Toward the end of the 1980s I joined several newsgroups to further my education—I joined a group of dendrochronologists to learn what scientists do who study history through tree rings, a group of progressive economists to understand money, etc. The best one was a group of ukulele players in a group founded, if I remember correctly, by a college student in New England. I had been playing ukulele for nearly 30 years but didn’t know any other ukulele players. The newsgroup brought ukulele players together. By 1996 the World Wide Web had been created and a high school kid showed me how easy it was (!) to build a website. So I built the virgin version of the Lava Tube. I had performed at the 19th Annual International Ukulele Festival in 1989 and had the opportunity to visit the Big Island, which had numerous volcanic flows at the time. I learned that hollow areas were formed under the lava flows called lava tubes. They were sought by many Hawaiians, including musicians who fancied building recording studios in them. I commandeered the name.
Over the years I learned more and more about website building and more and more about the ukulele. In time, videos, audio clips, instructions, resources, website links, ukulele ringtones, CDs, books, ukulele soap, and a signature ukulele made their way onto the site.
In 2019 I completed two books of original songs—Songs for Ukulele and the world as i sing it. Since I reckon they would only be sold via my website, I decided to rebuild the site. I had used Dreamweaver in the past. I was flabbergasted by the new version—much more complicated than before. I found an app, Sparkle, that worked much better for me.
I think the Lava Tube is one of the oldest ukulele sites around—the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum and Riot Ukes were other early uke sites, followed by Jim Beloff’s Flea Market Music site.
I hope you enjoy this site. Thanks for visiting.
—Dan Scanlan, aka Cool Hand Uke, Nevada City, California, USA, Earth, Milky Way