Comments on: this little ukulele

By: dannyboy

dannyboy — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:35:43 +0000

Thanks for the Carmaig de Forest mention. It doesn’t seem so radical for someone to stand alone on stage and play serious songs on a ukulele now that Stephin Merritt, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and others are doing it, but it was pretty radical for Carmaig to do it in the early ’80s.

I saw him get booed by thousands of Gang of Four, Ramones and Boomtown Rats fans (Violent Femmes fans were much more open-minded) back then, but Carmaig always won over a lot of the people who were actually paying attention. Another thing you can say about ukes if that if strip songs (again, I’m not talking novelty tunes here) down to just voice and ukulele, mediocre songs will be exposed and good songs will shine through.

Carmaig has continued to release excellent, edgy recordings ever since. Uke fans should try to find the first, “I Shall Be Released,” good be warned, it’s hard to find. It has a rocking band that includes Alex Chilton, who produced the record.

By: alex

alex — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:11:04 +0000

I’ve been toying around with my roommates’ mandolin, which feels similar in a smaller-and-four-stringed kinda way. It’s very satisfying.

Also, here’s a recent clip of Stephin playing “This Little Uke” backstage:
http://digital.othermusic.com/wp/?p=572

In the second clip, he also talks some about his attraction to the uke itself. Good stuff.

By: Jed Foster

Jed Foster — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:05:42 +0000

“Uku people” seem to be getting more and more common. I’ve been playing for a little over a year. Started playing on a lark because I was bored to death with guitar… and fell in love with it immediately. Quickly moved from the el cheapo model I started with, to a collection of several nice ukes. My first ukulele EP, “Summer Says Hello” is up on eMusic here… and a second one, “Jingles and Jangles”, will be up later this fall.

By: Woodshed

Woodshed — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:56:44 +0000

Excellent article and thanks for linking to my site. There's a lot of greate uke tracks on eMusic. I've been compiling a list of as many as I can find here. My current favourites are Mirah's new album and James Hill's Flying Leap.

By: Woodshed

Woodshed — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:10:51 +0000

Excellent article and thanks for mentioning my site.

So much great uke stuff on eMusic. Favourites of mine at the moment are Mirah’s new album The Old Days Feeling and James Hill’s Flying Leap.

By: NankerPhledge

NankerPhledge — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:51:15 +0000

Cool. I don’t play but I went to the monthly Ukulele Klub get together here in Sydney the other week and it was a lot of fun. A thriving sub culture of people very dedicated to that little thing.