Hardcore Uker

In a posting, on one of the uke jam FaceCloth groups...

It must have been Wukulele's group...

"Why is this important?"

It's important because it goes someway to making sense of this posting's title and also gives me the opportunity of smugly announcing 'I'm not on FaceCloth'.

Anyway, in the posting on Wukulele's FB group page, an invitation was made to 'you hardcore ukers' to join the Littlehampton uke jam on the prom outside the East Beach Cafe after the Wukulele jam.

'How do you know all this if you're not on FaceCloth?'

I know because Linda is on FaceCloth and I asked her to join the uke jam groups for me, now piss off!

I intend going to both jams therefore I am hardcore.

I think of Wukulele as my 'home jam' and have taken to standing at the back as I can, by watching Harriet B. who very self-effacingly leads the charge of rhythmically thrashed ukuleles, help to keep those less experienced players somewhere near the region of 'in time'.

Another factor in my choice of standing at the back is the boost in volume to my resonator uke since I've started experimenting with using a plectrum to play it.

Standing or sitting in front of a plectrum twanged resonator uke is something of an acquired taste.

So I'm told... In no uncertain terms.

One more, perhaps worrying, reason.

Since taking a fleeting interest in Jazz I realise I know very little, if anything, about music theory and therefore nothing about music so now I feel in good company with the beginners at the back of the room.

They always have a question or two that I can usually answer correctly.

'Where are the toilets?'

Today the sun burst into the jam:

After the jam I hit the ice cream parlour with Ivy A. and Harriet B.

I wasn't going to eat, just coffee.

I saw the Ice cream dessert menu.

I have never in my life eaten a Peach Melba.

I order a Peach Melba and eat it.

Still Life with Peach Melba.

If you haven't eaten a Peach Melba I recommend having a go at it.

Searing ice cream headache blindness aside, it was great!

Into the Auto-Ma-Car and on to Littlehampton.

'You seem to be spending a lot of time in Littlehampton just recently' says Linda with one of those sideways looks which means something in body language, but fortunately I'm a man and so can just  ignore it.

Hit the beach jam!

This was so much fun.

Littlehampton uke jam can put together quite a well drilled side together nowadays.

Some times we are augmented by the subsonic lilt of the Tuba played by Mr. Stanley Tofield.

There's nothing alarmingly difficult in the LUke collection of song books, in fact the E chord hardly ever shows it's face.

(Ukers will know what I mean. BTW I play the dreaded E chord by baring strings 4. 3. 2. with my left index finger whilst damping the first string (A). Try it, it works.)

All the 'crowd-pleasers' and jam favourites get an airing and, surprise, surprise, there's a crowd to be pleased and they are!

Result!

Today.

Linda draws my attention with shouting.

There are several pictures of me on FaceCloth.

This one about sums it up:

Strangely enough when I was about four years old this is more or less what I had in mind when people would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up.

I didn't tell anyone of course.

Even at that tender age I realised that being a seaside song and dance man was way beyond what I could expect my life to become.

(Though in my imagination I was wearing a stripped blazer and a straw boater and it was Scarborough or Bridlington not Littlehampton.  Oh, and I could tap dance as well.)

On a lighter note, here are a few more of the HardCore:

This last shot includes LUke's official film-maker (the lady with the brolly and an iPad in an artists easel) I'd direct you to her work, but she hasn't quite got the hang of YouTube yet.

The guy in the centre of the shot is HardCore Keith.

He's the real deal.

Don't forget your flask and sarnies.