Donnie Bubbles: Okay, so the origin story is a little exaggerated. How did you really come to play the ukulele?

Seeso: I’m afraid your story is much more exciting than the truth. I picked one up in the Old Town School of Folk Music here in Chicago one day a couple of years ago, and instantly fell in love with the sound of her. I like the way she felt in my hands, and the portability was a factor. I bought it on the spot and haven’t looked back. I’ve been almost exclusively playing the ukulele ever since. I’m grateful that I have a store in my neighborhood that carried ukes. Most people don’t have that luxury.

DB: You have been hosting an Open Mic Night at the Subterranean in Chicago for more than five years. What has this experience taught you as a performer?

Seeso: First and foremost, hosting an open mic for so long has taught me that you have to earn your audience. You can’t just play and expect people to quiet down and listen to you. You have to make them shut up. This doesn’t always mean being loud and jumping around. Quietness sometimes works better. Usually, in fact.

Playing every week has also taught me how to play nice with other musicians. Jamming etiquette is a lost art. Oftentimes, performers will ask me to play with them during their set, and I’ve had to learn how not to step all over their parts. Knowing when not to play is just as important as knowing what to play.

Lastly, it has taught me to be myself. Earlier in my performing career, I tried too hard to be somebody that I wasn’t. I’d try to sound like Eddie Vedder or whoever. When I found out who I was musically, my audience seemed to respect that. I’ll never be able to sing like Otis Redding or write a song like Bill Withers. What I can do, is write from my own experiences, be specific, and sing in my own voice. It may sound obvious, but it’s a discovery that not many musicians make. I’m grateful that I was able to identify the problem, and now I can continue down the road of self-actualization.

DB: While scouring the Internet for details about you, I stumbled on a table read you did for the Frank Chin play, The Chickencoop Chinaman, and it was a very convincing performance. Was the play ever produced? Is acting something you are pursuing?

Seeso: I’ve actually been a proud member of the Actor’s Equity Association for about 5 years now. I do theater here in Chicago. That particular play was never produced, but I have done work for that company (A Squared Theatre Workshop) in the past. Acting is my first passion, music comes second.

My proudest theater moment was the production of “The Romance of Magno Rubio” at the Victory Gardens in Chicago. We were nominated for two Jeff awards, which is like New York’s Tony awards. The play is about Filipino migrant farm workers in California in the 1930’s.

DB: From when you were first learning the ukulele, can you remember one skill or lesson that you felt had the biggest impact on your playing ability?

Seeso: The one lesson that helped me was to just know that the ukulele is a different animal, a different beast. You have to be in a certain headspace when you play the uke. I’d been a guitar and piano player for years, so I had to understand that I wasn’t going to be able to play it like a guitar. If you go in expecting a guitar sound, you’ll always be disappointed. Once you accept that, you can let the ukulele be what it is. The ukulele is the most pleasing sounding instrument in the world. If I had to choose one instrument to play for the rest of my life, it would be the deceptively simple, versatile, humble ukulele.

DB: What new adventures can we expect from you this year?

Seeso: I’m finally going to record my album this year. It’s tentatively titled, “Elvis and Autumn Leaves.” Look for it to be released in late Spring, early Summer. I’m working on new songs at the moment, and I’ll post them on YouTube when they’re ready for human consumption. I’ve also got some more collaboration videos planned. They’re great fun.

Speaking of collaborations, the collab that I did with Twank Star on “Thank You For Leaving Me” is available now on iTunes. Just go to: 

Twank is the newest addition to T-Pain’s Nappy Boy record label, so I have high hopes for that little tune. Keep your fingers crossed! I’m really proud of that little song that could. I know it’s against all odds to have a hit ukulele hip hop song, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

If you’ll allow me the indulgence, I’d just like to take some time to thank all my YouTube subscribers. The effect of your support has been immeasurable. I was just about to give music up, really. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Here in frigid Chicago, I’m warm and cozy when I read your comments and emails.

There are several ways to stay up to date with my shenanigans –

http://youtube.com/seeso
http:/myspace.com/narcisolobo
Also, find me on Facebook! Just search for “Narciso Lobo.”

The only other “modification” is that although it’s a tenor ukulele, I tune it like a baritone, with the lowest toned string as a G, instead of a C as people tell me tenors should be tuned. My mom picked up my first instrument at an Army/Navy store in Maine and there was no one there to tune it correctly, so I sort of guessed, and then the songs came, and I couldn’t turn back. I stick paper underneath some of the strings on the upper bridge because they’re a bit loose on the instrument.

DB: Your sound is very unique, but I can’t stop thinking of other artists while listening to your album, BiRd-BrAiNs. Songs remind me of Nirvana, Laurie Anderson, Billie Holiday and the Soweto rock of the 90’s. Who do you think is the most influential on your musical style?

MG: Those are cool comparisons, and great that they’re so disparate. There are many influences that pop into and out of this album. In making it I realized just how much of the 1980’s are in my blood, which is maybe why it felt so appropriate to release it on cassette tape. Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual album, Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, Graceland, that’s all in there. People tend to pick up on the African influence, which includes much music from Kenya and Tanzania where I spent some time, as well as Pygmy music of Central African Republic, dance music from Congo, and Johnny Clegg & Savuka from South Africa. I’m also an a cappella nerd, so anything having to do with multi-layered voices, doo-wop, etc., makes me a little nutso.

So to answer WHO is the biggest influence on this album? M.I.A. If I had to pick one person that made me want to do my own thing as a woman and explode onto recording devices all the sounds I have in my head, it’s M.I.A. And Woody Guthrie. See, I can’t even pick one person if I try.

DB: When you play live, you build your songs on short loops on stage and then play and sing along with them. When you are writing, do you start with these loops and pull the melody and lyrics out of them, or do you create the other way around?

MG: The loops definitely came out of a need for accompaniment, so I’d say usually I’m writing songs that I will later work out on the looping pedal for the live show. When I write a song I’m thinking about it pretty spatially, as in I’m considering the space it takes up, sonically and even visually. (I don’t know if that exactly describes it, but I’ve been trying to articulate it to myself lately, and that’s what I’ve come up with.) I’ve found it hard, because of the repetitive nature of the loop, to find the movement and space there, so I tend to work the other way, dealing with the live performance of a song after it’s written.

But that said, because I was on tour so much this fall, I got really into improvising live with the looping pedal. I wouldn’t say I was writing full songs on it, but I started to experiment with layering vocal lines, and then pounding out beats on the floor tom and looping that, and it was all very satisfying. I did actually come up with a song that way, which is all about repetition and a sort of meditative, driving beat, so I suppose the pedal is influencing me more than I think it is.

DB: At first glance, with the over-modulation and distortion techniques used on many tracks, your music is jarring, yet there are so many sweet, quiet moments on the disc. Do you feel you use these two poles more for balance, or juxtaposition?

MG: Probably a bit of both. I tend to loathe art and music that is oversimplified. Human beings are complex, I’m complex, you’re complex. Music that contains no complexity, no tension, doesn’t move me or affect me, so I seem to avoid it. I love simplicity, but even the simple moments on that album seem to have some twist to them that makes them weird, or uncomfortable, complicated. I also fear making music that doesn’t inspire action in people. I don’t want people to fall asleep, I want them to wake the heck up. Whatever that means: dancing, crying, yelling at me, cringing, dreaming, anything but falling into inaction, lifelessness. So spitting an odd sound out here and there and adding some thorns to the rose-songs always seems like a survival mechanism to me as a songwriter.

And balance, yes; perhaps I try to balance things too much, compulsively. But compositionally, whether it’s about the composition of the entire album, or one song, or even a verse of a song, I am concerned with balance and proportion. If you work towards balance as a general rule, then you can wield imbalance as a powerful tool whenever you want to.

DB: I have seen footage of you playing violin. Are you classically trained? Did the violin influence your choice to play ukulele, or was it some other factor?

MG: Not classically trained, and you are kind to use the words “playing” and “violin” in reference to me! My dad plays Old Timey fiddle and he taught me after high school. I love playing the fiddle because of the double-stops, or two strings played at once. The fiddle can create this real blanket of sound, through drone and texture. I first started on the uke because I was a puppeteer and writing a puppet opera in which I needed an instrument that would fit in my puppet stage. When I picked up the tenor uke, it had the same power as the fiddle to create sound that was rich and dense at the same time as being flexible and open. I had never thought about the connection between those two instruments before, but they do have that in common. And with both, you don’t have to do much to create a sound that is pretty enthralling and even physically pleasing. For someone like me with instrument phobia, both were perfect objects to pick up and play and enjoy, right there on the spot.