Archived News
Thu 13, 20, 27 June We will use the final 3 Thursdays to adopt Wendy's suggestions into our song selections for the Husky Muster and beyond. After the Husky Muster performance we can revert to our usual Thursday evening format - singalongs, open mic, candidate song tryouts.
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Thu 6 June We welcome Wendy Leatham again to hear our selection of songs that we are preparing for the Husky Muster. We will organise ourselves in stage formation.
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Thu 2, 9, 17, 24, 31 May We have scheduled four gigs in May at nursing homes and the Uniting Church so will be using some of our warm-up session to audition our new song book prepared by Bette. In particular we will be asking prospective gig leaders (Judy, George, Connie, John, Lemon Meringue) to run the warm up sessions trying out the alternative intros that Bette has penned in. Of course, we also need to rehearse new songs from the Candidates book so as to create a fresh song list for the Husky Muster (in late June) and other public gigs beyond that one. Audience members from our Kiss Arts gig were very complimentary about the good sound we produced and our song choices, so we seem to be hitting some sweet spots. Thanks to everyone for turning up in the zany outfits to entertain the Kiss Arts audience who responded with dancing and singing along with favourites from our Repertoire book. New Candidates such as ''Hang on Sloopy" and "California Dreaming" are more challenging with harmonies and their timing but the challenge is certainly not beyond our capabilities - as proven by the progress we've made over the last year or so. By popular request, I will invite choirmaster Wendy along to a Thursday night in late May or early June to help us fine tune our newer songs,
Thu 28 Mar, 4 & 11 & 17 Apr We'll follow the same routine - invite singalongs from any song book, work through songs from the Candidates book, invite open mic performances. Can we polish off some of the songs in Candidates in time to perform them at Kiss Arts on 28 April ?
Download Kiss Arts Set List for 28 April
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Thu 21 Mar This week we will warm up with a big selection of songs from any of our song books before hearing announcements regarding songbooks or upcoming performances. We can then work on a couple of new songs from our Candidates book before hearing from anyone who has prepared an item for open mic. We have now finished sorting out songs from Performance Book 2016 that are suitable for us performing at care institutions. We can all thank Bette for learning Microsoft Word well enough to type up more than 26 of these songs with simple musical introductions included so that any Busker may lead the group through the start of each song. Each arrangement is being tested by Busker volunteers so that very soon we will have a hardcopy of 40 songs maximum. There is room for maybe another 10 songs sourced from our other songbooks or from Busker suggestions, so be ready to offer your suggestions for inclusion. "My Blue Heaven" , "Road to Gundagai" and "Side By Side" spring to mind.
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Thu 14 Mar Thanks to everyone that contributed to an enjoyable concert at Shellharbour, especially to the sound guys. We drew many compliments regarding our song selections and our rich sound including our harmony chorus which was clearly heard by the audience thanks to our condenser mics. Also a big thankyou to all those who performed with Bette for the residents of Blue Haven on Tuesday. This week we can do singalongs, open mic and try out songs from the latest edition of the Candidates book - check our Songs page.
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Please check your email for the latest news and song updates
*** Download Meals on Wheels set list and songs for tablet ***
*** Download Friday Friends set list and songs for tablet ***
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11 Oct - 1 Nov We will be workshopping a number of songs that have been suggested as specials for the 3 upcoming gigs on 3rd, 10th and 11th November. In particular, we need to work on "No Particular Place To Go" and "We Are Australian". We can trial "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Mustang Sally" if we are keen.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>27 Sep - We will have our usual singalong/open mic sessions after our short AGM (details below). The minutes from the 2017 AGM minutes and the 2018 Committee Meetings are now available to read from Our Committee page.
Annual General Meeting - 7:15pm 27 Sep, 2018
at North Kiama Neighbourhood Centre, Meehan Drive Kiama Downs.
Business as follows:
* Confirm minutes of the last annual general meeting
* Receive committee reports and financial statement for the preceding year
* Elect office bearers namely :-
President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, 3 ordinary committee members
* General Business.
If you haven't received the nomination forms by email, contact Ted
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30 Aug, 6 & 13 Sep - We are now in rehearsal mode for our last public performance of the year - Springstrum. Bette, Connie and Noeline will be organising the song list and who might be on lead microphone for each song. Robert will be practising hard to fill in for Allan on bass. Connie and Ian will be filling in for me if the website needs updating while I'm on grandchild-minding duty and on three overseas jaunts through to mid November. I should be able to attend a few Thursdays in between including the AGM
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23 Aug We received many great compliments and thanks from the two View Clubs and from the Kiama Show Society for our three performances so far in August - so well done Buskers! We seem to have built an attractive catalogue of songs now - in the Repertoire book - that our audiences are enjoying and singing along with. Don't forget the Friday Friends gig 24 August followed by our next public gig - our annual joint concert with the Men's Probus choir at Blue Haven. You'll find the song selection on the Songs page along with the Repertoire book that contains all the songs.
Our Monday group has one Monday left to rehearse the 16 songs and some of the Thursday players will be able to help out with the finer points of the music. Everyone may sing the choruses and most of the verses though we are nominating a variety of singers to lead the vocals. We'll do a final rehearsal on Thursday but also try to fit in an open mic session. The selection process for the Springstrum gig on 16 September (to be guided by Connie, Noeline and Bette) is well under way. Robert is already showing promise as Allan's bass guitar understudy so that we might even be game enough to perform his "Runaway" song in his absence.
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3 Aug We have five performances coming up in a head-spinning August so, to freshen up our next gig lists, we'll need to rehearse a few new songs from our Candidates book. We have singalong gigs for two different View Clubs so we will need to bring our iPads in case of unexpected requests. Also, I may not have time to print out all the new songs for the first gig on 7 August so please print out new song sheets if you need to use hardcopy. We will definitely need to share one book between each pair of Buskers because of the tight space at Murphy's Bar & Grill. Our plugged in instrumentalists will need to bring their own amps and we will need a PA with two mics (one condenser for the harmony group and one lead vocal). The 40 or 50 ladies should be able to hear all our unplugged singers and ukers mingling with them in the cosy venue.
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26 July Buskers turned up in great numbers to entertain our Blue Haven aged care residents. for more than 45 minutes. George led us with gusto and many of the audience members and staff joined in enthusiastically with our selection of golden oldie songs. I was told that we will feature in their next newsletter.
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19 July We have three public performances coming up in August so, to freshen up our next gig lists, we'll need to rehearse a few new songs from our Candidates book.
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12 July Tom Anderson, our esteemed pianist and Buskers' founding member, announced that he is retiring from the stage after 7.5 years of being our musical heartbeat. The Buskers were born in Tom's garage before moving to the Blue Haven Village Centre where the Monday group still meets. His piano has been integral to the Buskers' sound. As we evolved from novices to become a diverse musical ensemble, Tom was ever-present to support us - from being our metronome and melody lead in the early years to being our piano accompanist who helped create a rich musical sound that is unique among south coast ukulele groups. For Tom's final Thursday night, we embarked on a historical journey by playing a string of Tom's favourites - starting with "You Are My Sunshine" and ending with "Runaway" and Tom's rendition of one of his original ragtime compositions. His piano work will be sadly missed though we are hoping he may make the odd "guest" appearance in future concerts.
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5-12 July
Let's let our hair down. We now have a little time to try out some new candidates for future performances. Suggest a song for us to try or demonstrate it during our extended open mic sessions.
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21-28 June We've voted on our preferred songs to perform at the Husky Muster on 30 June and I'm pleased to say we are able to included 3 new songs from our candidates book that the audience will not have yet heard from the Buskers, starting with "Love Potion #9" to signal that we have new material. Here's the song list in sequence that indicates who is required to lead on microphone. The Huskisson Bowling Club stage is smaller than the Shoalhaven Heads stage so we will have to allow for one or two rows of Buskers to stand in front of the stage. We can assess the situation on the day - prior to our gig starting at 2:30pm. Here is the stage plan again. Remember to visit the Songs page regularly to check for any minor updates. The 11-song Husky gig book will be available very soon after 21 June, but for now you can rehearse the songs from the Candidates book. Once we all are in possession of a black cover folder with plastic sleeve inserts, we can place paper song sheets in the order of performance for that particular gig. We only have these last two Thursdays to rehearse this list so we will need to assemble in stage formation at the North Kiama Neighbourhood Centre to simulate what will happen at Huskisson. Bring your kazoo, tambourine, shakers, harmonica, whistle, etc.
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17-31 May We decide on which 4 Shoalhaven Heads songs to repeat at Huskisson. The remaining 5 songs will include "Worried Man Blues" and 4 others from the Candidate book or from new suggestions. Starting tonight, we will need to seriously workshop suggested songs to then make a final decision during our Thursday 7 June rehearsal. This will leave us 3 Thursdays to hone our stage performance for Husky. Why not declare your new song candidate or demo your new candidate during our open mic session?
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10 May Our next public gig is seven weeks away on 30 June - the Husky Muster. So we can start workshopping a few more new songs at the gentle pace of perhaps one per week. Let's see if we can have another 6 or more new songs ready to add to those 8 we performed so well at Shoalhaven and at Kiss Arts. I'm keen for us to present a bunch of songs that the Husky audience hasn't yet heard from us. Anyone is welcome to make a suggestion or demonstrate their suggestion during our open mic session. The songs may be from our Candidates book or from your own pool of favourites.
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26 April This is the final opportunity to rehearse our 8-9 song list for the Shoalhaven Heads gig as well as the Kiss Arts gig (which will only use songs from the Shoalhaven Heads gig book). I have printed out 12 copies of this gig book to hand out to those who want to use hardcopy for the performances rather than iPads. We will need to rehearse our stage entrance. There should still be time for open mic performance and Busker choices from any of our other song books.
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19 April We will start with around 45 minutes of songs selected by different Buskers, then work on 3 or 4 songs from the Shoalhaven and Kiss Arts gigs. We can then listen to some open mic sessions followed by more group song picks.
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12 April Wendy is keen to return to see how we've adopted her suggestions. So we'll set up for another stage rehearsal of our gig list but not before we test sections of those affected songs. Here is a diagram representing our preferred stage formation at rehearsal and for gigs. At Shoalhaven Heads Bowling Club, we'll be able to fit at least 12 Buskers standing in front of the stage . At least 4 Buskers will fit behind me and our harmony singers.
After our "timed" 10-song performance we ought to be able to find time to hear some open mic performances and do some song requests.
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5 April We will be performing our Shoalhaven Heads uke festival gig list in stage formation tonight. We will time the first 10 songs with little pause between them. The inimitable Wendy Leatham will be coming to listen and observe then offer some helpful suggestions on how we might improve our performance. We'll need to set up lengthways in the hall rather than our usual seated circle arrangement. Tom Anderson, the harmony chorus (Anne, Alison, Yvonne in front), me, Bette, Travelling Ukeberry members (two in front) should be positioned across the front. We will probably need to allow for three rows with pairs of Buskers sharing one music stand to reduce clutter and give the audience a better view of us (see photo above). We should arrange ourselves so that the audience (Wendy) will be able to see each one of our faces. The stands should be raised so that we can easily look up and engage with our audience as often as possible.
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Change of Thursday night venue starting March 1
Our secretary Ted has confirmed that Blowhole Buskers may use North Kiama Neighbourhood Centre hall on Thursday nights for practice between 7pm – 9pm. This change is intended to enhance our use of audio equipment, to provide a close and safe access from the carpark to the hall and to continue practising in a friendly atmosphere. The address is : 28 Meehan Drive, Kiama Downs. (Gainsborough oval).
Monday group will continue to meet at Blue Haven 2pm – 3pm. There will be no change to the relationship between the Monday group and the Thursday night group, as we are all members of the Blowhole Buskers.
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Feb 8 Music icons Neil Diamond and Elton John have just announced their retirement from touring so we will dedicate part of this night to their music. Please bring along songs of theirs to perform. I've arranged a bunch of their songs to upload for Thursday. We'll also continue our search for a song - check out the latest Candidates song book in our Songs page...
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Check out photos from the Queen's Baton Relay performance,
Feb 5 For those coming to perform 12-12:30pm at Storm Bay for the Queen's Baton Relay event, the route will be closed along Terralong St 12noon until 2pm so best to park elsewhere after dropping off your passengers and gear. Most of our audience lining the route to the lighthouse will be primary school kids so I've prepared a lively list of songs and uploaded them to our Songs page here. It would be great to be able to sing most of them without looking at down at our music so please practise the simpler ones and choruses if you have time. There will be a gold coin donation barbecue nearby for those that get hungry. There should be adequate time to make it back to Blue Haven for the regular 2pm uke gathering.
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Jan 25 Now that we have a long break before our next festival or public event, we will resume our search for a song. Bring along your suggestions to try out. Some may already exist in our older song books but need to be workshopped to apply our newfound talents. Here are six to start on tonight.
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Jan 25 This Saturday's gig from 4pm is now one hour long, so we will not only rehearse the Kiama Show 2018 11-song song book, but also 7 or so favourites that we are confident with e.g. Kiama Blowhole Buskers Band, Walk Right In, Bonny and Clyde, Oh Lonesome Me. I won't be present this time so I am looking to trial different vocalists to take the microphone lead for certain songs. With one hour to fill, I would like to break up the hour with a Tom Anderson rag and a 3-song Travelling Ukeberries bracket. The organisers loved us last year and I'd love for us to show off the versatility we've developed since then. I'll compile an expanded song list soon to use as a guide for us at the Saturday gig.
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Jan 15 and 18 We resume on Monday 15 Jan and Thursday 18th Jan at the Blue Haven Retirement Village Amenities Centre. We have been asked to park outside the Village to ensure that noise is kept to a minimum when entering and leaving the Centre.
Our committee is searching for new songs, perhaps already in our song lists, that may be arranged for the Buskers to perform at our general public performances such as Kiss Arts, Jazz Festival and the various uke festivals. Why not use the Song Choices blog on this website to offer your suggestions?
Thanks to Carole, Tom, Ted, Colleen, Sue, Judy and a host of Busker helpers, the Buskers Xmas party was another enjoyable one filled with comradery and open mic performances that promise even better songs and musicianship for 2018.
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Minutes of the committee meeting on 17/11/17
Oct 30 The latest version of Jim's Ukulele Songbook now contains over 2000 songs. You can download this massive collection from http://ozbcoz.com/ .
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Oct 23 Website relaunch - our website now has a new address - www.kiamablowholebuskers.com - make this a Favourite or Bookmark in your web browser.
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December 2017 This is the season to let your hair down with Xmas parties galore. Why not perform your party songs during open mic sessions. Paul McCartney is currently touring Australia so how about us singing some Beatles songs? As usual we are always on the lookout for new songs to add to our burgeoning performance repertoire. Connie or Bette will jot down our discoveries.
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Oct 12 - Nov 23 These Thursdays will be used as auditions for new songs or new arrangements we might perform at the Sussex Inlet ukelele festival on Nov 26 - when definite absentees will be Tom Anderson, Noelene, Bette, Graeme and Florence. We need 12 songs that will not be accompanied by piano and that will be led by different vocalists who are willing to step up to the mic. Without Tom, we will need to feature our guitarists for those signature riffs. I am happy to receive song re-arrangement or new song suggestions from all Buskers. For example, it's been suggested that we may still be able to perform "Bonny and Clyde" and "Sailing" if other instrumentalists can substitute their version for Tom's beautiful piano riffs. I hope to be able to publish the final song list for Sussex inlet by Nov 2, after which Florence and I will be away in Africa until December 6.
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Oct 26 Let's sing a tribute o George Young and Fats Domino 4 songs
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Sep 28 We'll be holding our AGM at the Uniting Church where you'll hear annual reports and may elect our office bearers for the next year. Lifts will be available before 7pm for those Buskers residing at Blue Haven. We'll fit in a singalong session afterwards to celebrate the last year. Our Committee for the next year.
Sep 21 We can now rehearse our Folk By the Sea performance with 2 songs moved to be reserves in the gig book due to time considerations. Here is the modified playlist. Download the gig book from the Songs page.
View the Folk By the Sea 2017 Program
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Sep 14 We can now rehearse our Springstrum performance. Download the gig book from the Songs page.
View the Springstrum 2017 Program
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Congratulations Buskers for contributing to a most enjoyable concert with the Probus Men's Choir at Blue Haven. All those rehearsals allowed Monday and Thursday groups to combine in our tightest performance yet. Tom's intros and accompaniments were superb, the uke phrasing was unified and excellent, the harmonies and vocals were near faultless, our endings were crisp, but most importantly, the audience enjoyed the concert, We received many compliments, including from Probus members who hadn't heard us for a year. Wendy was particularly impressed with Noeline's voice, Yvonne's harmonica playing and Tom's arpeggios (though I did caution her to confine her admiration to musical qualities!).
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Sep 7 With Tom on board, we can run through a final rehearsal of our Probus gig and our Bondi2Berry gig. Download the gig book from the Songs page.
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Aug 31 Now that suggestions have been annotated for the songs we trialled last Thursday, I've released individual song books, on the Songs page, for all of our September gigs (except Bondi2Berry). Both the Monday and Thursday groups may now rehearse these final lists containing the new improved arrangements. For those of you relying on printed sheets, you may simply print and shuffle those song sheets that are in common for each gig into each gig book to take along. NOTE: the Folk Book, Kiama Show Book and Performance Book 2016 do not contain the most recent song arrangements. This Thursday we will run through the Probus gig list and follow up with any other songs we need to rehearse for the following gigs.
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Aug 24 We'll will welcome back Wendy Leatheam, director of the Probus Mens' Choir, to listen to how we've been progressing with the songs we've chosen for our September performances.
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Aug 10, 17 We'll continue with our singalong/rehearsal format. Check out updated Folk book on Songs page. I should be able to finalise our final song lists for all 3 gigs in September after tonight.
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Aug 3 We'll likely continue with our singalong/rehearsal format. I've received no news regarding 5 August - Kiama Independence Day so I would say we aren't doing a gig after all. However, you can now view the official program for Folk By the Sea http://folkbythesea.com.au/2017_souvenir_program and
http://folkbythesea.com.au/2017_souvenir_program that advertises our gig at 9.30-10.30am on Sunday 24 September.
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July 20, 27 The Keasts will be away on recreational leave so we'll have to tinker with our dual-format Thursday night. We'll continue to concentrate on rehearsing candidates for September's Folk By the Sea and Springstrum, while allowing time for other fun activities such as open mic or short uke-related-story-telling. I expect to hear back from Clr Neil Riley this week about Blowhole Buskers' involvement in Aug 15.
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July 6 , 13 Brian is planning to use songs from Performance Book '16 for the U3A concert on Aug 21. I will be continuing to confirm our best 12 folk songs for Folk by the Sea while encouraging and rehearsing different musical ideas. Bette is quite correct in nominating "Walk Right In" as a folk song, but will it make the final 12 out of our "shortlist" of 50 ?
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June 29 Let's wallow in our own afterglow from the Husky Muster. We had such an enjoyable time and received many compliments from peer ukulele groups about how much we've improved. Shall we have a go at some of the songs we heard at the festival? Be prepared for anything including the odd open mic performance.
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June 22 We will trial our list of 13 songs to cull down to 9 + 1 reserve for the Husky Muster. We may be able to fit in an open mic performance too.
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June 15 With only two Thursdays remaining until the Husky Muster, we'll rehearse songs from our Kiama Show Songbook and possibly one from outside this book to make up the 9 songs we'll need.
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May 25 The Cancer Fund Raiser is on from around 8pm. Bring a small plate of eats. Tea and coffee will be provided. Bring your wallet. We will also have a trading table. We sent over $300 to Wollongong Hospital Cancer Carers last year. Before 8pm there'll be time to try out potential songs for our next public gigs and to hear some more open mic performances.
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May 18 Finally! Sue and Dylan's debut performance together. Darren Coggan's "Peace Train" is at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre 8pm May 19 - so I will try my version of Cat Steven's "Father and Son". Anyone else want to do a Cat Stevens open mic?
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April 27-30 Four gigs in four days! This was a Buskers first - and for each performance we were able to employ some of those tips that Wendy had demonstrated with us. We got a lot of smiles and positive feedback from our audiences and this made it very enjoyable for the Buskers. Look for some videos taken by Ros at the Dapto Probus and Shoalhaven Uke Festival in our Videos section.
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April 20 What a revelation! Wendy was able to extract performances from the Buskers that had never before been heard or seen. I particularly liked her on-the-spot rearrangements of many of the songs we've been singing for years. Also, I've discovered that we have a talented soprano section that can produce a great coordinated sound when grouped together. I've since refreshed the songs in our Kiama Show song book to include these arrangements and substituted "Advance Australia Fair" with "When the Saints".which was one of the revelations of the night. Dapto song list.
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13 April We are very pleased to welcome Wendy Leatham as our special guest. Many of you will know Wendy as musical director of the Kiama Probus Mens Choir and the Christmas Choir. We are now in serious rehearsal mode for our four public gigs between Thursday 27 and Sunday 30 April so I've asked her to provide us with any valuable tips on how we might improve our singing and our stage performance technique. From 7pm we'll continue to rehearse some of our Kiama Show but you may also wish to deliver a favourite open mic performance for Wendy to critique (in her gentle but constructive way) - put your entry on our whiteboard - this is a unique opportunity for us to progress along the path to being stars (at least in our own living rooms)!
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Invitation Open Mic:
Just to let you know that on the third Friday of the month an open mic session will be held at the Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club. (Next one Friday 21/4/17 from 6:30 pm). It's a very relaxed atmosphere. No pokies No drunks. Like minded crowd. It's aimed at anyone or group of people who want to take their first step in performing. Please extend an invitation to anyone in your group that may be interested. Any questions please feel free to contact me 0438 641 780. Regards Glenn Askew.
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30 March After Brian's singalong segment, we will rehearse some of the songs to perform at the festivals in 4 weeks time. We'll select ones from our Kiama Show song book, though it's not too late to add a new one, particularly for the Kiss Arts Festival if we are invited. We'll need 10 songs for each event. We'll also do some of the Novelty songs we didn't have time to do last week. I've added "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes" and Lemon Meringues' version of "Shame and Scandal in the Family" to the Novelty Song Book.
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23 March After Brian's singalong segment, there will be a themed segment "Novelty songs" where you are encouraged to bring along a song to perform or select one from any of our song books. If you wish the group to join in with your new song, print a half dozen copies to share around or email me a copy by Wednesday and I will print the copies. I have compiled a collection of novelty songs downloadable from our Songs page that I will update on Wednesday if I receive others from you that cannot already be found in our books.
16 March - Called off due to deluge!
9 March After a rapid-fire singalong session we'll rehearse "When the Saints" as our Flash mob song and more from our Jazz and Blues song collection. The Flash Mob + Jazz songs performance will be at 5:30pm 10 March at the Old Fire Station and at (probably 2pm 12 March at the Kiama Village shopping centre - TBA). Could someone or their partner please volunteer to video the Flash Mob performances with their smartphone or camera?
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8 March Our Buskers committee will meet at Robert and Pat's home to discuss Thursday nights, song books, delegations, performances and other pressing issues.
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2 March Similar to last week but will rehearse "When the Saints" as our Flash mob song.
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23 February We will try out some of the songs from our more recent Book 6 along with any open mic performances people would like to do. We will also try out our flash mob candidates. Bring you harmonica or kazoo if you have one. (Download our Jazz and Blues songbook with annotated flash mob songs.)
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16 February Suggest a new or old favourite song for us all to sing or perform yourself. We can also rehearse suitable songs for performing as a "Flash Mob" at the Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival 10-12 March. Sue has applied for us to perform again at the Shoalhaven Heads Ukelele Festival on April 29.
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15 February Thirteen Buskers did us proud again at the Warrigal Care gig - drawing singing and shaking from the captive audience yet again. It was noted that our playing and singing has become even tighter, especially with our endings.
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9 February The Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival is just around the corner so why not start rehearsing suitable songs so we can participate spontaneously. The night's theme will be "Jazz and Blues" so again, choose a song for the group to sing or bring your own to perform on open mic. There is a 24-song book to help us get started on our Songs page.
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2 February After weeks of rehearsals for our Kiama Show gigs (please leave your feedback in this survey), it's time to let our hair down again. This Thursday's theme will be "Inspirational Songs". Choose any song from our many song books or bring along your own one to perform on open mic. The song should have a message that inspires you to do something or feel comforted. I've compiled a songbook for download from our Songs page to get you started.
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We had a ball in the Cafe de Rude performing our two gigs at the Kiama Show 27-28 January. We received many compliments from non-Buskers about how well we sounded despite the hot conditions on Saturday.
The song book produced for this event was assembled with suggestions taken from Buskers. It will serve us for future festivals with possible future additions of songs that suit the theme of the festival or one-off event.
Please complete our short survey.
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8 November Around 20 Buskers turned up to help greet a busload of Syrian refugees at the Uniting Church. Although Brian led us in a "touching" rendition of "Old Macdonald Had a Farm" to our Arabic-speaking visitors (some of whom had only been in the country for a fortnight), the musical highlight was "You Raise Me Up" sung in English by a young woman to faultless piano accompaniment by a visiting priest from the Jamberoo Abbey. This performance raised tears from some of the audience (something Buskers' sometimes do too).
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27 October Thursday night meeting The theme will be "Something Blue" - either a song in the Blues genre or a song that contains "blue" in its title or lyrics. Select a song. Perform an open mic song. Show & tell. Wear something blue.
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23 October We got about a dozen or so people and played for about 30 to 40 minutes (Speak ‘n Easy). It went well and John always does a great rendition of Runaround Sue. But owing to the cold and windy weather there weren’t many people listening – it may be better to play there in warmer weather - Tom Anderson.
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22 October Florence and I travelled to attend the Newcastle Ukelele Festival. There were plenty of phenomenal acts to enjoy - here are links to view videos of four of the most outstanding performers: https://www.youtube.com/user/jameshillmusiq
https://tyroneandlesley.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/the-new-album/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+nukes
http://nicoouke.wixsite.com/nicookapiolaniboyz
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20 October Thursday night meeting Select a song. Perform an open mic song. Show & tell. Dress for 'Hillbilly' half-hour.
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13 October Thursday night meeting Select a song; perform an open mic song. Let's review the lessons we learnt from Nick Rheinberger's workshop.
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6 October Thursday night meeting ABC host Nick Rheinberger delivered a ukulele workshop that was both educational and entertaining for Buskers and partners. With the standard up/down strum he demonstrated how to 'damp' the strings to introduce different percussive rhythms such as the Bo Diddley strum. Other useful techniques such as 'triplets' and 'barre' chord sliding were seamlessly passed on for us to practise. I was impressed when Nick proved that there are a host of instruments from different cultures that may be played like a ukulele; a ukulele can be transformed into a slide guitar by tuning one string so the open chord will become a C chord rather than Am6; we can use a loop device to record overlaid 'tracks' of uke, percussion and voice harmonies. I can't wait for us to try out some of these techniques on songs from our Buskers collection next week.
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6 October 2016 Thursday night meeting
Well known 97.3 ABC radio presenter and music performer, Nick Rheinberger, is coming to deliver a workshop. Nick can perform using almost any stringed musical instrument and has taught at Wollongong University so come along with your ukulele and your musical queries. Can we get 30 participants? Email Sue to confirm your attendance.
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29 September Thursday night meeting
Pick a rock 'n roll song to perform with group. Perform an open mic song. "Show and Tell" - share a playing trick or tell a story inside 5 minutes max.
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22 September Thursday night meeting
Review Springstrum. Pick a folk song to play. Perform an open mike song.
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18 September
Buskers were well received at Springstrum as we added two feature songs Hallelujah and The Pushbike Song to our repertoire. Several "unbiased" husbands and wives in the audience said we sounded great and looked like we enjoyed ourselves. Many Buskers were found moonlighting in other bands. The event showcased some amazing ukulele talent, surprising us when they performed as blackboard artists. The affordable merchandise, luthier, and raffle were well patronised by the Buskers. Noeline won a handcrafted banjoele and Robert won a great voucher in the raffle. I spent a total of $65 getting my Kala tenor buzz fixed, 5 new strings, a harmonica holder and another Hawaiian shirt. Bargain! We all went home tired but inspired.
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10 September
Some 15 Buskers braved the wind to entertain cyclists who stopped at the Blowhole during their Bondi-to-Berry ride in aid of Dementia Awareness. One Tony Abbot asked us to perform The Pushbike Song again and I heard that we managed to do it better by the 3rd time! After lunch in Coronation Park it was off to Blue Haven to perform with the Probus Choir in our annual gig. Brian declared that it was the best we've ever sounded - just in time for our Springstrum gig at 5pm next Sunday.
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31 August
We received rave reviews from Jamberoo Market organisers and attendees for our performance in the new rotunda. Music organiser Ken Jeffries enjoyed our songs from his front row seat and others said that we sounded quite pleasing from all corners of the market. Our 3 PA systems with 3 microphones, uke and piano plug-ins must have done the trick - though good sound balance would have been fluked on the day. Could this jam be the forerunner for many more in future
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19 August
The Buskers' standing in the Kiama Community continues to rise. We've received an invitation to perform a few songs at the Kiama Blowhole from 11am 10 Sept (same day as the Probus Choir concert and the Council elections). It's for Dementia Awareness so let Graeme know by email if you can participate. Here's a link to more information about the event: Bondi2Berry - and here's the Pushbike Song to download
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20 June 2016
The fundraiser was absolutely fabulous. There was a huge turnout for Pete's wished-for event to raise money for Cancer Carers - from the Buskers as well as Colleen & the Joy Boys, Sue Porter's group and the Jetties. The enthusiastic and impressive practised performances made the event seem like a mini uke festival. We had plenty of jovial comraderie along with the selection of afternoon tea delights. Bob Bowker was everywhere and I must say it's the best I've ever heard him sing - proving we can all get better with age! Check out the video.
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1 May 2016 Thanks to all those who turned up to perform on stage at the Kiss Arts Festival. As always at outdoor festivals, we had a few minor issues with sound balance and vocal precision - but hey, we'll learn from it and do even better next time at Folk By The Sea and Springstrum! I work with our sound guy Nick and he said we sounded good when he stood in the audience after making a few adjustments, even though it might have sounded unbalanced to us on the stage. We have plenty of time to select and rehearse appropriate songs for September. We also had a fabulous time singing songs at the Café de Rude afterwards. The event is a fun addition to Kiama's calendar and the hard working organisers Tamara and Dave ought to be congratulated for their efforts. Dave actually told me that we Buskers were great.
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13 March 2016 Following the exposure that the Blowhole Buskers have been receiving from the local press, the organisers of the Save Our Councils movement asked us to lead the march and rally at Hyde Park with our famous We Shall Not Be Merged protest song. Around 10 of us were able to bookend the impressive speeches with a rendition of Barry Spooner's When the State Comes Barging In and a Merged version modified for all state councils affected by the forced mergers. At least 500 attendees from councils as far away as Tumbarumba joined in our rousing performance. If you want to see some of the pictures, visit the Keep Kiama Local facebook site.
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11 February 2016 Brian, Gerda, Graeme and Florence will be in NZ for the Art Deco Festival in Napier so will miss the next two Thursday night meetings. Tom, Warren, Betty and John will be continuing to look for suitable songs to add to our 2016 Performance Book so please be prepared to bring along your nominations and the uke music if they are not already in our 1 - 6 Books.
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8 December Our final performance was for the Kiama Ladies Bowls Christmas Party. Audience members sung enthusiastically from Buskers' performance book with Brian, Bill and John sharing the vocal lead. Without Tom and his piano, Brian dispensed with any musical intros - allowing the rest of us to join in once we'd realised. Nonetheless, different members of the audience complimented us for our cheerful music.
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3 December Thanks to Carol and her band of helpers for organising and catering Buskers first Xmas party at our old venue. We were thrilled to see many of our original members joining in the fun. Singalong requests were shared around the tables and special requests were performed too - I'm Yours, Red Rose Café, Felice Navidad ... Here are some photos from Brian's website .
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27 November Another great morning tea and singalong with the 'friends'. Several ladies in the audience chanced their voices with Buskers' two new wireless microphones. Sue directed and Elvis channelled Graeme to sing 'Blue Christmas'.
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24 November We merry Buskers evoked an enthusiastic reception at Albion Park Warrigal Care. Residents smiled and sang the songs we selected from our Performance Book - so their joy rubbed off on us to make the whole experience joyful. Bette spontaneously joined in the exchange of quips and remarked that she was turning into Brian. Tom was again asserted by us as the Musical Director. Such is the life of Brian!
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16 October around 16 Buskers performed our Daisy the Cow songbook and a few others at a special event at the Old Fire Station. Everyone adjusted magnificently to the new songs and received enthusiastic audience participation and approval. I couldn't hear any musical blunders and Council's event organiser, the Mayor and Dylan's family said we did well and sounded great! I've added this video in our Videos section https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMdMBMrzJFo . Dylan's dad has promised to pass on a copy of us performing 'Rawhide' so I should be able to add it here later.
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15 October Thursday night party at Warren and Heather's home. A great night was had by all - mild weather, scenic location, convivial company and generous hosts. We also used the opportunity to rehearse songs in the Daisy the Cow songbook, where the open air acoustics could be blamed for some disjointed timing (more than usual anyway :).
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20 September Our Swingaleles "big brother" ran another successful Springstrum event at The Fraternity. Hats off to all of them. We were inspired yet again by the Swingaleles and those well-organised visiting performers from the Central Coast and Blue Mountains. Our Buskers and Jam Roll performances were well received by the audiences and a good time was had by all. There are two new videos in our Videos section.
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Thu 6 June We welcome Wendy Leatham again to hear our selection of songs that we are preparing for the Husky Muster. We will organise ourselves in stage formation.
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Thu 2, 9, 17, 24, 31 May We have scheduled four gigs in May at nursing homes and the Uniting Church so will be using some of our warm-up session to audition our new song book prepared by Bette. In particular we will be asking prospective gig leaders (Judy, George, Connie, John, Lemon Meringue) to run the warm up sessions trying out the alternative intros that Bette has penned in. Of course, we also need to rehearse new songs from the Candidates book so as to create a fresh song list for the Husky Muster (in late June) and other public gigs beyond that one. Audience members from our Kiss Arts gig were very complimentary about the good sound we produced and our song choices, so we seem to be hitting some sweet spots. Thanks to everyone for turning up in the zany outfits to entertain the Kiss Arts audience who responded with dancing and singing along with favourites from our Repertoire book. New Candidates such as ''Hang on Sloopy" and "California Dreaming" are more challenging with harmonies and their timing but the challenge is certainly not beyond our capabilities - as proven by the progress we've made over the last year or so. By popular request, I will invite choirmaster Wendy along to a Thursday night in late May or early June to help us fine tune our newer songs,
Thu 28 Mar, 4 & 11 & 17 Apr We'll follow the same routine - invite singalongs from any song book, work through songs from the Candidates book, invite open mic performances. Can we polish off some of the songs in Candidates in time to perform them at Kiss Arts on 28 April ?
Download Kiss Arts Set List for 28 April
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Thu 21 Mar This week we will warm up with a big selection of songs from any of our song books before hearing announcements regarding songbooks or upcoming performances. We can then work on a couple of new songs from our Candidates book before hearing from anyone who has prepared an item for open mic. We have now finished sorting out songs from Performance Book 2016 that are suitable for us performing at care institutions. We can all thank Bette for learning Microsoft Word well enough to type up more than 26 of these songs with simple musical introductions included so that any Busker may lead the group through the start of each song. Each arrangement is being tested by Busker volunteers so that very soon we will have a hardcopy of 40 songs maximum. There is room for maybe another 10 songs sourced from our other songbooks or from Busker suggestions, so be ready to offer your suggestions for inclusion. "My Blue Heaven" , "Road to Gundagai" and "Side By Side" spring to mind.
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Thu 14 Mar Thanks to everyone that contributed to an enjoyable concert at Shellharbour, especially to the sound guys. We drew many compliments regarding our song selections and our rich sound including our harmony chorus which was clearly heard by the audience thanks to our condenser mics. Also a big thankyou to all those who performed with Bette for the residents of Blue Haven on Tuesday. This week we can do singalongs, open mic and try out songs from the latest edition of the Candidates book - check our Songs page.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>6 Dec - Final rehearsal for the 7 Dec Friday Friends gig + songs from the recently updated Candidates book.
Please check your email for the latest news and song updates
*** Download Meals on Wheels set list and songs for tablet ***
*** Download Friday Friends set list and songs for tablet ***
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11 Oct - 1 Nov We will be workshopping a number of songs that have been suggested as specials for the 3 upcoming gigs on 3rd, 10th and 11th November. In particular, we need to work on "No Particular Place To Go" and "We Are Australian". We can trial "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Mustang Sally" if we are keen.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>27 Sep - We will have our usual singalong/open mic sessions after our short AGM (details below). The minutes from the 2017 AGM minutes and the 2018 Committee Meetings are now available to read from Our Committee page.
Annual General Meeting - 7:15pm 27 Sep, 2018
at North Kiama Neighbourhood Centre, Meehan Drive Kiama Downs.
Business as follows:
* Confirm minutes of the last annual general meeting
* Receive committee reports and financial statement for the preceding year
* Elect office bearers namely :-
President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, 3 ordinary committee members
* General Business.
If you haven't received the nomination forms by email, contact Ted
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30 Aug, 6 & 13 Sep - We are now in rehearsal mode for our last public performance of the year - Springstrum. Bette, Connie and Noeline will be organising the song list and who might be on lead microphone for each song. Robert will be practising hard to fill in for Allan on bass. Connie and Ian will be filling in for me if the website needs updating while I'm on grandchild-minding duty and on three overseas jaunts through to mid November. I should be able to attend a few Thursdays in between including the AGM
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23 Aug We received many great compliments and thanks from the two View Clubs and from the Kiama Show Society for our three performances so far in August - so well done Buskers! We seem to have built an attractive catalogue of songs now - in the Repertoire book - that our audiences are enjoying and singing along with. Don't forget the Friday Friends gig 24 August followed by our next public gig - our annual joint concert with the Men's Probus choir at Blue Haven. You'll find the song selection on the Songs page along with the Repertoire book that contains all the songs.
Our Monday group has one Monday left to rehearse the 16 songs and some of the Thursday players will be able to help out with the finer points of the music. Everyone may sing the choruses and most of the verses though we are nominating a variety of singers to lead the vocals. We'll do a final rehearsal on Thursday but also try to fit in an open mic session. The selection process for the Springstrum gig on 16 September (to be guided by Connie, Noeline and Bette) is well under way. Robert is already showing promise as Allan's bass guitar understudy so that we might even be game enough to perform his "Runaway" song in his absence.
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3 Aug We have five performances coming up in a head-spinning August so, to freshen up our next gig lists, we'll need to rehearse a few new songs from our Candidates book. We have singalong gigs for two different View Clubs so we will need to bring our iPads in case of unexpected requests. Also, I may not have time to print out all the new songs for the first gig on 7 August so please print out new song sheets if you need to use hardcopy. We will definitely need to share one book between each pair of Buskers because of the tight space at Murphy's Bar & Grill. Our plugged in instrumentalists will need to bring their own amps and we will need a PA with two mics (one condenser for the harmony group and one lead vocal). The 40 or 50 ladies should be able to hear all our unplugged singers and ukers mingling with them in the cosy venue.
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26 July Buskers turned up in great numbers to entertain our Blue Haven aged care residents. for more than 45 minutes. George led us with gusto and many of the audience members and staff joined in enthusiastically with our selection of golden oldie songs. I was told that we will feature in their next newsletter.
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19 July We have three public performances coming up in August so, to freshen up our next gig lists, we'll need to rehearse a few new songs from our Candidates book.
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12 July Tom Anderson, our esteemed pianist and Buskers' founding member, announced that he is retiring from the stage after 7.5 years of being our musical heartbeat. The Buskers were born in Tom's garage before moving to the Blue Haven Village Centre where the Monday group still meets. His piano has been integral to the Buskers' sound. As we evolved from novices to become a diverse musical ensemble, Tom was ever-present to support us - from being our metronome and melody lead in the early years to being our piano accompanist who helped create a rich musical sound that is unique among south coast ukulele groups. For Tom's final Thursday night, we embarked on a historical journey by playing a string of Tom's favourites - starting with "You Are My Sunshine" and ending with "Runaway" and Tom's rendition of one of his original ragtime compositions. His piano work will be sadly missed though we are hoping he may make the odd "guest" appearance in future concerts.
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5-12 July
Let's let our hair down. We now have a little time to try out some new candidates for future performances. Suggest a song for us to try or demonstrate it during our extended open mic sessions.
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21-28 June We've voted on our preferred songs to perform at the Husky Muster on 30 June and I'm pleased to say we are able to included 3 new songs from our candidates book that the audience will not have yet heard from the Buskers, starting with "Love Potion #9" to signal that we have new material. Here's the song list in sequence that indicates who is required to lead on microphone. The Huskisson Bowling Club stage is smaller than the Shoalhaven Heads stage so we will have to allow for one or two rows of Buskers to stand in front of the stage. We can assess the situation on the day - prior to our gig starting at 2:30pm. Here is the stage plan again. Remember to visit the Songs page regularly to check for any minor updates. The 11-song Husky gig book will be available very soon after 21 June, but for now you can rehearse the songs from the Candidates book. Once we all are in possession of a black cover folder with plastic sleeve inserts, we can place paper song sheets in the order of performance for that particular gig. We only have these last two Thursdays to rehearse this list so we will need to assemble in stage formation at the North Kiama Neighbourhood Centre to simulate what will happen at Huskisson. Bring your kazoo, tambourine, shakers, harmonica, whistle, etc.
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17-31 May We decide on which 4 Shoalhaven Heads songs to repeat at Huskisson. The remaining 5 songs will include "Worried Man Blues" and 4 others from the Candidate book or from new suggestions. Starting tonight, we will need to seriously workshop suggested songs to then make a final decision during our Thursday 7 June rehearsal. This will leave us 3 Thursdays to hone our stage performance for Husky. Why not declare your new song candidate or demo your new candidate during our open mic session?
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10 May Our next public gig is seven weeks away on 30 June - the Husky Muster. So we can start workshopping a few more new songs at the gentle pace of perhaps one per week. Let's see if we can have another 6 or more new songs ready to add to those 8 we performed so well at Shoalhaven and at Kiss Arts. I'm keen for us to present a bunch of songs that the Husky audience hasn't yet heard from us. Anyone is welcome to make a suggestion or demonstrate their suggestion during our open mic session. The songs may be from our Candidates book or from your own pool of favourites.
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26 April This is the final opportunity to rehearse our 8-9 song list for the Shoalhaven Heads gig as well as the Kiss Arts gig (which will only use songs from the Shoalhaven Heads gig book). I have printed out 12 copies of this gig book to hand out to those who want to use hardcopy for the performances rather than iPads. We will need to rehearse our stage entrance. There should still be time for open mic performance and Busker choices from any of our other song books.
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19 April We will start with around 45 minutes of songs selected by different Buskers, then work on 3 or 4 songs from the Shoalhaven and Kiss Arts gigs. We can then listen to some open mic sessions followed by more group song picks.
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12 April Wendy is keen to return to see how we've adopted her suggestions. So we'll set up for another stage rehearsal of our gig list but not before we test sections of those affected songs. Here is a diagram representing our preferred stage formation at rehearsal and for gigs. At Shoalhaven Heads Bowling Club, we'll be able to fit at least 12 Buskers standing in front of the stage . At least 4 Buskers will fit behind me and our harmony singers.
After our "timed" 10-song performance we ought to be able to find time to hear some open mic performances and do some song requests.
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5 April We will be performing our Shoalhaven Heads uke festival gig list in stage formation tonight. We will time the first 10 songs with little pause between them. The inimitable Wendy Leatham will be coming to listen and observe then offer some helpful suggestions on how we might improve our performance. We'll need to set up lengthways in the hall rather than our usual seated circle arrangement. Tom Anderson, the harmony chorus (Anne, Alison, Yvonne in front), me, Bette, Travelling Ukeberry members (two in front) should be positioned across the front. We will probably need to allow for three rows with pairs of Buskers sharing one music stand to reduce clutter and give the audience a better view of us (see photo above). We should arrange ourselves so that the audience (Wendy) will be able to see each one of our faces. The stands should be raised so that we can easily look up and engage with our audience as often as possible.
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Change of Thursday night venue starting March 1
Our secretary Ted has confirmed that Blowhole Buskers may use North Kiama Neighbourhood Centre hall on Thursday nights for practice between 7pm – 9pm. This change is intended to enhance our use of audio equipment, to provide a close and safe access from the carpark to the hall and to continue practising in a friendly atmosphere. The address is : 28 Meehan Drive, Kiama Downs. (Gainsborough oval).
Monday group will continue to meet at Blue Haven 2pm – 3pm. There will be no change to the relationship between the Monday group and the Thursday night group, as we are all members of the Blowhole Buskers.
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Feb 8 Music icons Neil Diamond and Elton John have just announced their retirement from touring so we will dedicate part of this night to their music. Please bring along songs of theirs to perform. I've arranged a bunch of their songs to upload for Thursday. We'll also continue our search for a song - check out the latest Candidates song book in our Songs page...
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Check out photos from the Queen's Baton Relay performance,
Feb 5 For those coming to perform 12-12:30pm at Storm Bay for the Queen's Baton Relay event, the route will be closed along Terralong St 12noon until 2pm so best to park elsewhere after dropping off your passengers and gear. Most of our audience lining the route to the lighthouse will be primary school kids so I've prepared a lively list of songs and uploaded them to our Songs page here. It would be great to be able to sing most of them without looking at down at our music so please practise the simpler ones and choruses if you have time. There will be a gold coin donation barbecue nearby for those that get hungry. There should be adequate time to make it back to Blue Haven for the regular 2pm uke gathering.
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Jan 25 Now that we have a long break before our next festival or public event, we will resume our search for a song. Bring along your suggestions to try out. Some may already exist in our older song books but need to be workshopped to apply our newfound talents. Here are six to start on tonight.
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Jan 25 This Saturday's gig from 4pm is now one hour long, so we will not only rehearse the Kiama Show 2018 11-song song book, but also 7 or so favourites that we are confident with e.g. Kiama Blowhole Buskers Band, Walk Right In, Bonny and Clyde, Oh Lonesome Me. I won't be present this time so I am looking to trial different vocalists to take the microphone lead for certain songs. With one hour to fill, I would like to break up the hour with a Tom Anderson rag and a 3-song Travelling Ukeberries bracket. The organisers loved us last year and I'd love for us to show off the versatility we've developed since then. I'll compile an expanded song list soon to use as a guide for us at the Saturday gig.
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Jan 15 and 18 We resume on Monday 15 Jan and Thursday 18th Jan at the Blue Haven Retirement Village Amenities Centre. We have been asked to park outside the Village to ensure that noise is kept to a minimum when entering and leaving the Centre.
Our committee is searching for new songs, perhaps already in our song lists, that may be arranged for the Buskers to perform at our general public performances such as Kiss Arts, Jazz Festival and the various uke festivals. Why not use the Song Choices blog on this website to offer your suggestions?
Thanks to Carole, Tom, Ted, Colleen, Sue, Judy and a host of Busker helpers, the Buskers Xmas party was another enjoyable one filled with comradery and open mic performances that promise even better songs and musicianship for 2018.
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Minutes of the committee meeting on 17/11/17
Oct 30 The latest version of Jim's Ukulele Songbook now contains over 2000 songs. You can download this massive collection from http://ozbcoz.com/ .
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Oct 23 Website relaunch - our website now has a new address - www.kiamablowholebuskers.com - make this a Favourite or Bookmark in your web browser.
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December 2017 This is the season to let your hair down with Xmas parties galore. Why not perform your party songs during open mic sessions. Paul McCartney is currently touring Australia so how about us singing some Beatles songs? As usual we are always on the lookout for new songs to add to our burgeoning performance repertoire. Connie or Bette will jot down our discoveries.
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Oct 12 - Nov 23 These Thursdays will be used as auditions for new songs or new arrangements we might perform at the Sussex Inlet ukelele festival on Nov 26 - when definite absentees will be Tom Anderson, Noelene, Bette, Graeme and Florence. We need 12 songs that will not be accompanied by piano and that will be led by different vocalists who are willing to step up to the mic. Without Tom, we will need to feature our guitarists for those signature riffs. I am happy to receive song re-arrangement or new song suggestions from all Buskers. For example, it's been suggested that we may still be able to perform "Bonny and Clyde" and "Sailing" if other instrumentalists can substitute their version for Tom's beautiful piano riffs. I hope to be able to publish the final song list for Sussex inlet by Nov 2, after which Florence and I will be away in Africa until December 6.
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Oct 26 Let's sing a tribute o George Young and Fats Domino 4 songs
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Sep 28 We'll be holding our AGM at the Uniting Church where you'll hear annual reports and may elect our office bearers for the next year. Lifts will be available before 7pm for those Buskers residing at Blue Haven. We'll fit in a singalong session afterwards to celebrate the last year. Our Committee for the next year.
Sep 21 We can now rehearse our Folk By the Sea performance with 2 songs moved to be reserves in the gig book due to time considerations. Here is the modified playlist. Download the gig book from the Songs page.
View the Folk By the Sea 2017 Program
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Sep 14 We can now rehearse our Springstrum performance. Download the gig book from the Songs page.
View the Springstrum 2017 Program
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Congratulations Buskers for contributing to a most enjoyable concert with the Probus Men's Choir at Blue Haven. All those rehearsals allowed Monday and Thursday groups to combine in our tightest performance yet. Tom's intros and accompaniments were superb, the uke phrasing was unified and excellent, the harmonies and vocals were near faultless, our endings were crisp, but most importantly, the audience enjoyed the concert, We received many compliments, including from Probus members who hadn't heard us for a year. Wendy was particularly impressed with Noeline's voice, Yvonne's harmonica playing and Tom's arpeggios (though I did caution her to confine her admiration to musical qualities!).
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Sep 7 With Tom on board, we can run through a final rehearsal of our Probus gig and our Bondi2Berry gig. Download the gig book from the Songs page.
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Aug 31 Now that suggestions have been annotated for the songs we trialled last Thursday, I've released individual song books, on the Songs page, for all of our September gigs (except Bondi2Berry). Both the Monday and Thursday groups may now rehearse these final lists containing the new improved arrangements. For those of you relying on printed sheets, you may simply print and shuffle those song sheets that are in common for each gig into each gig book to take along. NOTE: the Folk Book, Kiama Show Book and Performance Book 2016 do not contain the most recent song arrangements. This Thursday we will run through the Probus gig list and follow up with any other songs we need to rehearse for the following gigs.
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Aug 24 We'll will welcome back Wendy Leatheam, director of the Probus Mens' Choir, to listen to how we've been progressing with the songs we've chosen for our September performances.
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Aug 10, 17 We'll continue with our singalong/rehearsal format. Check out updated Folk book on Songs page. I should be able to finalise our final song lists for all 3 gigs in September after tonight.
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Aug 3 We'll likely continue with our singalong/rehearsal format. I've received no news regarding 5 August - Kiama Independence Day so I would say we aren't doing a gig after all. However, you can now view the official program for Folk By the Sea http://folkbythesea.com.au/2017_souvenir_program and
http://folkbythesea.com.au/2017_souvenir_program that advertises our gig at 9.30-10.30am on Sunday 24 September.
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July 20, 27 The Keasts will be away on recreational leave so we'll have to tinker with our dual-format Thursday night. We'll continue to concentrate on rehearsing candidates for September's Folk By the Sea and Springstrum, while allowing time for other fun activities such as open mic or short uke-related-story-telling. I expect to hear back from Clr Neil Riley this week about Blowhole Buskers' involvement in Aug 15.
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July 6 , 13 Brian is planning to use songs from Performance Book '16 for the U3A concert on Aug 21. I will be continuing to confirm our best 12 folk songs for Folk by the Sea while encouraging and rehearsing different musical ideas. Bette is quite correct in nominating "Walk Right In" as a folk song, but will it make the final 12 out of our "shortlist" of 50 ?
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June 29 Let's wallow in our own afterglow from the Husky Muster. We had such an enjoyable time and received many compliments from peer ukulele groups about how much we've improved. Shall we have a go at some of the songs we heard at the festival? Be prepared for anything including the odd open mic performance.
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June 22 We will trial our list of 13 songs to cull down to 9 + 1 reserve for the Husky Muster. We may be able to fit in an open mic performance too.
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June 15 With only two Thursdays remaining until the Husky Muster, we'll rehearse songs from our Kiama Show Songbook and possibly one from outside this book to make up the 9 songs we'll need.
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May 25 The Cancer Fund Raiser is on from around 8pm. Bring a small plate of eats. Tea and coffee will be provided. Bring your wallet. We will also have a trading table. We sent over $300 to Wollongong Hospital Cancer Carers last year. Before 8pm there'll be time to try out potential songs for our next public gigs and to hear some more open mic performances.
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May 18 Finally! Sue and Dylan's debut performance together. Darren Coggan's "Peace Train" is at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre 8pm May 19 - so I will try my version of Cat Steven's "Father and Son". Anyone else want to do a Cat Stevens open mic?
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April 27-30 Four gigs in four days! This was a Buskers first - and for each performance we were able to employ some of those tips that Wendy had demonstrated with us. We got a lot of smiles and positive feedback from our audiences and this made it very enjoyable for the Buskers. Look for some videos taken by Ros at the Dapto Probus and Shoalhaven Uke Festival in our Videos section.
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April 20 What a revelation! Wendy was able to extract performances from the Buskers that had never before been heard or seen. I particularly liked her on-the-spot rearrangements of many of the songs we've been singing for years. Also, I've discovered that we have a talented soprano section that can produce a great coordinated sound when grouped together. I've since refreshed the songs in our Kiama Show song book to include these arrangements and substituted "Advance Australia Fair" with "When the Saints".which was one of the revelations of the night. Dapto song list.
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13 April We are very pleased to welcome Wendy Leatham as our special guest. Many of you will know Wendy as musical director of the Kiama Probus Mens Choir and the Christmas Choir. We are now in serious rehearsal mode for our four public gigs between Thursday 27 and Sunday 30 April so I've asked her to provide us with any valuable tips on how we might improve our singing and our stage performance technique. From 7pm we'll continue to rehearse some of our Kiama Show but you may also wish to deliver a favourite open mic performance for Wendy to critique (in her gentle but constructive way) - put your entry on our whiteboard - this is a unique opportunity for us to progress along the path to being stars (at least in our own living rooms)!
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Invitation Open Mic:
Just to let you know that on the third Friday of the month an open mic session will be held at the Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club. (Next one Friday 21/4/17 from 6:30 pm). It's a very relaxed atmosphere. No pokies No drunks. Like minded crowd. It's aimed at anyone or group of people who want to take their first step in performing. Please extend an invitation to anyone in your group that may be interested. Any questions please feel free to contact me 0438 641 780. Regards Glenn Askew.
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30 March After Brian's singalong segment, we will rehearse some of the songs to perform at the festivals in 4 weeks time. We'll select ones from our Kiama Show song book, though it's not too late to add a new one, particularly for the Kiss Arts Festival if we are invited. We'll need 10 songs for each event. We'll also do some of the Novelty songs we didn't have time to do last week. I've added "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes" and Lemon Meringues' version of "Shame and Scandal in the Family" to the Novelty Song Book.
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23 March After Brian's singalong segment, there will be a themed segment "Novelty songs" where you are encouraged to bring along a song to perform or select one from any of our song books. If you wish the group to join in with your new song, print a half dozen copies to share around or email me a copy by Wednesday and I will print the copies. I have compiled a collection of novelty songs downloadable from our Songs page that I will update on Wednesday if I receive others from you that cannot already be found in our books.
16 March - Called off due to deluge!
9 March After a rapid-fire singalong session we'll rehearse "When the Saints" as our Flash mob song and more from our Jazz and Blues song collection. The Flash Mob + Jazz songs performance will be at 5:30pm 10 March at the Old Fire Station and at (probably 2pm 12 March at the Kiama Village shopping centre - TBA). Could someone or their partner please volunteer to video the Flash Mob performances with their smartphone or camera?
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8 March Our Buskers committee will meet at Robert and Pat's home to discuss Thursday nights, song books, delegations, performances and other pressing issues.
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2 March Similar to last week but will rehearse "When the Saints" as our Flash mob song.
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23 February We will try out some of the songs from our more recent Book 6 along with any open mic performances people would like to do. We will also try out our flash mob candidates. Bring you harmonica or kazoo if you have one. (Download our Jazz and Blues songbook with annotated flash mob songs.)
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16 February Suggest a new or old favourite song for us all to sing or perform yourself. We can also rehearse suitable songs for performing as a "Flash Mob" at the Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival 10-12 March. Sue has applied for us to perform again at the Shoalhaven Heads Ukelele Festival on April 29.
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15 February Thirteen Buskers did us proud again at the Warrigal Care gig - drawing singing and shaking from the captive audience yet again. It was noted that our playing and singing has become even tighter, especially with our endings.
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9 February The Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival is just around the corner so why not start rehearsing suitable songs so we can participate spontaneously. The night's theme will be "Jazz and Blues" so again, choose a song for the group to sing or bring your own to perform on open mic. There is a 24-song book to help us get started on our Songs page.
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2 February After weeks of rehearsals for our Kiama Show gigs (please leave your feedback in this survey), it's time to let our hair down again. This Thursday's theme will be "Inspirational Songs". Choose any song from our many song books or bring along your own one to perform on open mic. The song should have a message that inspires you to do something or feel comforted. I've compiled a songbook for download from our Songs page to get you started.
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We had a ball in the Cafe de Rude performing our two gigs at the Kiama Show 27-28 January. We received many compliments from non-Buskers about how well we sounded despite the hot conditions on Saturday.
The song book produced for this event was assembled with suggestions taken from Buskers. It will serve us for future festivals with possible future additions of songs that suit the theme of the festival or one-off event.
Please complete our short survey.
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8 November Around 20 Buskers turned up to help greet a busload of Syrian refugees at the Uniting Church. Although Brian led us in a "touching" rendition of "Old Macdonald Had a Farm" to our Arabic-speaking visitors (some of whom had only been in the country for a fortnight), the musical highlight was "You Raise Me Up" sung in English by a young woman to faultless piano accompaniment by a visiting priest from the Jamberoo Abbey. This performance raised tears from some of the audience (something Buskers' sometimes do too).
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27 October Thursday night meeting The theme will be "Something Blue" - either a song in the Blues genre or a song that contains "blue" in its title or lyrics. Select a song. Perform an open mic song. Show & tell. Wear something blue.
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23 October We got about a dozen or so people and played for about 30 to 40 minutes (Speak ‘n Easy). It went well and John always does a great rendition of Runaround Sue. But owing to the cold and windy weather there weren’t many people listening – it may be better to play there in warmer weather - Tom Anderson.
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22 October Florence and I travelled to attend the Newcastle Ukelele Festival. There were plenty of phenomenal acts to enjoy - here are links to view videos of four of the most outstanding performers: https://www.youtube.com/user/jameshillmusiq
https://tyroneandlesley.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/the-new-album/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+nukes
http://nicoouke.wixsite.com/nicookapiolaniboyz
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20 October Thursday night meeting Select a song. Perform an open mic song. Show & tell. Dress for 'Hillbilly' half-hour.
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13 October Thursday night meeting Select a song; perform an open mic song. Let's review the lessons we learnt from Nick Rheinberger's workshop.
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6 October Thursday night meeting ABC host Nick Rheinberger delivered a ukulele workshop that was both educational and entertaining for Buskers and partners. With the standard up/down strum he demonstrated how to 'damp' the strings to introduce different percussive rhythms such as the Bo Diddley strum. Other useful techniques such as 'triplets' and 'barre' chord sliding were seamlessly passed on for us to practise. I was impressed when Nick proved that there are a host of instruments from different cultures that may be played like a ukulele; a ukulele can be transformed into a slide guitar by tuning one string so the open chord will become a C chord rather than Am6; we can use a loop device to record overlaid 'tracks' of uke, percussion and voice harmonies. I can't wait for us to try out some of these techniques on songs from our Buskers collection next week.
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6 October 2016 Thursday night meeting
Well known 97.3 ABC radio presenter and music performer, Nick Rheinberger, is coming to deliver a workshop. Nick can perform using almost any stringed musical instrument and has taught at Wollongong University so come along with your ukulele and your musical queries. Can we get 30 participants? Email Sue to confirm your attendance.
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29 September Thursday night meeting
Pick a rock 'n roll song to perform with group. Perform an open mic song. "Show and Tell" - share a playing trick or tell a story inside 5 minutes max.
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22 September Thursday night meeting
Review Springstrum. Pick a folk song to play. Perform an open mike song.
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18 September
Buskers were well received at Springstrum as we added two feature songs Hallelujah and The Pushbike Song to our repertoire. Several "unbiased" husbands and wives in the audience said we sounded great and looked like we enjoyed ourselves. Many Buskers were found moonlighting in other bands. The event showcased some amazing ukulele talent, surprising us when they performed as blackboard artists. The affordable merchandise, luthier, and raffle were well patronised by the Buskers. Noeline won a handcrafted banjoele and Robert won a great voucher in the raffle. I spent a total of $65 getting my Kala tenor buzz fixed, 5 new strings, a harmonica holder and another Hawaiian shirt. Bargain! We all went home tired but inspired.
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10 September
Some 15 Buskers braved the wind to entertain cyclists who stopped at the Blowhole during their Bondi-to-Berry ride in aid of Dementia Awareness. One Tony Abbot asked us to perform The Pushbike Song again and I heard that we managed to do it better by the 3rd time! After lunch in Coronation Park it was off to Blue Haven to perform with the Probus Choir in our annual gig. Brian declared that it was the best we've ever sounded - just in time for our Springstrum gig at 5pm next Sunday.
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31 August
We received rave reviews from Jamberoo Market organisers and attendees for our performance in the new rotunda. Music organiser Ken Jeffries enjoyed our songs from his front row seat and others said that we sounded quite pleasing from all corners of the market. Our 3 PA systems with 3 microphones, uke and piano plug-ins must have done the trick - though good sound balance would have been fluked on the day. Could this jam be the forerunner for many more in future
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19 August
The Buskers' standing in the Kiama Community continues to rise. We've received an invitation to perform a few songs at the Kiama Blowhole from 11am 10 Sept (same day as the Probus Choir concert and the Council elections). It's for Dementia Awareness so let Graeme know by email if you can participate. Here's a link to more information about the event: Bondi2Berry - and here's the Pushbike Song to download
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20 June 2016
The fundraiser was absolutely fabulous. There was a huge turnout for Pete's wished-for event to raise money for Cancer Carers - from the Buskers as well as Colleen & the Joy Boys, Sue Porter's group and the Jetties. The enthusiastic and impressive practised performances made the event seem like a mini uke festival. We had plenty of jovial comraderie along with the selection of afternoon tea delights. Bob Bowker was everywhere and I must say it's the best I've ever heard him sing - proving we can all get better with age! Check out the video.
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1 May 2016 Thanks to all those who turned up to perform on stage at the Kiss Arts Festival. As always at outdoor festivals, we had a few minor issues with sound balance and vocal precision - but hey, we'll learn from it and do even better next time at Folk By The Sea and Springstrum! I work with our sound guy Nick and he said we sounded good when he stood in the audience after making a few adjustments, even though it might have sounded unbalanced to us on the stage. We have plenty of time to select and rehearse appropriate songs for September. We also had a fabulous time singing songs at the Café de Rude afterwards. The event is a fun addition to Kiama's calendar and the hard working organisers Tamara and Dave ought to be congratulated for their efforts. Dave actually told me that we Buskers were great.
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13 March 2016 Following the exposure that the Blowhole Buskers have been receiving from the local press, the organisers of the Save Our Councils movement asked us to lead the march and rally at Hyde Park with our famous We Shall Not Be Merged protest song. Around 10 of us were able to bookend the impressive speeches with a rendition of Barry Spooner's When the State Comes Barging In and a Merged version modified for all state councils affected by the forced mergers. At least 500 attendees from councils as far away as Tumbarumba joined in our rousing performance. If you want to see some of the pictures, visit the Keep Kiama Local facebook site.
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11 February 2016 Brian, Gerda, Graeme and Florence will be in NZ for the Art Deco Festival in Napier so will miss the next two Thursday night meetings. Tom, Warren, Betty and John will be continuing to look for suitable songs to add to our 2016 Performance Book so please be prepared to bring along your nominations and the uke music if they are not already in our 1 - 6 Books.
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8 December Our final performance was for the Kiama Ladies Bowls Christmas Party. Audience members sung enthusiastically from Buskers' performance book with Brian, Bill and John sharing the vocal lead. Without Tom and his piano, Brian dispensed with any musical intros - allowing the rest of us to join in once we'd realised. Nonetheless, different members of the audience complimented us for our cheerful music.
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3 December Thanks to Carol and her band of helpers for organising and catering Buskers first Xmas party at our old venue. We were thrilled to see many of our original members joining in the fun. Singalong requests were shared around the tables and special requests were performed too - I'm Yours, Red Rose Café, Felice Navidad ... Here are some photos from Brian's website .
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27 November Another great morning tea and singalong with the 'friends'. Several ladies in the audience chanced their voices with Buskers' two new wireless microphones. Sue directed and Elvis channelled Graeme to sing 'Blue Christmas'.
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24 November We merry Buskers evoked an enthusiastic reception at Albion Park Warrigal Care. Residents smiled and sang the songs we selected from our Performance Book - so their joy rubbed off on us to make the whole experience joyful. Bette spontaneously joined in the exchange of quips and remarked that she was turning into Brian. Tom was again asserted by us as the Musical Director. Such is the life of Brian!
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16 October around 16 Buskers performed our Daisy the Cow songbook and a few others at a special event at the Old Fire Station. Everyone adjusted magnificently to the new songs and received enthusiastic audience participation and approval. I couldn't hear any musical blunders and Council's event organiser, the Mayor and Dylan's family said we did well and sounded great! I've added this video in our Videos section https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMdMBMrzJFo . Dylan's dad has promised to pass on a copy of us performing 'Rawhide' so I should be able to add it here later.
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15 October Thursday night party at Warren and Heather's home. A great night was had by all - mild weather, scenic location, convivial company and generous hosts. We also used the opportunity to rehearse songs in the Daisy the Cow songbook, where the open air acoustics could be blamed for some disjointed timing (more than usual anyway :).
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20 September Our Swingaleles "big brother" ran another successful Springstrum event at The Fraternity. Hats off to all of them. We were inspired yet again by the Swingaleles and those well-organised visiting performers from the Central Coast and Blue Mountains. Our Buskers and Jam Roll performances were well received by the audiences and a good time was had by all. There are two new videos in our Videos section.