A word of caution to those seeing the University of Maine at Machias Ukulele Club perform for the first time: By the time the show is over, it’s very likely you will be compelled to run to the closest music store and buy your own ukulele so you can join in the fun. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

“We’re playing two to five gigs a week this summer,” said Gene Nichols, a music professor at UMM and the faculty adviser for the club, at a recent show at Hammond Hall in Winter Harbor. “The coffers are filling right up. We’re saving for the moon shot. Ukuleles on the moon.”

While the moon may take a few more years, the Ukulele Club, informally known as “ukulaliens,” has already gone from a few uke players getting together to sing and play, to a small army of ukulele warriors. Since forming two years ago, the loose association of faculty, students and community members from throughout Washington and Hancock counties has brought ukulele love to towns all over eastern Maine.

In recent years, the tiny, four-stringed Hawaiian instrument has experienced a resurgence in popularity, with clubs such as the one at UMM springing up all over North America. But ukuleles were all the rage in Machias during the 1920s. Ukulalien Jim Sawyer, a Harrington resident who works at UMM, was leafing through old yearbooks when he noticed a reference to a ukulele club in the 1926 yearbook.

“I told Gene about how there was once a Ukulele Club on campus. In the yearbook, there’s a picture of nine women in little sailor suits, with their ukuleles,” said Jim Sawyer, whose nickname is the “Glue-ru” because he’s in charge of fixing broken instruments. “At the time, Gene was talking about offering ukulele as a class. So we said, ‘Why not revive the club?'”

Eighty years later, the UMM Ukulele Club re-formed, which, according to Nichols’ research, likely gives it the distinction of being the oldest of its kind in the country. It started with just a handful of players, including Nichols, Sawyer and UMM students Brianna Pinkham and Rachel Rier, who both still play with the band. The first song they ever performed was the Beatles’ “8 Days a Week,” at a show on campus.

But it wasn’t long before more came on board. In fact, within a matter of days, ukulele fever had gripped Machias.

“It went from one or two people playing ukulele, to everyone in town walking around talking about it,” said Melissa Ruden, a ukulalien from Machias. “It took off immediately.”

Now, there are 40-50 regular performers with the group, though at a given show there’ll be 20-25 people onstage. The demographics span from the young to the elderly and every kind of background: The highly enthusiastic 17-year-old Sam Gaddis of East Machias plays his yellow ukulele, while 90-year-old Norman Nelson of Machias shakes a pair of maracas, and has been known to take a vocal solo on a Harry Belafonte song.

They’ll play at church suppers, weddings and block parties. The UMM Ukulele Club is nothing if not versatile.

“For Margaretta Days, we did Revolutionary War songs. We played Latin songs for migrant workers. We did protest songs for Martin Luther King Day. We play ‘Happy Trails’ for graduation,” said Nichols. “Nothing is out of our potential.”

Rob and Lucille Harrington, a uke-playing couple from Harrington, recalled a gig played in a bowling alley in Machias.

“We took up all of lane seven,” said Rob Harrington. “If someone had walked in off the street, it would have seemed like a scene from ‘The Muppet Show.'”

Their repertoire currently contains more than 1,200 songs, and it’s growing. Recent additions include Santana’s “Black Magic Woman,” Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It” and Devo’s “Jocko Homo.” In one show, they’ll play everything from Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health” to “Zizzy Ze Zum Zum,” an obscure ragtime ditty from 1898. The actual songbook weighs an imposing 12 pounds.

“It’s so vast, you’re just kind of swimming around in it,” said Nichols. “It’s 12 pounds of fun.”

“You’ll come to practice after a week, and there’ll be 30 more songs in the book. It’s always changing. No show is the same. Every time we play a song, it’s a little different,” said Dennis King, a Hancock club member who plays the baritone ukulele.

What makes it work, and what makes it so irresistible to so many, is the fact that the ukulele is such a simple instrument. You could learn the basics of it in a day – and some people do just that.

“You can come to one practice, and be playing in a gig that night,” said Nichols. “Every song in the songbook uses three fingers or less in each chord. That’s the beauty of the ukulele. Anyone can play it.”

Nichols is an affable, slightly eccentric guy, with a huge, wide-ranging knowledge and love of music of all kinds, which he does everything he can to share with his fellow club members. On stage, he acts as both ringleader of the circus and stand-up comedian, helping the audience to sing along during the Hawaiian songs, and making wisecracks when the uke players stumble over the twisting lyrics in a Bob Dylan song.

Most importantly, he has been a devoted ukulalien since he was a teenager.

“I had a Roy Smeck ukulele, one that they’d use in vaudeville. The uke didn’t have any strings on it, though, so I was just making the hand positions without making any noise. I was probably 14, 15 at the time,” said Nichols. “Once I actually got the strings on there, it just came alive. I’ve been playing ever since.”

Nichols doesn’t just play the ukulele during shows. He often busts out the musical saw, and he’s eagerly anticipating the imminent arrival of a percussive instrument made of hubcaps, as well as an array of bulb horns, for that iconic “honk-honk” circus sound. Though the vast majority of performers with the group do play the ukulele, there also are drums, bass, electric guitar and several other percussion players to round out the sound.

“We don’t exactly rehearse. We never work on harmony, and yet harmony comes out. We don’t arrange anything, and yet arrangements work themselves out,” said Nichols.

The way it all comes together naturally is a testament to the fact that the club is like one big ukulele-playing family. It’s no secret that making music as a group is a therapeutic act.

“It’s church, and it’s medicine. It’s family,” said Madonna Arsenault of Machias. “It’s better than family, actually, because it’s not critical at all. If you screw up, oh well. No big deal. There’s safety in numbers. You can just jump back in whenever you’re ready.”

The club is more than just a hobby for some. For many of the members, it’s a way of life. And with as many shows as they play, it could easily be a full-time job.

“In order to do all these gigs, I’d have to quit my job,” said Clifton Moser of Jonesboro, better known in the group as “Cliftone.”

“I wish I could.”

The UMM Ukulele Club will play at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9, at the Goose Island Jubilee in Steuben, and at 11 a.m. (noon Atlantic Time) Sunday, Aug. 10, at the Head Harbor Lighthouse Celebration on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. It also will give two performances Saturday, Aug. 16, at the Machias Blueberry Festival: at 1 p.m. on the steps of the Machias Congregational Church; and at the Black Fly Ball at the Machias Grange Hall, which starts at 6:30 p.m. and also features the Orange River Jazz Band and the What Cheer Brigade Marching Band; admission by donation. For more information on the club and future shows, call 255-1229.

eburnham@bangordailynews.net

990-8270