Considering how much I love Springsteen there’s very little of it on the blog. Hopefully, Jim Boggia’s incredible version of Thunder Road will make up for the lack of quantity with a surfeit of quality.
Also this week, Heidi Talbot with Boo Hewerdine (who provided uke for Hafdis Huld), David Beckhingham’s Stripper (tab for that coming up) and knock-out vocal performances from both Patsy Monteleone and Gabrielle Giguere.
Eleuke’s move into acoustic-electric ukuleles might have caused ructions with distributors but their preliminary 2011 catalogue (PDF link) makes for interesting perusing. New models include two cigar-box ukuleles, oddly placed soundholes (similar to this solidbody) and some stylish looking ukes in ebony and ash.
Ukulelezaza has been showing off his Knutsen harp ukulele. And describes its appeal thusly: “The advantage is added coolness. :-)?” I would have thought another maker would have stolen that idea by now. I suspect they’re difficult to mass-manufacture. But Pete Howlett wasn’t daunted, he’s been perfecting his prototype. Be sure to check out this gallery of harp instruments. And who would spent five grand on this harp guitar.
aNueNue are another one moving into banjoleles. While Aaron Keim goes in the other direction and has a Brazilian Rosewood uke for sale.
Since it was National Poetry Day yesterday, a few bits of ukulele inspired prose. ee cummings finishes oil tel duh woil doi sez with this line:
yoozwidduhpoimnuntwaiv un duhyookuhsumpnruddur
givusuhtoonunduhphugnting
Which apparently translates into almost-readable as:
yousewiththepermanentwave and theukeorsomethingorother
giveusatuneonthefuckin’thing
Malcolm Lowry predicted his demise in Epitaph:
Malcolm Lowry
Late of the Bowery
His prose was flowery
And often glowery
He lived,nightly, and drank, daily,
And died playing the ukulele.
And Rupert Brooke struggles with the spelling in Waikiki
Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
Somewhere an `eukaleli’ thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night’s brown savagery.
It’s the Wukulele Festival this weekend and I’m going to be there (or at least wandering along the seafront near there). And so should you if you’ve got the chance. I mean, Bob Brozman is doing a set. By the by, I’m not sure where they got that quote from me from. closest I can recall is, “it’s the best uke festival line up this year.”
Hall of the Mountain King on Uker Tabs.
Knocked out by his own ukulele.
In the comments: We had an interesting discussion in the Tubular Bells thread. I should clarify: I think there’s a world of difference between ‘easy’ and ‘simple’. I think you should strive to play everything so it sounds as good as it can. And that’s even more difficult when you’re playing something simple.
But my favourite comment was one I couldn’t bring myself to publish: “I just love her. I mean you get a gorgeous girl + Orgasmic Voice + Sensual Ukelele = some ultimate musical God. I hope she reads this, I would pound her like yesterdays beef. Love Love”
Another song from the movies today. And it’s a really lovely song from a really lovely film. In fact, second best song from a film ever (best song from a film ever coming up next week).
My instrumental version is very heavily based on Rick Hulett’s. It uses familiar chord shapes (G, C, D and Em) and simple picking. For the double notes in the tune I use a mini up-strum with my index finger. that gives the first string you hit (always the melody note) a bit more emphasis. But there’s nothing wrong with picking them with index and middle fingers.
Part 2 of the video round-up (see Part 1 here.
I’ve been looking back through this year’s UkeTubes and there’s been some really fantastic stuff. There’s been so much variety in the stuff that’s been produced. I was about to say best year ever, but perhaps it’s not quite as good as last year – I’ll say this year is best for videos and last year was best for records.
So today I’ve put together two posts with my favourite videos from UkeTubes this year* along with ones that caused a stir in the comments and those that spread on the net. Let me know your favourites and what I’ve missed out in the comments.
*Rules fudged so I could include Keston Cobblers’ Club.
After all the ukulele songs about the ukulele, it makes a pleasant change to have a song about guitars. It’s terrible advice, of course, but a catchy song and an excellent chord progression.
For the strumming pattern you can use:
Do that once for each chord. During the Bbmaj7 – Bbadd9 move you can use the same strum but change here:
The only exception is with the Bbmaj7 to C9 in the chorus. There just do the first bar of the pattern for each chord.
Requested by Peter, Sarah and a bunch of YouTubers.
Richard Durrant’s planned collaborative performance of Tubular Bells at Wukulele next week had me going back to my arrangement of it and the accompanying comments about how dumb I am because there are easier ways to play it. Well, I always listen to my readers. I’ve gone back, reworked it and come up with a more difficult way to play it.
This time I’ve arranged it campanella style (so there’s one note per string) which seems appropriate since we’re talking about bells. It’s really important that you keep all the notes ringing into each other. So your index finger needs to be glued to the C string and your pinkie on the E string.
I’ve never quite understood the big deal about easy when it comes to music. The most common uke-related question on Yahoo Answers is, “How easy is it to play?” It’d be nice if, just once, someone asked, “Can I use the ukulele to wordlessly express the very core of my being?” or, “Can a ukulele make a sound that will bring great men to tears at the revelation of the fragility of perfect beauty?”
But if you must have an easy version, here you go. Just know that you’re the reason fairies die.
UPDATE
Arch Larizza has sent me his version of the riff:
The time signature he uses is much easier to count out. But it does mean the E note moves about in the bar (which fries my brain and ends in me screwing it up). It’s a matter of personal preference which way you prefer to think of it.
When I’m counting this out I think:
1 and 2 and 3 and a
For the 7/8 and this for the 9/8:
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and a
Three of today’s videos come courtesy of Jeff’s series of animated videos. Flesh and blood offerings come include Those Darlins (who are my biggest band crush since The Detroit Cobras), a new song from Sophie Madeleine (with one more on Wild Honey Pie where you can also learn why Sophie is friends with dicks and whores) and Hellogoodbye being a bit quiet.
A few weeks back I was musing over the appeal of aNueNue’s signature ukuleles. Well one uke in particular is going down well – in Thailand at least. On the launch of their U900 signature ukulele there were queues outside Bangkok’s Ribbee. And there are plans to release it in the US.
But the two ukuleles I’d be willing to camp outside a Bangkok shop for are this Kamaka signed by both Samuel Kamaka and Ohta-San this Martin 5K (which is already provoking some fierce bidding).
One advantage of people not knowing the difference between mandolins and ukuleles is occasionally stumbling across photos as brilliant as this.
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