Sunday, March 17, 2013

A Last Hurrah with Tippy Canoe

Michele Kappel-Stone writes: 



Ron Hale said...

Michele rode the mighty third wave while it was sky high, Gary. Now that it's a mere ripple of it's former glory she's jumping off. And she's not the only one reading the writing on the ukulele wall.

And what does that writing say? "Same old, same old, same old, SAME SAME SAME OLD OLD OLD!"

The wave grew from Jake's "Gently Weeps" video but even the Beatles wound down and broke up.

The uke world desperately needs a new Jake, a new "Gently Weeps" to awaken it from its stupor.

The ukulele revolution once was cutting edge. Now that edge is so dulled it wouldn't split the thinnest of soprano strings.

In fact the revolution is over and the lean and hungry rebels have morphed into the new fat bourgeoisie. Jake included. UOGB included.

Sucking up dollars from the complacent consuming class they've nurtured.

Time for some new ukulele street fighters to once again 'Rock That Uke'. Remove the rot. Recreate. Regenerate.

Or it's all over...

Gary said...

Interesting thoughts, Ron.

I've always savored the uke's underclass status. What worries me most is how uke players will be perceived after the current wave passes from the popular scene again. Can we maintain our pride and strum on as stalwarts or will we be seen as people who just didn't get the memo.

I see a lot of young people come into the music store, start ripping up a Jake arrangement that they learned off of YouTube. First I feel really outclassed, because I've never worked on any of Jake's stuff. Then I find out that that's the only thing they can play, and really have no idea what they're doing.

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