What's Up! Magazine

Women are complicated creatures. We often don’t speak our minds, and men aren’t renowned for being stellar listeners. It is absolutely understandable that the sexes often don’t communicate well. Fortunately for women and men both, uncut and occasionally unclothed, the ladies of The Femme Uke are laying it all out there.
Laine and Ashley are not old enough to drink in bars, but they have already found the voices and the confidence to express themselves and their needs in a way that many women two and three times their age have not yet been able to grasp.
They are two voices – one refined, the other not as much – and a ukulele. Their songs consist of simply constructed music and refreshingly intelligible lyrics. Ashley has been playing the guitar since she was 13 and Laine has training in both classical and jazz vocals. Their plutonic love affair started in the dorms when they were both freshmen students of Fairhaven College.
“Our first song [f’uke you] is kind of about boys and jokey jokey…the music came after,” Ashley explained.  “It was a combination of not getting those boys and then feeling really empowered by writing the song. We discovered our musical pasts and then our collaborative work is just so incredible.”
A year and a half, and hundreds of semi-nude practices later, The Femme Uke has an EP recorded. With a little help from a friend, they recorded the entire album on Garage Band.
“We are trying to be super real. To not adhere to whatever feminine music should sound like: an acoustic guitar and a girl singing. Our music overlaps with our lifestyle, the values that we’re trying to promote.”
They have performed at house shows, Lady Fest, and even crossed up to Canada to export their lyric-driven, pro-woman ditties. They sing about booze and boobs, sex and reciprocation, dreary Bellingham weather, and about the wonderful support and good times of being best friends. “We play songs we’d want to hear,” Laine said. “Right on girls, we know what you’re feeling!”
Not only are Ashley and Laine bosom buddies, but their music has been nurtured by regularly playing with an extended group of friends in the Que Viva Collective and as a part of Avacado Family Records. “We have so much fun! It’s so great to be with friends and play music. It’s not a big deal if we open or close, we just play music.”
The Femme Uke’s message is unusually direct and clear. While often cute and clever, their lyrics are also unabashedly honest. Coming from the mouths of two seemingly sweet and innocent young ladies, it could catch you off-guard when they start a song with “in the morning we eat bagels, share our dreams and do our kegels.”
It’s fairly normal for men to be brash and forthright, but people generally aren’t as used to females saying it like it is in the public sphere. Like all music you have to be open to it to appreciate it. The Femme Uke will make everyone laugh and cheer. Ladies, they will remind you how fantastic it is to be a woman. And men, they’ll remind you to treat your woman to the best. Serenaded by a ukulele, it’s almost like a musical orgy on the beach: rum, tequila, and a little something for everyone.