Sunday, January 10, 2010

Vaud Rats

The Sun Break calls K. Brian Neel's performance "The only tragicomic one-man ukulele operetta worth seeing."
"The show tells the story of Cecil B. DeUkulele, a washed-up vaudeville performer whose shtick is the uke. From the beginning of his career upstaging a comic actress through his rise to the top vaudeville circuit to his eventual fall via a love-affair with a accordion-playing midget in an abusive relationship with a Russian strongman, Vaud Rats is both a charmingly executed story and an homage to the tradition of vaudeville."
At Seattle's Balagan Theatre, through January 16. Link

3 comments:

Ron Hale said...

A gratuitous slap in the face to all the other tragicomic one-man ukulele operettas out there. My favorite is A (Tiki) Flea In Her Ear, which starts out making you laugh, then makes you cry, and finally at the very end has you doing both at the same time. Genius!

Gary said...

Ron, I thought the same thing. Attention tragicomic one-man ukulele operetta composers. The gauntlet has been thrown.

Ron Hale said...

Am I the only Bay Area uker not familiar with Vagabondage (the band)? An SFGate local band blog the other day wrote them up as San Francisco's greatest acoustic duo. Well, alright, I suppose, all well and good. Nothing in the writing mentioned ukulele, but a video was included. So, I watched it, and it was ukulele and accordion (and bass), but the video isn't tagged "ukulele" so searching on the word isn't going to bring it up.

Now, I can't vouch for them as SF's greatest acoustic duo, but I can
say that the video instantly became my favorite 2009 ukulele video - a very catchy drinking song featuring the Bay Area's finest drinkers and roustabouts, and for that extra touch in drinker and roustabout authenticity, shot in Oakland.

Vagabondage deserves to be well-known in the ukulele world
(I can't recall ever reading anything about them). I plan to put the video into Ukulele Hunt's 2009 video-of-the-year competition to raise their profile (and show that the Bay Area takes a backseat to nobody when it comes to ukulele talent, and that we support our own).

Indulgences are begged for my going off-topic and mentioning them (although the song could fit quite easily into a ukulele/accordion (and bass) operetta).

The video:

Vagabondage - Raise Your Glass
from: vagabondageband

This is the official music video of the song, uploaded Sept. 22, 2009.

 
Top 50 Ukulele Sites