• the217
• Music
• The Duke of Uke And His Novelty Orchestra at Indi Go Artist Co Op

Related Media

The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra

Dave King is a Champaign-Urbana institution, as famous for his acid-head comic strip Bob ‘n’ Dave (quote: “Hey! My house smells much more buttery!”) as his avant-garde good-time-music band. Both were on display at Funhouse, a Hallowe’en art exhibit and concert at Indi Go. Imagine Gerry Roslie as frontman for The Staple Singers instead of The Sonics. Now, imagine that on The Muppet Show, and you have a good idea what the concert was like. Dressed as David Bowie, Dave King stood in dim red light in the corner of the basement before his harem-like orchestra. As he howled and played amplified ukelele, belly dancers and brides came out of a maze in front of him, and a life-size Grim Reaper fell over onto him. Song introduction ranged from, “This predates me, and I wrote it!” to “If anybody’s contemplating suicide, I’d like to remind you there’s an alternative.” Cowbell and tuba sometimes upstaged ukelele.

Basement acoustics are not always ideal, and background conversation competed with song lyrics for attention. Luckily, most of the nineteen songs are on the album This Way Up, recorded at Pogo Studio and due out early December.

The Duke of Uke

And His Novelty Orchestra

1. Only Up

2. Monsters

3. Ghost

4. Rising Up

5. Aquanaut

6. Be My Love

7. Happy

8. Breathe

9. Sassafras (set list says Sassafrazz)

10. Smile

11. Back Then Again

12. Heavy Head

13. Rose Marie

14. Eyeball Web

15. Walking

16. Down

17. Happiness

18. Wedding Song

19. Rubber Edge