Author Archives: tiltherewasuke

So, Sunday sees us heading up the motorway to share our wares with some lovely Brides & Grooms to be!

We are adventuring to Chiswick Town Hall for Discover Vintage’s ‘Vintage Wedding Fair’….tickets are still available for just £5 per person.

We are super excited to have a stall at this wonderful fair where we will advertise our various wedding packages and will also be performing at regular intervals throughout the day!

Spending a Sunday surrounded by hope, excitement, pretty trinkets and old things….what more could we possibly want!

Hope to see some of you there!

Stacey & Lucy xx

http://www.vintageweddingfair.co.uk

Hello,

After a month off gigging we are back and doing our bit for charity this month. Firstly we are performing this Sunday (14^th October) at the Dorchester Curiosity Centre. As it’s their 1^st anniversary they are going to use their monthly Vintage Market to raise money for the Air Ambulance and Barnardos and have organised a cider bar, children’s entertainment and lots of stalls. We had the pleasure of playing at a Vintage Market here before the summer and had a great time. Do come along and support these two great causes, as well as picking yourself up a vintage bargain or two and enjoying our ukulele sounds.

Our second gig see’s us taking part in Weymouth’s very first Oxjam mini-festival. We were approached by one of the organisers when we were busking this summer and we are delighted to be taking part. The event takes place on the 27^th October at the Golden Lion, more details can be found about it here and we will keep you posted with line-up developments:

  http://www.facebook.com/#!/oxjamweymouth

Although we have been quiet on the gig front this month, behind the scenes we have been wood shedding. We’ve been experimenting with new songs, styles and arrangements and we’re looking forward to trying some of them out in the next few months. The newbies include versions of songs by Tina Turner, The Darkness and Cat Empire to name a few. And we can’t wait to get some Christmas numbers on the go come December!!

If you have any requests of songs you’d like us to cover, do get in touch. We always love to hear new ideas and try things out. We also hope to get some new videos recorded and up on our YouTube channel soon, so keep your eyes and ears peeled friends.

Bye for now,

L xx

First of all, apologies for our slight lack of blogging of late. After our massively fun but super busy summer, Stacey’s voice and my fingers needed a rest so we took a short holiday with some friends to Italy. We had a lovely relaxing (and very comical) break and are now feeling refreshed and gig ready again.

On our arrival home, we found that ‘Til There Was Uke had a surprise mention on the Guardian website! In an article on the top 10 live music venues in Dorset, we were photographed playing at The Lazy Lizard. We’re not sure where the photo came from or who decided to put us on there but thank you! We love live music more than anything. The Lazy Lizard is a local of ours, we have enjoyed playing there and it’s great to be associated with our great local live music scene. Check out the link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/sep/05/top-10-dorset-live-music-venues?INTCMP=SRCH

Next up on our gig list is the Autumn Fair at Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage HQ. We’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Fine food and drink, beautiful outdoor location, lots of good people, arts, crafts and plenty of local live music- what more could you wish for! We are playing on the Sunday (9th Sept) afternoon, 2-4pm in The Meadow. Do come and join us if you can, it’s going to be a great day.

We are very much enjoying the early Autumn sun and embracing that back to school feeling. We’re looking to get ourselves super busy and gigged up over the next few months, so if you would like us to play at your event or venue then do get in touch with us at tiltherewasuke@aol.co.uk

With love,

L x

As you should know we recently took a trip across the seas to spread our ukulele love with the good folk of the Isle of Wight. What a time we had! Ventnor Fringe Festival http://www.vfringe.co.uk/ is a 4 day celebration of the arts.

“The Ventnor Fringe is the Isle of Wight’s take on the famous Edinburgh Fringe, an open access arts festival which aims to create a unique cultural hub, with events taking place in venues across the eclectic town of Ventnor, on the southern tip of the Island.”

The view from one of our gigs!

And what a celebration it was. We busked our way across on the red funnel ferry for our fare and started the journey greeted with smiles, cheers and many children treating us as a mobile disco…so cute! On arriving in Ventnor we found we had wangled residence in a gorgeous house with a lovely host family…we thought we had turned up at the wrong house when we saw the panoramic ocean views that greeted us! We really do land on our feet sometimes!!

After exploring the quaint but HILLY town! We joined the Ventnor Carnival to promote all of the upcoming excitement…Here is Lucy looking extra stylish as she cooly leans on a beautifully kept 56 year old bug that accompanied us through the procession!

Too cool for school!

As well as playing a few well-received enjoyable busking spots and gigs we also got to be tourists, adventurers and festival appreciators! Attending the Secret Gig in an old disused bank with the bar set up in the Vault was a particular highlight, we especially enjoyed the harmony drenched, chilling vocal extravaganza that was C.H.A.M.P.S – check these guys out!

The weekend was certainly not all work and no-play and after our crazy busking schedule over the Olympics we took a day off and explored almost the whole island! Taking in a cream tea on the Easterly tip, the fantastic views and craggy landscape of the West coast,  a beasty pub dinner right in the centre and topped off with the Cowes Week fireworks with old friends….Spectacular and Spot On!

On our final day at the festival we played a wonderful and windy gig at the Observatory bar. We saw some new faces, made some new fans and were chuffed to see people returning for a second experience of ‘Til There Was Uke tunes! The Observatory bar is an old viewpoint/pier type construction that was overhauled and beautified using swathes of sequinned, purple material and leopard print chaise lounges  just for the fringe, leaving a unique space and awesome venue to play in!

Observatory Bar – view from our stage

This is literally a skimmed overview of the fun we had! We met some great people and a special shout goes to the amazing organisers!! They were always on hand for anything that we needed and just to share a smile, give encouragement and to see a familiar face! Love the lot of them! I would definitely recommend a trip to the island and if it coincides with the Vfringe then you are certainly in for a treat!

Keep your eyes peeled for our video blog & just to forewarn you our trip lead to some song writing inspiration so that will be on it’s way shortly too!

Thanks for reading!

Stacey xxx

So at last our Olympic Odyssey has come to an end. Like most people in the country we are feeling a little of the post-Olympic blues. After a fantastic couple of weeks busking, sport watching and general merriment we have come to the conclusion that the Olympics were really rather wonderful! Not only because of how well our amazing Team GB did (GOLD GOLD GOLD) but because of the positive message that has been sent out by our inspirational hard working athletes and even more inspirational volunteers; many of whom wet met on our travels around Weymouth and we were always greeted with a kindly word and a big smile!

The warm and glorious response that we got to our music was really wonderful and has made us love what we do even more. So many happy people around, high on Olympic fever, sunshine and the sea air- so many stopped to chat, sing along or dance! I have never received so many smiles and have never felt luckier to make music than I have in these last two weeks.

We have lots of Olympic stories to tell and we will be compiling a video diary, with photos and performances which we will post up here soon. In the meantime we are very much looking forward to the Paralympics. I really hope the Olympic momentum and the positive vibes keep up for this next event, it’s going to be truly awe-inspiring! We also hope to continue with a bit more busking through those two weeks and we’ll keep you up dated on this.

Before that however, we are off to play at Ventnor Fringe festival on the Isle of Wight. We’re super excited to get involved with this wonderfully creative open access arts festival. There will be something for everyone! See below for our busking spots/gigs and click on the link to read more about the venues, what else is on and about the history of this fast growing festival.

http://www.vfringe.co.uk/

Wednesday 15^th August, 7pm: Carnival Procession

Thursday 16^th August, between 11am-2pm: Cascade Busking Slot. Then a half an hour set: 8:45-9:15pm before The Big Uke Jam at the Crab and Lobster Tap.

Friday 17^th August, 1pm: The Courtyard

Saturday 18^th August, TBC: Acoustic Originals Band Stand. The Illuminated Carnival from 8:30pm.

We’ll also be doing other unscheduled busking and ‘Lounge Around Town’ slots in people’s houses and gardens, keep an eye on Twitter for schedule updates!

We really hope to see some of you there.

With Love,

Lucy x

Bunting?? Chutney?? Due to our penchant for these 2 very lovely things our brilliant friend and life-long jester Chadwick Merryweather appointed us new names. We have been called many things in our 12 year friendship but we feel this one suits us best!! We made Chutney as part of our Christmas present hampers and have dabbled in making 3 strings of Bunting in the last few months! Our latest creation can be seen below in this fantastic sun-drenched shot taken for us by my lovely brother Josh.

Afternooon Chuuunes.

For those of you that follow our blog you will know that we have spent the last 2 weeks in the hub of all things Olympics-related. We have had the privilege and enjoyment of busking our way around our home town of Weymouth while it hosts the Sailing events. After a slow start Weymouth has picked up the pace and stunned everyone with its beautiful coastline, chilled vibes and happy atmosphere. People have really got into the swing of it making this town an amazing place to enjoy the gold-rush from!!

The sunshine has definitely helped and more than the generosity of peoples pockets we have been overawed by their positive response to our music! We love what we do and try our very best to create a smile-inducing sound. And we have indeed come out of this fortnight with our confidences well and truly plumped, our cheeks aching from returning smiles and our limbs brown from the beaming of the sun!

We have only 4 slots left but are hoping to continue our busking mission through the remainder of the summer/year/our lives.

We have been keeping a video blog of various “interesting” people we have met and adventures we have had so that will be coming soon! Hope you have managed or will manage to catch us at some point!

Thanks for reading, hope you are smiling to yourself and enjoying the success of TEAM GB!

Stacey (The Vocal Half!) xxx

Trolleys at the ready…All set for our first eve of Busking!

Four days of busking in and we are sleeeepy! Having a well earned day off! We have been so lucky with the beautiful sunshine which has certainly shown Weymouth off to it’s absolute best! We have loved meandering around our home town which is literally buzzing. Full to the brim of people enjoying themselves, tanning, munching fish and chips, enjoying a few beers by the harbour and generally having a fantastic time!

Specially designed and commissioned. Cute!

We have made a few friends and fans along the way and made it into the local paper and even onto the national news!! We are making a video blog of our adventures to be posted once edited at the end of the 2 weeks. I hope everyone is enjoying the Olympic hype as much as we are. I would definitely recommend a trip down to Weymouth, host of the Sailing events. There are numerous festivals, street entertainment huge screens on the beach (we watched the opening ceremony on these! Amazing!) and just a great atmosphere in the whole town.

Fun at the Fair – B.side Festival Weymouth.

This evening we have the exciting task of performing at the iCCi Dome situated outside Weymouth Pavillion.

“The ICCI360 Arena is set to ‘WOW!’ audiences with a truly amazing 360° panoramic experience. There will be an exciting series of live performances, festivals, interactive events for all ages and an array of specially commissioned 360° film screenings. The immersive ICCI360 Arena will form a central element in the Maritime Mix – London 2012 Cultural Olympiad by the Sea programme.”

Description taken from – http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/icci360

We are opening the evening as a support act to Rhyme Futur. Tickets are £8 for the evening. Eeeeeeek!

Hope you are lucky enough to get chance to visit Weymouth over the next few weeks and hopefully pop by to see us performing!!

Stacey (the vocal half!) xx

Stunning Weymouth Bay

Entertaining the weary travellers at the train station

Hotels, Bunting, Sunshine.

We are super excited as we prepare to Busk our way through the Olympics! Our home town of Weymouth on the South Coast of England is host to the Olympic Sailing and the whole town is buzzing with anticipation!

We have the pleasure of having 37 programmed slots to busk in over the 2 weeks! BUSY! We have been gathering our equipment and exerting our resourcefulness so we are as portable as possible!

Our busking trolleys ready for our epic fortnight of performances!

See below for all our dates/times and locations! Would be great to see some of you there! 🙂 Lovelove, The TTWUke Ladies xx

Working the 50s look.

Well what a fantastic time we had! Thank you to all at The Square and Compass Square Uke Fest for having us….the wind whipped up as we got there so we perched behind a wall for shelter but by the end of our set the sun was blaring! I have never seen so many ukes in one place! It was a stunning setting and our set was played gazing out at the green fields across to the bluest of seas.

It was a strange sensation to silence such a large crowd (in awe/enjoyment hopefully!) but there were plenty of toes a’tapping, smiling faces and people singing along.

Once our set was over there was a Mass Uke Jam. Chords were written on a huge white board and ukulele fans of all ages playing ukes of all colours, shapes and sizes joined in. It was a fantastically uplifting situation to be in and we really were in our element!

All ages, shapes and sizes loving the jamming!

Been a busy week for us TTWUke girls as it is coming towards the end of the school term and as our day job is music tutors we are here there and everywhere with school fetes and concerts! Fortunately our week was broken up by a lovely afternoon spent tucked under an umbrella ukeing in the rain! It was my (me being the vocal half of ttwuke, Stacey!) brother in laws shop launch in Blandford Forum, Dorset and we were invited to provide some entertainment for the event!

We ain’t scared of no rain!

We had a fantastic time and enjoyed visiting a new town, something we are lucky enough to do on a regular basis as part of our wonderful job! Dorset Business Hub is run by two technology professionals and houses a fantastic range of cut-price stationary as well as being the base of AJS Websites and greenmessage marketing services. For more info visit their website…. www.dorsetbusinesshub.co.uk. I was chuffed to be able to stock up on all my office bits and pieces at a bargain price and we were also treated to bubbly and homemade baking! All in all a great day!

Incentives!

We have a busy music-filled weekend ahead with 2 school concerts on Saturday and 2 Til There Was Uke gigs on Sunday! And they call this work! 🙂

If you are free on Sunday come along and join us at the Square Uke Fest at The Square and Compass Pub, Worth Matravers, Dorset. It is a weekend long shindig and is set to be fantastic! We are playing the lunch slot from 1pm on Sunday and if the good old British Summer Rainclouds rear their ugly heads we have a marquee so there is no excuse!

How could you resist?

From the Uke fest we are off to play at a wedding reception which we are super excited about! So all in all a bloomin lovely start to our summer wouldn’t you agree? Hope to see some of you over the weekend!

Until next time….Keep on ukein’. S xx