Category: Musicology

  • Another day come and gone, oh well

    The third song in our Cheeses & Tequila set was a semi-obscure number by the Replacements called “If Only You Were Lonely.” For equal time I’ll post the Vimeo version here (but then I’ll go and “like” the YouTube version so it shows up on Facebook where people actually notice when I post something):

  • Finest girl in the world

    My partner in Cheese and Tequila, Bill DeRouchey, has been busy putting us up all over the interwebs, so as a followup to that vimeo embed from yesterday of Bill singing the punk classic Anarchy in the UK, here’s a youtube video of the second song from our Ukepalooza set, Big Star’s “I’m in Love…

  • My life, cheeses and tequila

    Samantha Soma, the lovely the talented bride of my partner in ukulele crime, Bill DeRouchey, shot some footage of our Ukepalooza act at WebVisions, where we debuted our duo act known as Cheeses and Tequila. Bill has now chopped it up into four video segments (one for each song) and posted them to Vimeo, so…

  • A full schedule at WebVisions

    Arrived in Portland yesterday and did some prep for one of my gigs at WebVisions, the Ukepalooza set I’m playing with Bill DeRouchey as the duo “Cheeses & Tequila.” This morning Erin and I are teaching our Designing Social Interfaces workshop. Tomorrow is Ukepalooza, and then immediately afterward I’ll be doing my aptly named Designing…

  • (Here Comes) The Reuben Kincaid!

    So sometime back in the previous millennium a bunch of us technical-publishing bohemians were sitting around wasting time as we were wont to do, coming up with band names, which reminds me of xian’s law: “There are more good band names than there are good bands.” One of the ones that I suggested that our…

  • Four-alarm pentatonic ukulele chili

    My #uke4geeks talk at South By was so hot it set off a false alarm. We persevered, and prevailed, a small band of die-hards, many of whom brought their own axes (next time we set it up as a hootenanny?), and here are the slides I spoke to. I’m already revising them based on flow…

  • Coming this Friday to SXSW: "Ukulele for Geeks: Secrets of the Pentatonic Scales"

    “At first glance the fretboard of a ukulele (or guitar) looks incomprehensible, but with the magic of pentatonic scales – ancient, nearly universal 5-note patterns, you can “crack the code” and hack the fretboard and start jamming along with your favorite tunes or musician friends in no time. “You don’t need to know the names…

  • A book for those who got in the bus in the '80s

    … As we know, it couldn’t last. It was a bubble of sorts, but its surface tension held for a crucial stretch of years, long enough to sustain this pocket of the counterculture until reinforcements could arrive, tune up, plug in, and rock out….

  • Video of Uke for Geeks talk at Ignite Sydney

    A month or so ago I posted my slides and some photos from my Ignite Sydney talk. Today I just noticed that the video was up on YouTube (yays). Unfortunately, there’s a person’s head obscuring the view of the ukulele for most of my talk, and I kind of start ignoring the slides after a…

  • Ukulele for Geeks, live in Tokyo

    (A few snaps of my talk from the Tokyo 2.0 PechaKucha night the other evening.)

  • Ukulele for geeks: secrets of the pentatonic scales

    My Ignite Sydney talk last night was fun (for me, at least). Here are my slides: Ukulele For Geeks: Secrets of the Pentatonic ScalesView more presentations from Christian Crumlish. Here are a few audience shots. The first is from a warmup: This one is from the actual talk: Dag, my chrome dome has almost completely…

  • Space blues redux

    You Don’t Love Me (Live 1971) by The Allman Brothers Band Big Day At The Bay by The Mermen Mannish Boy by Jimi Hendrix

  • Still with that spacey blues theme apparently

    Celebration by Courtney Wing Seasonal by Brian Deer White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane I’m So Glad by Eric Clapton Gold And Silver [Instrumental] by Quicksilver Messenger Service

  • stump the chumps

    what’s the difference between a duck? – Wolfram|Alpha Originally uploaded by xian ok – trick questions are no fair, but hire someone with a sense of humor and load it up with snappy answers, yo.

  • When it comes to thinking, bigger really is better

    Michael Port, author of a number of bestselling sales-guru business books, has now come out with a pocket volume called The Think Big Manifesto: Think You Can’t Change Your Life (and the World?) Think Again. I like the arresting graphic design of the book (a publicist sent me an advance copy) but was somewhat wary…

  • The perfect pink margarita

    *as promised via twitter:* Serves 6: 7 limes 1 blood orange 4 mandarin oranges (medium sized) 1 pink grapefruit 8 fl.oz. Patron reposado 6 fl.oz. Cointreau (or Patron Citronge or any decent triple sec) rock salt table salt 3 ice trays of cubes 1. Put six cocktail glasses in the freezer to chill. 2. Reserve…

  • Building my sxsw schedule

  • Invincibility overrated

    Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman My review rating: 4 of 5 starsSomething Jonathan Lethem might have cooked up after watching all three seasons of the Venture Brothers while perusing the Watchmen graphic novel. I enjoyed it! View all my reviews.

  • unbook, that's the word I was looking for

    Dave Gray articulates clearly some ideas I’ve been wrestling with about writing, publishing, bookmaking, the web, and social collaboration: The unbook View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: books book)

  • evangeline

    evangeline Originally uploaded by xian she is the queen of make-believe my new electric uke (hollowbody tenor ukulele with pickup)

  • Briefest annual birthday blogging yet

    Started blogging on birfday in 1997 (called it “doing an online journal then”). 11 years later I’m still (sorta) at it. Happy birthday to us!