On the road to income sustainability....things ukulele

What a boring title - oh well.

Things have grown great in the last few months.

The Ukastle Ukestra is reaching new heights (up to 35 people one evening), and the feel is changing to something more raucous. But it has always had the seeds of raucousness. LakeMacUkestra is more staid, and fluctuating in numbers. 9 last week, something like 18 this week.

And the Bay (Tomaree Ukestra) is increasing, incrementally. 2 one week, 7 last week. 7 is good! It is most pleasant sitting outside at the Fingal Bay Sports Club, rain or shine. The cuckoos are going off in the bush around, kangaroos feed on the lawn. Ukuleles strum. V. pleasant. My drink of choice is ginger beer. And there are free peanuts.

I am now bolting off from the Tomaree Ukestra to head to Bobs Farm Public School. Student population = 40. I have a quarter of the students doing uke. My first school!!!! This is vital for my income sustainability. NEIS ends in February and I need to have a large enough and diverse enough income to be sustainable.

It is so great to be working with kids. I miss having my own kids (who have largely grown up and live far away) so I am enjoying that aspect of it. I am looking forward to the first performances. A few people advised me to only work with Grades 3-6, as younger are too difficult. But I am prepared to give that a go at the moment, and I think I have a few Grade 1s & 2s. It was funny, because the 'primary' school kids said wryly 'are you teaching the little kids? Good luck with that!'. Bobs Farm is a lovely school, like something up the north coast, set amidst palms and mosquitos. Address - Marsh Road.

On Wednesday I started at Hamilton Public, an inner city school in Newcastle, with an ethnically diverse population. David Jack is the Principal there and he is a renowned innovator. The Uke is part of his grand plan, and my suggestions appealed to him instantly.

It has been an interesting process trying to drum up schools. David was the first to go 'yes! I want that for my school!'. Megan (Bobs Farm Principal) did the same. An email did the trick and I have now got it down to 'you will either like this idea or not, and you will have room or not, please just reply quickly and we can talk if you are interested'. I really dislike it when people say they will get back to you, and they don't. But it is very reassuring when people do get back and say 'not today' or, 'I have a headache', or, 'our program is full'. At least I then know. I am pretty sure I will have a full board of calls of schools next year.

The Ukastle Ukestra have been accepted to play down at the Melbourne Ukulele Festival in February - this will be our first major outing away from Newcastle. And a whole bunch of people are performing at Roy Sakuma's Hawaii Ukulele Festival in July. I am yet to decide whether I can afford that! It's hard keeping up with the well heeled retirees!!!!

Let's not forget Maitland. I am enjoying all my Ukestras, with Maitland no exception. It is held at the Grand Junction Hotel and Liss, the publican, is one of my main participants. Her and Ben have cultivated a wonderful musical culture at this pub and hence the ukestra participants are very well schooled in alternative music (folky / country sort of inflections). The numbers there will grow, I am sure.

We have decided to have our Hunter Christmas Uke Party up there, where people will be catching a train to the pub from Newcastle - the Uke Train!!!

A neglectful blogger ...

My apologies to the reader in my head. Only 1 blog in July!

I have to make comment on a number of fronts.


First, the Ukastle Ukestra is really starting to do me proud. Last weekend we performed at the Wallsend Winter Carnivale. It was a real pleasure. We were allocated the last spot in the town rotunda, after all of the brass bands. Of course they have far greater sound projection, whereas we are humble little and quiet tackers of instruments. Once we cleared the stage of brass instruments, I asked the audience to move into the rotunda with us. This was a good move.

The Ukestra excelled themselves. There were about 20 of us. We did two quick bursts down the street, then the 1 hour rotunda performance. Their voices were just lovely together - very full - and the rhythm of the ukes was VERY together, particularly on 'Dreaming of You'. And the soloists vocalists were impressive, and endearing.

Last night The Do Riders performed and our last song was our version of 'Dreaming of You'. I mentioned that we had stolen it from the Ukastle Ukestra and some young students in the audience yelled out that 'they rock!'. I asked for clarification. 'The Ukulele Orchestra! We saw them at the Darby St Fair' - how funny and fantastic is that?!

A few yunguns had seen the ukestra in a few places - I think we make quite an impression! So lovely.

I have now started to teach ukulele in Maitland as well. The Maitland Ukestra is starting off low key. It is always difficult I reckon to get the word out, but one must persist! The 2nd one had 6 people, so that was really good. Mondays now generally consists of me going to do the Tomaree Ukestra in the mornings, then across to Maitland in the evenings. All interspersed with some nice time at my Mum's holiday house up at the Port Stephens.

The Do Riders are going gangbusters at the moment. I am taking a management cut and am working hard at getting us gigs and ensuring that we have a reasonable web presence. It seems to be working for us.

This week we have 5 gigs, 4 of them in a row. This is (and will be!) highly unusual. Last Sunday we played at the wonderfully old school Grand Junction Hotel in Maitland. Liss and Ben are supreme hosts, and discerning music lovers and publicans. It was a very last minute gig (a band dropped out) so we couldn't get much word out. But we had a great night.

Last night was our second turn at the Great Northern. We had quite a few there, plus a few friends and relatives. At the end of the evening a bunch of young people (uni students, early 20s) rocked in after leaving another venue. They really understood what we are trying to do. We also tried 'Fake Plastic Trees' by Radiohead for the first time. A young couple from Melbourne were also there - he had dreads and was carrying his dij in a little indian cloth satchel. They really enjoyed us. All of these accidental audiences were just what we needed.

We have also now recorded, and are very happy with that as a demo. It was vital resource for the heaps of festival applications that I have just submitted. Fingers crossed with that stuff.

Tonight we are doing a Greens benefit (have a look at this wonderful 'advertisement' from the Gruen Transfer if you haven't seen it yet).

It is funny, but the Demo is really selling well. Though it was not meant to. Have just returned from doing a Festival in Maitland, where we had a bunch of people hanging around listening carefully, they bought so many CDs! Most of this audience were over 50 at least. They loved us!

I am very hopeful that we will be able to build something sustainable.

The germ of an idea?

This weekend promises domesticity, and a day trip to Karuah for the Bluegrass Festival (going as a punter).

Last weekend was very successful. A social visit to the Blue Mountains, a family visit to Forbes followed by a family visit to Sydney to see my two gorgeous daughters (who live in Melbourne - ages 23 & nearly 16) who were at a wedding.

Forbes was very fruitful ukulele-wise. Only a week before I decided I would try to organise a ukulele workshop in Forbes. After a series of phone calls, and some very very supportive locals, I managed to have a workshop with 10 people! I do hope that they now have the wherewithall to start up a Forbes Ukulele Group (FUG?). I am now brewing ideas on continuing to offer workshops in country areas.

A key memory of the Forbes trip was watching I Walk the Line (the Johnny Cash biopic). It really educated me and I enjoyed it immensely. Am now brewing on a few Johnny Cash / June Carter-Cash songs.

The other thing that is happening is that Tuesday nights (Ukastle Ukestra) is really growing! I got a lot of word of mouth young women coming along in the last two weeks (in their 20s). One in particular sent me the following email (with pre-existing spelling errors).

hi mark, thankyou for your email. Have been on a permanent high since tue night,and havnt been able to put my uke down! i love so much (and am still quite amazed) that i can actually play a musical instrument! music is a huge love of my life and nearly all my friends are musos but after many many attempts to learn the guitar and failing, i gave up. So bless you and your awesome group, I now believe!
Adrianna is just as excited as me, and you will see us regularly, for sure. Thanks again, Learne

Now that is something! How lovely!!!!

Flying Penguins vids & Ukastle Ukestra public debut

Oh Please!!!! Someone give us a name!!!

We are not happy with 'The Flying Penguins'. There are too many penguins out there. The Ballpoint Penguins, The Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and Aviva and the Flying Penguins. Naming bands in the global internet age is a nightmare.

The name is good, has a lovely genesis, portrays a certain stupidity, and we have the credibility of an onboard marine biologist to confirm our unique discovery. But there is always that band in Atlanta that could confuse things for us. Newcastle. Atlanta. Newcastle. Atlanta. Damn.

We felt very pleased with our performances at St Albans, and I miss Mick & Nikki. One gets quite involved with people with whom one makes music. Mick's sister filmed us at St Albans, and Jane & I watched a suite of songs last night. Jane's first ever time of watching herself in that sort of a way. We were mightily pleased. Excited even! I am v. hopeful that the material will now provide us with sufficient propaganda for us to get gigs in the various places that would be appealing. Festivals. The snow. The reef. yay and phew .... Thank-you Kim (Mick's sister)!!!!

And yesterday was a very busy day. The Ukastle Ukestra debuted at the Olive Tree Markets. And the night before we had some really lovely television coverage on the local news. We got the cutesie 'animals & community' slot after the weather. Prime time!!! Everyone loves the weather. Betty & Ted from Argenton (who are nearly 80) said everything that I would want to say about the work I am doing. It was a good day (even though we blocked up the Markets for a while with audience).

ahhh.....

Further ramblings on starting a community musician biznes

Good morning. The only time I seem to find for doing this is during occasional moments of 3/4am insomnia.

The last 3 weeks has been hellish fun/busy/too busy. Mostly with 'professional development'. What a wonderful thing it is to have professional development which is a joy.

The beginning of the 3 weeks was holidaying with Ruby. Treachery Head proved its name correct and destroyed the camper trailer. Cables broke. This is the main accommodation device for festivals, so that was a blow. Thanks to Stan (distant-father-in-law twice removed of ex sister in law type) we fixed that and I was then able to move onto the National Folk Festival with Jane.

The National is and should be an annual pilgrimage. It is how life should be lived, without nuclear weapons and with lots of music, good food (well...ok...healthy....fastish food), dancing in the streets and diversity. I was not accepted to play this year, so at the urging of Jane, and at the last minute I applied to be a volunteer. Came up with 'stewarding' which wouldn't be my preference (mc'ing, stage managing yes, stewarding - no). It involved five 4 hour shifts on a twentyfour hour roster, two of them at 4am. Turned out to be interesting and vaguely fun.

I workshopped a lot, enjoying Kristina Olsen's 'playing lead guitar for dummies', Frank Jones' 'how to steal a song', and Ben Stephenson's awesome DADGAD / Irish guitar workshop. And the Kwela stuff with Andy Rigby was fun, as always. I learned a lot, did some choir type workshops and came home to do the uke Tuesdays.

Both the LakeMacUkestra and the Ukastle Ukestra are doing quite well and evolving at different paces. I also now have approval from the Fingal Bay Sports Club to try out a Port Stephens Ukestra (Ukestra Port Stephens? Ups?). Heaven's waiting room can have a ukestra as well I reckon. Will try and get PR happening v. soon. The Bay is where I grew up each and every weekend. So it is a vaguely attractive idea to head there once a week and to see if I can bring more uke joy to the lots of retirees who seem to hold the fort up there.

THEN. I bolted off to Melbourne. Saw Kyrie's premiere of her first feature film, a rather B-D grade horror slasher film called El Monstro Del Mar. She is the nice girl, Hannah. As it should be for my daughter. My youngest (Ruby) was also in it, as a school bus extra (which is a rather accurate reflection!).

But the PD continued in Melbourne, seeing some very old friends who are community musician types, talking and playing endlessly about how to bring music to the people. Peda & Ruth in Inverloch are very very inspiring, as are the Strating twins and Lyndal and Strat. Thanks so much to all of them for helping me with resources and thinking and music.

That should do for now. I hope it ain't so long to the next post, and that the next one is more reflective.