My favourite radio program at the moment is the brilliantly eclectic chances with wolves on East Village Radio. Besides a great name, there’s a mixture of rockabilly, soul, calypso, obscure covers, folk, hip hop and anything else they can get their hands on. You can listen to all the shows they’ve done online.
I also noticed this little number from way back when -
Gidget, a portmanteau of girl and midget, is a surfing movie with a girl protagonist from 1957. It’s no Nicholas Ray film but the first half, if you can get past the slightly annoying Gidget character, is watchable purely for the surfing and general bumming around. None of this wetsuit malarkey you get nowadays. It’s how surfing should be. There’s also a great party luau scene at the end of the film so it’s worth watching the whole thing, despite the ending.
Anyway, at the beginning of the clip the big kahuna is playing a ukulele, the instrument of kings.
For any amorous ukulele players out there. The Book of Love by Stephin Merritt of the The Magnetic Fields. I’m not sure what ukulele he’s playing there.
Pianosaurus were a 1980s New York toy instrument band. They self-released two live albums and also recorded a debut album, Groovy Neighborhood, for Rounder Records in 1986. There’s a second album but it was never released. I wonder if the tapes still exist because if they did they should release the album. Hell, I’d even release it. As far as I know there’s no ukuleles in it but hey, toy guitars, toy piano and toy drums – lets not get picky.
Some footage of Johnny Ukulele I found whilst searching for surfing videos. Takes about a minute to get going.
