ‘You Get Goodbyes‘ but didn’t. I played him ‘Same Old Lines‘ and he got back to me straight away with the kids’ TV show idea, which I loved, so we worked on it together for a few weeks, and then I turned up at the studio to find this amazing set all built and painted, it was amazing!!

Have you ever been told, “It’s not you, it’s me”? And have you ever used it yourself?

I think everyone’s probably used it to some degree. Yes I’ve been told it! Although in the song it’s not about one particular time, more the line as a palm-off in general.

I heard you were supposed to be on the Today Programme talking about making a living as a musician but got bumped. So what advice would you give to someone hoping to make it in the music business?

Yeah I didn’t realise the show got bumped until I saw the other interviewee – Keith Jopling – blog about it. Advice … well not to expect anything to happen very quickly. Work as hard as you possibly can, explore as many avenues as you can for being creative, be resourceful and I guess set yourself a goal and just keep working at it. I’ve been working really hard at this for years now, and set up my own label to put stuff out. It’s taken a long time and a lot of re-working my live set (from solo acoustic, to band, to solo with loop pedal, to loop pedal plus band) to get people to take notice.

How’s the debut album coming along? And how has it been working with Boom Bip?

The debut album is coming along well! First though, there’s a limited run mini album (first 4 singles plus bsides and remixes) out on March 2nd called Until Something Fits while I finish off the debut album proper.

Working with Boom Bip was amazing. He’s an incredible producer and musician, and I’d been following his work for years, so getting chance to spend over a week working with him and swapping ideas was just great. We’re both really happy with the two tracks we did together. I can’t wait to put them out!

What can we expect from you in 2009?

I’ll be doing a little UK tour around the mini-album release, then I’m playing at SXSW in Texas, which I’m so, so excited about. There’s a Welsh theatre tour in May with Devon Sproule and probably a coupe of festivals come summer. And the proper album will be finished. Maybe even a few more ukulele versions if there’s the demand for it… So quite a lot I think!

You can pre-order Until Something Fits here and badger him for more ukulele versions on MySpace and Facebook

Beatles Ukulele Chord Book, Ukulele Force and more Ukelinks

As if I didn’t blather on about the ukulele enough, I’ve gone and set up another ukulele site: Ukulele Online. The original idea came from all the Yahoo! Answers questions I was answering. I decided I was going to answer every single ukulele question that’s ever been asked online. Then I calmed down a little. So the blog is going to consist of Yahoo! Answers inspired questions and my rambling thoughts thereon. I put it on it’s own site because I didn’t want to clutter up Uke Hunt with it, a lot of it’s going to be obvious to Uke Hunt readers and it’s not the sort of thing you’ll want to subscribe to and read religiously – just there for people who need a particular question answered.

There’s a new Beatles for Ukulele chord book up for pre-order on Amazon (thanks to NashUkes)

The legendary Ukulele Force Star Wars cover album, is more talked about than it is listened to. It’s only available in Japan and if you can find an import, it’s massively expensive. But you can download a medley of clips here.

The new Hawaiian Edition of Ukulele Yes! is up. Thanks to Humble Uker for pointing it out (it’s worth subscribing for the excellent photos alone). It appears that, despite numerous attempts and assurances from the man himself, I’m still not on the mailing list. Epic fail, as I believe the kids say.

And speaking of cool uke photos.

Ukulele Underground find time to launch their latest competition to design a T-shirt in between days spent frolicking on the beach.

Rod Thomas’s Same Old Lines is now available for pre-order from Rough Trade. It’s going to the ukulele hit of the year. In five years time two months time it’ll be all like, “Noah and the what?” and stuff. So book now to avoid disappointment. You can also watch a fabulous but ukeless session here.

You’ve downloaded Jacob Borshard’s albums for free, now you can buy them on CD. And there’s a new album promised for November.

Pure Imagination chords on Uker Tabs.

Latest in the on going ukuleles/’picking up chicks’ debate: the Pick Up Artists are all playing the ukulele and The Be Arthurs get “a lot of [sexual] offers from 13-year-olds and 65-year-olds.” When I start my ‘pick up artist’ blog I think I’ll name it after this ukulele act.

Ukulele chord designer needed (edit: not anymore apparently).

We’re challenged to a uke off.

Rod Thomas – Same Old Lines

Rod Thomas – Same Old Lines (Chords)

I think this is the fastest turnaround from first listen to post up since FotC’s Mermaids. It’s a fantastic song (and top notch video). A fact that wasn’t lost on the people of class and good taste who read the blog and pummelled me with chord requests. Way ahead of you guys.

There wasn’t enough room to write Asus4add9 all over the place. So wherever you see A49 use 4200. There’s also the A(alt) chord (or Aa). It’s just a plain A chord but I’ve called it that to distinguish it from the more common A chord shape.

Other than that, you’re good to go.

Same Old Lines isn’t out until the end of September, but when it is you’ll be able to buy it on Self Raising Records (the single includes a remix by James Yuill who also remixed this modern ukulele classic).

Until then, you can sign up for his mailing list and get a free track.

Requested by Tom, Cardboardfrog and Ukulelezo.

Poopy Lungstuffing, Rod Thomas, Hailey Wojcik: Uke Videos

I had a nightmare time deciding which video to feature on the front page this week. I couldn’t decide between Rod Thomas’s ukulele pop, the eagerly anticipated – by me at least – return of Hailey Wojcik and Poopy Lungstuffing’s cover of The Kink’s Oh Demon Alcohol (many times better than the pretty terrible original). [Read more]