Brightly Coloured Ukuleles

Sometimes brightly coloured ukuleles look cheap, I think that people expect them to be low quality instruments. Maybe no one will want to steal this one?

I was at a show where  the artist was playing a resonator guitar with a “Mother of Toilet Seat” fretboard. You know, kind of swirly and plastic-like. The builder of the instrument was there and he told me that it was drum wrap covering the fretboard, that was the secret. Well I had just re-wrapped a drum and had some material left over and I wanted to try it too! Trouble was; it was bright yellow. No problem I thought. I’ll just design a uke that needs a bright yellow fingerboard! And this is what I came up with. It’s a curly maple body and a northern white old growth pine soundboard. The colours are stained on the wood and then lacquer finished. I did the spaceship inlay with plexiglass.

While it was being made a customer came by and showed me his tattoo of the same spaceship! I think that this will be my “player” for a trial run.

Oakland Airport Ukulele Exhibit

A few years ago a well known local guitar maker Ervin Somogyi was presented the opportunity to curate a show in a downtown Berkely exhibit space and he bamboozled a handful of us other builders into creating a display on hand built guitars and ukuleles. (There’s pictures of it on the Pohaku website in “my other stuff’ section.)

It was such a nice show we shopped it around to other venues.  I  approached the Oakland Museum of California about it with the Oakland International Airport in mind as the museum tends to their exhibits. The person in charge of these outside exhibits  said yes, it is a fine exhibit  and we’d love to have it in the Airport, in the future.

Three years later the museum gets back to me and says, ‘”we’re ready”.  So I bamboozled some help and we hustled and have put a beautiful show together which opened today (December the 18th, 2009) in the Oakland Airport. The show will be up until April the 6th, 2010 and is divided into three sections.

The section which I curated is located in the first terminal before the security check-point and in these display cases I have presented the four members of the ukulele family,  depicted an overview of the ukulele building process, and  have created a historical ukulele time line with an emphasis on the instruments exposure on the mainland. There are instruments, sheet music and ephemera  reinforcing the ukulele’s story.

In the second section of the display fellow curators and builders Ervin Somogyi and Louis Santer have re-created (and re-invented) the previous guitar exhibit. The premise of this section is that guitars aren’t just built in factories but they are also built by people like us. The show overviews the process of hand building guitars.

In the final section are a pair of museum quality exhibit cases housing ten gorgeous hand made guitars we were able to borrow from some of California’s finest builders. We were able to offer an alarmed display case, armed guards and insurance which made it relatively easy to convince builders to loan us instruments. There are also some mighty fine ukuleles in the case as you could well imagine!

The museum promises good photography of the exhibition and I’ll post that as soon as I get it. Cherie Newell and Kaoru Kitagawa (and crew) are the museum people who worked on and did such a fine job with this display.

Helping me with the ukulele display was Stephen Becker, Sandor Nagyszalanczy, Gittings Duncan and Tony Graziano.

Larry Robinson, Addam Stark, Luthiers Mercantile and Allied Luthiere contributed to the guitar display curated by Ervin Somogyi and Louis Santer.

And thanks for instrument loans from Monica Esparza, Kathy Wingert, Michihero Matsuda, Fred Carlson, Harry Fleishman, Michael Hemken, Howard Klepper, John Mello, Chris Morimoto & Dimitri Tenev.

Pohaku’s Big Adventure

HEADING EAST

I left Berkeley headed to Boston in the beginning of May. My dad lives in Lexington, Mass and this was my spring checking up on him trip. Instead of buying a plane ticket I thought that I’d drive and turn the journey into a five week adventure. I have this nice new convertible roadster I needed to check out more thoroughly and thought that I’d take this opportunity to visit all those people who live in between in those odd places I would normally never go to. So I made this a friend, family and fellow ukulele people road trip.

Heading north out of California my first visit was with Ray Kraut; a guitar builder who used to work in my area krautguitars.com and with Amy Crehore the ukulele painter both of them living in Eugene, Oregon. If you’re unfamiliar with her fantastic painted ukulele art check them out on her website at amycrehore.com. She also has designed the classic ‘Tickler Ukulele’ screen printed shirt that’s also available on her site

A bit further north, up in Portland I visited a friend who I used to work with and play in a band with on Oahu, Hawaii. He still has his Pohaku ukulele and it looks pretty good. From Portland I followed along the Columbia Riverheaded east and entered the Rockies in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I stayed overnight in the quaint old mining town of Wallace, Idaho in the heart of the northern Rockies.

Its mining country up there and the expression goes ‘If it’s not grown, it’s mined’, a simple expression that I found profound. I continued thru the Rocky Mountains in Montana where I worked my way north where there are still dinosaurs and there were no leaves on the trees although it was mid May.

I got to tour B-52 Bombers in Minot, North Dakota and then I stayed the night on the east border of ND in Grand Forks where there is an excellent University of North Dakota campus.

In the land of ten thousand lakes I only counted about four hundred and eleven of them along US-2 in Minnesota. In the eastern part of the state lush birch forests appeared and then encountering Lake Superior in Duluth I preceded north around the lake entering Canada through Thunder Bay where a passport was required. What’s that all about?

The trip around the lake all the way to Sault Ste. Marie, Canada was another of the trips highlights. Talking with Canadians I discovered that they actually like us Americans again, at least for the time being. I can’t imagine that sentiment lasting for too long. They never like us. I stayed on Canadian roads all the way to Montreal which was one of the worst cities I’d ever driven through. Bad traffic and their signs aren’t even in English. What’s that all about?

I re-entered the U.S. with its english freeway signs on the Vermont side of lake Champlain where I visited with Kevin Crossett, aka Guitar Sam in Montpelier.

Besides running a brick & mortar music store in downtown Montpelier and having an online business www.guitarsam.com Kevin builds a very fair ukulele in his spare time in his basement shop selling them under the name of Kepasa Ukuleles He too owns a Pohaku ukulele which wasn’t too shabby either. Kevin joined us a few days later down in Boston where Craig Robertson hosted another Ukulele Noir event at Johnny D’s in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Just outside Boston is where my dad and brother live. My wife Lyn flew in to join us for a week.

At the Ukulele Noir show Greg Hawkes the keyboard player for the 70’s band the Cars performed on ukulele as well as Craig Roberson, jazz ukulele player Mark Occhionero and the Lowell, Massachusets band Melvern Taylor and the Fabulous Meltones. Greg Hawkes and Craig Robertson both have new CD releases out of their ukulele music available on CD baby.

From Boston I went down to Manhattan for the weekend, took in a few city sights, went to the MOMA where I hadn’t realized that Andy Warhol offered so many brands of Campbells Soup. I was also inspired by a guitar-like sculpture of Picasso’s. I imagine you’ll be seeing a ukulele version of this coming out of the Pohaku studio soon.

I had brunch in Brooklyn with Bliss Blood and a handful of her friends

Later that day I got to see Bliss and the Moonlighters perform in Brooklyn. They had just returned from a German tour and they also have a release out on their new label, World Sound Records .

And wouldn’t you know it, my latest fave performer Hot Time Harv was in the audience at the show. We met up, he sang me a few songs and we had some good laughs together. Check out his latest release, Hot Time Harves Roller Coaster of Thrills.

From NYC I headed a little further south and stayed overnight in Annapolis Md. with a cousin who lives and fishes on Chesapeake Bay before visiting with another ukulele maker, who also lives in Annapolis on the bay.

I stopped in on David Means and talked ukulele shop with him for a bit. He has his nice set up in his basement and David makes some really fine instruments. See them at Glyph Ukulele.com.

Staying in DC with cousin Jay I visited the new(ish) Smithsonian Air & Space museum out by Dulles Airport which is the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center

I spent a couple of days playing tourist down around the mall in our nation’s capitol. The Smithsonian American Folk Art Museum is always one of my favorites and we found some pretty giant exhibits at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn gallery too.

It was nice to see some of the changes that have recently have occurred in DC.

I did lunch at the White House

Saying goodbye to my many Cousins and Aunties in the DC area I turned my car west again and started steering back toward California. After a nice ride thru the Blue Ridge portion of the Appalachians and passing a giant guitar which lets you know that you’re in Tennessee I happened upon Morrisville, Tennessee which looked like a good place to spend the night. The downtown was blocked off for a street party, car show and barbecue.

The town had a unusual two story downtown.

My next visit was at the Museum of Noisy Children outside of Nashville near Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage Estate.

Heading further west I found myself in the buckle of the Bible Belt.

I have a nephew who is the Chief of Police in a small central Missouri town whom I stayed with next. We got to shoot guns and explore a cave at the Lake of the Ozarks but we didn’t get to shoot any criminals.

The Weather Channel’s Vortex II Storm Chasing crew caught up with me in western Kansas and since these guys mission was to chase tornadoes I thought it perhaps best to head off in the opposite direction from which they were headed in.

I passed thru Denver and then thru that lovely stretch of the Colorado Rockies

And continued west into rugged and dry Utah

I got to see an old high school buddy whom I hadn’t seen in years outside of Provo. He doesn’t play ukulele. And then after spending one more marvelous night in beautiful Winnemucca, Nevada where I didn’t loose a dime gambling it was homeward bound for me. A little over eight thousand miles in a little under five weeks.

Now I am back home and if the ukulele that I am building you is a little behind this is my excuse.

Starry Plough Ukulele Show

Thursday night here in Berkeley we had a nice three band show with each act utilizing the ukulele in their music set.

We had our local favorites Five Cent Coffee who bill themselves as a neo-skiffle junkyard blues band. The band members are Smitty “Spitshine” Delecroix on vocals & ukulele , Doodles LaRue on Vocals Washboard, Melodeon & a 17 1/2 lb. chain. And Slick Macoy was on the baddass bass and even sang a song in the beautiful flowery language of Germany.

Tippy Canoe also performed, she’s another local favorite and a major hub of some of our Bay Area ukulele scene (and she plays a Pohaku!)

And from Southern California we had Mme. Pamita join us. The good Madame combines mystical Tarot fortune telling (which required audience participation) seamlessly interspersed with her music which was mostly her vocals accompanied with ukulele. Madame Pamita recorded a CD last September & she did her recording in New York on an 1898 Wax Cylinder Phonograph. How Retro can a recording get?

Ukulele Player Magazine

This months issue of the online magazine Ukulele Player published by Mickey Macguire has a kind article featuring a Pohaku Ukulele and an interesting & informative interview with yours truly; Peterhurney. Check out pages 10 – 13 in this 3rd issue @ <http://www.tricornpublications.com/issue3.pdf>

Todays picture is a Pohaku Deco Style Ukulele in a New Orleans cemetery,photographed and owned by the lovely and talented Ms Allison of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

POHAKU – The Game

Some time last year I became aware that there existed a game called Pohaku and finally I dug one up.I haven’t played it yet but I find it way cool that this thing does exist. Martin doesn’t even have their own game!

Step right up ladies and gentlemen and test your skill with the new and exiting Pohaku game. Distributed by Science Whiz, Pohaku is the game of strategy with only one rule!  (Don’t cheat?) Easy to learn but a challenge to master Pohaku will keep you in your seat and away from your ukulele for hours on end.  Or perhaps on second thought, to heck with the game and pick that uke back up.

Taj Mahal visits Pohaku

So I answer my door the other day and a friend whom I hadn’t seen for some time is there with a fellow who I didn’t recognize. My friend says, Peter this is Taj Mahal and I say hello, come in I recognize the name and I’d have you autograph an album but I don’t have any of yours. So since I didn’t really know exactly how his music went and never having owned one of his records I was spared the job of  being star struck and we just swapped the bull for a while and had a grand old time. His voice is great and he seemed to know his way around a ukulele pretty well.  He says that he’ll be through here later on in the year and that he’s performing with some ukulele players and that I’ll have to go see them which I will.

When I went into my radio station the other day I pulled a bunch of Taj Mahal’s records to familiarize myself with his music,  boy he’s played in a lot of different styles! And he has had a TON of major label releases!

Did I think to take a picture? No.

Did I think to break out the microphone and get him to record a station ID for my radio station? No.

Always thinking, yes i am.

Resonator Ukuleles

Click onto this link to hear

Resonator Sound Comparison

I always liked resonator instruments. I’m partial to their peculiar quality of sound and I like the mechanical nature of the beast. At a guitar builders convention sometime ago guitar builder hero Harry Fleishman included into his presentation some pictures of resonator instruments that used automobile hubcaps as their cover plates. Inspired by this I went back to my shop to see what I could do. Well, only one instrument was built with a hubcap and I quickly figured out that there was some accurate engineering necessary to make a resonator instrument that worked well.

My preference for the reso-ukulele sound leans more towards the Dobro instrument of the 30’s which used a spider style cone arrangement which is much more difficult to manufacture compared with the simple biscuit bridge style resonator arrangement which practically all modern instruments use. It took a bunch of prototyping for me to arrive with a simple elegant solution to the task. The ukuleles which use a biscuit bridge in my opinion have too much bark to their sound  and lack note clarity; they seem muddled especially when playing chords. Also after having played and examined a bunch of resonator ukuleles the longer scale lengths seem to work out better. These are the reasons the instrument I designed and build is a tenor scale length spider bridge ukulele.

To solve the problem of making the cover plate I opted to vac-u-form my plates out of .060″ ABS plastic. This allowed me to design a cover which exactly suited my needs and desires. My inspiration for the design obviously comes from the vintage plastic radios of yesteryear, there sure were some elegant designers working in that era. And ABS plastic; while not a conventional material for ukulele cover plates has proven to be entirely suitable choice. It’s a strong and stable material which lend itself into being molded into clever shapes.

Resonator instruments definitely aren’t the instrument for everybody. It takes a particular playing style to make these things sound good and if you’ve got the style – then more power to you, strum away!

Kitten on the Keys gets her new ukulele!

Miss KItten, one of our local San Francisco treasures was so thrilled when I finally finished her ukulele and got it to her. Months ago we started design the idea whilst sipping lattes on a rare warm San Francisco morning down at the beach in the outer Sunset district. It was decided that it needed to have something to do with a piano and a kitty. Well it did and it does and I think that she peed her pants when she actually got the new instrument into her hot little hands; but that was okay because she bought the sushi!