After a bit of break, the podcast is back in style this month. It features an incredible session from Emily Scott. I don’t want to play favourites with all the people who’ve taken the time to do sessions, but this is my favourite. After hearing the session, you’re going to want to pick up a copy of her album i write letters i never send.
I’m enjoying everything the Cobblers are putting out at the moment. And, judging by the number of requests for this one, it looks like I’m not the only one. They’re being massive teases and releasing their new album three tracks at a time. Pett Level crops up on the second part For.
The song is played with a capo on the 7th fret (which, along with the double tracking, give it a mandoliny sound). If you want to play along with out a capo, you can use these chords:
Keston Cobblers’ Club – Pett Level (Without Capo)
Suggested Strumming
A simple strumming pattern you can use all the way through is:
d – d u – u d u
Intro and verse: play that twice for the C5 at the beginning of each section and C at the end. And once for everything else.
Instrumental and Outro: play it twice for the C5 then once for everything else.
Middle: Once for everything except the G7s on ‘day’ and ‘away’.
A very bluesy week this week with Adam Franklin bemoaning his lack of clothes, George ‘off of UOGB’ Hinchliffe complaining of unruly youths and Chelsea and Jordan don’t want their diaper changed.
This week’s uke adjacent instrument is the mandoliny from Madagascar in a clip that’s criminally cut short.
National Style 1 ukulele prototype. It’s the first of the new line of National ukes, numbered 001 given to the guy who provided his triolion for examination.
In the war of the guiatar lookalikes I think the cutest are the Tomo Strat and Les Paul. In a similarly guitar-like vein is this electric Tiki Idol (via Phredd).
1930s Maybell.
Manuel Nunes uke from the early 1900s. The ivoroid tuners look strange to me but they’re apparently an original upgrade.
Photos: May Singhi Breen shoots pool, The Wilde Twins
Yuval has dug up some amusing (now, perhaps not at the time) court cases involving ukuleles:
– Thomason v Thomason – a cautionary tale where buying a cheap ukulele leads to divorce: “At another time he made a present of a ukulele to his daughter and this evoked from his wife a letter which was in evidence and starts: “Cheap Cheap Cheap Scrooge—Humbug If you can’t buy a uke that will hold strings in tune—why don’t you let some one who knows how buy one—* * * ” It continues in the same tone to its conclusion.”
– State v. Haili – is carrying a ukulele probable cause for a search? The police pull over a car, see a ukulele case, search it (without a warrant) and find a gun. They find that, “In the case at bar, we conclude that once the officers saw the.22-caliber casing on the front floor of the car and the ukulele case, a known repository for firearms, there was probable cause to search,” but conclude, “In granting the motion to suppress the contents of the ukulele case, the trial court ruled that the warrantless search of the ukulele case was unconstitutional.[1] We affirm.”
– Tex Smith, the Harmonica Man,v, Arthur Godfrey et al., Defendants. – Arthur Godfrey was discussing which ukulele to buy on his TV show (those were the days) and says of Tex Smith’s $2.99 uke (those were the days), “to sell the instrument as a ukelele might not be contrary to law but that people who did it should be jailed.” You’ve got to think Godfrey had a point. The ukulele had painted on frets.
– French American Reeds v. Park Plastics – the makers of plastic Islander ukuleles sue the makers of Flamingo ukuleles claiming they’re so similar customers will confuse the two. They decided, “The “Islander” sales volume of 136,000 before the “Flamingo” appeared is not such as to indicate that plaintiff’s plastic ukelele had captured the musical imagination of the country.” Zing! Judge for yourself.
I had to play Minecraft for hours on end to tab this one out. You get a random piece of music four times a day. So I just had to keep playing and grab my ukulele quickly when Wet Hands came on. There was no other way of doing it.
The music in Minecraft – which you can buy on Bandcamp – fits the game perfectly. Inspiring bouts of loneliness and regret.
Wet Hands works pretty well on the ukulele. I’ve taken out a lot of the right hand piano and replaced it with a few backing strums. The trickiest bit is the harmonics in bar 15. If you want to simplify matters, you can just play these as open strings.
A couple of weeks ago the BBC aired Frank Skinner’s documentary about George Formby. You watch the full documentary on YouTube and it’s well worth it. I’m a fan of Formby, enjoyed it and learned a fair bit too.
In the clip at the top, Frank visits Karauke in London to find out why modern ukers don’t play Formby songs. And it’s certainly true that most of the ‘new wave’ don’t play his songs. So I thought I’d go into some of the reasons why I think they don’t.
1) The Songs are Outdated
Comedy songs tend not to age too well and Formby’s songs haven’t aged well at all. What you could and couldn’t say then is very different what you can and can’t say now.
Now you can be as sexually suggestive as you like in a song so the sexual innuendo doesn’t really work. Whereas some of George’s songs lack the cultural sensitivity you’d expect today. It’s clear from the documentary that George wasn’t racist, but right thinking people today aren’t comfortable singing lines like, “If you’ve got a chink in your window/You’ll have another one at your door,” with a wink and a grin.
2) We’re Sick of George Formby Already
If Formby is under-appreciated, he certainly isn’t under-acknowledged.
It’s impossible to find an article in the UK press about – or even mentioning – the ukulele that doesn’t drop the F-bomb at one point (usually the first paragraph). There’s no getting away from it no matter how far removed the music is from Formby. Take this piece on Eddie Vedder and this one on Amanda Palmer.
And then there’s the stream of requests for When I’m Cleaning Windows that ukulele players get.
All of which get very tiring and pushes away all but the most ardent Formbyites.
3) He Wasn’t That Great A Player
This is the argument Frank puts forward in the clip: that some Formby solos are great. And they are. George did one thing and he perfected it. He played rip-roaring solos packed with split strokes. But there’s not a lot of emotional range in Formby’s playing.
His solos are a lot of fun and no doubt challenging but that’s not enough for him to stack up against the truly great musicians that have played the ukulele.
4) Imitating Him Is Missing the Point
The great thing about Formby is that he was one of a kind. The Formby fans love him for his unique and individual playing and singing style. Which is why they try to be exactly like him.
I think one of the reasons Formby songs sound so outdated is that they’ve never developed. No one has reinvented Formby songs and made them sound new. Or brought out hidden depths in them. They’re always sung in exactly the same way they’ve always been done.
Examining the minutiae of solo and trying to recreate it is interesting and worthwhile. But at some point you have to break away from that and do things in your own unique way if you’re going to make music worth listening to.
The natural heirs to George Formby aren’t the impersonators but, comic actors and singers of sexually suggestive ukulele songs, Garfunkel and Oates.
So if you don’t play George Formby songs, why not? And if you do, why? Leave a comment.
Quick tip: When a chord diagram has a number in the top right that means it starts at that fret. So in this song the Bb6 is played at the fifth fret: 0565.
I’ve had a bunch of requests for this song which Amanda Palmer has been playing on her mini-tour of the Occupies. Usually when I’ve finished writing up a song I’m very clear on whether I love it or hate. This time I still have no idea. But I’m certain about a few things:
1. It has some great lines in it.
2. Shepherd ‘Obama Hope’ Fairey’s cover art is fantastic.
3. I need to change what I use the term ‘wand of thunder’ to refer to.
Tuning
For the recorded version, the ukulele is tuned down about half a step to F# B Eb Ab. But she’s using standard tuning in this video.
Suggested Strumming
To get that authentic Amanda Palmer sound really scrape into the strings and keep your arm rod-stiff.
A simple pattern that will keep you going through the song is:
d – d u – u d u
In the verses and choruses, use that twice for the first three chords then once each for G7sus4 and G7.
Keston Cobblers’ Club are releasing their record three tracks at a time. The excellent first part is already out and the uke-heavy Pett Level suggests the second part is going to be just as good.
Also up this week a collab between Eddie Vedder and Beck, My Brightest Diamond, a Halloween-appropriate tune from Holland Greco, a slice of IZ in his band days and plenty more besides.
I feel the need to point out that it wasn’t my idea to include picks in the Ukulele Starter Pack for Dummies. By the way, the book included that is a shortened version of the full Ukulele for Dummies book.
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