For all you ukulele lovers out there! I've put together a slideshow of my custom Glyph soprano ukulele being made. Many thanks to Dave Means of Glyph Ukuleles, not only for building the little beauty but also for checking the slideshow out for "technical accuracy". Special thanks also go to Lucifer Doherty for straightening out my grammar.

Me playing the washboard in the free bar (woohoo!) at the Royal Hotel where the Emerald City Jug Band stayed during the 2002 Tumbleweed Music Festival (we were headliners!).

At the ArtsWest Playhouse with the Emerald City Jug Band on November 9, 2002. Pardon the mic stand, it was in the way in all the pics.

Another one from the ArtsWest gig, this time playing Lil' Oscar, my Oscar Schmidt OU-2 concert ukulele (long since sold). You can see Jim Nason, the washtub bass player, and Stanislove in this pic.

The legendary Dog Mafia performs at the Pike Market Street Festival, Monday, May 26, 2003. That's Breeze in the cowboy hat on guitar, me with the washboard, Squeezebox Davey and special guest Filthy Phil Falcon and his pet opossum, Radar.

I believe we're performing The Weight by the equally legendary band, The Band. Take a load off, Annie...

Here's what happens when you play on a late spring evening in 90+ degree heat! Note the lovely color in my cheeks, the pouring perspiration and the open top buttons (plural!) on the shirt. We were melting!

I'm playing a slide whistle lick (along with Paul whistling) on his song The Way It Used To Be. This was at the Fasica Ethiopian Restaurant during the Columbia City Beatwalk, June 6, 2003.

This is also one of the best close-ups I have of all the assorted goo on the top of the board. You can see there's been some additions since the earlier pics and you can also see the bolts/wingnuts that allow me to easily remove the top stuff for ease in carrying the thing around.

My new, custom, luthier-built ukulele, a Glyph soprano, making its first public appearance. This was Tuesday, November 18, 2003, the day I got it. The place is the Victory Music Open Mic at the Ravenna Third Place Books in Seattle.

Looks like I'm probably playing All Of Me, my second song of the evening, at this time. My first song was Scotch And Soda.

I'm especially proud of All Of Me because not only did I take the "vanilla chords" and jazz 'em up real nice, but I also came up with a solo part to play, doing chords and melody simultaneously. This is the direction I want to head with my ukulele playing and All Of Me is my first successful attempt at it.

On Monday, December 15, 2003, Petty Booka returned to Seattle. Once again they played at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard and I, of course, went to see them.

The odd part about this appearance was that I'd gotten an email from them about a week prior to it and I'm not on their mailing list. What's more, it said something to the effect of "we love the Emerald City Jug Band!".

Boy, was I ever surprised!

Turns out that Audrey Kimura, their publicist/manager found me on the web and followed the link to the Emerald City Jug Band site. She's the one that especially loved the ECJB and she's also the one that took this picture, backstage after the show.

Booka (the taller one on the right) especially loved my new Glyph.

This photo was taken on February 10, 2004 by Phil Chesnut, a local Photo/Journalist who works for a monthly here in Seattle called Blues To Do. I'm playing at the Galway Arms Irish Pub in the University District in Seattle.

The weird part here is how the stage lights affected things. That shirt is actually more red than blue! You can see it (somewhat blurrily) in the Petty Booka photo above.

This photo of me and Hal Smith was taken outside the May 1, 2005 SUPA meeting. Since Hal and I both have Glyph sopranos -- mine is serial number S003 and his is S013 -- we thought we'd get a couple pics to send along to Dave Means showing two of his babies in the same photo. As you can tell, we are both painfully shy guys. (Photo by Pam Mandel of Nerd's Eye View)

This is Snake Suspenderz playing at Seattle's History House in Fremont -- the center of the universe -- on Sunday, July 30, 2006. It's one of the first pictures of my birthday hat, given to me by my sweetie back in mid-June (cuz that's like... ummm... when my birthday is). Beautiful Stetson, eh? (Photo by Anita LaFranchi)