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| Interesting Uke Article in the Boston Globe | Rate Topic |
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| Posted: Mon Aug 23rd, 2004 12:48 am |
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1st Post |
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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I say ukulele... ...and you think Tiny Tim, or Hawaii By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | August 22, 2004 If you're of a certain age, ukuleles may conjure memories of the 1950s television host Arthur Godfrey. George Harrison loved the ukulele, indie-pop auteur Stephin Merritt swears by it, and Elvis did his fair share of on-camera strumming. But the celebrity endorsements haven't generated much traction in the cultural consciousness. In the grand cosmos of musical instruments, the ukulele ranks in most people's minds somewherebetween asteroid dust and space junk. It's neither heroic, like the guitar, nor invincible, like the drums, nor beautiful, like the oboe. It has a peripheral role in a rhythm section and no place in a symphony. The uke is humble, marginalized, and misunderstood -- not unlike, as it turns out, the people who are drawn to it. With the exception of native Hawaiians, no one sets out to be a ukulele player. Kids don't fantasize about strapping on a tiny four-string and becoming a ukulele god. Rather, the instrument -- according to some of its most devoted adherents -- finds you, sometimes in the strangest circumstances, sometimes when you need it most. Steven Swartz sings and plays baritone ukulele in the New York ensemble Songs From a Random House, whose second album, "gListen," comes out on Tuesday. Swartz was a graduate student working toward his PhD with the composer Morton Feldman at SUNY Buffalo when the ukulele entered his life. Swartz had developed an interest in drones and was playing around with an old chord organ, taping down the keys to make the thing wheeze in long, thrumming passages. Lo and behold, the only sound that seemed to complement Swartz's new musical direction was the plangent ping of a ukulele, a gift from his brother, that had been lying around since his 16th birthday. "It's so transparent," says Swartz. "You can't posture with a ukulele, and that's what really attracted me to it. When you get up on a stage with a ukulele you're thwarting everybody's expectations. We're not Hawaiian or retro or Tin Pan Alley. People don't expect it to make real music, and when you do, they're amazed." Swartz's bandmate Alan Drogin plays soprano ukulele -- plugged-in and outfitted with wah-wah and fuzz and tremolo effects. The group also includes viola, string bass, and drums, and together they create what Swartz describes as psychedelic folk-jazz groove music. The disc is a little bit Talking Heads, a little bit Phish, and closes with a truly bizarre cover of the Giorgio Moroder/Donna Summer disco classic "I Feel Love." The arrangement is nearly identical to the original but with viola, lap steel, chord organ, and ukuleles instead of synthesizers. "They can really throb and envelop, these neglected and rejected instruments," says Swartz. Songs From a Random House is one of the bands featured in a new documentary, "Rock that Uke," from filmmakers William Preston Robertson and Sean Anderson. The film, which has been screening at fringe film festivals across the country, is narrated by actress Holly Hunter (whom the filmmakers have dubbed the human rock 'n' roll ukulele by virtue of her diminutive size, quirky personality, and penchant for risk-taking). It explores the mysterious allure of the ukulele, mainly for the growing number of alternative, post-punk musicians who incorporate the uke in their music, and the countercultural ethos that's sprouted around it. Robertson started playing the ukulele in 1980, when he was enrolled at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "I picked it up in the middle of winter, during a period when I was pretty depressed and in a reclusive state," Robertson recalls. "The ukulele has a way of making happy songs sound unbelievably happy and sad songs sound pathetic. It's a tiny sound, and it tries so hard, and those qualities seemed to express what I felt. When I decided to electrify and distort the thing to see how big and angry it could be, it was incredible. I later equated it to a flea clutching its skull and screaming its brains out." Robertson discovered that he wasn't alone. Internet searches turned up Riotukes.org (a.k.a the Ukulele Freedom Front), the Ukulele Diner web site at ukediner. ukulele.org (which serves up an eccentric menu of information and products), the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum (in Cranston, R.I.), Fleamarketmusic.com (an online community of uke lovers), and Pineapple Princess, a San Francisco-based electric punk uke duo. He began collecting music -- from uke performance artist Carmaig de Forest (who's opened for the Cure, the Violent Femmes, and the Ramones); Williwaw, an experimental uke musician; LA painter/ poet and self-described ukulele chanteuse Janet Klein; neo-skiffle punk-folk outfit Ukefink; and dozens of other alternative ukulele musicians. "They had a philosophy, and it was very rooted in today and not the past," Robertson says. "The ukulele had a symbolic meaning on an emotional level that had not a lot to do with being a musician. They're often people with a sense of being outsiders, and this can run the gamut from your average suburbanite who feels shy at parties to gay people to guys who feel like nerds to artistic souls who can't find their footing. They latch onto this instrument as a validation of the fact that they're different. As we say in the film, the ukulele speaks to the part of us that will always be tiny and vulnerable and looking for a voice." Among the characters Robertson discovered researching the underground ukulele scene was Robert Wheeler, a retired computer programmer living in Littleton, who has a collection of more than 240 ukuleles on display in his home. Wheeler is considered an expert in the field, a claim that may or may not be compromised by the fact that he's the founder of Ukulele Consciousness, a belief system that "promotes the awareness of ukuleles for their place in history and society, as a beacon to spiritual serenity, and as a means of getting [sex]," according to his bio on Rockthatuke.com. "Someone called me a ukulele freak, which is more appealing to me than collector or expert," says Wheeler, who explains that he discovered ukes in 1976 during a six-week hospitalization for manic-depression, when a friend brought him a book about Tin Pan Alley. "I was playing classical guitar as a hobby and went out and bought my first ukulele, a CF Martin from the 1920's, at Sandy's Music in Cambridge, and it just evolved from there. They are like small jewels, small hand-crafted jewels that make music. I keep some of them in the barn, the ones I can stand to not see all the time. The ones in the house I have to see every day." Wheeler has designated various walls in his home for different makes of ukulele: one wall is for the Martins, another for the Gibsons, and others feature ukes made in Boston, overseas, and by Sears and Roebuck. As we speak, two custom soprano ukuleles are being made for him by Peter Kyvelos, who's been building and restoring instruments at his store Unique Strings in Belmont for 33 years. "They're easy to learn how to play. You can buy one for as little as $30. Of course a custom ukulele, using the best materials -- top-end wood, with decorative inlay work -- can be $5,000," says Kyvelos, who has restored about half of Wheeler's collection. "Ukuleles have become more popular in the last decade, and in the last five years there's been lots of activity." It was exactly 3 1/2 years ago, recalls Greg Hawkes, keyboardist for the rock band the Cars, that his wife bought him a ukulele for Valentine's Day. Now he has ten ukes and a new trio, the Diamond Hearts, which is playing shows at local clubs including the Burren in Somerville and Toad in Cambridge, where Hawkes will display his ever-expanding ukulele skills next month (a date hasn't yet been confirmed). "For me it reawakened the simple joy of playing music," says Hawkes, who lives in Lincoln. "I can walk into the yard with it. I can play it without turning on a computer. I've recorded four songs and I'm planning to do a little CD. Who would have thought? And now [Cars guitarist] Elliot Easton has picked one up." There does seem to be a uke trend developing in the celebrity world. Paul McCartney, who played Harrison's "Something" on ukulele at "Concert for George," brought a uke along on his last concert tour. Elvis Costello has been playing ukulele during encores. Both Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and actor William H. Macy were recently interviewed in the Ukulele Occasional magazine about their love of the instrument. And Adam Sandler reportedly insisted he be photographed holding his custom ukulele in the publicity photos for "50 First Dates." What's the common thread? "In Hawaii it's very much a living, breathing instrument," explains Songs From a Random House's Swartz. "Then there's a corps of players who love the Great American Songbook and early-century novelty tunes. For us alt-ukers," he muses," we're people who love the underdog, I guess. Or feel that the underdog might be more interesting to hang out with."
____________________ Richard Hefner MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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