From Stephin Merritt

Words of advice from ukulele player Stephin Merritt, who was on a book tour with Lemony Snicket. Fans of Merritt and his many bands and side projects can find the chords to plenty of his songs at the Stephinsongs site.

Jake

Jake comes alive on NPR. Gotta get that new album...

Own the Jake

If you want a Jake Shimabukuro limited edition Kamaka tenor ukulele, you can sign up now to be in a lottery to be allowed to purchase one. This would probably make you the coolest uke player in your practice group, but... I dunno, itd feel a bit self-conscious getting one of these and rocking out to, say, "Five Foot Two" or something basic like that. I'd feel like I should be always doing some fantastic picking exercises or something. Think I'll stick with the old Martin soprano for now.

Jake's doing some performances around the US right now; he'll be in Chicago on Sunday, August 6. Check out his tour schedule to see if he'll be in your neck of the woods sometime soon.

What do Tony Danza and I have in common?

The answer may surprise you!

Flea-less in Seattle

The other day I ran across the site for the Seattle Ukulele Players Association, which looks like a HUGE group of uke players in Seattle. They've got one thing that every ukulele group needs: a huge sourcebook with all the songs in their repertiore. They've also got one thing that many good ukulele clubs also have: a huge sourcebook with all the songs of a NEIGHBORING ukulele club (namely, the Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz). Both of these books are available at a copy shop somewhere in Seattle; residents should check out the site for details.

We went to Seattle on our honeymoon and had a great time there. We've always said that we need to get back there at some point, so maybe if we ever do get back there we should meet up with the Seattle club. Looks like they have loads of events and meetings happening all the time, so it should be easy.

Yet another uke player

Warren Buffett. There was a picture in Sunday's New York Times of him playing an uke. But that's not the weird part. The weird part is that the Fruit of the Loom guys were sitting at a table in the background of the photo.

Jake, Jake, Jake

Three Jake Shimabukuro items:

• Tomorrow night at Joe's (940 W. Weed in Chicago), Jake plays a show at 9:00 PM.
• The evening of Tuesday, December 13, Jake plays a set on Conan O'Brien's show.
• And on Saturday, March 11, Jake opens two concerts with Loudon Wainwright III at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

Rumor has it that our ukulele class might be able to get a private workshop with Jake when he comes through town in March. Wouldn't THAT be special.