I have a confession to make. I’ve been seeing other ukulele groups.
I was travelling in the US and Canada a couple of weeks ago. Before I went I realised that I would have an evening free the day we were to arrive in Toronto, Canada. So I found the Corktown Ukulele Jam and dropped them an email and received a very friendly reply from their main man, Steve McNie, encouraging me to come along. As the time got closer, and I knew that I would definitely be in town for the Wednesday night jam, I joined their Facebook group and asked if anybody might be able to lend me a uke for the evening.
Within about 2 hours of arriving in Toronto, I was down the Dominion on Queen, where they meet – a great bar with some good beer. I went for the Flying Monkey because… well you would. I met Steve who was welcoming and he introduced me to a load of people, including Heather who runs the Broadway Music store in Orangeville, who was my uke connection for the evening. I had been warned by the Facebook group to take care as she had offered to lend me a uke, but she was a dealer. She lent me a beautiful concert Ibanez with a quilted maple finish. It played real nice too. Heather runs uke workshops and jams in her store. That’s a proper music shop, one that creates community.
Steve brought the packed room of about 80 people to order with an interesting technique that enforces the no-noodling policy. He just chunked steadilly at his uke with muted strings like a train getting going. Very quickly people caught on until everybody was doing it, and he had them. He got the newbies to introduce themselves to whoever they were sitting next to. I told a chap called Bob that I was from Birmingham, England and a bit about Moselele and said that if anybody was ever in Birmingham they should look us up. A kind of ukulele exchange visit. Bob then told the group all about me. I was asked to open my striped boating blazer and show my chest which I though was some sort of initiation but it was just because I was wearing a Duke of Uke T shirt. (Buy them here folks!). Then Steve led a workshop, with the aid of Tony and his laptop and projector, showing us all how to play two new songs, Something Stupid and the jangly 80s tune, Under The Milky Way, by The Church. The latter was a song that very few seemed to know but it didn’t matter because of the way Steve taught it. Very quickly he had 80 people playing a pretty true version of it.
"UKULELE CONFESSIONAL" PRESIDING: THE GRAND KAZOO + THE BIG BOPPER "all ye smitten by temptation, bring forth thy lamb for that it shall be known to the flock and boptised, even baritones” - Uke IV:20
After the workshop it was time for some Open Mic slots from the brave and talented, compered by Sunny, although not until the Boptism had been done, where those who’d bought another uke could confess and have it boptised. There was quite a queue. I was relieved I hadn’t bought the Ibanez off Heather at that point.
All this was followed up a request-led jam from their extensive jambook with chords and lyrics on the projector so there was no mucking about trying to find the song. This is an organised and efficient group. After a rendition of Sloop John B (link will take you to Soundcloud if you want a listen), I requested a song from home:
Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize performed by the Toronto Ukulele Jam
Afterwards I hung out with a handful of them for beers and chats and made a few new friends, some of whom I ended up going for some lunch with the next day, but that’s another story.
What a great uke group. If you’re ever in Toronto on a Wednesday night you should look them up. If any of them are ever in Birmingham, England on a Thursday(1st or 3rd week of the month) night I would offer them a return visit to Moselele. Beers on me guys.
