The Kala “Round About” Ukulele Amp (Sure is purty!)

I have been meaning to post this for awhile, but freaking summer just gets busier and busier. Anyway, Rick from Kala sent me a press release about Kala's new "Round About" Ukulele Amplifier. I know I've talked about the Roland Micro Cube before and I do love that amp, but as far as looks go, the Round About is the winner.  It comes in three styles: Black, Pink and Tweed!  What great choices!  The whole look of the amp feels really retro and fun.  It seems like something a foxy lady in the 60s would carry around with tiny white earbud headphones.  Or maybe something that Frankie Avalon would bring to a beach party.  Here's some pictures:

Kala Black Round About Amp
Kala Black Round About Amp
Kala Pink Round About Amp
Kala Pink Round About Amp
Kala Tweed Round About Amp
Kala Tweed Round About Amp

The amps are 10 watts with a 5" speaker.  If you want more details, here's a YouTube video talking all about the Round About Amp:

Ukulele Guy goes on tour! (almost)

So, here's the deal.  Besides being a Ukulele Fanatic, I also really dig new wave music.  I've been making Heavy New Wave sonics with VOLUMEN for something like 13 years.  During those 13 years, we've released something like 5 full length albums, a handful of EPs and 7" records and some various videos and whatnot.  We've also toured portions of the US (as far NE as Minneapolis, as far SE as Austin, as far NW as Seattle and as far SW as San Diego).  Once we even did a 14 day tour of the Baltic countries (Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).

But, these days it's hard enough to get all 5 dudes (all of whom have wives now, and 4 of whom have kids) together for weekly band practice, let alone world tours.  So, I'm pretty psyched that we are going on for a Mini-Tour in August!  Woo hoo!  We are calling it The Replication and Entropy Mini-Tour.  That's a nice way of saying that we are getting old and making babies.  Heh.  This tour is to support our newest record, "Skipper of Reverses"  (Note: Check out Volutunes.com if you want to get some mp3s of this record.  I think it might also be on itunes, but it's cheaper on Volutunes).

Sadly, I don't play Ukulele in Volumen, but I will have at least one ukulele with me.  So, if you wanna hook up before/after the show, lemme know!  I'd love to kick out the jams with some good ukulele-lovin' folks!  I'd also love to see a bunch of nutty Ukulele-lovers at the show cause I think it'd freak out the rest of the showgoers.  Heh.

Here's the details of our tour:

Wed Aug- 4  Missoula @ The Badlander w/ Wartime Blues, Pony Canon
Thur Aug- 5  Spokane @ Empyrean  w/ Belt of Vapor
Fri Aug- 6  Seattle @ Sunset Tavern w/ The Royal Bear, Summer Babes, Panama Gold
Sat Aug 7- Pdx @ Dante's w/ Don and the Quixotes, The Polaroids, The Lordy Lords

If you want to know more about Volumen, here's a link to a short documentary about us.  This Documentary won "Best Directing" and "Best Music Documentary" in the International Documentary Challenge of 2006.  It was filmed/directed by a good friend of ours who spent several days in our Amulance on our Sonic Infection (aka Mustache Reunion) tour.

Here's some random videos for some of our songs.  These videos were made by a good friend, Andy Smetanka.  Who has made videos for Guy Madden and The Decemberists.

Um.  So, yeah.  I guess that's it.  I apologize for the non-ukulele-ness of this post.  But, like I said, I'm really psyched to get out on the road.  And, if this means I get to meet more Ukulele folks face-to-face, then I'm all over it!

Thanks!

Ukulele Guy

More Talk about Ukulele Strings

So, after my last post about my new Aquila Ukulele Strings, I got a fair amount of feedback from my Twitter buddies.  @ApollosTowel (from Finland, no less) had the following to say (I'm paraphrasing):

The rule I use is Koa Ukuleles sound best with Aquila or D'addario Strings.   Mahogany Ukes sound better with Worth. The exception to this is Koaloha. Spruce goes either way.
Laminates generally like Aquila Strings (except for Kiwaya) as well. I think Worths are so much better than Aquilas on Flukes and Fleas.
Kiwaya laminates tend to like the fluorocarbon types, including Worth. The same rule applies for their solid ukes. 🙂

@hermanvdc had this to say on the subject of Ukulele Strings:

Indeed, Aquila helps give more brilliance to cheap ukuleles but on good the better ones Worth and especially Orcas sounds better!

So, I figured that I should post this so that everyone can make up their own mind and then give you some links to buy Orcas and Worth Ukulele Strings.

Kala Pocket Ukuleles starting to appear in the wild!

I've been waiting for the Kala Pocket Ukulele to make its appearance "in the wild", so to speak, for a few weeks now.  If you recall, Kala sent me the Acacia model to test and review and I freaking love it.  It's adorable, beautifully made and it sounds fantastic!  But, I've been getting a lot of questions like "Where can I get one?",  "How much will they cost?" and so on.  I had originally heard that list on the Mahogany was going to be around $299 and list on the Acacia was $399.  Yup, don't let the size fool you.  These are beautiful, high quality instruments... they just happen to be teenie tiny.

The first place that I heard about the Kala Pocket Ukulele was Easy Music Center.  I don't see a notice on their site that they have them for sale, yet, but it might be worthwhile contacting them.  (UPDATE: They do have them at Easy Music Center!  In fact, you can even see them in the picture below.  Peter, said if you are interested to just e-mail him at [email protected] and he'll hook you up!  Make sure and remember to mention Ukulele Guy to get the good deal.)  Besides, wouldn't you want to buy a Ukulele from a store that has the WALL OF UKULELES [tm]! 😉  Check it out:

Wall of Ukuleles
Easy Music Center's "Wall of Ukuleles"

But, for those of you who just can't wait, I have seen a few of these beauties popping up on eBay.  So, here's what's currently out there right now.  Good luck!

$1 Tin Can Ukulele

Well, it's been awhile since I've done this and I'm not exactly sure why. So, here we go!

Today, I was perusing eBay looking for Banjolele deals or just something weird and ukulele-related when I discovered this Tin Can Ukulele (currently only $1!)

Here's a picture of this little beauty.

Tin Can Ukulele
Tin Can Ukulele

It seems like something that a goat would be playing in an old cartoon.  You know, playing his tin can ukulele, chewing tobacco and whatnot.  Heh.  I'm sort of cracking myself up just thinking about it.

Oh, but wait!  I forgot the best part.  It's electric!  Yup, it's got a K+K pickup in it, so you can plug it into your amp and melt faces, should you so wish.  Here's some details that I grabbed from the auction listing:

Neck- Honduras Mahogany
Fingerboard- Rosewood
Headplate- Spalted Sycamore
Bridge- Maple
Nut- Maple
Pickup- K+K Hotspot
Tuners- Gotoh friction tuners

Happy bidding!