Jag är säkert inte ensam att se fram emot konserten med Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (UOGB) nästa vecka. Fyra konserter i Sverige varav en på Lorensbergsteatern nu på skottdagen. Eftersom jag ville veta lite mer om dem skickade jag ett mejl och frågade om jag fick göra en ”mejlintervju”. Ett par dagar efteråt fick jag svar från George Hinchliffe , ledare för UOGB:
Thank you for contacting us. We have always had a great time in Sweden. We hope things will be good this time too. We salute ukulele players all over the the world. We like them all. (Well… nearly all of them!).
• You have an amazing diversity in your repertoire. How do you select tunes?
Sometimes we choose pieces of music which we like. Sometimes we select pieces which we think are interesting, which can be different from what we like. On some occasions we have chosen pieces of music which are famous, or iconic, or which we think are remarkable for being terrible, but amusing. Of course, we don’t say which of these choices apply to a piece, and so, as many people have different opinions, they probably think we like them all. And of course there are different opinions among the players in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain; we don’t all have the same taste. In our shows we try to vary the musical keys, the mood, the tempo, and the balance of different vocalists. This means we have a job like a jig-saw puzzle, fitting all the different elements without having too much of one thing. As we only use ukuleles, the danger is that our programme could sound the same, so we work at maintaining variety, light and shade.
Sometimes we include songs with a regional origin. We have in the past performed Evert Taube or other music with a Swedish connection. We wondered about including Europe’s The Final Countdown. In Britain amongst the ”drinking classes” people sing this as ”Get the final pint down”. This was amusing and pertinent owning to the fact of beer being served in pint glasses and the licensing laws meaning that for years there were strict time limits on drinking in a pub, so everyone was keen to get the last round in before the bar closed. Some British people thus find it funny to say The Final Pint Down. Maybe this loses something in translation.
• How much time do you spend on rehearsal ?
Years ago we used to rehearse every week in London. Now we all live in different places and we are much more busy. It is more difficult to find time with our families and loved ones than to find time for rehearsal. We often rehearse after soundchecks and in hotel rooms now.
• How many performances did you last year?
We do from around 100 to around 120 performances per year. With all the travelling (USA, China, New Zealand etc) that doesn’t give us much time for contemplating the beauties of nature. I read that James Brown used to do 600 performances a year. That must mean that he was doing two shows a day and hardly having any time off. Maybe he had drummers who were 19 years old and full of energy; I wouldn’t like to do so many shows. Perhaps he had found the secret of making money out of the music business. The usual story is this: How do you make a million dollars out of playing music? Answer: Start off with two million dollars and do a lot of concerts.
• Have you any specific memory from your earlier tours on Sweden?
Many memories:
Going for my first sauna in Sweden. It should happen every day!
Being taught how to pronounce the word Göteborg. We used to say Goth-en-burg, but now we say Yo-tea-boy. I hope this is an improvement.
We had some great times in Göteborg during our first experiences in Sweden.
Seeing my first Nyckelharpa in the museum. Too many strings for me!
Encountering the strange device which slices thinly from a chunk of cheese. Or do we blame the Norwegians for that?
Meeting so many talented ukulele players wherever we went. All speaking great english, all playing interesting music, Swedish folk music, complicated rock riffs, classical melodies. And having such fun. But of course everybody in the world wants to live in Sweden. Perhaps it is because the breakfasts are so good.
•What are you expectations for this tour?
We hope to see old friends, and make new friends. We hope the audience will like the new tunes we play, and find some of the old ones which they have liked in the past. I hope to find time for a sauna or two. I hope to see some runic inscriptions. I look forward to pickled herring. Not all ukulele players like it. I hope that we will meet more Swedish geniuses who astound us with their ukulele playing and their unusual genres of music. We usually meet a few on each trip. Is it the educational system or is it something they put in the water?
We hope that everyone will like our new CD. It consists or songs written in the 1970s, recorded by us in the 1990s and only now released in 2016. It is ”20th Century Punk Classics”, including the title track ”Ever Such Pretty Girls” which Kitty originally wrote and recorded with her group Sheeny and the Goys in 1977. It has a punk aesthetic in that it is slightly crazy and homespun. It was recorded in basements and kitchens and in downtime at studios when we could persuade the engineer to fit us in. For a long time we didn’t release it, but now it seems to have some historical interest. Punk was 40 years ago. Many of the orchestra were active in bands in the ’70s and this seems like something of a retrospective view of part of our origins.
George avslutar sitt mejl med:
Thank you very much for contacting us. Very best wishes to the Ukuleleklubben and Göteborg.
Vi säger: Thank you VERY MUCH , George and Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain!
Ni som ännu inte köpt biljetter, gör det genast! Om ni gillar mångsidig och humorfylld musikalisk underhållning på högsta nivå med ett av världens mest underskattade instrument kommer ni inte att bli besvikna.
Länk till deras hemsida har ni HÄR
Text: Göran