In Da Club

I decided to join a ukulele club. York had several from what I could gather and I chose one that met upstairs in a pub in an effort to combine two hobbies at once.

Sadly the pub was one of those that specialised in selling continental lagers in bizarre vase-like glasses at prices which would enrage even a Londoner.

It was a kind of splinter group of the Grand Old Uke of York – the ones who were the headliners of the ukulele festival who would later go on to greatness in performing on TV before the start of the Tour de France and would star in an advert for a car and would generally suffer from bouts of big-headedness and self-importance at the next year's ukulele festival, but enough about that for now.

Kyle was leading the group. He was a junior Grand Old Uker so had been sent to earn his stripes teaching a group of people of varying abilities. Kyle, it turned out, was the one who had performed right before me at the festival and made me look like a right amateur. What a bastard. Actually he was a very nice guy and had the patience of a saint to be fair.

There were people present who had bought ukuleles but never played them and hoped that joining a group would spur them on. There were people who had to be constantly reminded how to play C, F and G chords. There were people who pretended to strum and just observed, kind of like ukulele voyeurs. There was a guy with a lever arch file containing hundreds of plastic wallets, each containing the lyrics and chords to a different song. And there was me, the rebel without a clue.

The fact that there were people of varying abilities meant we were only as strong as our weakest link. This meant incredibly slow run-throughs of Sloop John B and some Beatles shit before we moved on to a comedy accents version of Fog on the Tyne once some of those who were out of their depth left early.

Being upstairs in this particular pub was not without its pitfalls. The toilets were on the same floor, so along with having to play some truly awful songs we were watched intermittently by smirking inebriated types who would give a smattering of ironic applause that was lost on some members of the group who thought that it had actually gone down well.

Walking home, I passed The Habit where the Grand Old Uke of York proper were rehearsing. But rather than showing me how it should be done they too were playing some abysmal songs. Yet another Beatles cover drifted out of the window. Why oh why do people insist on playing this overrated shite?

Each week it was much of the same. The beginners seemed to be making little progress and were clearly not bothering to practise in between meetings. One young student type thought I was picking on him because I said no to almost every song suggestion he had. This was actually because I had no desire to play the fucking Lumineers or the bastarding Kaiser Chiefs. And he was a bit of a tit anyway, to be honest. The best parts always came late on when the more experienced players (and I included myself in this elite by this point) tried tougher stuff like Queen's Don't Stop Me Now which is a real bastard to play.

I continued going to the club for a while, occasionally finding cast iron excuses that could hide my can't-be-arsed-ness and not showing up and then I don't remember if it was officially disbanded or if we all (or more accurately, I) just lost interest.

I needed to find some more like-minded players if I was to continue with the whole thing.

Stay tuned, uke hunters.

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