Jake is in town! We saw a concert last night at the Old Town School, where he opened for Loudon Wainwright III. He played a bunch of stuff that I recognized from previous times that I've seen him, but he did not finish with "Crazy G", which was a shame. Still, you can't complain at a Jake concert, because you get at least 3 or 4 times the amount of playing from a regular concert. And everybody at the concert was duly impressed.
I picked up a copy of his DVD Play Ukulele Loud at the merch table, because the DVD has some instructional stuff on it and I wanted to see what kind of tips I could pick up from Jake. At first glance, it looks like he demonstrates the flashy finger rolls and strumming techniques, and doesn't go into much depth of demonstration. I guess he figures that with DVD technology you can just play the clips over and over again until you get them right. Well, I guess I can do that. But it would be nice to see a better in-depth instructional DVD. (The best instructional DVD that I've seen, oddly enough, is the DJ Q-Bert turntable scratching DVDs, which demonstrate techniques meticulously, with looped chapters so you can practice over and over.)
Jake's doing a couple more performances today, out in the suburbs somewhere, but I've got to practice for a performance tomorrow night downtown. Plus, the other performances are wicked expensive, so best to stay at home and practice.