China Girl - David Bowie Cover

When I was online dating, there were a couple of guys who emailed me saying "I like asian girls" - was it the only thing that they liked about my dating profile? I want to be loved for being me and not for being asian. 

I'm reclaiming this song from David Bowie. I was tempted to put on a chinese accent when singing it, but refrained, since it still is a pretty song. 

China Girl - David Bowie Cover by iloveuke

Bringing Sexy Back (Justin Timberlake and Timbaland) cover

Guess who brought sexy back today? :)

That's right, Katie and I brought it back. It wasn't far. All it took was a couple of ukuleles and a shaker. We started at around 1 and finished bringing sexy back at precisely 2:13pm.

Sexy back - Justin Timberlake (ukulele cover) by iloveuke

A.

I'm so tired, or playin', playin' with this bow and airrow

A little Portishead for a Friday night

Glory Box - Portishead (ukulele cover) by iloveuke

Billie Jean is not your lover

I got a baritone ukulele back from a friend that was moving (it needs a foster home), and I have been thinking about this song that I like to play on the uke so I decided to fire up Garageband to play this on the baritone uke. When I started singing, I found that it was odd because it's told from a man's perspective. So I've altered it a bit and I think it works well.

The question I pose to everyone is, while MJ was dancing on lit sidewalks, did you ever think about poor Billie Jean? I know it's not a real story but I'm just sayin', someone has to love that little baby and take care of it and that person was Billie Jean.

Thank's for a good song MJ. Altered lyrics are below.

Billie Jean (woman's perspective) on ukulele by iloveuke


Billie Jean

It's not like I am a beauty queen from a movie scene
He said don't mind, but who do you mean that I am the one
Who should dance on the floor in the round
I said you the one who should dance on the floor in the round

I told him my name was Billie Jean, and he caused a scene
Then every head turned with eyes that gleamed of being the one
Who would dance on the floor in the round

People always told me be careful what you do
Don't go around breaking your own heart
And mother always told me be careful who you love
Be careful what you do 'cause his lies are never true

Billie Jean is not your lover
I'm just a girl who knows that you are the one
and the kid is your own blood
I say you are the one, the kid your own son

For forty days and forty nights
The law was on his side
But who can stand a baby's demand
this is no schemes and plans
'Cause we danced on the floor in the round
So take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice
(Do think twice)

I told my baby we'd danced 'till three
Then he looked at me
I showed a photo of a baby cryin'
who's eyes are divine
Come on dance on the floor in the round, baby

People always told me be careful what you do
Don't go around breaking your own heart
I came and stood right by him
with the smell of sweet perfume
This happened much too soon
He called me to his room

Billie Jean is not your lover
I'm just a girl who knows that you are the one
and the kid is your son

Billie Jean is not your lover
I'm just a girl who claims that you are the one
and the kid is your own blood
I say you are the one, the kid your own son

My name's Billie and you're breakin' my heart ya
Billie Jean is not your lover
Billie Jean is not your lover
Billie Jean is not your lover
Billie Jean is not your lover

Feeling Good - Nina Simone on the Ukulele

I was watching Chuck and at the end of the show the two main characters were lying on the bed listening to Feeling Good by Nina Simone. I had forgotten about that song for a few years.

Hearing it again, my mind said Oh Nina, it sure is a good one, .
There's nothing like Nina Simone's alto voice and minor chords. When I hear the song as she performs it, I wondered if she is really feeling good?

After singing it myself, my interpretation is that it's not meant to be 'feeling good' as in giddy, but rather, feeling present and engaged with all that the world offers. To find the speed in order to sip the beauty around oneself. Walking slowly, with wonder. That's what I need.

Feeling Good - Nina Simone Cover on the Ukulele by iloveuke

The Po-po shut us down (Tik-tok Ke$ha cover)

I don't brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack. I like Colgate (always the paste and never the gel). I appreciate the irony of me playing this one, since I don't party and I would kick someone to the curb if they did look like Mick Jagger.

However, this being said, I do have an appreciation for a catchy pop tune when I hear it. Especially the ones that have 3 chords, some sing-song rapping styles, and the potential for some harmony, so I had a bit of fun this afternoon with this one.

Tik-tok - Ke$ha ukulele cover by iloveuke

The Mighty Uke and the Lowest of the Low

I went to see The mighty uke with some uke friends. Awesome movie, confirms what I love so much and for how I believe that the uke can bring people together. After the show, James Hill, and Anne Davidson played some songs and led the crowd to play along to a couple of songs.

Sunny, David, and I came back to jam a bit, Sunny and I lay this track down.

Apr 17

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

It's cold and it's a broken hallelujah

It's Sunday, and raining. I like to play this one a lot. It reminds me of how communication can break down between people, but I feel like there's an element of hope to it. Leonard Cohen did a fine job, Jeff Buckley perfected it. Rufus Wainwright and KD Lang have both done a superb job. KD's performance for the Olympics, unrushed, drew the Hallejulah didn't she?

I've played this twice in public:

- Once at the Dominion Pub at  the Corktown Uke Jam where the whole room sang hallelujah together. It was so beautiful that it made me feel like my soul was floating above the room.

- Once at the Harp in Port Credit after Paul passed away. Barely knew the guy but I can recognize a spirit who affects people around him.

When I sing it, I like to strip it away and let it just be honest and vulnerable, the way I think it's intended. So this is just me, my feelings, my uke and my voice.

I put a low G on my Fluke uke. I think it makes it sound better.

Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen cover / Jeff Buckley version by iloveuke

Amber

Impromptu meeting results in awesome jam - Great DJ by the Ting Tings

Meet Katie everyone!

Coming home from work tonight, I bumped into Katie literally outside of the front door of my apartment. Katie is another 3rd of the Corktown Ukettes (this is a working name). We're booked to play at a couple of weddings. If any of you reading wants 3 girls playing the ukulele at their wedding, then get in touch with us.

Katie and I had an impromptu jam on the ukes. We covered quite a few greats songs, but a slow jam of the Great DJ by the Ting Tings was by far the most awesome.

For this track,  Katie is on vocals. I took out my Hagstrom acoustic guitar and Katie played my Kala kitchen uke.  This was probably our third time every playing it, so it needs some polish.

We both thought it turned out pretty freakin' sweet.

Great DJ - Ting Tings Cover by iloveuke

Hope you enjoy it.

This is what my photo sounds like

My facebook picture translates into the key of Bm, two grand pianos and an acoustic guitar.

http://music.almerblank.com/synthia_tracks/783

I like it actually. I think that sounds like me.

In Your Room

I wrote this song and dedicate it to friends of mine who are on introverted side of life, who have to be careful not to isolate themselves.

Last year, a friend of mine had a neighbour that died. A recluse. The neighbour was in her 80s, and the realty company was throwing out all of her belongings. They couldn't reach anyone who knew her.

No way I thought. Someone knows her. No person lives alone on this planet, we are a part of one another and we affect one another. On a quest to find out who she was, my friend and I embarked on a mission to find her family and friends. The door to her apartment was left ajar and we went inside to seek more information so that we could make phone calls to find out.

Apparently the realty company had already thrown out half of her belongings, but you could hardly tell. The place was filled to the bring with "stuff" - books, pamphlets, calligraphy tools, lots of empty notebooks, curled up papers, and there was a layer of brown dust on everything, the kind that comes from years of no one touching it. It was as close to a haunted house that I had ever seen.

The night we went into the apartment, I felt an energy. A presence, like someone was watching me as I got into bed that night. It felt so eerie that I tried channelling my friends and family on the other side to tell them to tell her that I was a good person.

Armed with 2 photo albums, we finally tracked down her distant family, who lived in Ottawa. We found out that her name was Karen. As her family explained it... "Karen was a gentle and caring person who also lived very quietly and without many friends."

I think those of us who are on the introverted side of life have to guard against isolating oneself too much. Take your retreat, lick your wounds, but don't forget to come back out to live with other people.

This is one of the only songs that I've actually finished writing so the lyrics are below. There were some sirens outside when I was recording it so I decided to leave them in rather than to start again, and I put a Sixties shimmer on the voice to try to bring it a bit closer.

It goes out to Karen Coulthart, who worked 25 years for the Ontario Government, who had also been trained as a nurse, sponsored 2 children from World Vision Canada, loved her mother Pearl, and died in December 2008.

In your room by iloveuke

--------------------------------------


In Your Room

In your room the shadows are silent
the noise outside so loud and so violent
and your dreams they seem so far away

And who are you to want it all
that you have so much that you cannot fall
you don't have the strength to tear down all the walls

In your room there are a lot of books
of adventures that you never really took
it's easy to read but hard to really live

And who are you to want a life
Avoid the struggle, avoid the strife
You give up your dream and you accept your destiny

In your room dust bunnies don't hop
the clock is ticking you wish it would stop
your life is on hold until you can figure it out

And who are you that time should stand still
you'll take yourself another pill
put it off one more day and another and another

In your room where your thoughts are so loud
you never share, never speak them aloud
they scream inside and they never really stop

and who are you to want inner peace
keep it all inside, never release
never express it just bottle it upinside

In your room where no one goes
you think of the past and all you chose
love seems made for someone else

And who are you to want love like that
you'll get yourself a domestic cat
who comes when you call it or maybe not come at all

Fear it keeps you pinned down low
the sun may shine but nothing grows
if you don't make yourself a change then
the world turns with out you

You don't tear down the wall you loosen up a few of bricks
open it up just a little bit
it's not like the walls are really going to protect you

you're over thinking everything
just let life go to see what it brings
it's all what you make it mean inside your head--

In your room the shadows are silent
the noise outside so loud and so violent
and your dreams they seem so far away

Slow Jam Daft Punk - Digital Love cover

Here's the Original of Daft Punk - Digital Love.

The Corktown Ukettes are playing at a wedding in July. The couple likes Daft Punk so tonight I put this together to see if it would work. If Alexis is singing this, with Katie and I doing harmony, and if I get to do some noodling this'll be cool. It's an imperfect Garage Band exercise - there's a part where I totally bungle it up, but hopefully you can see it's promise.

Digital Love - Daft Punk by iloveuke

Trains across the Sea - Silver Jews Cover

I love this song. It reminds me university. I play it on the baritone and wish my voice was low.

Pavement, The Silver Jews, Jesus and Mary Chain. Man I wish I still had that mixed tape...


Trains across the sea - The Silver Jews by iloveuke

Bad Romance Lady Gaga

I quite like Lady Gaga - she's a bit over the top, but under all of the costume and makeup is a really good musician. I read somewhere that she went to highschool with Paris Hilton, then about a month ago, I saw a YouTube video where Paris Hilton was interviewing her. Watching it makes me a bit sickatated. There's something weird and junior high-y about it that makes me think 'Oh Stefani Germanotta, you don't have to say that shit.'

Bad Romance - Lady Gaga by iloveuke

Separate Ways

I remember this video was one of the first. Go YouTube it. It's such crazy cheese that iMovie could blow away...

It's still a good song if you take out the synth and the tight jeans...

When I was looking up this song a few months ago I stumbled upon the whole Arnel Pineda story. It was heartwarming, but at the same time I feel it pretty sad the after his hip injuries in 1998, Steve Perry never quite recovered.

Separate Ways - Journey Cover by iloveuke

Hit Me Baby One More Time - Britney Spears Cover

When I sing this one I think of her as a teen pining for that pipsqueak Justin Timberlake.

It's a bit of a sad song really. The original masks its sadness with a funky beat. Travis re-did it, and it was better but I had the feeling he was taking the piss out of it.

To me this song is about a confusing time for the protagonist who had no clue that they guy was going to break up with her is pretty desperate for whatever scraps he sends her way, even if it is to be hit up one more time.


Hit Me Baby One More Time - Britney Spears Cover by iloveuke

Shell Shock - New Order cover by iloveuke

Let's go back to 1986, Pretty in Pink Soundtrack.


I went to see the McFlies the other night. They're a fun band to watch. As a friend put it last night, "you feel like you're at a school dance", as for many of us, the song selection takes on back to those days of slouching and braces; I kept looking around to see if anyone was going to ask me to dance... When no one did, I decided I would dance alone. There are always circles of girls dancing at the front of a show so I made some friends.

Oddly, back in high school, I didn't like pop very much. I liked the Smiths, Depeche Mode, Sinead O'Connor and I was dismissive of pop. Now as an adult, I play a lot of pop, likely because they offer nice, easy, and predictable 3-chord progressions to me on the ukulele (go Google that to find out more). Not that some of the alternative music doesn't have the I IV and V pattern, it just seemed that the songs were injected with better lyrics for a thinky/feely teenager like I was. If there were song of disappointment, dissatisfaction, I was all about that stuff to soothe me through my most awkward years.

Here's one that came on while I was waiting in the coat check line. I didn't think I had heard in about 10-15 years. There are only 2 chords in this song. When I got to the coat check, they couldn't find my coat, and then I yelled at a big bald Russian man named Rubin to find my coat. After about 5 long chaotic minutes of yelling at Rubin, and looking through the coat check myself, I found my coat. Good thing, because my car keys were inside of the pocket! Be careful of your coat at the Samovar room is the moral of this aside...Sorry I yelled at you Rubin, but you have to get your coat check people to get their act together.

Shell Shock - New Order cover by iloveuke

For Shell Shock, I only play two chords here because that's all I think it needs. In Garage Band I treated the track with a Flanger effect to bring it back to the 80s

Just remember...It's never enough until your heart stops beating, the deeper you get the sweeter the pain.

AJL

Hawaii-Five-O / I'll Melt With You / Jailhouse Rock

At themes night at the Corktown Ukulele Jam I brought these 3 out because I couldn't decide what I wanted to play. It was a stretch to mash these up but they have a common chord so here they are.

Hawaii-Five-O / I'll Melt With you / Jailhouse Rock by iloveuke

House of the Rising Sun / Amazing Grace

This is a song that Adam taught me when we were in the hostel band together that included Grace. Our band was called BigAss. Some of my fondest memories were jamming and recording tracks by cassette. Back in the day, I played guitar, but it was the seed that sprouted my love for socializing with music. If I knew to play it then, it would've been on every song of ours. Sometime I'll still sing some of the tunes that Adam and Grace wrote with my uke. Such good songs...Anyway, we used to sing this song when we were in BigAss.

As the story goes, Adam saw it performed on a Jerry Lewis telethon. There was a lady that didn't like the lyrics to the House of the Rising Sun, and so she sang Amazing Grace to the tune of the House of the Rising Sun.

I'm going to take it a step further, mashing up the two songs lyrics. The result is a story of a girl who goes down to New Orleans who has found religion and you get the sense that she's going to do something drastic.

House of the Rising Sun / Amazing Grace by iloveuke

Here She Comes Now - Slowdive

I saw The Magnetic Fields last night. I love the slow melancholy...

In keeping in the Shoegazer theme, here's a Slowdive song. Before a few members dropped out and they became Mojave 3, Slowdive was perfect slow melancholy.

Here's one that I recorded about a month ago. I put a bit of echo on it just to make it seem more isolated. I have a tendency to rush things so it ends a bit faster than it starts.

Here she comes now by iloveuke

Aquatic Pingpong by iloveuke

After a long absence of using it, I got my M-Audio Ozone keyboard hooked up to my Mac and started playing around with the layers and Garage Band. This track uses the wah knob on the keyboard for the whole notes, but all other layers are from my Mahalo 'Les Paul' Style ukulele that comes with a pickup. The uke was fed in through the M-Audio mic and mixed with Garage Band effects. The result is an original song which is more dreamy...

Aquatic Pingpong  by  iloveuke

Sweet child o mine 2 by iloveuke

Everyone who knows me knows that this is probably my favorite song to sing on the uke. Here I am joined by Alexis and Katie. The three of us make up the Corktown Ukettes. Listening to it, I can hear the parts I am flat but heck, you want perfection from one take?

Sweet child o mine 2  by  iloveuke

Why I play the ukulele

I'm starting this blog because I play the uke almost every day. It's the right tool for me to express and interpret music. 

• It's portable. 
• If I fall asleep with it in my bed it doesn't hog the bed unlike some dogs and people I know.
• It can be played while sitting at a stoplight.
• It's easy to play, some chords use a single finger on a single fret. 
• It's forgiving, you don't have to be awesome at it. 
• The notes float high. It can sound plucky, bright, or whimsical sad.
• It makes me friends
• You can still rock out.

I played the guitar for years, but it's just not as satisfying as the ukulele. The guitar demands a perfection that my small hands could never reach and a seriousness that I never wanted to wear. I took the piano as a kid, and the cello in junior high. I'm also learning the accordion. Some of these instruments may appear. I've also been fooling around with garageband so we'll see what comes of that. 

This blog is about me and my ukes, and what the world is like in my head and the music I hear. I like to play, but I am not a "Know everything about the uke person". There is a geekiness to it that I will leave to other bloggers for music theory, collectors items, tablature. I am a child of the 80s and 90s so you'll likely see a lot of songs shared in that era here. I am challenging myself to put up at least one MP3 per week. Some will be better than others so be gentle with me. 

A.