Such a fun video to shoot. Lips is the first single from the new album, with a lot more on the way as we speak! Can’t wait to share more, please enjoy the video and please share it!

Aloha,

Craig

First off… it’s official, adding to my very short list of performance ukuleles (just my Mya-Moe myrtle to be exact!) is my own signature ukulele!!! Michael DaSilva of DaSilva Ukuleles (ukemaker.com) has created an ukulele that completely fits in with my ever changing play style and I have been blown away. I’ll have a full post on the details of this instrument when I get a chance but for now I’ll leave you with some photos. Go check out his site after you finish reading this blog post, I promise it will be worth it!

Other big news:

I’m extremely fortunate to be working together with Sarah Maisel (sarahmaisel.com) for a few different events this year. She is jazz ukulele player/singer and is just a blast to hang out with. We spent a week together recently doing a bunch of promotional material (I can’t mention some of the other events just yet) and really hit it off. She’s extremely driven and easy to work with. Between the two of us, there is a ton of different styles and instruction that we can cover which will be extremely useful later this year.

The first event we are doing together happens to be described in the next section…

My return to the Cairns Australia Ukulele Festival!

I cannot believe how fast time flies. My first trip to Cairns was very special. That was when I decided I was going to dedicate myself to music. Music will be my job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every decision will be made towards that goal. Looking back it seems it wasn’t much of a choice as I’ve been working toward that conclusion my whole life but in the moment, it was the scariest and most exciting point in my life.

The trip really opened my eyes and thrust me head first into the water filled with others who were filled to the brim with experience and talent. Although quickly intimidated (this was the first festival I’ve been a part of that was filled with that many great performers), it never crossed my mind that I might drown in this vastly increasing ocean. I learned, watched and grew from the experience. Instead of trying to scramble my way to the top to breathe, I realized I was able to find my own path up towards the light and I found my place. Then I dipped back down and looked for a different path. I’ve continued this cycle a few times while I have been growing as a musician (and as a person) and love where each experiment takes me. I love being able to play in different styles, in a full 10 piece band or as a duo, in front of thousands or just one special person. I love trying my hand at things I am completely uncomfortable with just to see if I can do it. I can’t express how much fun I’m having because of it.

Last year (my 2nd time), I was much more confident. I really focused on connections I made with attendees the previous year because I was truly excited to see how they were doing (not just musically). They were part of the whole experience, the whole decision to pursue music full time, and I’ve been really lucky to stay in touch with them. I was much more hands-on throughout the event (even if just taking photos), getting to know new comers, finally meeting people who were too shy to say hello the first year (hi Kahiwa!) and loved every minute of it. That is until I got sick. This was my biggest regret from last year… My throat was shot and I completely blew out my voice during my first performance and could barely talk throughout my second performance. I was crushed. Some of my favorite musicians are in Cairns (Ryo, Tiffany, I’m looking at you) and it destroyed me knowing that in my short window of time performing with them, I was not at 100%… or even 10%.

With that in mind, I am overjoyed to be returning again to Cairns. I’ve been working on some very special surprises with other performers. Expect bigger this year. I’m sure we will expand on all the great things that worked out in previous and experiment with new ones! The staff has shown year after year that they are determined to put on a great event and have been incredibly successful thus far. Personally I want to get more traditional “non-ukers” involved. I’ve said this before, but you do not need to love the ukulele to enjoy this festival, just someone who enjoys good music. Most importantly it’s fun! There is something special about the ukulele… you’ll witness it yourself at this festival, seeing people from all over, of all ages, get together and share songs, techniques, and joy of being able to play music together.

For repeat attendees, expect more. As you have grown as musicians, so have we as instructors. As your ears have been soaking in more lovely ukulele music, we have been honing our craft and expanding our skill sets. I promise you will see many more unique collaborations this year. I also promise that Sarah Maisel will bake you cookies. Well… maybe not but you will fall in love with her (and her music!).

The past few years have been incredible and I’ve had a lot of help along the way (too many to mention at the moment but I will make a giant list soon). Cairns was a life changing event, like my father putting me on a bicycle for the first time and gently nudging me down a steep hill. Maybe nudge was more like a shove. Either way, thank you to the staff and attendees of the Cairns ukulele festival. I’ll see you soon.

PS big thank you to Bob Williams for your excellent photography skills, I hope to work with you again soon!

First off, the new single Lips is up on iTunes and is the first song from the new acoustic album that I’m doing with Tyler Fortier (as producer). You can find it here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lips-single/id586017856

I’m going in a little different direction for this album and I hope you like it! I’ll be making another post in the new future with more new album news.

A few months ago I have had the honor to tour with Aldrine Guerrero (of UkuleleUnderground.com) and Lorenzo Vignando (from Italy, you can see a collaboration we did together where I played the cello a few posts down!). It was such a great experience being around their talent and energy. As I have said all year, it’s amazing how one instrument can be played in so many different ways. If you get a chance to see either of these guys play, make sure you go, I promise it will be worth it!

A special thank you to the Watkins and Russ for hosting us and being amazing!

Other fun tidbits… I experienced my first NAMM show this year thanks to Mike DaSilva and got a chance to hang out with Kahiwa Sebire whom I was able to meet last year at the Cairns Ukulele Festival! We recorded one of her originals while she was here visiting and the video should be up in the next few days! Fun times indeed.

Oh, before I forget, I’ll be down in Chico, California next weekend for their ukulele festival!

http://www.weheartukefest.com

I hope to see some familiar faces, it’s going to be a fun time! This is one of the few festivals I’ll be performing and teaching at this year mainly because I want to take some time off and really focus on writing. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to just sit and write new songs… it’s been a bit frustrating and I promised myself that this year I’d create a lot of time to do just that!

That’s it for now, there’s a lot of little things that I’ll be updating this month, stay tuned

PS: Huge aloha to the UkuleleUnderground members who met up for the jam, it was so nice to meet many of you for the first time and to see some of you who I haven’t seen in a while! The post jam at “Ghandi’s” will always be one of my favorite moments ever!

Thank you for all of your support and love this year. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and an amazing new year! Will have updates on the past few months when I return to Oregon in January, until then!

Aloha,

Craig

For now please enjoy a little collaboration with Lorenzo and I while on the road. Thirteen years have passed since I last touched a cello. Hope you enjoy, make sure to subscribe to his youtube channel, he is amazing musician and film maker!

Thank you to the Oakridge Ukefest, the many supporters and fans that have enabled me to keep so busy this summer, this is just the start!

I am incredibly excited to be joining Aldrine Guerrero (of ukuleleunderground.com fame) for three shows while he is up on the west coast pushing his new album.

October 15th : Roseville, CA

The Strum Shop

October 16th : Berkeley, CA

DaSilva Uke Co.

October 22nd : Bend OR

The Sound Garden

Next to announce is that I’ll also be performing a few shows with Lorenzo Vignando from Italy early November! Busy busy! I’ll try my best to keep you all updated throughout!

An acoustic EP is on the way, filming for the music video for my newest single “Lips” will be starting soon, and a couple surprises yet to be announced… many great things to come!

My photos are up at :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4401913929795.2181087.1346970309&type=1&l=400b167268

Be sure to add me as a friend or like my band page while you’re there

I am currently relaxing on a huge and spacious Airbus A380-800 from Sydney to Los Angeles, reflecting on my 2nd Cairns, Australia Ukulele Festival. Surprisingly, there are no crying babies in the surrounding area… I even have the surrounding seats around me free… lucky! It seems the flight is just a little over 50% full. So here I sit, with nothing but my iPad and keyboard to distract me.

A flood of emotions and ideas have been hitting me since the end of the ukefest. Part of my current high is meeting and playing along with the other musicians (there were so MANY amazing musicians!!!), part of it is sharing new songs and techniques but the biggest thing that I feel I’m taking away from this trip is a sense of growth.

Growth. There has definitely been growth within myself as a musician over the past year (putting out my first album, increase in teaching and gigging, even putting out a successful master class workshop on ukuleleunderground), but it has been so much more than that. I’m starting to learn how everything works, and finding how to balance everything needed to achieve my goals. I keep forgetting how important sleep is, even on this trip I struggled to get enough sleep in. There is an incredible amount of work that no one tells you about when wanting to become a full time musician (I’ll probably write up my thoughts on this in another post in the future) and I feel incredibly blessed to have so much support from friends, family and students. It is with their faith that will keep me pushing forward.

Growth. This festival has grown in many ways. It was obvious seeing the 1500+ people at Fogerty Park on Saturday, the amount of people showing up at the numerous events throughout the week, the amount of awareness and advertising that went into the festival this year but it was the growth of the attendees that stood out to me. From Luke Walker’s own children and St Andrews student group to the many attendees that I met last year to past performers such as Thom Jackson, everyone has improved so much! Not in just technique but in performing! All of a sudden my eyes opened. I saw the much bigger picture. It took this return trip to Cairns to understand what I have to offer and how I fit into the grand scheme of things as an educator and performer. Although it has been a continually changing canvas, my tools will only get more refined.

Even now I have a ton more to talk about but will save that for another day. I’ll close my eyes and try to get some sleep while remembering what 1500 ukuleles sound like. Sweet dreams Cairns.

*Edit: I will be editing and uploading all of my photos from the trip within the next few days, stay tuned

What a spectacular day of music… Sunday at the Tanks Arts Center was beautifully done. I have so many emotions going through me right now… I was blown away by the support and love from both attendees and artists from this trip. As much as I wish I had full use of my voice for my performances it also allowed from some unique set ups as both other artists and the crowd helped me through my songs and I will never forget it. We had such a great crew this year and the positive energy was recycled back and forth all week… So much love and aloha. As the festival gets bigger, so does the crew needed to keep running smoothly. Like I mentioned before, this festival will be one that other ukefests will start to compare to. The events, workshops, performances… Just amazing…and it will only get better.
I will be writing a lot more about the trip but for now I’ll leave with some photos

I got to the Hilton (where numerous events were taking place) to teach my workshop and was amazed by how prepared my students were. Everyone had so much energy and we got through a ton of material. Though with all workshops without a PA, I could feel my voice starting to strain. Trying to talk over a bunch of uke players can be a tricky thing and I got caught up with everything and wasn’t watching how loud I was talking. Not only that, but paired with going 30 min long, I knew after that I was in trouble…

Putting that aside for now, we all headed over to Fogerty Park where the world record attempt for largest ukulele ensemble was taking place… Last year we about 40 people short of the record and we were determined to break it this year. Unfortunately the record almost doubled from last year… we now needed over 1600 uke players to break the record. The official number was 1395. An amazing number and we were extremely proud to get so close to the record. It was a great time at the park… even though it started to rain everyone stayed up beat. Matt Dahlberg had a great set after the attempt and it was great to see how much he has grown over the past few years as a musician. I joined matt for a few songs then it was off to the Jack where I would be doing a set with local and international performers… I will go into more detail later as I’m currently getting ready for the last day of the festival at the Tanks Arts Center but it was just awesome. The level of musicianship, the excitement of the crowd.. I ended up losing my voice mid set but pushed through… it ended up being a very emotional set for me. It was definitely one of my favorite times ever to be playing on stage. Ryo Montgomery, John (I can’t spell or pronounce his last name, will look it up later!) and Paul Hemmings… just amazing. I also brought up Monitoba Hal, Derick Sebastion, Matt D, Tom Jackson, and furai_pad. Photos for now, more details soon.