A meeting, a book and a song...

Sometimes you meet the most interesting people. And no, not at those stiff networking cocktail hours. Those are horrible. You meet them at the café, that's where all the real exciting stuff happens. A couple of weeks ago we performed at De Unie. Afterwards we met a couple of very interesting folks. I'd like to tell you about one of them...

Meet... Raoul de Jong! He's a young writer, actor and dancer. He's had four books published and the night we met him he was telling us all about...






The Book...
he is currently working on. I can't really reveal the format but let's just say it also includes music and dancing. Look at him go!

So anyway, just by chance he was looking for performers to do some of the songs for the book and asked us if we were interested. We met up the following week and got on together like a wild fire. I like him lots! So we decided to work with him on some of the music for this book.

The first song he had for us was a french song by Francois Hardy called 'Tous les Garcon et les Filles'. Here is the original...

Nice song, right!? I thought that we could definitely do something special with it. My idea was to add a guitar to it with lots of tremelo and make it kind of 'David Lynch-y' or like the sound that 'Crimson and Clover' has. Dreamy.

So, after spending many days of trying to learn the french lyrics we went upstairs to my cozy apartment, pulled out every musical instrument that we own to try to get the sound we were looking for and put a demo together. We ended up using several guitar parts, a snare drum and a toy accoordeon all played by Marko while i played the washtub bass and sang the vocals. My french still sucks but i really like how the song turned out. Here's our demo version of
The Song, 'Tous les Garcons et les Filles'

The Uke Box after the SLAM

Poetry Slamming at 4:30pm, Dinner for just 5,-euro at 6pm and the music starts around 7:30pm till 11. Hemingways, Rotterdam. See you there?

Headstock Sketches

for 3-string Cigarbox Guitars

Cat & Canary Flute

One of my Belgian Ukulele chums sent me a sweet present this week. The Cat & Canary flute. It's a slide flute which can be played with or without a 'warble', depending on which angle you hold it. And, the little birdy in the cage flutters around when in warbling mode. BONUS! Thank you ever so for the charming gift, Herman! And speaking of gifts, listen to what Herman can do with a ukulele...
An interesting aside... When i typed Cat & Canary in google i came across this clip from the 1927 film "The Cat and The Canary", an American silent horror film adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, and starring Laura La Plante as Annabelle West. I LOVE the modern intrepretation of the sound track by L'Inquietant Suspendu.

The Cat & the Canary

The Uke Box on De Unie Late Nite Talk Show

The sound isn't great, but the vibe is fantastic! Since it's in Dutch i'll explain a bit of what is going on... Eva interviews us about Ukulele Consciousness in the Lowlands, then Thijs joins us and we teach them both to play 'Jambalaya' by Hank Williams then Marko and i close with our versions of 'Diep In Mijn Hart' bij Jaap Valkhof. Great Fun!

Uke'n Be My Valentine

If you really want to have 'em swoonin' on Valentines Day,
learn to play 'My Funny Valentine' on your uke.
Chords and tabs follow... My Funny Valentine
[Dm]My funny [A7]valentine,
[Dm7]sweet, comic [Dm6]valentine -
[A#]You make me [Gm7]smile
[Gm6] with my [A7]heart. [Gm] [A7]
[Dm]Your looks are [A7]laughable,
[Dm7]unphoto[Dm6]graphable,
[A#]Yet you're my[Gm7]favorite [A#m]work of a[C7]rt.

Bridge:
Is your [F]figure [C7]less than [F]Greek?
[Gm7]Is [C7]your [F]mouth a [Gm7]little [F]weak?
[Gm7]When [C7]you [Fm7]open [A7]it to speak, [Dm]are you [A#m7]smart? [C7]

[A7]But [Dm]don't change a [A7]hair for me,
[Dm7]Not if you [Dm6]care for me -
[A#]Stay, little[Em7] val - en - [A7]tine, [Dm]stay! [F7]
[A#]Each [A#m7]day is [Gm7]val - en - [C7]tine's [F]day. [A#7] [A7]

Here's a beautiful version by WS64.
Download the tabs here.

In the latest edition of NL10...

Ukulele in De Unie

This coming Thursday (the 3rd) we (The Uke Box) are making an appearance on De Unie Late Nite Talk Show. We'll be giving an interview and showing photographs of the 'Ukulele Consciousness' in the Low Lands. After this the hosts of the show, Eva & Thijs, are going to get a Ukulele Intervention and learn how to play the uke! We'll then close with a song by the two of us. We'd love to see lots of ukuleles in the audience. If you are close to Rotterdam come to the Unie with your ukulele and play 'Jambalaya' with us! The show begins at 21:30, entrance is just € 2,50!

In de Unie on Friday the 25th of February the amazing Olof Arnalds will be performing. She's an Islandic folk singer and multi-instrumentalist including the Charango. The Charango is best described as a South American Super Ukulele. It's has 8 strings and sounds beautiful....

The Fournicators won't be fournicating for a while...

Well, i can't say this year has gotten off to the shining start i had hoped it would. Marko and i are playing in a new band called the Fournicators. We had some really awesome gigs coming up and felt that the band could really go places. But, a terrible incident occured that left our drummer Tomas with a fractured skull. I'm not going to recount the incident, it's just too horrible. Tomas has been in the hospital for two weeks. We saw him for the first time this past week. Part of me was a bit relieved because Tomas was still his old self in many ways but on the other hand it was very disturbing. He's not quite sure where he is. Sometimes he thinks he's in a hotel and wants to get a drink at the bar together, a minute later he thinks he's at home. His motor skills are still working but he's just terribly confused. Next week he'll go into revalidation and we are all hoping for the best. We miss him terribly. It's going to be a long road to recovery. We Love You Tom!