There was a great piece today in The Record with Ann Powers, the NPR music blog with some marching orders for those us writing blogs. Excerpts below:
Vedder said he hopes that Ukulele Songs would encourage listeners to step away from their computers and televisions and make some music of their own, preferably with friends. Some of the material collected on the record was written back in the mid-'90s after Vedder first picked up the instrument. For him, the modest chordophone itself has been a companion in times of loneliness.
"If it weren't for the ukulele I would have been by myself," he says of the period. "The songs were just written for my own benefit."[...]"The song selection was easy because those were the ones I had," said Vedder. "A lot's different since I first picked up this instrument; my life is quite different than I could have imagined."[...]"I know for the vinyl version of the record there's going to be a real book included, with the music and the notation and whatever bizarre chords I've come up with — a legible version of the notebook I was creating all those years," he said. "I'm just encouraging people to turn off the TV and play these songs if you want. Some of them are really depressing. But have fun with it!"
