Season 394 - The Electric Version

I was on holiday so electric uking and garageband stuff was a little hard ;). But I'm back now so here is a U2 song called Red Flag Day. The Ukulele is my Harley Benton SG Ukulele, I've changed the pickup as that is very disappointing by default (I've had another one where the bridge broke, which had the same bad pickup). It is going through a Zoom Effectspedal into my Ibanez Acoustic Amp (Which also does the vocals).
 
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Here's one from an old rock n roller. I love weeks like this! My offering is Brown Sugar from the Rolling Stones. I'm playing my custom walnut tenor through a Digitech Element XP over a midi drum and bass line. Everything else is me and the uke! Rock on Electric Version!

 
Here's one on my 3 string fretless cigar box gui.....ahem...ukulele.Son House's Death Letter Blues.I recommend checking out Son House on youtube if not familiar.An hypnotic performer of Delta Blues slide.
 
I can't express enough how lucky I am to live where I do. Not only are there a number of incredibly talented Seasonistas in and around Portland, but for almost as long as I've learned to play I've been a member of a few different ukulele groups. This video is from a practice I had last night with my current uke group. We're a six piece group but there were only three of us last night. No electronic effects here but we're plugged in.
BONUS: I'm not singing this song, so.....you're welcome.

I would have loved to have done Legend Of A Mind by The Moodies for this week but didn't have the time.

 
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Fool on the hill with ice on the lake to mirror the sky.
And there is a hole in everything that is how the water gets out
 
I was beginning to doubt I'd get something done this week. I recorded this on Wednesday, got the video done yesterday and finally got it uploaded this morning. Life kept getting in the way in the meantime.

I have chosen an ELO song that I had intended to do during the recent ELO week but ran out of time. I've used a tenor Risa Uke'Ellie solid ukulele into a Boss BR800 multi track recorder and used the built in effects which are pretty good. I chose a 'bluesy guitar' tone with minimal overdrive and added some chorus. I then added reverb to both the Uke and Vocal in Audacity. You can add reverb in the BR800 but it doesn't record directly, you have to 'bounce' the tracks to add it so it's a bit of a faff.

The video uses old photos I took mostly when walking in the Lake District many years ago. The built in light meter in the 35mm camera I had then tended to lead to slight underexposure and digitising the slides added to the problem. Post processing using a photo editor (the Gimp, in my case) doesn't really bring back the original colour properly. However they give some interesting colour effects and quite a few of them were taken late in the day.
 
So ... yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of my first ukulele arriving from the FedEx truck. What a long, strange trip it's been. This is the first song I performed for a Season, No. 151. I didn't have much confidence in my singing or playing at the time (with justification). I'm still working on the singing part. But hey, it's been great and hope the journey continues for many Seasons to come!

Thanks for all your encouragement and good cheer over the weeks!

 
Yesh, this kind of post usually shouldn't go in the main thread, but I've been working on my entry all week, and it's 7 minutes before midnight on a Saturday, so.. The song I'll be doing is another DOCTOR SPARKLES tune by the name of "Practice Suspicious Behavior", and since I had all this extra footage of me trying to wander around my neighborhood looking suspicious (only to get thwarted by some suspicious rain), I thought I'd drop the original ukulele tune here first...

 
For Liza

A quick ditty on my Harley-Benton SB electric baritone, played through my Marshall MS-4 amplifier.



It's been nearly 9 months since I had this computer up & running. It's good to be back by the CD Tower of Babel. :)
 
rob, i theoretically love you like a brother i've never met, and this is one of my favorite beatles songs. But there was a 3-song limit, and this is number six. You can stop now. :d

Hehehe!!! :D
 
Rob, I theoretically love you like a brother I've never met, and this is one of my favorite Beatles songs. But there was a 3-song limit, and this is number six. You can stop now. :D

That's what you get when you don't read the fine print... but this post processing stuff is what I do so I got carried away... Sorry.
 
My second is some Pet Shop boys. I've used a clean sound for this one with chorus and delay. I've added chorus and reverb to the vocals. I think this sound works well as an alternative to Tennant and Lowe's synth tones.
 
OMD wrote a perfect song for this Season---I wish I could've put it together sooner (and with more effects)

 
A friend of mine, who is a music producer, liked my contribution this week, but felt I was being too literal and lost the opening poetry too early on.
So I took his advice and revised the lyrics. This is how Sleepless Too (2) :) goes now:

Sleepless Too

My eyes are closed the room is in darkness
Outside the clouds have kept the sky starless.
Behind my lids there are flashes going off.
Blinding white or cobalt blue:
Are they just gravitons passing through?

I long to sleep, but sleep won't take me.
The slightest sound seems to wake me.
I'm bathed in sweat and the morning's coming on.

Storms in my thoughts echoed in thunder
My peace of mind rent asunder
Here and now becoming there and then.
What use now: "I should have said..."?
Remorse and regret tower above my bed.

SOLO & CHORUS

My body's tense - I feel I'm sinking
Swamped by the stress of too much thinking.
Tossing and turning until well past four.
Can't seem to get a moment's peace
How I wish this torture would just cease.
 
I have been busier than a one-armed paper-hanger with a case of the hives. I have so much work to do, but I had to do this song because I had a gig over the weekend where the sponsor gave all the musicians ball caps to wear and it was required to wear them. The sponsor is a kind of hideous big bank, so I wore this tie with this jacket in anticipation of what the caps would look like. When they passed out these black caps with only a small embossed logo on the clasp at the back, I thought I looked a bit like Angus Young in this rig. So here is some acoustic soprano AC/DC.

 
My second and final contribution for this week. I was going to do a cover of Kanye's song called "Gay Fish" but couldn't find the correct chords. :)

I recently got a used computer from a friend that works in IT at a local college. It is an upgrade to 64 bit and also has a solid state drive(the save times are fantastic.) The unexpected bonus of switching to 64 bit was that a plug-in I previously used for vocal mixing now has pitch correction! Not bad for a VST that cost me twenty bucks a few years back(Izotope Nectar Elements for those that are interested.) Still, the vocals had plenty of artifacts so I put them further back in the mix(small price to pay to make them tolerable!)

This one is by my second favorite band of all time. It was their first song on their first album. Been hooked ever since!

 
Season 394 is now ended. Please check to make sure I didn't inadvertently leave any of your videos off the playlist.
 
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