Interview with a Ukulele Bigwig - Aldrine Guerrero

Dictionary.com lists the origins of the term "bigwig" as coming from around the years 1725–35 and to mean an important person or more specifically, "person important enough to wear such a wig".  I'm hoping that we'll be able to score a series of interviews with notable ukulele players that are indeed important enough to sport such wigs; let's call them wigs of awesomeness.  So to kick off the first of the series, we have here an interview with Aldrine Guerrero, one third of the team (along with Ryan Esaki and Aaron Nakamura) that brings you Ukulele Underground (www.ukuleleunderground.com), and the face of many ukulele lessons, tutorials, and stellar music performance videos that are to be found on the internet.  If you play the ukulele, you've probably heard of him and may have read lengthy bios about the ukulele wunderkind and his many accomplishments as a musician, teacher, teenage heartthrob, and all around cool dude.  

Let's get started, shall we?


UCB: If you could invent a salty snack, what materials would you use, what would you name it, and how many varieties would you offer?  would there be a shrimp option?

AG: I would call my salty snack "Aldy juniors".  It'd be 2 balls of macadamia nuts covered in dark salty chocolate with small thread-like laces of sea salt all around it. I'd offer it as "plain lumps" or "with seaweed"
Shrimp isn't an option but I heard they go well with a single shrimp in the middle.

UCB: Au natural, more seaweed please!  If you had a chance to play a recurring character in any 80s sitcom, which would it be and why?

AG: The Hogan family. I'd play Hulk Hogan... well... for obvious reasons *flex*
I'd bodyslam the hell out of Mrs. Toole (if you know what I mean... hehe)

UCB: Huh huh, you said "Toole"... Okay so you're walking down the street and approach an intersection.  The light turns red but there are no cars.  Do you cross the street anyway or do you press the button and wait?

AG: The question is invalid, I never "walk" anywhere. That's what chauffeurs are for.

UCB: Point taken, answered like a true ukulele bigwig.  Well done, sir!  
How many marshmallows can you fit in your front left jean pocket before it becomes uncomfortable to walk?  How about the right jean pocket?

AG: On the left, it'd be about 3. I would hate for the marshmallows to ruin perfectly good denim. On the right, 376. Helps me with my pimp walk, WHAT UP?!

UCB: If you were at a zoo and could adopt any animal, which would you adopt and what would you name it?  The catch is, the animal has to live with you in your house and not in a cage or outside in the yard.  oh and you would have to dress it as your twin everyday. Take your time with this question.  It's not to be rushed.

AG: I'd adopt one of those zoo workers (those filthy animals) and name him Eduardo. Dress him up like me and have him clean up after me >:0

UCB: My middle name is Eduardo, will you adopt me?  No? okay fine.

What color are my eyes?

AG: The color of of beautiful (quasihomo)

A rabid fan..... and Pikachu

UCB:  Awww, go on. Well, thanks very much for the interview Aldrine.  Your life is as interesting and colorful as your stack of Pokemon game cartridges.  Thanks also for being such a generous and upstanding member of the ukulele community.

For further reading, please check out the inimitable Aldrine Guerrero and his ukulele prowess at these following websites:


http://www.ukuleleunderground.com
http://www.youtube.com/ukuleleoversoul
http://www.twitter.com/aldrine
http://aldrine.livejournal.com/

Stay tuned for more interviews from other ukulele bigwigs.  Please leave any comments and suggestions for future interview subjects below.

Gear Review - Soprano Gig Bag from Mainland Ukes

I've never done a ukulele review before because I never felt confident that I could accurately explain how any particular uke sounds or feels.  The best I could probably do for a uke review would be to say "It's great!"  or maybe "Not shitty. I recommend this thing." A review that's not exactly helpful for anyone.  I'll leave ukulele reviews to pros like Ken Middleton and Deach.

Soooo, I thought I'd try to give a review of this ukulele gig bag (aka soft case, aka uke satchel) that I bought from Mainland Ukes a few weeks back.  I've had a chance to use it on several occasions where I had to take my ukulele on the go.  So far, I love it!  It's way lighter than my previous hard shell case and I like the ability to sling it over my shoulder and be discreet on public transit without having to constantly field questions about the contents of my uke case.  I mean, it looks like a old timey frontier canteen or maybe a designer colostomy bag so nobody will ever ask what's in it.  They wouldn't dare to!

"You can put your uke in there"

(click photo for larger image)

The gig bag has somewhere between a quarter and half inch of dense padding which makes the uke feel very secure when the bag is zipped up.  There is a block of foam inside that is designed to support the neck although i'm never sure those things are necessary.  If you sit on this case, there's no saving that neck!  The rubberized plastic handle of the gig bag is comfortable to grip and feels balanced when you hold it as you parade up and down the sidewalk.  The front pouch is spacious enough for storing your Flip camera, mini tripod, tuner, and 8.5x11" music sheets if you fold them in half.  Might be good for a hip flask and a few packs of cigarettes if you roll like that.  The single padded shoulder strap can be concealed by a zippered flap as seen in the photos below.  The gig bag is available in this teal color as well as black.  Mike from Mainland says it sells for the special homeboy discount price (for UU and UCB) of $17.95.  Note that this isn't the same gig bag that is currently available on the Mainland website.  I believe this one is better because of sturdier padding and the addition of a shoulder strap (oh and the color. teal is always better).  Please contact him at mike@mainlandukes.com if you are interested in purchasing one.

"Like a transformer but way less violent."

(click photo for larger image)

Also, these gig bags are surprisingly versatile.  In a pinch, it can be used as a lunch bag, diaper bag, sassy purse for that blind date, knitting needle storage, grocery bag for salami shopping, etc.

"so many uses!"

Game On

In 5 short weeks, it'll be time again for The Liver Olympics. I know everyone's been training hard & will come with their game faces on.

I refer, of course, to Adellapalooza 2.0.

It's been 3 years since the first installment- the fist time that any of the UCBers met live & in person. I will never forget that first day (though most of the first night is a blur. The last thing I remember is Russ saying
"This Alize is too sweet. Let's dilute it with vodka!" ). At that time, the ukulele community was considerably smaller- UU was in its infancy- collabs were still a new, novel thing. It seemed crazy to be getting together- completely unreal.

I was looking at some of the pictures this morning & I think what struck me most was "Shit. My house has not changed in 3 years. My crap is all still in the same places."

Nothing could compare to that first visit, but I know this one is going to be equally awesome. I finally get to see Klevin & Grumpy in my native environment, and take them on the 30 second tour of my hometown. Some overdue collabs will be recorded, the 2 other Asian people that live in this county will no longer feel alone, and I get to spend time with the best freaking assholes in the world.

3 years almost to the day. I cant remember the exact date of the first event, but I know it was mid November. It feels like much longer. The craziness that has ensued since then...

I have been consumed by jealousy over the last two get togethers that I wasn't able to attend, and I can't explain how much I'm looking forward to this. I've become quite the Suzie Q Homemaker lately- I have a garden, and I'm doing cross stitching... it's sort of bizarre. I enjoy it, I'm happy... but it's time for a good ole fashioned throw down. Time for the word "balls" to be heard in 20 second intervals, time for impromptu songs & nicknames. It's time for "Seriously, Russ & Booze? Another Neil Young song?", it's time for "Just drink it, you pansy". It's time for inappropriate behavior in public, and gay overtones. It's time.

UU Show at DaSilva's and Other Myths

Our own Boozelele wrote a recent post about how exceptional it is to be able to travel and play music with folks we met online. He sums it quite well, so I won't waste space reiterating how amazing it is - suffice it to say that it's been the highlight of my grumpy ass little world of late, and I consider myself one of the luckiest SOBs alive to be able to do what we do.

This past weekend, I flew back down to San Francisco to hang out with Russ, Trina, and Corser. Aaron, Aldrine, and Ryan from UU came in from Hawaii for a show at Mike DaSilva's workshop in Berkley, and Russ was one of the opening acts - I could't miss that.


We kicked off the visit by a trip to BevMo - if you are not from California, picture a K-mart that only sells liquor. See the post below for details on that, but just recall the following advice from Trina: "Next time, leave the novelty liquor on the damn shelf..." Wise woman that Trina.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of astonishing food, killer music, hilarious "your mom" jokes, and damn fine friends. The stand out moment of course was the show itself. Like last year, Aldrine invited a big line up of opening acts. This time there was Trina B and Addison, RussBuss (with special grumpy guest), and Monique and her sisters. Everyone killed. It was an intense show - and Ryan and Aldrine really outdid themselves as the main event. Not only did they mange to make two grown men cry (not kidding) but managed to charm the fire department into not shutting the place down from the crowd by just being that awesome. It was a damn fine night. Russ' brother showed up and we all went out and gorged ourselves on pizza until they threw us out of the joint.


A Saturday trip to a great breakfast joint (where Grumpy learns to order properly) followed by the obligatory tour of the Haight and it was time to pack it in and head home.

We spent a lot of time missing our UCB siblings, but managed to hold our own on liquor and insults in your honor. Honestly, I spent most of the time just astonished that I got to participate at all. It's a good life.

Special thanks to the UU heroes for letting me on stage, to Russ for drinking corn whiskey with me and inviting me to play, to Corser for allowing me to sleep on his bed again, and of course to Trina - for tolerance beyond explanation and general awesomeness (next time I get the hashbrowns).


More great pictures here...

Finish the job!

During the Ukulele Underground tour visit over the weekend, Coyote and I polished off a bottle of Hendrick's gin and about 90% of this corn whiskey. Somebody needs to come back and finish the job.

Motel Buss

So tomorrow, we'll be hosting ukulele players again.  It's time to change the sheets, scrub the toilet, hide the guns, etc.  Including this upcoming weekend, we will have played host to more than 10 different ukulele players here in Casa de Corserdog this year alone.  This isn't a complaint post, I find it really neat that because of this whole ukulele community thing, we have the opportunity to get close and personal with ukulele players from all over the states (and the world).  As a host, I always wonder what kind of things I should do to prepare for our guests.  Are there special foods I need to stock up on?  Specific liquors?  *ahem* herbs?

So I was at the supermarket today wandering the aisles thinking about what I could stock up on.  I skip past the frozen pizzas because I figure we can just order a pizza for delivery if we get hungry.  I bypass the beer aisle because alcohol is the devil.  Big bag of chicken parts?  Nah, too much work to clean the grill.  Well all I ended up buying was a box of Cheez-Its.  Everybody loves Cheez-Its right?  I mean, it's un-American not to.  I figure that cheese snacks and tap water will make our house one step above a youth hostel, and that's all we ever need to aim for right?

Come On, Who Doesn't Like Boobs?

That's right, boobs. Naked boobs! Breasts, tits, hooters, jugs, cans, fun bags, dirty pillows. There I said it. It's right here in the body of this blog, hell it's there in the title..and you can be damn sure it will be in the tags. Why? because of the traffic it will generate of course!!!! We all know that sex sells (no one watched Bay Watch for the acting) and it is my contention that youtube videos with breasts, get more hits than those without breasts. Im not sure it is enough to just have it in the title or in the tags, I think the still-shot, the thumb-nail of the video needs to have them (I'm not talking bare breasts here, just a low cut top, or a little cleavage. You want them to watch the vid, not wank the one-eyed-wonder-weasel looking at the freeze frame) And imagine if the uke player also has breasts!!!! Youtube-partner-bucks here we come!!! I am certainly not implying that any of our female ukulele friends don't deserve every single hit/sub they get..but seriously if it meant 100k a year in free youtube money, I'd have them out there more than Pam Anderson, Drew Barrymore, and Anna Nichole-Smith combined!!! (are my references dated?) No matter, you get my point. ....now, If only man-boobs garnered the same response....

The Love Fest is Over

I never claimed to be a smart man, so if I am wrong here, please someone correct me. It seems to me that a couple days ago this blog had 63 registered followers. We now have 62. That would imply that someone (and you know who you are) made the conscious decision to remove themselves from the list. Kind of like unsubscribing to a youtube channel. Or deleting a face-book friend. I totally understand not following the blog, or not viewing all of the videos that show up in your youtube subscriptions window...but to go in and unsubsribe? Or unfollow our blog? Was it something I said? Maybe it was because my last post was not offensive enough. Well, whoever you are...screw you!

Modern Days Kick Ass

Its tough returning to work after a vacation. Nine out of Ten times I return to work thinking to myself, "Man, I need a vacation". I think the whole idea of vacation is to return to work rested and rejuvenated. That just doesn't seem to happen. I always need time to recover from my vacation....
...but that's not what I wanted to write about. It dawned on me while flying home from Oakland last weekend that we live in one crazy-ass modern world. With the advent of the Internet, text messages, skype, mpeg's, jet airplanes, gmail-chat etc. the whole world has changed. Add to the techno stuff this little innocent musical instrument and the result is a whirl-wind of video collab's, traveling to meet new friends, making best friends, playing music with people from all over the world, and having more fun than anyone deserves. I have to admit that UCB is a special group. But we are not the only special group! There are a bunch of good people taking advantage of this crazy modern technology to do the same thing we do. You see the Chicago ukers get together and play and then meet-up with the Milwaukee peeps. Casetone plays with Ken and Krabbers. Rel Bar jams with Hoosier Hiver and Derik - DeG, Dirk, Sebi, Ralf, Theresa, people from all over the world, become friends. Aldrine visits So-Cal and as we speak is on his way to the bay area. Michelle plays with Bosko and Honey, and comes to America to meet us all. The list goes on. These uke meetups have become so common, either through the Internet or in person, that it is easy to take it for granted. But I think back just 20 years....I know to many of you that seems like a long time...to me, it's not. No cell phones, no computers (or at least no Internet). We could fly, but there was no way to really know the people at the other end of the flight. Video kinda sucked. 4 track recorders were pretty much the best you could get for your shitty garage band. Now look at us. Don't get me wrong, we are still a shitty garage band, but we practice through skype and gmail chat. We have friends that we would never have known, never could have known before. I'm supposed to be the a-hole in this group, But I gotta say, I love these UCB people. And I am humbled by the opportunity to meet all the other great people from all over the world who come together because of this kooky little instrument. Now...unfortunately I have to get back to work, and allow my body to heal.

Napa Wine Country Ukulele Fest Recap

I'm a little afraid to say this, because it might ruin my reputation as a complete train-wreck, but I actually remember the events of this past weekend, September 10-13.  It may have been that I consumed just the right amount of alcohol or enough water to counterbalance the effects of said alcohol, or maybe the whole adage of "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger", has suddenly turned me into some kind of hot mess superhero.  Whatever it was, I'm happy to report to you what I recall from this weekend of ukulele mayhem.

On Friday, by some act of divinity, Boozelele, Little6ster and GrumpyCoyote (aka GrumpSauceNoPants) all arrived at the Oakland Int'l airport at the same time.  Not a few hours apart each, but exactly at the same moment.  This means I only needed to make one trip to the airport.  You can hear the oil wells all breathe out a big sigh of relief.  We then headed straight to Oakland Chinatown where I  introduce them (somewhat menacingly) to Vietnamese sandwiches. Turns out they liked the food very much, and they even had a "vegetarian" option for Grumpy. The rest of the day was drinking and jamming at the house.  6ster brought us all some wine from France for our drinking pleasure.  Did you know they made wine in France too? Wild!

On Saturday, we (for some reason) had a late start heading out to the Wine Festival in Napa.  The drive was beautiful, but extremely long.  We were all antsy to get to the event because we were running so late.  Boozelele was especially anxious to get there because he was forced to listen to country music on most of the ride.  The only times we weren't listening to country music, it was Marilyn Manson on the stereo.  Not a good day to be Boozelele.  We met Craig Brandau, Cali Rose, Ken Middleton, Don, Bruce and Bruce's son when we arrived at the festival.  Kind of farted around for a while and then played some songs with Ken on stage as well as off to the side on a dirt hill.  Picnicked with Don, Bruce and son, Dominator and his wife.  Browsed the ukulele marketplace section and met some more cool people, Lorenzo (all the way from Italy), Victoria Vox, Mandalyn May.  Strummed some ukes, nodded our heads like we understood the subtle differences between tonewoods and strings, then disappeared into the parking lot.  It was time to go home and do some serious drinking!!  We recorded some tunes that night and were joined by Mandalyn who is a totally cool chick.  In case you don't know, she's a roaming musician that just kind of floats around California (and the world) and plays music all over the place.  That's cool!  She also had a bag of guv'ment chips she got from the Strawberry Music Festival.  I just finished the last of it today!

Sunday was something else, the five of us went to eat brunch (or by the time we got out of the house, it was more like late lunch) at an outdoor restaurant on the waterfront of the bay.  We had bloody marys, omelettes, burgers and sunshine.  Beautiful day to be outside (and alive!).  We then ran into some hipsters that had been partying for 2 or 3 days straight and Mandalyn and 6ster took turns serenading a dude that was passed out on a bench.  His friends just stood there and laughed and laughed and laughed.  We have video of the happenings and it will likely be posted to Youtube soon so keep your eye out for some kind of jackass montage on one of our channels.  We then took some prom photos next to the waterfront and then headed home to meet up with Don and Bruce, who were waiting patiently for us while our tardy asses made our way home.  More drinking and jamming.  It's what we do.

Monday was for hangovers and saying goodbyes.  One of the many reasons I hate Mondays so much.  Another wonderful UCB gathering full of fun, music, adult beverages and laughs all around.  What more can a person ask for?  (other than winning the lottery and buying New Hampshire)

Good times....

Here are some songs we recorded this past weekend:

• Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty
• I'll Be Around - The Spinners
• Burnin' For You - Blue Öyster Cult
• Pump It Up - Elvis Costello

(More pictures to come)

It's Tuesday...

...and my liver still hurts.  I had way too much fun this weekend hanging out with Boozelele, Little6ster, Grumpy Coyote, Mandalyn May (musicmayi), Bruce (uke5417), Don (dearoldnutjob), Ken Middleton, Dominator and his wife Joanne.  And before you stop me to say that i'm a name-dropping douchebag, let me continue.  I also had the pleasure of meeting Lorenzo (krenfilm), Victoria Vox, Craig Brandau and Cali Rose.  Ukulele festivals aren't usually my thing but it can be a lot of fun if you have your friends there and a styrofoam cup full of wine that we snuck onto the property.

I'd write more but I have a lot of recovering to do.  Hopefully one of the others will fill you in with more details.  Meanwhile, take a look at this photo.  You can't look at it without smiling.  Go ahead, try!

I don't get it...

Why is a church in Florida burning Duran Duran recordings? Aren't they about 20 years too late with that?

UCB can haz acting chops

The Ukulele Underground guys asked for some acting help for their latest ukulele lesson and UCB was happy to deliver. If you must know, we are all classically trained foot actors. That's like a hand model, but with feet and curtain calls. Thanks to Aldrine, Ryan, and Aaron for providing the stage.



Check out Ukulele Underground's video lesson here:
http://ukuleleunderground.com/2010/09/uke-lesson-33-good-riddance-time-of-your-life/

The UCB Philosophy?

UCB to join the century club

The UkeCrazyBitches YouTube channel has been stuck on 99 videos for long enough. We've been sitting on our hands (some have been sitting on their thumbs, *ahem Klevin*) waiting to produce a hundredth video. There are many ideas out there for a group video, ideas such as The Jackson 5 (plus 3), Backstreet Boyz vs. nSync, group mentos/dietcoke fizz bomb with tragic ending, Civil War reenactment, the Full Monty, etc.

The problem is, we just can't decide. So we would like to ask you, the public(all 3 of our readers), for advice on what you'd like to see.  Please leave your comments and suggestions below. The more ridiculous the idea, the better. Thanks in advance!