Archive for April, 2006
This one is for you uke trivia buffs out there. An interview between writer Robert Dayton and veteran songwriter Paul Williams. There are some great Tiny Tim references in this piece, as Williams co-wrote the song “Fill Your Heart,” the b-side to Tim’s “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips” single (who knew?). Looking for even more obscure uke trivia? Here goes… Robert Dayton is one-half of Canned Hamm, a crazy song-and-dance duo out of Vancouver B.C. that performed at the Ukulele Occasional’s launch party (alongside the Canote Bros. and James Hill) way back when in Seattle. -JV
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April 26th, 2006
I went to the SF Festival of the Mandolins last Sunday. The festival was small, but there was some excellent music to be heard. The Israeli classical mandolinist Avi Avital was jaw-droppingly good. He combined a prodigious technique with a deeply musical touch. Eva Scow, was also something to hear. I interviewed her for the fisrt issue of the FJ, and I heard her track on the Tone Poets CD, but that didn’t prepare me for hearing her play in person. All of the other performers, including Rich DelGrosso, John Resichman and the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra were excellent, as well, but Avi and Eva were something else. I also sat in on a fascinating slide show by Sheri Mignano Crawford devoted to San Francisco’s long history of Italian mandolin playing. She has written a book about the subject called Mandolins Like Salamis, which includes loads of rare photos of old mandolin orchestras and bands. She has also published a collection of Italian mandolin music that includes pieces from the 1890s to the 1960s. (You can purchase both books here.) I had to leave before the fetsival ended, but I found the time I was there to be very enjoyable. Next year I intend to make a complete day of it.–MJS
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April 25th, 2006
Lots and lots and lots of tube amp schematics. And I mean lots.-MJS
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April 25th, 2006
You remember the banjo player in Deliverance? It turns out he’s not William Hurt.-MJS
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April 25th, 2006
In the late 1960s Monty Novotny, Bernie Nettesheim and Reb Bennett joined forces to start building guitars. This new site documents the story of NBN, as the trio was known, and the instruments they built.-MJS
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April 25th, 2006
John McEnroe smashes a guitar on a tennis court in Spain.–MJS
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April 22nd, 2006
Okay, so this Finnish company has come up with a way for air guitarists to actually play music with their gestures. My question is, if you can create music on an “air guitar” instead of pretending to play music on it, is it a real air guitar or virtual actual guitar? Anyway, you should check out the demo video of the guy playing “Smoke on the Water.” Deep Purple didn’t know it at the time, but that song was written for this instrument.–MJS
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April 22nd, 2006
George Harrison was a big ukulele fan, so he would have loved this version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” arranged for ukulele by Jake Shimabukuro.–MJS
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April 22nd, 2006
This is ultra-mega-triple-cool! Jim Nikora took private lessons from mandolin legend Jethro Burns in the 1970s and had the foresight to tape them. Even better, those lessons are now posted as mp3s here.–MJS
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April 22nd, 2006
This is very cool. I wonder if they’ll do one of Lloyd Loar?–MJS
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April 21st, 2006
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This one is for you uke trivia buffs out there. An interview between writer Robert Dayton and veteran songwriter Paul Williams. There are some great Tiny Tim references in this piece, as Williams co-wrote the song “Fill Your Heart,” the b-side to Tim’s “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips” single (who knew?). Looking for even more obscure uke trivia? Here goes… Robert Dayton is one-half of Canned Hamm, a crazy song-and-dance duo out of Vancouver B.C. that performed at the Ukulele Occasional’s launch party (alongside the Canote Bros. and James Hill) way back when in Seattle. -JV
