Holy RAD! I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the only thing more Nerdily Awesome than a ukulele made out of Legos would be be playing strip Dungeons and Dragons with Princess Leia (wearing her slave costume, of course). So, since that's probably never going to happen for you, at least the Lego ukulele thing in still real.
Head over to Makezine to learn more about these little slice of radness. And, if you aren't already a subscriber, you should consider it. It's easily my favorite magazine in the world. I think there have been 2-3 articles on how to make your own cigar box guitar as well as all sorts of bitchin' electronics howtos. If you have nerdy leanings and you aren't already reading this magazine then you should be ashamed of yourself.
So, here's the deal. I want to finally form a Ukulele band. If you live in Missoula, Montana and are into it, you should contact me. Here's some of the songs that I'd like to play. Obviously, we don't have to do all of these songs, or even more than one type of song. I'm leaning towards the sillier songs right now, but I can be talked into anything.
I realize that this is a bit of a haphazard post, but just need to link all these songs in one place so I can post it on Facebook because it's not letting me post a bajillion URLs into one update.... probably for good reason.
Now that I got your attention... Nah, I'm not joking. This really is a poontang video. Heh. I'm having a pretty good time here using the word poontang in a somewhat legitimate manner...... POONTANG!
Ok. I think I got that out of my system. We can start for real. As you may or may not know, I'm a freaking sucker for novelty songs. I know what you are thinking, "Wait a minute, he likes ukuleles and novelty music? High school must have been awesome for him!" Surprisingly enough, it wasn't, but that's neither here nor there.
On one of my various novelty compilations, I first heard the song Poontang by the Treniers and I was amazed! Frankly, I wasn't even sure the word poontang existed in 1953. Turns out, it did. After I heard the song I did a little bit of research and it sounds like The Treniers were pretty much party animals. The drank and recorded rad songs. In fact, to promote this song, they made custom labels for beer cans that said something like "Sweet Alabama Poontang" on them. Then they sent the beer to radio station disc jockeys to get them to play it. Freaking rad!
Anyway, I've been wanting to make a video for this for ages but kept putting it off. So, today I just grabbed my aNueNueBanjolele and my Flip and busted out this video in a single take. Boosh!
If you want to hear the original, check out this video:
And if you wanna play along (and who wouldn't, right?) here's some chords that I wrote up for Poontang!
Poontang by The Treniers
covered by Ukulele Guy
10 9 8 8
...POON is a hug!
10 9 8 8
TANG is a kiss!
C x7 (5433)
F
I've been marooned on an isle in the South Pacific
Bb
Missing my loving each night
C
Now that I'm home I'll go right
E F
Out and get me some POON-TANG!
F
Tired of talking to tigers and kangaroos,
Bb
Or singing a song to a goose.
C
Now that I'm home on the loose,
E F
Gonna get me some POONTANG!
Bb
Now Poon is a hug. I wanted a hug so badly
D# (3331)
I was Blowing my tropical top.
C
A Tang is a kiss, I wanted a kiss so badly
C E
Wanted Poontang never to stop.
F
I don't want to eat And I don't want to sleep;
Bb
I've got a yen that I'm dying to please.
C
Till I get weak in the knees,
E F
Gonna get me that Poontang.
F
POON-TANG!
F
POON-TANG!
Bb
POON-TANG!
F
POON-TANG!
C
POON-TANG!
F
POON-TANG!
F
A-huggin and a-kissin...that's POON-TANG!
F
A-huggin and a-kissin...that's POON-TANG!
Bb
A-huggin and a-kissin...that's POON-TANG!
F
A-huggin and a-kissin...that's POON-TANG!
C
A-huggin and a-kissin...that's POON-TANG!
F
POON-TANG!
Rock break.
Bb
A Poon is a hug. I wanted a hug so badly
D#
I was blowin' my tropical top.
C
A Tang is a kiss, I wanted a kiss so badly
E
Want-a-Poontang never to stop.
F#
I don't want to eat and I don't want to sleep;
B
I've got a yen that I'm dying to please
C#
Till I get weak in the knees,
F F#
Gonna get me that Poontang.
POON-TANG!
POON-TANG!
Gonna get me some, gonna get me song... poon tang!
Kala has really revolutionized both the Ukulele and the Bass guitar with their U-Bass. Heck, the U-Bass has been featured in live performances and studio recordings for the likes of Sting, Paul Simon and Jimmy Buffett. I was lucky enough to play one at a local music store and it blew my mind. The strings feel like nothing you've ever played. What's even better is that if you close your eyes you'd swear it was an upright bass. It has BUCKETS of bottom end.
So, what did Kala do? Yup, come out with a solid body version of this bad boy. Now I have to explain to my wife why we need to have two ukulele bass guitars in the house. Heh. I just finished convincing her that I just HAD TO buy my new 1973 Gibson EB-0 bass. Doh!
Feast your eyes on the Kala Solid Body U-bass:
Kala Solid Body U-Bass
If you want to see a demo of this beast, check out this video of Hutch Hutchinson pretty much slaying it.
So, you know who I want in my corner when the S really hits the F. (Why couldn't I spell Fan? Good Question). I don't want Indiana Jones, I don't want Boba Fett.... I need this guy right here. I can just tell that he's who you need in your corner in a clutch cargo situation.
I'm also thinking how to take this thing to the next level. I mean, how many nerdy instruments can we combine? For example, the accordion appears to be sadly lacking. Not that I'm knocking the Kazookeylele. I would literally kill my own brother to own one. But, while I dreaming, can't I dream of a version that has an accordion and theremin built in? I think so.
Anyway, moving onward. How about the song choice for this video? I think one of my first ever posts was of this same fella doing Bohemian Rhapsody. I think Final Countdown might even be a better representation of the Kazookeylele, although I'm not sure which video was first. I think maybe this one was. So, he might have redone the instrument since then. I'll find out when I start stalking him.
Well, you knew what was coming. Or, if you didn't, you weren't really paying attention to parts 1-4. In this particular installment (which started as some sort of crazy promotion for the Eleuke Electric Ukulele) Colin finally puts his nuts where his mouth is. Err... that didn't quite sound right. Long story short, he puts his testicles squarely on the electric fence in my backyard.
Yes, I realize that this only barely qualifies as a ukulele video. Meh. You can't deny a guy a public forum from which he can humiliate his beloved kinfolk can you?
Hmm.. I totally thought I had posted this song already, but it looks like I was wrong. So, here's the deal. This Christmas, Erika (my wife) and I agreed to not spend very much money on presents for each other. So, I had to sort of get creative. Luckily, I'm the king of pulling a song out of my hat with a moment's notice. And, this time I had helpers!
Or, rather, anti-helpers as the case may be. You see, I decided to involve my two sons in the recording process. In hindsight, this was a terrible idea, but the end result turned out great. It was just incredibly painful. They fight like cats and dogs on a good day and (as you can tell from their jammies) it was getting on in the day.
Anyhoo, I made the process even more painful by videotaping parts of the recording "session" with my Flip MinoHD. I had actually forgotten that I had done this until I found the videos today. So, I decided to finally give Adobe Premiere a shot and try and do some video editing. This is my first editing attempt so please be gentle. You should just be lucky I wasn't doing "star wipes" all over the place. Also, I guess I have to figure out how to edit it without that black border around the whole thing. If you are an Premiere genius, then I welcome your input.
NOTE: Of course, after I already uploaded this video and wrote the post I realized what I did wrong in Premiere. The next video won't have those annoying black bars around it. I'm not sure I'm going to re-do it, though, because I don't see a way to do that easily without starting all the way over. And, I'm way to lazy for that.
Now, before we get started, I have some defending to do. Since February 2nd, at least one person in our house has been sick. For myself, I was sick from like the 6th through the 13th. So, as you can imagine, all of the Valentine's Day planning and shopping that I would normally do went right out the window. Now, I know what you are thinking, "Hang on Ukulele Guy, you don't strike me as a real planning type. How can we accept this excuse when you probably wouldn't have done any planning or shopping for Valentine's Day had you been healthy?" And, my reply to that is "Shut up!" Sheesh.
So, anyway, once again I'm left with only my once-quick-but-now-dulled-through-years-of-beer wits and my trusty Ukulele. Thankfully, driving to my oldest son's Valentine's Day party at school I got stopped at a train crossing. I swear the train must have been 200 freaking cars song. For some reason I had the radio off so I just started singing "I'm a mess, but I'm your mess" and that got me started. Unfortunately, it took me until February 15th to finish the song. But, on the plus side, I actually wrote a bridge for once. Anyway, here's the video for it.
Now, I'm not sure why you would want the lyrics and chords to this song. I mean, unless your kids are also named Simon and Gus and you also like all the same stuff that I do and you also drink beer and play Nethack till 4am? If those things are true then we need to hang out.
I'm a Mess - Ukulele Guy
Chords:
Ab - 5343
Cm - 0333
Db - 1114
Gdim - 0101
Bbm - 3111 (sometimes 6564)
Fm - 5543 (sometimes 1013)
Eb - 3331 (sometimes 3336)
Bbm Gdim
Intro
Ab
I am lying on back lookin' up
Cm
not a star in the sky
Db
or a satellite
Gdim
and I wonder why
Bbm 3111 6564
wonder why-y-y-y-y
Well I can
Ab
waste time thinking bout stars
Cm
till the early morn
Db
yet year after year I somehow manage to forget
Gdim
the day you were born
that perfect day that you were born
Ab
Well I'm a mess
Fm (5543)
But I'm YOUR mess
Bbm (6564)
despite all the stupid things I do
Eb 3331
I'm hopeless-ly
Eb 3336
craz-y about you
Bb Gdim
Who do you pick
in a battle 'tween a wizard and jedi knight
it's important
that I answer this one right
well I may stay up all night
And when I
don't get up in time to help with simon and gus
it was just because
the question was too tough
but I answered for the both of us
Chorus
Fm
And even if I said that I tried my best to
Ab
warn you
Fm
There is no way you could know
Ab
what you were getting into
Bb Fm
I am geek on nerd compounded
Bb Fm
I am dorkiness expounded
Eb
But I'm yours
Bb Gdim
I'm youuuuurss
and I'm a mess
Chorus
Ok. First the bad news. This sale is only going on for 3 more days! Yikes! But, the good news is that it's up to 85% off of accessories. So, if you are looking for ukulele strings or maybe a new case, I don't think it's going to get any cheaper than this. I wish I'd known about it earlier, so I could have given everyone more notice. Stupid non-ukulele-related real life and job are cutting into my uke time.
Alright, the title might have been slightly misleading, but stay with me. You see, roughly 6-7 years ago, a good friend of mine, Andy Smetanka, made a video for The Tain, by the Decemberists. The Tain is basically the Irish Beowulf and the Decemberists' version of it is nearly 20 minutes long, so this thing is pretty much a freaking epic in every possible way. Anyway, you should definitely watch the whole video, the animation will blow your mind. Especially when you realize that Andy did it all by hand. Yup, he painstakingly cut paper with an X-acto knife and filmed all the action frame by frame using an old super 8 camera.
What does this have to do with Ukuleles, you might ask? Hang on, I'm getting there. If you've ever seen any of Andy's other videos you'll notice that the credits are often as long as (sometimes longer) than the actual video. And, usually there is some rad music underneath. This video for The Tain was no exception and that's where I (and to a much greater part, many of my friends) came into the picture.
A big group of us used to meet once a week for something we called The Sharing Shack. Basically it was like a potluck but the hosts of the potluck would have to teach everyone something or involve everyone in some sort of artistic project. So, you might all come over to my house and I'd teach everyone candle making while my wife would teach stained glass. Or, maybe we'd all head over to someone's house to do light painting or tamale making. Frankly, I can't remember when I had so much free time and I often think back wistfully to these days.
Anyway, at one particular Sharing Shack hosted at my house, Andy wanted us to all help him make the music that would go under the credits of The Tain video he was working on. So, the whole gang brought all manner of instruments and we got to work. If you aren't going to watch the whole video (shame on you) then you can start at 19:10 and hear our interpretation of The Tain. I engineered this recording and played ukulele. Lots of other people contributed as well, thankfully there are credits for the credits, so you can read about all that. My wife and (at the time) 6 month old son are also listed in the credits. Enough gabbing, here goes!
