On Location with Laurel and Hardy -- March 1928 (courtesy of Brad Smith's YouTube channel)

Robert Kreis & Die Sextanten - Charleston 2007

'Those Cold Days of February'

Cold days indeed!  I've just returned from a stay 'doing the Continental' around Holland and France.  The band almost froze to the bandstand in a few places, especially when the heating pipes for clubs and dancehalls froze up! Happened in Paris in the Latin Quarter at this small cafe we played at for two nights.  Trying to play tenor guitar and ukelele with frozen fingers is tres difficile even with fingerless gloves!  But we survived, and still had a great time.
But the sight of snow falling in huge flakes as we walked the streets of Paris, over the bridge near the entrance to the Metro at St-Michel and on towards the, by now, half-misted face of Notre Dame.  We went inside just to get out of the cold and were arrested by the ethereal voices of the cathedral choir singing hymns, resonating up and up. Incredibly moving; we ended up staying till the end, even though only one of us is Catholic, albeit of a somewhat lapsed persuasion after having joined our band.
Whilst doing the rounds of club gigs, we met a young gypsy guitarist, originally from Germany, by the name of Django Reinhardt of whom I'm certain we'll hear more, much more. We also met some great chanson singers including the marvellous Madame Mistinguett and the timeless Monsieur Jean Sablon.  M. Sablon even sat in on one of our sets to sing some of his favourites, done in our style of course. A fine singer and a true gentilhomme.
In Amsterdam it was even colder, and frigid enough to freeze some of the canals to a thickness amenable to skating.  We saw the locals flock to the canals in droves when this happened and I could have kicked myself for not having any film in my Box Brownie when we were watching them.  Bernie, our drummer, had done some skating on the local rinks back home, so he borrowed a pair from the hotel staff where we were staying and took to the ice. Not without some pratfalls for all his experience.  Gave the other band members and myself a little light entertainment, I must say.  
Still, it was such a wondrous sight of all these people, and Bernie, skating over what a few days before was a reasonable stretch of water that, when I looked around at my friends' faces I could see there wasn't one of us didn't ache to out there with Bernie having the same fun and joy.  Oh, we stepped foot on the ice here and there, but it was distressing when one of us occasionally slipped and fell, and much less gracefully so.

'Wind It Up, I've Got A New Needle'

One of our occasional vocalists is Mr. Cole Hopper, who is also an 'occasional' lyricist. He recently penned these tasty little rhymes, and the Big Island Aloha Band and I worked on the tune.

I've never been one for aspersions cast

Rarely been first, most always last

Don't like to drag up your sordid little past

But wind it up, I've got a new needle

Wind it up, got a new needle.

Now I've often been left in Coventry

Had many a case of verbal dysentery

Love to make running commentary

So wind it up, I've got a new needle

Wind it up, got a new needle.

If you give me an inch I'll take a mile

And you'll be left with my Cheshire Cat smile

I will sing a little ditty of you, honeychile

And wind it up, I've got a new needle

Wind it up, got a new needle.

So, if you give me an inch I'll take a mile

And you'll be left with my Cheshire Cat smile

I will sing a little ditty of you, honeychile

And wind it up, I've got a new needle

Yes, wind it up, got a new needle.

It's as big as our local church steeple

Oh, wind it up...

I've got a new needle.

Words by Cole Hopper and music by Dukelele and the Big Island Aloha Band.

Copyright Djinn Jivin' Records (1930). Reissued 2009.

Where in blue blazes have you been?

I suppose you probably think I must have disappeared into the ether, or been swallowed up by a willy-willy, or even gone to jazzbo valhalla. 'Twas none of those things, just been travelling with my travellin' band, touring the country and the outback between Melbourne and Sydney, sippin' some serenity.
We went from Melbourne to Ballarat and Bendigo, Echuca and Albury, to Canberra and back down to Eden and on up the coast to Sydney. We stopped at many a little town along the way and played in many a little town hall or church hall. Sometimes we arrived at the same time as the picture show man and had to compete with his audience accroual to make a shilling. Sometimes we had to compete against the local church congregation to even make a penny!
But play we did! Like the devil was our whippin' boy. Some crowds had never heard any modern dance music, they'd only had local country dance bands playing jigs and waltzes and polkas. We hit town and, even if we were only there to play one night, the air was electric after the first tune and people would come running from all over town. After a time on the road our reputation began to proceed us and we either were met with a shebang welcome or were chased out of town before our old bus got a chance to stop. It got to where we realised we'd have to carry an extra supply of petrol and oil in case we couldn't fill up the tank in one of these towns.
When we got to Wollongong we got to play in some of the bigger hotels that had a stage and a dance floor. That felt more like home again but we sometimes missed the warmth of the simpler townsfolk we'd met along the way and the blokes and girlies we'd shared a drink, a yarn, and sometimes a bed with.
Funnily enough, most of the recent tunes we played didn't get as much of a clap as some the oldies like The Sheik of Araby, Makin' Whoopee, or the Black Bottom. But then again, radios are pretty scant in some parts and half of the pianola rolls we came across were still from the Noughties, so I suppose even those tunes would seem pretty new.
When we finally hit Sydney the old bus had to be put into a local garage for some major repair. This meant we had to cancel a few bookings on the outskirts of Sydney but we were able to play more nights at places like the Trocadero and the Regent. Sydney was on fire with some hot bands playin' and we fanned the flames no end.

'Noriko-San'

Noriko-san, February 1931

With her hazel eyes and her long dark hair

When she walks down the street, all the men they stare

But she's my baby, only has eyes for her man.

She's my sloe-eyed geisha

My sweet little Noriko-san.

We like to go out but we love to stay in

Love her so much don't know yang from yin.

Dive in her ocean, takes me back to where it all began.

She's a natural pearl diver

My sweet little Noriko-san.

She loves to dance that's when she comes alive

The house is shakin', now the cops arrive.

She moves her body, any hotter and the place'll be banned.

She's my Kabuki dancer

My sweet little Noriko-san.

Words and Music by Dukelele. Copyright Djinn Jivin' Records 1931 (re-issued 2008).

Djinn Jivin'

Djinn Jivin' on New Year's Eve, 1930

What's that, I hear you say?  Have I been drinking? No, I'm just playing you a sweet little melody on my typewriter.  Biding my time till the new decade starts.  Oh, I know some people say it started the beginning of this year, but I don't follow that riff.  I see it differently, always have, in all aspects of my life.

I was born on the wrong side of the hospital, on a wild taxi ride from the end of Prahran to the beginning of Brunswick.  A chaotic, wet night that my mother never forgot.  Nor my aunt.  Nor, I expect, the taxidriver. They all had a hand in bringing me into the world; my mother, spiritually; my aunt, physically; and the highly vocal driver, mentally.  By the time we got to the hospital they were all so exhausted, and the driver didn't even bother asking for the fare.  

Wild storms are like music to me now.  Whenever I hear thunder start to roll or lightning bolts flash, I get little tunes tinkling around the edges of my brain.  I have to find one of my instruments, or at least some paper to write the notes on. There's nothing else I can do, I would end up in the madhouse otherwise.

I became Dukelele one summer on the beach when a young swimmer pulled out his ukelele from under his towel and began to strum a few chords, and then a whole magic little Hawaiian melody.  I'd never been that interested in music before then, at least, not in the sense of performance. Sure, I listened to it often but it hadn't been a spellbinder until that moment.  It wove its gentle charm on me with this bloke's playing and I felt drawn to learn how to play one of these odd little instruments.  I asked the bloke if he would show me how there and then, which he did.  It felt like coming home after a long trip away.  I was hooked, and the world seemed a far better place.  

And it seemed like all the girls looked at me with a sparkle in their eyes and an upward curve on their lips.