So, this morning I hopped on the ole computer feeling a little bit groggy (I'm not a morning person). I headed over to twitter to see if I had missed anything, and I notice that @valcam1 has tweeted a Youtube link at me. The morning is starting to look up. So, I made my way over to Youtube to see a Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain video that I've never seen before. Huzzah! Now, I don't know if I'm just slightly emotional today, or maybe slightly hungover, or what, but when they all come in together at the end, I definitely teared up a little bit. Yeah, I'm a sap, I'll admit it. Enjoy!
I finally got a few free minutes during lunch to make a video showing off the Kala pocket ukulele.
I think that the powers that be must have known I only had a few minutes, though because they kept effing with me. I'd play the song perfectly and the cat would run by and mess it up. Or, the shot was great and my brain turned off. It seemed like it was something every time, so finally, I just decided that I was going to do one more and that was it. Of course my freaking knee was covering the pocket uke the whole time though. Doh!
Next time I'll be more careful to let you see the uke while I'm playing it. Anyway, this song is one of my favorites to play (even if I can't always remember all the words) and my son Simon really loves it as well. He usually sings the chorus with me if he's anywhere near while I play it. So, that's pretty fun. He and I have a Ramones cover band also, (we're called "Second Verse, Same as the First") so maybe I can convince him to make some videos with me of that action.
Anyway, if you have ever watched George Formby play this on Youtube then you'll notice that he uses different chords. I learned it this way and I guess it just stuck so there's no undoing it now.
So, while I'm still going to make a longer video showing off the adorable Kala Pocket Ukulele, I wanted to answer your biggest question first. So, while I could have just told you that it's 16 inches long, it still might be hard to visualize that, right? Well, hopefully that won't be an issue after this video. If it is, I don't want to hear about it ;).
Video Notes:
In case you were wondering, I rolled a natural 20 with that die.
The Rubik's Cube I show you actually has 6 sides (it's a cube, after all) but each face is 4x4. Sorry for any confusion about 4-sided cubes and whatnot.
Anyway, here is your size comparison video for the pocket ukulele.
So, it happened. I was able to convince the boys in Volumen to play a Misfits song with me. I'm not sure why I had my heart set on this particular song, but I did. As I said yesterday, the audio is pretty blown out, but that's because we are so F-bomb loud. Also, Volumen Beta (our drummer) is a machine and the camera was sitting right next to him for most of the video. (Something tells me that I'll have my proximity to Volumen Beta, and his massive beat generation, to thank for significant hearing loss in my right ear. Heh.)
Anyway, up until yesterday, I've always sort of treated Volumen and Ukulele Guy as two separate (but equally fun) entities. So, it was really nice to combine the two of them for this video. The boys were real champs about learning this song real quick. I mean, we had already practiced for 2+ hours on our original material for an upcoming show, so it's not like they hadn't already filled their rock quota. Well, quota be damned, I always say... hrm... actually, I've never said that, but I wholeheartedly believe it now.
Just in case you are playing the home game. Volumen are:
Also, if you want to play along, you should check out UkuleleHunt.com. Woodshed wrote up some tabs and lyrics that I actually used. Ukulele Hunt is actually one of my favorite Ukulele sites because it seems like I have similar tastes to Woodshed. That is to say, I love the songs that he chooses to make tabs of.
So, as you may or may not know, when I'm not "Ukulele Guy", I play in Volumen. We are a heavy new wave band from Missoula, MT, and we've been playing weird sonics since 1996. Well, yesterday was Wednesday and Wednesday=Volumen Practice. So, I went in a little bit early and brought my Eleuke so that I could make some videos of it through a better amp.
I lucked out because Volumen^2 (my brother) showed up just minutes later with a case of Coors and he agreed to hold the camera for the second half of this video. Woo hoo! I didn't really have an idea of what I wanted to play, so I just went for it. Sadly, my wah wah pedal badly needs a new battery, apparently, so that part is a little bit weak, but you get the general idea right?
After we finished recording this video, we had regular Volumen practice and then I convinced the boys to play "Halloween", by the Misfits, with me on the Eleuke. We'd never played it before, but we picked it up easily enough. I'll post that video tomorrow, or maybe later today. It's a little blown out, because we are so damn loud, but that just makes it punk rock, right?
P.S. Whoever can tell me what I'm playing during the "clean" portion of this video wins extra special bonus Ukulele Guy points.