“Wow, that was really fun.” “You were a riot.” “You rock!”

The 7th Duke of Uke hears this kind of thing all the time. Audiences love this rockin’ front man who happens to play the ukulele. He mostly does covers of old radio songs. His eclectic set list includes classic rock, disco, new wave, funk, punk rock, country, jazz, blues, electronica, heavy metal, lounge and old cartoon music. The 7th Duke of Uke can bring his own amplification for small venues, and has about three hours’ worth of material.

The 7th Duke of Uke grew up in Albuquerque, NM playing piano and singing in the boy choir. He later moved to Portland, OR and gained local prominence in the punk-rock scene in that city. Under the stage name “Tombo”, he was the drummer for the local punk-blues legend Dirty Bird. He had a solo lounge piano act for a while after that, but lugging a piano to shows is a pain in the ass, so he quit.

The 7th Duke of Uke discovered the ukulele in 2006, and since then he has mostly forgotten how to play guitar and piano, but he can still hold his own on the bass, drums or clarinet. In 2010 he took voice lessons from Andrea Shupack.