Limitied edition Grateful Dead ukuleles

This wouldn't be my thing but these Alverez ukes look pretty cool. These are supposedly only available at Guitar Center.

These are "Limited" edition rather than "Limitied". Or are they limitiedyed edition?

they look great brother. a couple of designs in particular.
only wish they had painted the headplates also.

I might be misinformed, but I thought the Grateful Dead didn’t have anything to do with ukuleles. These would make more sense if they did...

On other related notes: did you see the Alvarez guitars that matched the guitar in Coco? There were actually a few models at different price points.

And, I’m more likely to buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” than I am to buy a Grateful Dead ukulele.

I hear they are coming out with Black Sabbath ukes next year. Relevance to reality does not really matter to marketing... lol

John

... Just in case... I am joking about the Black Sabbath ukes.

Love those ukuleles, and the Dead.

My pal Scooter told me about these a few days ago.

Larger close-up photos can be seen here: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Alvarez/Grateful-Dead-Concert-Ukulele.gc

I'm not one for heavily-designed ukes, but I think the 'Lightning' one (far right in the OP) is the one I like the most, as I'm not really into skulls (yes I know that is a Grateful Dead logo thing), but the red & blue on the spruce has a nice balance of color and contrast to me, without being too intense. But that's only me.

I'm sure some folks will really want one of these.

Thanks for sharing!

I like the lightning design best too. Glad they are concert size, might be a bit more volume from the laminate.

Choirguy said:

I might be misinformed, but I thought the Grateful Dead didn’t have anything to do with ukuleles. These would make more sense if they did...

And, I’m more likely to buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” than I am to buy a Grateful Dead ukulele.

Click to expand...

I saw these a few weeks back and had the same thought. The designs are nice tho...

I went to my local(ish) Guitar Center the other day to check these puppies out in person.

They had three of the designs in stock: Veneta, Tattoo, and Montage (no sign of Roses or Lightning). The artwork is well done, “screen printed” on the laminate spruce tops. As GD memorabilia/merchandise, they’re pretty cool looking, reasonably priced, and a fairly nifty novelty item to add to someone’s collection of GD stuff.

As ukuleles... there’s actually some very good news. I found all three models to be well made examples of a good sounding all laminate concert Uke. They all sounded pretty much the same, with a pleasingly warm yet bright tone. The sealed geared tuners were fine and worked well and smoothly. Surprisingly, the action and intonation was decent on all of them as well and there were no sharp fret ends and no buzzes apparent.

All in all, for $99 (+ $20 for a matching gig bag) they’re a pretty good deal. A definite step up from some of the cheaper beginner Ukes I’ve seen, and better than a lot of other laminate Ukes in the same (or even higher) price range. If you’re a Deadhead looking for a good first Uke, this would be a great choice. Likewise, a Deadhead seasoned ukeist would probably enjoy adding one (or more) to their collection. If I can find a way to liberate $120 I’ll be following my own advice before too long.

BTW... while there isn’t a specifically apparent GD/Ukulele connection, Bob Weir has a longstanding relationship with Alvarez, having had an Alvarez-Yairi signature guitar since the mid 80’s. Garcia also played Alvarez-Yairis onstage exclusively from the mid 80’s until his death in ‘95.





Peace,

Scooter

Choirguy said:

On other related notes: did you see the Alvarez guitars that matched the guitar in Coco? There were actually a few models at different price points.

Click to expand...

The "Coco" collection is built by Córdoba. I bought the hog model. It is a smaller size and plays/sounds great and it was barely over $120 with a gig bag. Nice.