All posts in category Music
Sarah E. Laing went to a tUnE-yArDs concert last month
Posted by acilius on February 3, 2012
https://losthunderlads.com/2012/02/03/6192/
I like Pandora
I’ve been putting in some long hours on the job recently, which is why I haven’t been posting much. One thing I do to break up the monotony of long sessions of paperwork is to let one or another of our Pandora stations play in the background. Pandora has introduced me to a lot of music that I like very much. For example, I’d never heard of Labi Siffre until “Bless the Telephone” popped up on some station or other, now he’s one of my favorites. Nor had I heard of Polk Miller until “Pussycat Rag” ” (download it for free here) came on our station devoted to the Hoosier Hotshots, now I can’t get enough of him either. So here are YouTube embeds featuring those two artists.
Labi Siffre, “Bless the Telephone”
Polk Miller and the Old South Quartette, “What a Time”
Also, here’s Labi Siffre’s own website. Since Polk Miller died in 1913, he doesn’t maintain a website, but here’s a review of a CD release of his recordings.
Posted by acilius on November 18, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/11/18/i-like-pandora/
Herman Vandecauter and ukulele enlightenment
For some time now, Herman Vandecauter has been giving the world an education in the possibilities of various stringed instruments, including the ukulele. Here’s his latest entry on soundcloud, an original composition called “Instantanea.” About three months ago, he posted this piece there, a suite that Johann Joseph Vilsmeyer wrote in 1715 for violin, which Herman arranged for tenor ukulele. Herman is the perfect artist for soundcloud; the wave forms emphasize the care with which he articulates each note of each piece, at the same time they illustrate the flow of the melody.
He also is a mighty presence on YouTube. In this video, he plays his composition “The Russel Falls”:
Herman maintains several ukulele-oriented sites. There’s Ukulele News, an English-language blog with reports on our favorite instrument. And Ukulele Belgium, which is similar but partly in Flemish. He’s on Twitter, and Tumblr, and a couple of years ago he posted some interesting photos on Flickr. His classical guitar site is worth checking regularly, as well. So he’s quite a busy gent.
Posted by acilius on October 14, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/10/14/herman-vandecauter-and-ukulele-enlightenment/
I love the things that…
Al Wood says: “It seems there are two types of site on the internet: sites about things people do (like Facebook, Twitter and Perez Hilton) and sites about things that people make (like YouTube, Tumblr and Boing, Boing). And I think you can guess which side of this I’m on.” So he suggests that The Burning Hell’s “I Love the Things That People Make” should become “the official anthem of the internet.”
For some time, I’ve been trying to come up with a good tagline for this site. When I read this bit of Al’s, it became obvious to me that it ought to be “I love the things that people think.”
Posted by acilius on September 14, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/09/14/i-love-the-things-that/
You Told Me You Loved Me on April Fool’s Day
Poopy Lungstuffing sings an original composition (by Puppetrina) in honor of 1 April.
Posted by acilius on April 1, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/04/01/you-told-me-you-loved-me-on-april-fools-day/
Manitoba Hal wins!
The votes are in for Ukulele Hunt’s Video of the Year 2010 contest, and our favorite Manitoba Hal has won a much-deserved victory. He edged Bella Hemming’s “Play Guitar” (which is also excellent) by 11 votes out of 1225 cast. The big surprise was that Jonsi and Nico Muhli’s “Go Do” came last with only 31 votes; I’d expected it to be one of the top finishers. It was my second choice. Maybe it was lots of people’s second choice.
Posted by acilius on February 16, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/02/16/manitoba-hal-wins/
Vote for Manitoba Hal!
Voting is underway in Ukulele Hunt’s Ukulele Video of the Year 2010 contest. My vote went to Manitoba Hal’s “Poulet Shack“:
The early voting is going Hal’s way, though that’s no indicator of how it will end up. Whether he wins this time around or not, Hal might win the Ukulele Video of the Year 2011 contest a year from now, based on his latest upload, “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women“:
There were a couple of disappointments this time around. Lila Burns’ “Young Hearts, Young Minds” didn’t make the final cut; I don’t know how it would have done in a video contest, but I’d have voted for it as ukulele song of the year. Also, Ukulele Hunt webmaster Al Wood included the Keston Cobblers’ Club’s “You Go” in his initial suggestions; lots of people nominated it before it turned out to have been posted in 2009. It really is a spectacular video, I suspect it would have won. Several people wanted to nominate a video Al included in a recent Saturday UkeTube, a song called “Map of Tasmania” starring Amanda Palmer and her pubic hair; that one was uploaded this year, and will likely be among the stiffest competition “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women” (or whatever it ends up being) has to overcome to be Ukulele Video of the Year 2011.
Posted by acilius on February 11, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/02/11/vote-for-manitoba-hal/
“King of Hope,” by Honor Finnegan
An original ukulele song by Honor Finnegan calls for us to observe Martin Luther King’s birthday by giving him the gift he always wanted.
Posted by acilius on January 17, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/01/17/king-of-hope-by-honor-finnegan/
Full circle
In the 1920s and early 1930s, so many people took up the ukulele that it was a staple of popular culture to complain about the annoyance of bad amateur ukers. Reyalp Eleluku, the Backward Ukulele Player, often posts reports of anti-ukulele sentiment from that period. Nowadays the uke is back in fashion, and with that fashion has come more complaining about people who play badly in public.
In the same years, the comic strip Blondie debuted in US newspapers. Blondie has kept going ever since; it has never changed the Art Deco-inspired drawing style that made it so hip back then.
Today’s Blondie might have appeared in the strip’s first year of publication, 1930:
Posted by acilius on January 15, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/01/15/full-circle/
Baby Don’t Stop, by POLYUSOs
These guys have real promise, I hope to see a lot more from them. Their YouTube channel is called POLYUSOs, I suppose that’s the name of their act.
Posted by acilius on January 9, 2011
https://losthunderlads.com/2011/01/09/baby-dont-stop-by-polyusos/




