Uke Mountain

Ukulele player Scot Livingston got his start with the instrument in a very pedestrian fashion. “I lost my license, and a guitar is hard to carry on the bus,” he recalls. Now, ten years later, his love for the instrument has blossomed into Night of 1,000 Ukes, a program showcasing...

By Cory Casciato

December 11, 2008

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Ukulele player Scot Livingston got his start with the instrument in a very pedestrian fashion. “I lost my license, and a guitar is hard to carry on the bus,” he recalls. Now, ten years later, his love for the instrument has blossomed into Night of 1,000 Ukes, a program showcasing the awesome power of this much-maligned instrument. These are not the ukuleles you know from “Tiny Bubbles” and Tiny Tim. “We’re just trying to show that ukuleles can be plugged into Fender amplifiers and burned on stage,” Livingston explains.

The night kicks off with a 5:30 p.m. performance by the Glenn Taylor Orchestra, then really gets started at 7:30, when havoc will be wreaked by a slate of ukulele madmen including Doo Crowder of Pee Pee, Ukulele Loki and his Gadabout Orchestra, Zebra Junction, the Lovely Junkettes and Livingston’s own Inactivists. By the time it’s over, you’ll have a hard time looking at the uke the same way again. After all, as Livingston explains, “If the guitar is a phallic symbol, then for those who are afraid of large phallic symbols, the ukulele is far more comforting.”

Hear the magic tonight at the D Note, 7519 Grandview Avenue in Arvada; tickets are $8. For more info, call 303-463-6683 or visit www.dnote.us.
Fri., Dec. 12, 7:30 p.m., 2008

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