News about ukuleles and ukulele music.
Here's a nice piece on Greg Hawkes. The article even mentions some Noir Somethingorother. And check out that sweet pineapple Talsma uke he's playing. Link
"Sazerac the Clown, Ukulelist Ordinaire and Exterminator of Gloom and Remorse, announces his first ever Sheet Music Design Competition! ... The winner for each song will receive 5 copies of the printed sheet music, a copy of the CD "Without No Pants On: The Genial Orleanians Delineate the Complete Works Of Sazerac the Clown" (scheduled for summer release) and, this being a tough economy, a double-sawbuck."Link
It was a night cold enough to chill a penguin. Ukuleletown after dark always seems colder anyway. At Johnny Ds Nightclub is Davis Square in Somerville, MA, the newest edition of Ukulele Noir cranked up.
Bliss Blood, her sopranino ukulele and her red outfit, started the night. Her voice was, as usual, pure honey and she did a killer set. She ended her performance with the song Mae West made famous "Come Up and See Me Sometime". Not too many performers can pull that one off...but Bliss Made it shine.
Bedroom Community was up next with Steven Swartz, ex-Songs from a Random House. He used a lot of processed sounds, samples and looping...but still managed to sing thougtful and melodic songs.
After that was...uh...Craig Robertson, ably assisted by Alice Caldwell on upright Bass. I meandered through a forest of songs with subjects as diverse as zombie horse and small town pathos.
Ending the night was Greg Hawkes. This was the first time out for his new trio, all ukes, consisting of him, Tim Mann and Greg Allison. In a lovely understated performance they did some Cars tunes and reproduced some of the songs from Greg's CD "Beatles Uke".
Were you there? I don't remember seeing you there? Oh, well, next month...
(photo by Robert Wheeler, Fedora by Tony Brouner, ukulele by Pete Howlett)
Okay, if you're a southpaw, a leftie, sinistral, or simply cack-handed, your ship has come in...portside. Curt Sheller sez:"I've just released a book for lefties. Yes, lefty uke players. What a market that will be.Small market, perhaps. But if you play your uke upside down, you're in jolly good company. Link
As you can see I didn't do it for the money. But I have been asked a few times for lefty versions of my books. So I finally did a lefty version of my A Guide to Ukulele Chords and naturally titled it A Guide to Ukulele Chords for Lefties. It is available as a hard copy books and I have it available as an eBook-PDF file for download."
Jim Christian suggested this, and I didn't see it in time to post it for Valentine's Day. So here's a belated VD Video Card from the one and only Julia Nunes. Link
I certainly hope that this was part of someone's Valentine's Day, back in the day. (Nice boots.) Link
If you're on Oahu for Valentine's Day, here's a local uke festival to check out. It's a Japanese Uke event, this year being held in Hawaii. Pretty much everyone is playing. Plus players from Japan.
Link"The Ukulele Picnic began in 2000 in Shonan, Japan. Since then, the founders have spread the mission to expand the love of Ukulele through concerts in Japan and throughout the world.
Kazuyuki Sekiguchi passionately introduced the Ukulele among the Japanese people, and Iwao--one of the best Ukulele player in Japan--serves as host for the event along with David Smith of Leiland and the group BEGIN. This event is free and open to the public. In recent years, turnout for this event has been over 10,000 people. Even though the event has grown in attendance, the peaceful nature of the event has been preserved."
Michael Simmons asks, "Are the uke players the 'Thrills,' the 'Whoopee,' the 'Pep' or the 'Action?'" From College Love, 1929.
Roger and Dave dropped us note with a bit more information about their Beatles project:"Roger and Dave are pleased to announce that renowned composer, singer, and philanthropist Peter Buffett (That's his smilin' mug at left, ed.) has contributed a new recording of You Never Give Me Your Money to the site "The Beatles Complete On Ukulele".Buffet's recording is actually song three of 185. The first two are that old ukulele chestnut While My Guitar Gently Weeps, performed by Dandelion Wine, and Oh Darling, sung by Kathena Bryant of The Hippynuts.
The Beatles Complete On Ukulele is a web based project by Roger Greenawalt and David Barratt where they will
A) Record & perform on ukulele all 185 original compositions by The Beatles with 185 guest singers/artists.
B) Write essays to coincide with each release.
C) Make available for download one new recording and essay every Tuesday for 185 weeks, beginning January 20, 2009 (Inauguration Day) and climaxing July 24, 2012 (The eve of the London Olympics)."
"On Sunday December 7, 2008, a day that will live in Infamy, Roger Greenawalt, 67 singers, 37 musicians, a Yoko impersonator & his ukulele performed the entire Beatles cataloge (184 songs) over a 14 hour periodPoke around, check out all the tunes and video. I'll post more links as I piece my head back together and sort this all out.
We chose to do this show as a benefit, but were unable to decide whom to give the money to.
Then it came to us.
Let's give it to Warren Buffett!
Frankly if we kept the money we'd just spend it on Viagra, records, and cat food.
Otherwise we would just waste it.
Warren will know what to do.
The films directed by David Barratt on this site will tell the story of how the show came about, the music and how Roger and Dave will deliver the money to Warren's home."
