Here’s Bob’s version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Presentation Format (the version we use at the monthly meeting). May you use it well over the holiday season.
Also, here’s our romping, stomping version of that song, from our YouTube channel:
After our November AUS meeting came Uketania, at the Sahara Lounge at the edge of downtown Austin. Here’s Jen’s report of the evening:
“Jacob Borshard’s Beebort Records and the Austin Ukulele Society were privileged to present Return to Uketania at the Sahara Lounge, on November 14th. The ‘sequel’ to June 14th’s Voyage to Uketania left a delighted audience and full house looking very much forward to future incarnations of the Uketania series of ukulele music nights, at the eclectic and inviting Sahara Lounge.
great solo set of Ramones tunes. Highlights include audience participation on fist pumping the air on “Hey Ho, Let’s Go” during “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Jacob was followed shortly thereafter by our very own Bob Guz, who played fantastic ukulele-driven renditions of brilliant and varied Elvis Costello songs including “Allison” and “Radio Radio.”
age to Uketania, she highly recommends any opportunity to see her when she visits Austin, and you can look for her when you visit Houston. The Skeletors closed out the night with a terrific Violent Femmes set.The November meeting was a great time, with about 50 members present. 
We had one song, the Phil Spector version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” that we tore up pretty well. Bob, by design, always has us run through the song early in the meeting, practicing the trickier parts, and then he has us sing a final version just before the meeting’s end, in which, without fail, we always sound pretty good, because the song has had the opportunity to percolate its way to our fingertips.
We discussed the upcoming visit of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and our part in it, which turned out pretty well. (More in the next post.)
We also recorded a new version of one of AUS’s oldest songs, “Ring of Fire,” and our version of the tune sounds pretty good. Check out the 
version on AUS’s YouTube channel.
Thanks to Woody, Erin, Ray, Bob, and yours truly (Walter) for participating in the Open non-mic session of our November meeting.
We all enjoyed ourselves–hey, we always enjoy ourselves at these meetings; otherwise, why come?–and look forward to our next one, which will not be at the church. It will be instead our holiday party at one of our members’ homes.
If you would like to attend, please drop a note to austinukes@gmail.com, and tell us 
“I’m in for the December party.” and you’ll receive the information about where and when. Do join us!
If we don’t see you there, happy strumming through the holidays.
The Austin Ukulele Society is enjoying having many members of the Dallas Ukulele Headquarters in Austin this weekend! We had a blast at the UOGB show last night, at the combo jam this morning, and we have one more exciting event tonight!
Come out and spend some time with your AUS and DUH ukulele enthusiast friends! From 7:30 – 9:30pm, we invite you to hear the wonderful ukulele driven musical talents of Bob Guz (7:30 – 8), Kathy and the Kilowatts (8:10 – 8:40) and The Love Leighs (8:50 – 9:30), at the Rattle Inn – 610 Nueces St. $10 cover, 21 and over.
The Rattle Inn has a woodsy, warm and cozy interior, and a full bar. You can bring food in with you or grab a bite at one of the many great local restaurants nearby, before or after the show. 🙂
We had a great time at the AUS meeting on Thursday night (November 14). More about the meeting, and the Uketania show at the Sahara lounge afterwards, will appear soon, but in the mean time, here’s our performance of the old Johnny Cash hit “Ring of Fire.” It burns, burns, burns…
The November AUS meeting is coming. We’ll be meeting at 7pm, on Thursday, November 14th at the Memorial United Methodist Church, as usual.
Little Birds”. Then we’ll play a few songs from our repertoire as well as a holiday song.
Feel free to get comfortable with the chord charts for any of the songs in our repertoire, all available here: at our Ukulele Music Library.
working on. Then we’ll play a song or two together to close out the meeting.
…and here’s a more recent version performed (although in key of C) by the King’s College London Ukulele Society:
The UOGB, of course, is the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Jen has passed along some information about the two concerts we’ll see here in Austin:
“Looking forward to seeing many of you at our meeting on Thursday the 14th.”
There were close to 50 people on hand for our October 10 meeting when we
sang “Monster Mash.” (And here’s Bob’s special meeting version, the Monster Mash – Presentation Format.) Bob introduced the song as “sort of a rap song” because you don’t really sing it, but speak it. (How you speak it depends on how good you are at channeling Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Most of us settled for sounding ominous.)
Speaking of channels, Bob created a recording which is now on the AUS YouTube channel, but here it is so you can watch it right now:
Jen showed everyone the copy of Ukulele magazine that includes our story and a picture we had taken during the 2012 SXSW. Our group has hit the big time. You can get an online version of Issue number 3 here and read the article.
Thanks to those who performed solo during our Open Non-Mic: Woody (who tore up “Science Fiction Double Feature” from Rocky Horror) Kevin (who proved that you can play Fleetwood Mac’s music on a ukulele), Bob (who performed a great version of Elvis Costello’s “No Dancing Tonight,” and yours truly (Walter), with a fractured version of “Wooly Bully.”
Our next meeting is planned for Thursday evening, November 14, from 7 – 8:30 p.m. at the Memorial United Methodist Church, as usual. See you there.
Just for fun this month, we’re doing that Halloween classic, “Monster Mash.” It’s the old Bobby “Boris” Pickett number from the 60s that requires, as the artist’s name suggests, a Karloff-ian sensibility. The chords are pretty easy–G – Em – C -D–but there are a lot of silly words and a great opportunity to indulge in several choruses of “in-a-shoop-wha-oo.” Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Remember that as usual, we will meet on Thursday evening, October 10, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Memorial United Methodist Church at 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin 78723.
Below is the song for you to try out. The chords we’ll be using are the same as in the original song.
See you there to find out what happened to the Transylvania Twist!
The Austin Ukulele Society hosted its first ukulele open mic night at the Rattle Inn on 
Wednesday, Sept 18th. There was a great turnout of performers with 14 solo and duet acts, who signed up to play two songs each. We had another 20 ukulele enthusiasts in the audience, showing their appreciation for this fun ukulele-filled evening. We were all treated to a great range of musical styles, both cover tunes and original compositions, as well as familiar acts and ones we hadn’t seen before.
A big shout out to Nathan Antar, visiting Austin for the first time from the Bay Area (with uke in hand), who found out about the open mic night that day, when searching the web for Austin ukulele activity. We were given the chance to have anyone who wanted to come up and play a third tune after running through the sign up sheet once, and several performers delighted us with an ‘encore’, keeping the ukulele music going till after 
10pm.
The AUS looks forward to hosting another ukulele open mic night in the near future, and hopes the delightful Rattle Inn staff will welcome us back. A big thanks to Evan, our sound engineer, and the rest of the Rattle Inn crew for serving great drinks and making us welcome. Keep strummin’ and singin’ and we look forward to seeing y’all soon!
