Click here to see a recent promotional shot of the Ukes
The UOGB started in 1985 and is directed by George Hinchcliffe and Kitty Lux. There have been over 30 players in various combinations over the years.
Three CDs have been released as well as contributions to several compilation releases and other recordings.
In September 1994 the Ukes completed a tour of Japan where they gave concerts in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, appeared on various TV shows and made concert recordings.
The Ukes have played live engagements in Asia, North America and Europe as well as in England and Scotland. Concerts have been given in venues as diverse as Ronnie Scott's and the Sir George Robey, from The Savoy Theatre and Sadlers Wells to Olympia and the Soho Jazz Festival. A UOGB Club ran for many years at the Empress of Russia pub. The Ukes have also had a regular date in the antler decorated basement cavern of the Violet Trefusis Room in Cecil Sharpe House, which is the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. In 1994 and 1995 the Ukes have been playing every month at the Drill Hall Theatre, in the West End of London.
The performing unit consists of of between 5 and 12 players, performers, entertainers and singers.
The original concept of the band was that all genres of music were available for reinterpretation as long as they were played on the ukelele, an instrument without a pedigree in the then current popular or classical music fields. Stress was laid on the fact that the Orchestra uses ukeleles, not banjos, not banjuleles, not anything to do with George Formby, all right? Is that clear? Note however that despite a lack of current pedigree, a historical bloodline for ukelele instruments is very well documented in several countries throughout history. The ukelele is the "bonsai guitar", the Hawaiian instrument of Madeiran and Portuguese ancestry, the sawn-off Spanish guitar, the four course, re-entrant tuned (temple nuevos) chitarrino, the gittern, the braguina, the cavaquinho, the mandora, the machete de braca, the quelele, the tiple, the taropatch, the fast strumming, jive-talking instrument of the 1920s American popular music explosion. Made of wood. Not a banjo. The "bonsai guitars from Hell" (as "The Cut" dubbed the UOGB). No other instruments have been used at concerts, gigs, TV and radio appearances or on record by the Ukes.
A Ukes show has typically involved performers in black tuxedos and dresses (the flavour of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Kronos Quartet), sitting in formation like a chamber group or a swing band, reworking classics of rock'n'roll, punk, jazz and classical music. In may instances this reworking has revealed the vacuity of the original versions, the triviality of pop music and the self-reverential state of musical taste in the post-modernist period. It has also revealed that audiences like to have a good time with the Ukes and that musical intelligence and a light-hearted approach are not incomparable with acoustic versions of heavy metal, performance art techniques and the homage of a live karaoke.
In the more intimate environments, a Ukes show would be permeated by the mordant banter between George, the alleged Musical Director and Compere, and the rest of the band. Commentaries and introductions to the music by the Musical Director of the Ukes, it is said, plumb Groves Dictionary of Music, Musicians and Musical Instruments, The Secret Doctrine of Madame Blavatsky, Straight no Chaser and the Anarchist Cookbook.
The music of the Ukes reveals unsuspected insights, as, for example, they sing several rock classics simultaneously and, surprisingly, they all fit together.
The Ukes are:
George Hinchcliffe Artistic and Musical Director, Ukelele and Vocal Kitty Lux Director, Ukelele and Vocal Andy Astle Taro-patch and Sopranino ukelele Jonathan Bankes Bass, Vocal and Whistling Les Bell Sound Engineer Peter Brooke-Turner Ukelele, National Steel ukelele and Vocal Hester Goodman Ukelele and Vocal Will Grove-White Ukelele and Vocal Al Hill Baritone ukelele and Vocal David Suich Ukelele, Quattro and Vocal Ritchie Williams Baritone ukelele
Click here to see a recent promotional shot of the Ukes
