I have a new release out now!
It's called
My Aim Is Uke, and is a best-of collection featuring the previously unreleased song "Fanbase of Operations," a remix of "Joss Whedon Is My Master Now," and two live bonus cuts!
I've been busy the last few months recording and performing with indie-pop band
THE SHAKE UPS (http://theshakeups.net). We have a new disc out called
Warm Fuzzies, and it's been getting rave reviews!
THE SHAKE UPS will be touring the Midwest and west coast this summer, and we'd love to see you at one of the shows. I've also been writing and rehearsing new material with
THE MADEIRA and
DESTINATION: EARTH!. More details on the way later this year.
A BRIEF, NON-ANNOTATED HISTORY
Hi there. I'm P.J., and I play the ukulele. I also play the guitar, sing, and write songs. I reside in Indianapolis, but have also spent a lot of time recording and performing in southern California. You may remember me from such bands as The Shake Ups, The Madeira, Mr Muggles, Hipster Zero, Destination: Earth!, Film At Eleven, In Stitches, Mind Rift?, Larry & Rita's Boy, or Happy & Plaid.
It all started in the late 1980's when I began playing the electric guitar. It was a time of long hair and ripped jeans, when pyrotechnics would have been welcome, and sometimes even appropriate. But something was missing... Inspired by the death of Tiny Tim in the mid-1990's, I picked up a ukulele for the first time, wondering if it might be that something. I promptly put it back down, and completely forgot about it for several years. But eventually I picked one up again, purely by chance, while vacationing in Hawaii. Then I got one of my own, started writing songs on it, and covering songs by both artists I admired (They Might Be Giants, Leonard Nimoy, King Missile, the Dead Milkmen) and some I didn't (Poison, Bon Jovi, Kiss).
I released my first uke-based album,
Uke-a-holics Unanimous, in the Fall of 2006. In early 2007, the song "Joss Whedon Is My Master Now" was discovered by hoardes of adoring Whedon fans, and it became a worldwide internet hit. Around that same time, I participated in the RPM Challenge, an event where musicians write and record a full album over the span of a month. The completed disc, dubbed
Keep On Rockin' In The Flea World, was released in the Spring of 2007.
I released a third album,
Ukes Not Nukes, in the Spring of 2008. The song "Number Six," a tribute to Battlestar Galactica, received much attention from the show's fans. The song "We Could Be Heroes," a tribute to the show Heroes, received such a positive response from that show's constituency that its official fanclub included
Ukes Not Nukes in their giveaway contest promoting a new season of the series. In late 2008, I was asked by the producers of Fans, an original web series, to produce a theme song for their show, and that song became "Fanbase of Operations."
A 20-track best-of compilation entitled
My Aim Is Uke was released in the Spring of 2009. Collecting most of the high points from my previous releases, the album also included the aforementioned "Fanbase of Operations," and a remix of "Joss Whedon (Is My Master Now)."
