a new website for UkeSA and Pops

For the past few year, Alvin Okami would ask me to get a message out to the online ukulele world or to show his new prototypes as he explored new designs. He would send me messages to post and I would send the responses back to him and he loved it. Both, he and I, met so many great people here at UU. People who loved Pops and Koaloha, and members who became great friends offering sound advice and lots of support.

Often we would hear the suggestion that we needed a website for UkeSA but Pops is just not good online. During this COVID-19 Stay at Home time, both of us had a lot of time to develop an online presence for Pops. We worked on it together and I am thrilled to say that you can now find www.ukesahawaii.com online. We built this website around Pops, not around Products, although, you can find many of Pops' newest designs, KoAloha strings and cases, Pop's 25th Anniversary mini's, and even the CD's he recorded, but the most important concept of this site is that it is a site about Pops, his stories, his musings on his designs, and Pops just being Pops. I would love for you to check it out and let us know what you think. We tried to be different, and informative.

As days became weeks, and now months, we also created a Facebook page @ukesahawaii, a twitter account @hawaiiukesa and an Instagram account. The main purpose of all of these accounts is for Pops to be able to communicate with you directly. There is always speculation about Pops and his intentions such as, "Why did he create the crown headstock" or "Does the Sceptre have religious meaning?" Well, now you can just ask him.

I want to also thank the many friends we met here and for the friendship they have given to us. Thanks especially to Kenn, and Rainbow21. Mahalo!

Please check us out at www.ukesahawaii.com. Feel free to comment on our new site.

https://ukesahawaii.com/about-us-at-ukesa-hawaii/

Oh goodness...I want a mini SO bad. If they had one in the traditional KoAloha design, I'd buy it in a moment, I fear!

There actually is one just like the very first mini which created KoAloha 25 years ago. About two months ago, Pops gifted one to a member here who purchased an AO with a figure 8 body.

Thanks for sharing this with us, and thanks for helping to give us all a more direct line to Pop's himself!

Good to hear, these should always have been kept separate from KoAloha.

Hi Ed! Great site! I'm glad you mentioned the social media stuff. I don't think I saw it on the UkeSA site; if it's not already, you might want to add that in somewhere so people can follow on InstaFaceTwit.

Just wanted to chime in and say a couple things for everyone else. I was fortunate enough to purchase one of Pops' UkeSA ukuleles recently, and it is possibly the best sounding soprano I've ever played--the only other one that sounded as good to me was a KoAloha silver I got to try. It's certainly my best sounding soprano, and it may have curbed my UAS, for sopranos at least.

Ed was very generous with his time, diligently and patiently replying to every email. I think I've dealt with about a dozen other uke retailers altogether and not one has been as good about communicating as Ed.

Ed, I wish you and Pops the best! Stay safe!

How big (small?) are those minis? I don't see any specs in the descriptions.

badhabits said:

How big (small?) are those minis? I don't see any specs in the descriptions.

Click to expand...

click on all the pics and you will see them with objects that show scale (about 6 inches)

snowdenn said:

Hi Ed! Great site! I'm glad you mentioned the social media stuff. I don't think I saw it on the UkeSA site; if it's not already, you might want to add that in somewhere so people can follow on InstaFaceTwit.

Just wanted to chime in and say a couple things for everyone else. I was fortunate enough to purchase one of Pops' UkeSA ukuleles recently, and it is possibly the best sounding soprano I've ever played--the only other one that sounded as good to me was a KoAloha silver I got to try. It's certainly my best sounding soprano, and it may have curbed my UAS, for sopranos at least.

Ed was very generous with his time, diligently and patiently replying to every email. I think I've dealt with about a dozen other uke retailers altogether and not one has been as good about communicating as Ed.

Ed, I wish you and Pops the best! Stay safe!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind words and I am thrilled that you are enjoying that "one of a kind" AO ukulele. I hope you are well. Please stay safe!!!

I just spent about an hour looking at the site. Very nice! I really enjoyed his sharing of the thought processes behind his design choices. I would love to see more stories, I'm sure Pops has lots to tell. I'm UASing for one of his sopranos now.

Great to know! I hope they use a bit of SEO and make it more visible on Google. It's not even in the first 100 places when I look up a ukulele. It's a real pity because a vast majority of people don't even know how a ukulele looks in the first place, and there should be much more recognition for such a beautiful instrument. There are many ways to promote and rank the site better for sure, let apart from the fact that there are not many competitors with similar sites. With a bit of cheap SEO you can achieve a quick ranking in the first places of Google like I did with my site and see much more traffic.

Hey there-- choir guy, we now have the mini in that design. you can find it here: https://ukesahawaii.com/product/the...-koaloha-ukulele-by-alvin-pops-koaloha-okami/. Send me an email at ed@mainstage.org for the sale price if you are interested