Archive for the ‘Uketopia’ Category
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
“You are here for 80 minutes or so of ukulele music, right? Because usually, people can’t take that much and about 15 or 20 minutes in, they start walking out…”
That’s Lil’ Rev, making good natured fun with the tiny audience of 20 or so ukulele enthusiasts who’d showed up to hear him play. Lil Rev plays lost songs from the early 1900s and classic old tyme tunes and tells stories - he’s a sentimental kind of guy, talking about the power of music and the need to help the less fortunate and interjecting all that with plenty of silly. We were an easy room - most of the people there had spent the afternoon with Lil’ Rev in a ukulele workshop. I’m saving fingers for the next SUPA sponsored workshop with Casey McGill but I didn’t want to miss the show.
I enjoy hearing vaudeville and old tyme music live because that’s the way it’s meant to be heard. It was fun to look at Lil’ Rev in his tweedy cap and sturdy shoes and to imagine a more sepia colored location. And it’s a delight to hear the sounds he gets out of his envy-inducing collection of ukes - full blues, country twang, the tinny bright sound from a coffee can banjo uke… It was a charming show, perfect in such a small space. I especially love that this ukulele swinging midwestern Nice Jewish Boy has put together a Jews of Tin Pan Alley show - it confirms what I’ve often suspected, that the ukulele is The Chosen Instrument.
If you want to know more, Lil’ Rev is on the web here and here’s Lil’ Rev playing One Meatball on You Tube.
ukulele, Lil’ Rev, vaudeville
Posted in Uketopia | 2 Comments »
Saturday, March 15th, 2008
I somehow ended up in Metblogs Seattle’s “Blarch Bladness Tournament of Blogs” and though I was crushed in the first round, I pretended there were no hard feelings and went to the awards ceremony at Skylark, a place just off the West Seattle Bridge on Delridge. The nice folks from Metblogs provided snacks and conversation, we bought beer and ate some adequate bar food. To Monica@ The Big Blog, Mona @ Kirida, Tracy @ the unstoppable West Seattle Blog, Beth @ Glacier Holder (?), Carolyn @ Poke the Kitty, Dylan @ The Client and Server, and anyone else whose name I’ve forgotten, hey, it was nice to meet you all in person. Metblogs, thanks for hosting! (Exit, shaking fist. “I coulda been a contenda!”)
(Sidenote about the Skylark: Many years back I went to Skylark to see some live music, a friend of Mindy’s was playing, I remember a fantastic acoustic version of Little Red Corvette. The opening act was a willowy blond with a guitar and an Angry History That Required Release in Song. When she launched into her first phrase, the very first one, Mindy and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. It wasn’t very nice of us, but we couldn’t help it. This woman was like an SNL version of an angry folk singer.)
A bunch of my posts about our trip to Southeast Asia are featured in Travel on a Shoestring’s Carnival of Asia. Don’t go there to read my stuff, go there to read travel writings by other bloggers about places that are on the opposite side of the planet from Seattle.
To my stunned (redundant. ed.) surprise, I made the Saturday Uke Tube - a collection of uke related video links posted by Woodshed on the indispensable-to-the-uke-crazed site, Uke Hunt. Don’t say it out loud. You can see my video here, but there are much better and more interesting things to see in Woodshed’s collection. I rather liked “Road Trip” but I had network issues before I got all the way through it. To everyone who watched my performance, I apologize.
Whoa, that’s a lotta outbound links. I’ll get out of your way now.
Posted in Seattle, Southeast Asia, Uketopia | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2008
I Wish You Love [2:47m]:
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Can I play you a little tune on my uke? It’s far from perfect, but I’m working on it. And yeah, I can sing it in French, too, but it’s even sadder. Two lines, badly translated by me: “What’s left of the love letters, of the April rendezvous? A souvenir that follows me, ceaselessly…”
I’d sure love to play this with a trombone and/or fiddle player.
ukulele
Posted in Uketopia | 3 Comments »
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
This afternoon, I taught approximately 50 ukulele players how to swing “I Will Survive” on the uke. It was awesome. Everyone rocked. My work here is done.
What worthwhile thing did you do with your Sunday?
Photo: Angela, Me, Dan under the mirror ball at SUPA. Thanks, Lori!
ukulele, I Will Survive
Posted in Uketopia | 5 Comments »
Monday, January 7th, 2008
If you had a uke, you might have had the pleasure of having the Nikkei Horizons Ukulele Band come to play for you and your ukulele club last weekend. If you had a uke, you might have learned that the old guy in their club is 90 and the youngest 11, and you might wonder how old your club’s old guy is. You might find yourself experiencing even a tiny fraction of the happiness you see on this guy’s (photo above) face, surely brought on by the joy and delight of being in a room full of people who also think you need a uke. Sure, you could spend your winter afternoons watching lousy 70s movies on cable, or you could wander over to some fluorescent lit hall filled with aloha and song.
It’s your choice. But don’t say I didn’t suggest that you get a uke, already.
A few more barely adequate pics here. I was messing with the lighting settings in my camera so the results are not that great.
ukulele, 98107
Posted in Seattle, Uketopia | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
It Had To Be You [6:14m]:
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Posted in Uketopia | 5 Comments »
