We had a great time at our March meeting this past Thursday night, March 8. The primary focus was Beatles songs. We prepared for the SXSW Beatles Complete on Ukulele program, Ukulele Mob, on Thursday, March 15th, at noon, at Hickory Street Grill (downtown, 8th and Congress). The program will run until about 6 p.m.; the Ukulele Mob will happen at noon and probably take about 15 or 20 minutes. (If you want to join in–and you are definitely invited if you want to bring your uke and join us–please show up a little early, at 11:45 or so.) The songs we’ll play (and they’re all in the Ukulele Music Library) are “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?.” “All Together Now,” and “Eight Days a Week.” Roger Greenawalt, the maestro of Beatles Complete on Ukulele, will have a band there to back us up, and will be in charge.

Other than the Beatles songs, we had a large group of players doing songs this time. Bob listed the folks he knew: James (Blue Bayou), Ian (rock ‘n’ roll tune), Gary (swingin’ Tin Pan Alley tune), Mike (When I’m 64) and yours truly, Walter, who sang an original song involving UFOs. Steven played a great version of “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

Thanks, and we’re looking forward to the April meeting, which should be held on Thursday, April 12, but it isn’t definite yet, so watch this space.  We’re also looking for an additional free, and centrally-located, space to meet. Any ideas? Let us know.

Our March meeting is upon us, next week, on Thursday, March 8th, at Central Market. We are looking into finding a bigger and equally central and free location for our monthly meetings, but for now, we’ll still be in the Community Room at Central Market (4001 N. Lamar) – from 7:00pm – 8:30pm. We’ll follow our usual format and open with “Three Little Birds” and play some other songs we’ve practiced together. We’ll provide a receptive and supportive audience for solo performances if you should be so kind as to play us something you’re working on.

Secondly, we’ll practice three Beatles’ songs because some of us certainly hope to participate in the SXSW Beatles Complete on Ukulele, Ukulele Mob, on Thursday, March 15th, at noon, at Hickory Street Grill (downtown, 8th and Congress). Even if you cannot participate in the Ukulele Mob, Beatles songs are fun to play and sing, so how can you go wrong?

At the Ukulele Mob, and at our meeting, we’ll sing & strum “All Together Now,” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” and “Eight Days a Week” – the last is the same as we’ve previously played together. These are the three songs that will be performed, at noon, to kick off the Beatles Complete on Ukulele SXSW event, where everyone and anyone with a ukulele is most welcome to join in the ukulele merriment.

And now for versions of the two new songs you can listen to… although when you listen to them, know that they’ll be in another key (they’ll both be in C to accommodate the full range of skill levels), so they won’t sound exactly the same. Here’s…

and

For now, have a great week, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on Thursday, March 8th, at Central Market’s Community Room!

What a fun meeting last Thursday. We had a great time with the classic Leiber & Stoller song, “Love Potion #9″ and Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.” Walter has posted a quick summary of the meeting and a few pics on our blog. (Thanks Walter!)

A very warm welcome to the first-timers who joined us — we hope to see you again soon!

Mark your calendars: our next meeting will be held on Thursday, March 8, 7:00 – 8:30pm, at Central Market North, our usual strumming spot.

For those who can’t wait for another group sing-along and open mic opportunity, come to Sweetpea’s Ukulele Night at Skinny’s Ballroom, Thursday, February 23, 7:00 – 9:00pm. Skinny’s is located at 115 San Jacinto. There’s free parking in the garage across the street and a $4.00 drink ticket if you bring a uke — what could be better? This month’s theme: First Women of Country Music.

Also mark your calendars for the Beatles Complete on Ukulele SXSW event: Thursday, March 15, starting at noon at the Hickory Street Grill located at Congress and 8th. We’d love to get a great turnout for this uke mob! More news to come!

As always, it’s such a pleasure to play with you all.

Cheers,

Bob G.

In honor of the upcoming Valentine’s Day, we sang a couple of love songs as our new numbers at the AUS February 9 meeting. We had a great time with the classic Leiber & Stoller song, “Love Potion #9” (well, it’s sort of a love song), and Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” (which is definitely a great love song). About 30 people were there. Hooray!

We had several folks, including Bill & Kathie (who sang an original song), Patrick, Kendra, Tim, and more, share some songs in the solo section… and I (Walter) performed “Day Tripper” (inspired by the upcoming “Beatles Complete” session below), and Bob, our leader, played a song from Troy Fernandez that he learned from YouTube. it’s always great fun to watch our members playing and singing. If you haven’t played a solo number yet, think about it; you’ll never find a friendlier and more sympathetic audience.

Soon, we will be posting an announcement about the return of the “Complete Beatles” session, led, as during the past two years, by Roger Greenawalt, which will return in time for March’s SXSW. We’re all invited to join, so watch this space for another announcement, soon!

Our next meeting, as of now, will be held once again at Central Market North on Thursday, March 8 at 7 p.m. Please check back here for more news. New songs are coming, too, so watch this space for them. See you then!

We’ll be doing two new songs for the February meeting (which, once again, will be Thursday, February 9, at 7 p.m., at Central Market North’s Community Room). They are Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” and Leiber & Stoller’s “Love Potion # 9.” Both are love songs, in their way, which makes them extremely suitable for the February meeting, right? Both song sheets are now in our Ukulele Music Library.

Below are a couple of videos that should get you in the mood… and also to familiarize yourselves with the songs:

See you there! And oh, if you go way to the bottom of the list of the Ukulele Music Library, you will see a link to the music for the classic “Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” the song Walter (me) your AUS blogger, performed at the January meeting, and which Bob turned into a song sheet. Just for fun!

As we’ve mentioned, the cycle of our first year of AUS is now complete, now that we’ve held our January 2012 meeting at Central Market North this past Thursday, January 12. We sang our two new songs–“Viva la Vida” and “You Are my Sunshine.”

We had a great “open mic” (actually open non-mic, since we neither have a mic nor need one in that little room), in which we saw Tim Keough of UkuleleSecrets.org fame pull out a “harp uke” made by the Welshman Pete Howlett and aNueNue Ukes. (Apologies for the fuzzy photo–I (Walter) hope you get the general idea.) Tim played that harp uke, with its four extra low-pitched strings (for a total of eight strings), in a pair of great quasi-Japanese pieces of his own composition.

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, February 9, 7 – 8:30 p.m., once again at Central Market North, our usual strumming spot. Hope to see you there and see you then!

Here they are, folks–the songs we’ll be singing at the January meeting: You Are My Sunshine and Viva La Vida. Start strumming, and we’ll see you next week.

Happy New Year!  Hope your holidays have been wonderful.

We’re excited to be entering the Austin Ukulele Society’s second year of strum- and sing-alongs!

We’re meeting on Thursday, January 12th, at 7pm, in our regular spot: the Community Room at Central Market (4001 N. Lamar Blvd).  Central Market asked us to remind the group that alcoholic drinks are not permitted in the community room; feel free to bring some water and/or purchase a non-alcoholic beverage from the cafe or supermarket while we meet.

As usual, we’ll start out with some ukulele news and then warm up with “Three Little Birds” and maybe another familiar-to-us tune or two.  We will play two new songs to add to our repertoire and then we’ll spend time playing several of the other songs we’ve enjoyed together.  We’ll still break from our songbook towards the end of our meeting to give you a warm and friendly audience if you’d be kind enough to play/sing us a tune of your choice!

This month’s two ‘new’ AUS songs bring us both old and new with the popular standard “You Are My Sunshine” and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”.  In case you’re not familiar with the Coldplay tune, you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE&ob=av2n  (And if you’re not familiar with “You Are My Sunshine,” you can find many versions on YouTube).

I’ll follow up next weekend or early next week with song sheets for “Viva La Vida” and “You Are My Sunshine.”

***All songs already in the AUS repertoire can be found in our Ukulele Music Library.***

Looking forward to seeing you and hearing your beautiful ukulele strumming next week!