Hey folks– we had a great time at our September 12 meeting. We tried out a new song that worked amazingly well–Wagon Wheel, made famous by Darius Rucker’s version. (Here is Wagon Wheel in Presentation Format– In other words, it’s Bob’s special meeting version.) Bob recorded the group of 50+ AUS members playing the song and doesn’t it sound nice in the YouTube video below?

Bob is committed to getting the AUS folks in great video hi-fi at our future meetings–so prepare to be recorded.

Sounds pretty good to me.

All AUS members should remember the special Open Mic at the Rattle Inn on Wednesday, September 18, starting at 7:30 (sign-ups begin at 7 p.m.).

At our own Open Non-Mic session at the Thursday meeting, we want to thank Woody and his banjo uke, Kevin with his slide uke, Ray, Kendra, Roxanne, Steve, and (yours truly,) Walter. We hope to see one and all at our spooky October 10 meeting at the Memorial United Methodist Church, which will begin at 7 p.m.

For our September 12 meeting (Thursday, 7 – 8:30 p.m., Memorial United Methodist Church), we will play “Wagon Wheel.” Co-authored by Bob Dylan, this song was performed by the Old Crow Medicine Show, but it was made famous by Darius Rucker in this video. (Say, are those the guys from Duck Dynasty?)

Unfortunately, Rucker sings it here in the key of A, but Bob feels that we AUS folks will have an easier time strumming the song in the key of G. Of course, on YouTube you will also find uke players singing any song you can name, so here’s the Carolina Ukulele Ensemble, full of youthful energy, and playing it faster than we will, but in G:

And here’s Mumford and Sons performing it in G as well.

See you on Thursday!

There’s nothing like an AUS meeting to cool yourself off with all the coolness it provides in the hottest month of the year, right? This month, on Aug. 8, we tried our hand at the old Creedence Clearwater hit “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” – here’s the Presentation Format from the meeting, with the extra bells and whistles. It’s amazing how, at first strum, you can think a song is fairly simple and not too tough, yet during the meeting, Bob can bring you into the song to see all the rhythmic tricks that one can play. (We also had great fun bringing back last month’s KISS song “Rock and Roll All Nite,” and banging it around with great fervor.

Yet Bob had another trick up his sleeve (not easy when you’re wearing short sleeves): he filmed us playing “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” This means that if you weren’t at the meeting, you can watch and listen to the video on our YouTube channel, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amhXIHrDsss and you can download the Presentation Version of the song (link above) and have it ready when we perform it at a future meeting. Watch for more of this kind of thing in the future. You won’t have to worry about missing a song when you miss future meetings. Way cool! Be sure to send us any comments you may have about the video, and what you’d like to see recorded at AUS meetings coming up.

Our next meeting will be at the Memorial United Methodist Church, as usual, from 7 – 8:30 p.m. on September 12. We hope to see you there.

Even though we’ve seen a little more rain than usual the past few months, an Austin summer is still pretty dry, and the lakes are dipping lower and lower. So how about another classic Creedence Clearwater number that will express our hope for what we need most around here? “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” is a classic from 1970. (Bob says that the original recording below is in the same key we’ll be performing, so strum along.)

As always, our meeting will be on the second Thursday evening of August, which means we’ll be meeting from 7 – 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 8, at the Memorial United Methodist Church, at 6100 Berkman Dr., Austin. If you’d like to perform a song you’ve been working on, please have it ready. During our Open Non-mic section, there’s no friendlier audience than our group. See you then!

At our July 11 meeting, the 40 or so AUS members present rocked and rolled–not all night, but long enough to enjoy ourselves. That old KISS song sounded great with dozens of ukuleles strumming it together. Bob also had us using the strings as a percussion instrument and learning how to syncopate the song’s chorus so that we started a beat behind, as in the song, which was very cool. Oh, and if you were there, you know that Bob made an error in his fingering chart for the Eb chord. He corrected that and here is the correct Rock and Roll All Nite–both in the original version, and in the expanded Presentation Format from the meeting.

We heard about the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain concert coming to Austin on November 21 and 22. You can purchase tickets now at the Texas Performing Arts site. If you’ve ever seen the many YouTube videos of the Ukes, you will know that you probably won’t want to miss this show. The Dallas Ukulele Headquarters will have a group of folks coming down to Austin on Friday night 11/22 for the concert, after which we are hoping to take some of the members of the Ukes out for a drink. Then at mid-day on Saturday, the DUH folks will get together with the AUS folks for a jam. More info will be coming as the date gets closer.

Thanks to both Bobs, Kendra and Lacey, Ray and Sandra, Richard, Woody, Kathleen, and Jack for performing at our Open Non-Mike session. There was one other fellow whose name we didn’t catch, pictured above–if that’s you, or you know who he is, please let us know. We hope that you will think about performing for the group at a future meeting. It’s just about the world’s most forgiving audience.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, August 8, at the Memorial United Methodist Church. Hope we’ll see you there!

Folks– Bob just released two PDF documents we’ve been waiting for– Up On the Roof – Presentation Format and House of the Rising Sun – Presentation Format. These are the “final” versions of the songs that we played and sang at the May and June meetings. Get ’em here now!

When we played for the participants at the Keep Austin Weird run on June 22, a parade official drove by the spot before the event began, saw our ukuleles, and told us, “Remember–no heavy metal.”

We laughed, but our fearless leader Bob also took this as a challenge. He decided that the song for our July meeting would be that KISS classic, “I wanna Rock and Roll All Nite (and party ev-er-y day).” Take a look at the song sheet and give it a spin, but to get in the mood, here are two YouTube videos to get that KISS feel.

Oh; a warning. Bob says that the band performs the song in A flat, but because A flat is a tricky key on the uke, he’s dropped it a full step down to G. The first one is the original recording, supplied with sing-along lyrics:

And here are the oddly groomed band members themselves performing the song live under the Brooklyn Bridge in 1996. Given that it’s July and all, don’t you think the fireworks are a nice touch?

See you at the Memorial United Methodist Church for the meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 11. Will we rock and roll all night?

Here are some more photos of the AUS crew performing weirdly (and surrounded by weird runners) at the Keep Austin Weird run on Cesar Chavez St in downtown Austin on Saturday, June 22.

We had a great time, and we hope that maybe the next time an AUS crew goes out for an event, you’ll join us.

Our crew from the AUS were out last Saturday evening, June 22, serenading the weirdly-garbed participants of the Keep Austin Weird run. We were stationed, wearing aloha shirts, leis, and grass skirts, on the north side of Cesar Chavez Street as the participants ran and sauntered by. We had our pictures taken. The runners posed in front of us. They gave us thumbs up.

But there was indeed a lot of positive energy shared among everyone out there. Oh, and did you see the woman wearing a double-ukulele bra over her running clothes? Quite an impression was, um, made. Actually, all of us were very impressed.

Needless to say, we had a great time.

More photos soon!

Deb Porter’s workshop and concert at the Memorial United Methodist Church Parlor this past Thursday, June 20, shared with us some critical lessons on being a good musical performer:

First, you’ve got to feel confident about what you’re doing when you pick up your instrument and open your mouth. Don’t go halfsies when you start to sing; believe in yourself and your abilities.

Deb stressed the importance of warming up before you begin singing for an audience. There are now a number of phone and pad apps out there to help you.

Find a key you can sing in comfortably. Deb demonstrated the importance of key with a song she often performs in which the first verse is sung in low notes she can comfortably reach, but heads for the top of her range after that. But because it’s sung in a key in which she can sing, she can perform it without anxiety.

Many of the points she covered are here in these workshop handouts, including a Guitar [sic] Transposition Wheel that you can use if you want to transpose a chords-and-lyrics sheet like the ones we make available to a friendlier key.

Deb, along with her accompanist Andrew Hardin (and during one medley of Hank Williams tunes, with our very own Bob), ended the evening with a concert of some great songs. If you get the chance to hear Deb Porter sing, go for it. Thanks, Deb.

Oh, and yodeling? Here’s the main trick: you must find the spot at which your voice “breaks” when you pass from a low note to a higher note. It may take hours to find it, she warns, and you must try for it in a place in which you aren’t driving others crazy. “I learned during a very long, lonely drive,” she told us. Once you know your break, you’ll be able to yodel.