Category: ukulele stories

  • Down to the studio

    Down to the studio

    This record recording process started a year ago in February and for twelve months through January of this year we recorded one song a month, getting the basic tracks down. Since then we’ve been working on the arrangements and recording overdubs. I feel like we’re building momentum here toward the finish. In the meantime, I’ve…

  • Building the sound

    Building the sound

    In May, after a couple of grueling weeks at work, we got back into Goody Sound for a nice long session overdubbing four of the songs for my album. (As always, these are sneak peeks of rough mixes, works in progress.) Carnegie Hill Jeremy Goody is a fantastic engineer with razor-sharp ears, and Megasonic Sound…

  • Bird Song (instrumental)

    On my electric solid body uke with a pocket amp and a bit of delay, for the last day of Jerry Week. Also posted at the big book of faces and audio-only on shmow-kwow with a kind of permanent public link for the video up on bop rocks.

  • All I know is something

    …like a bird within her sang

  • This ain’t no cocktail you buy in a bar

    This ain’t no cocktail you buy in a bar

    One of the songs I’ve been playing the longest with the Reuben Kincaid is an original by Ceil Vortex about prison booze called “Pruno”…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • evangeline

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

  • by jove

    i think i’m getting the hang of this fretted instrument thing. also, anyone speak french? some ukulele guy wrote something on his blog. jeff? annie?

  • The kid can carry a tune

    I’m still way a beginner, with incredibly amateurish chops, and yet look at how I am able to amuse myself already: Layers of Meta: Fire on the Mountain, take 2, basic uke feel track

  • Helena immortalized

  • My tenor uke needs a name

    My grandfather had a ukulele. I loved it as a little boy. When he died, I was nine and I inherited the uke. I never learned to play it but I bashed it up pretty good. They even got me a new ukulele because I really wanted on. I loved the way the both looked.…