Leave it to Linus Akesson, 8-bit music maker extraordinaire and creator of other retrofitted instruments such as the Sixtyforgan and Qwertuoso to create an electronic accordion with two Commodore 64 computers, floppy disks, and duct tape: The Commodordion!
Writing about the Commodordion is like dancing about architecture — the best way to understand it is to watch Linus’ video below:
Here’s a photo of Yours Truly playing AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long at the first karaoke night for the ng-conf programming conference in Salt Lake City. They didn’t have mic stands on the first karaoke night, but Brady from Rock the Mic Karaoke helped out by playing “human mic stand.”
And hey, you have even less of an excuse if you can work from home.
Two Saturdays from now, I’ll be the one of the distinctly non-ukelele players at the Ukulele Fest in the District, which will happen at the District on Cleveland Street in downtown Clearwater on Saturday, April 23rd from noon and straight on through to the evening!
The event is free to attend — come on down to Clearwater and enjoy some music!
![Ukulele Fest in the District acts: Spirit Band, Ukulele Russ, Chris Tracy, Roaming Busker, Connie Mason Project, Moon Dog, Tom Hood and the Tropical Suns, and Joey Davilla [sic] The Accordion Man](https://www.joeydevilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ukulele-fest-musicians-1.png)
Just listen for the accordion!
The evening concert starts at 6:30 with Steve and Amanda Boisen…
…and The Birdwatchers:
You don’t have to be a spectator at this event — there are many opportunities for you to play the ukulele in a group, or learn how to play!
There will be three 45-minute “Introduction to the Ukulele” classes — they’ll be held at 12:30, 2:00, and 3:30. Bring your ukulele if you have one, and they’ll have some ukuleles on hand if you don’t.
Are you an experienced ukulele player looking to sharpen their skills? There’ll be a couple of classes for you:
Four years ago today, I was flying into Washington, DC to both attend and give presentations at RWDevCon, a conference for mobile app developers.
The winds were high that day, and as the pilot made their first attempt at a landing, the gusts hit the plane with enough force to make it obvious that we’d have to do a go-around.
On our second landing attempt, the gusts were still there. There was a nervous vibe throughout the cabin, and one of the flight attendants decided to lighten the mood by making an announcement over the PA system:
“If we need to do another go-around, I’m getting the accordion man to play us a song.”