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Ralph's Blog

Ralph Shaw, our Illustrious Leader, writes:

My purpose in starting this uke-log of the meetings and activities of the Vancouver Ukulele Circle is to give those people who are unable to be at the a meetings a chance to get a flavour of what they missed. I can tell you now that not all the information will be entirely accurate. As I sit down to update this uke-log in the days after any given meeting I will be sure to have forgotten some key moments and one or two worthy performances and I hope that feelings won't be hurt. I will do my best but if you notice any omissions or major inaccuracies please feel free to email them to Wendy Cutler so that corrections can be made.

Note from Wendy: Ralph has been keeping this blog since the very first meeting in September, 2000. The full set of previous years' entries is available in the 
Blog Archives.

And another note from Wendy: Hansol Kim has been documenting the events in photos. Many of the photos on the page are his, but not all of his are shown here. You can find all the ones he's posted in Hansol's Vancouver Ukulele Circle collection on flickr.

Vancouver Ukulele Circle Meeting - Tuesday January 17, 2012

It's -5 degrees and there's talk of snow. Appropriate now to remind everyone that those all-season strings should really be called 3-season strings. When the weather gets this icy you need to put on snow-strings. They help to keep your fingers from slipping and can be real life-savers should your song come to a sudden stop. Yes they cost a little more - but it's worth it.

The frigid conditions meant a somewhat smaller crowd than we've been used to recently. But all seats were full, there was a great energy and a good time was had by, well, me at least. One of the Our Town serving wenches mentioned that she's not normally keen to work on other open-mic nights, However! She loves our music, songs and performances. Speaking of which Gary kicked things off with the Beatle song Hide Your Love Away (It's only Beatles with an 's' if you're talking about more than one song.) Ed sang the McCartney song Dance Tonight.

Sarah had her debut performance and sang the Beach Boys Don't Worry Baby. Many of us can learn from her smiling stage demeanor. Even when struggling for the occasional chord her presence never slipped and everyone enjoyed her all the more. Peter sang us an original birthday song for his friend Julia. The song relates how she once flashed her boobs in order to amuse her friends. There were other things in the song too but that's all I remember. It's hard being male.

There are many romantic moon songs. Jill's original song was not one of those. Coding by Moonlight was a musical ode to the nocturnal nerd (indeed what other kind is there?) It came with a groovy singalong instrumental in binary notation. Russ took us to the beaches of Jamaica with the Bob Marley Classic: Three Little Birds. Boaz took on Bowie once again, dealing with the death of Ziggy Stardust (as opposed to his own onstage demise like when he last performed a Bowie song. Ha ha!)

Paul, fresh from Hawaii, sang Simon and Garfunkel's Hazy Shade of Winter. Hansol did Bobby Vincent's I Love How You Love Me. Jeff sang Tiger Mountain Peasant Song from the Free Foxes. I finished things off with Cheek to Cheek.

Special mention must be made to Ron. The Our Town amp broke down just before performance time but Ron saved the evening by jury rigging a replacement system with the extra gear that he brings. Way to go buddy!

Keep strumming and stay happy

Ralph

My new book:
The Ukulele Entertainer - Powerful Pointers for Players and Performers
Visit www.RalphShaw.ca

Thanks to Hansol Kim for most of the previous group of photos on this page