J-uke

The story of J-uke started as I entered a music shop several years ago to buy a guitar as birthday present for my girlfriend. As a result of a very limited budget I bought a dwarfed-sized four stringed "guitar". Whether the present itself was the cause for my girlfriend to dump me remains unknown, but she left me and the "guitar" behind soon after.

As I suddenly had plenty of time (no candle light dinners anymore), I picked up the instrument one evening and soon became fond of it. It took me considerable time to discover that the "guitar" was actually an ukulele and it took a massive effort to learn to play the instrument. In the beginning my aim was learning to play the ukulele and I mostly covered other artists' songs. My first public performance was at a friend's birthday, when I sang a song I wrote about him to the melody of an already existing song. The reception I got was encouraging and inspired me to write more lyrics. During this period I also started to compose and became fascinated with the whole process of creating music. The idea of producing and distributing my own material started to take form.

Throughout the learning process I took constant ridicule from my friends who claimed that the ukulele didn't suit the rock songs I attempted to write. My friends' limited belief in my vocal and instrumental qualities was an inspiration, so I made a promise to produce a CD with my own songs under the artist name J-uke ("J" for Jon and "uke" for, you guessed correctly, ukulele!). My friends were still skeptical; hence the title "Told you". As my first CD ‘paid off’ I then went to the studio for the 2nd time, with the CD called ‘Time to Change’. Currently in the process of writing songs for my 3rd…