Tag: banjolele

Redneck Jellyfish – A rad game with my music!

So, let's talk about Muses.  You might expect that a Muse would be a foxy Greek godess, or maybe a supermodel or maybe even Jodie Foster (Hay, maybe you are inspired to shoot a president, right?).  Well, in my case, my muses are a rad southern dude (who makes incredible pottery and ceramics and who also happens to write code) and his amazing wife.

Keith and his wife Gina (aka Gi Gi) have appeared in music I've been a part of for many years.  Going back to Volumen, Gina was the inspiration for the "That's niiiiice" in Underwater.  Years later, Keith and Gina warranted at least 12 lines of the PWT song BBQ Funk.  Most recently, Keith created a freaking rad video game called Redneck Jellyfish and he asked me to make the soundtrack for it.

Yup, you heard me right.  After a lifelong addiction to video games and a recent obsession with the Ukulele, I was finally able to dip that chocolate into that peanut butter.  I was part of making a video game!  I can die a happy man now.  Here's a trailer for the game:

When Keith first asked me about it, he wanted to know what I would charge him.  Charge?!  Pshaw.  I feel like I should have been paying him for the privilege.  Especially considering that he designed the original Volumen logo (which you can see at Volutunes) and also the logo for my wife's toy store (Walking Stick Toys, y'all!).  He didn't charge us for either of those so money was not changing hands.

Well, Keith got the last laugh by naming the main character in Redneck Jellyfish after my youngest son, August.  Yup, the jellyfish is named "Gus Hickey".  RAD.

Keith created this game with a lot of help from his amazing kids Greyson (age 12) and Iva (age 11).  The concept was based on one of Greyson's drawings and I think Iva had a lot to do with the design of "Gus" and also some of the other art in the game.  Gus's voice, in the game, is 100% Greyson and it's pretty freaking hilarious!  Also, his crazy sayings are probably going to be tough for you to figure out if you happen to have been born north of the Mason-Dixon line. 😉

Anyway, if you have an ipad/ipod touch/iphone then y'all should shell out the measly $.99 and get this rad game.  There are 64 freaking levels!  So, it'll definitely be worth your money.  Also, I think the most recent version posts your scores to Facebook so you can get in some bragging rights.

I'll make another post soon with tabs for the main song in the game, in case you want to play along with your uke. 😉  In the version of the song that appears in the video game, I was playing my aNueNue Banjolele and also my 1974 Gibson EB-0 bass.

Click here to download Redneck Jellyfish!

Video: Poontang! (yup, poontang)

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 aNueNue Banjolele 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!

Video: You Didn’t Have a Girl (the making of)

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.

If you want to hear the finished product, then give this a listen: Ukulele Guy - You Didn't Have a Girl

Oh yeah, and I was using my aNueNue Banjolele in this song.

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.

Video: Five Foot Two on aNueNue Concert Banjo Ukulele

Ok.  Now that we got that damned guinea pig quiet, I can actually play my new aNueNue banjo uke.  I picked this standard because I feel the Warner Bros. frog would appreciate it.  Now, I just have to remember which corner stone I buried him in so he doesn't bankrupt some poor bastard in the future.  Expect many more videos with this particular ukulele.  It is my new favorite.  When I finally get my novelty band off the ground, I plan to play this aNueNue for most of the songs. Something about it paired with a stomp box and possibly kazoo... I just know that's gonna sound bitchin'.

Guinea Pig Sabotage (listen all a y’all)

So, during the same lunch hour in which I recorded my introductory video for the aNueNue concert banjo ukulele, I also needed to record a song.  During this particular take, my son's guinea pig had something to say.

I guess I could have moved to a different room, but I've never a recorded a video in here before and I wanted to showcase my son's sweet Star War sheets and pillows.  So, I just put a pillow over the guinea pigs face and everyone was happy for the second take (which I'll upload later today or maybe Monday).  Jokes!

Jimmy the guinea pig is just fine and dandy, don't worry.  Besides we could always replace him the a Zhu Zhu Pet, right?  Gross.

I guess he had a reason to be pissed at me.  I had clipped my Flip MinoHD to his cage using my gorillapod, afterall.  Honestly, though, I don't think he was scared.  I just think he thought the gorillapod was food and he was mad that he couldn't reach it.  You see, he's a real lard ass.

Anyway, the real take is coming soon, but until then, enjoy the guinea pig sabotage: