Ukuleles are now the unofficial city instrument of Manchester. OK, so the mayor hasn't made a proclamation or anything, but the ukulele is certainly making a name for itself in the Queen City. We knew the instrument would be catching on around here when we heard Danielle York was a ukulele player. York, a definite trendsetter, was one of a half-dozen uke enthusiasts to take part in Manchester Community Music School's first Ukulele Social class at Murphy's Taproom last week.

York said she likes the ukulele because it's a fun, affordable and accessible instrument, and learning the ukulele with a group is an experience like no other. She also takes private lessons from John Chouinard at Ted Herbert's Music School and plays with a group called the NH Ukeladies, also under his direction.

Another Queen City trendsetter, Stephanie McLaughlin, and her cousin, Hannah McLaughlin, also participated in last week's Ukulele Social. McLaughlin says she's not ready to crown the ukulele as the official instrument of Manchester, but she admits the trend is certainly one of the cooler things to happen around here in a while.

We're sure the ukulele is fun, but the class description of Ukulele Social had us at “adult beverages will be on hand.” Those actually interested in learning to play won't be disappointed either. We hear a lot of actual skills were taught too, and in just one hour the group was playing the opening of Jimmy Buffet's “Margaritaville.”

The class (limited to uke fans 21 and over) will be held for 11 more sessions. The schedule and prices can be found at www.mcmusicschool.org.

And while we like to think Manchester is at the forefront of the ukulele revival, a quick Google search revealed that Nashua and Hanover are way ahead of us. Studio 99 in Nashua is host to a Ukulele Club and The Upper Valley Ukulele Club meets at Hanover Strings.

Ice ice, baby

We feel like the only people in the Greater Manchester area who didn't make it to the Bedford Village Inn's Ice Bar last month. The bar was open for one week and featured three outdoor bars made of ice, a martini ice luge and live music. Reviews were mixed. Everyone loved the concept of outdoor imbibing in the middle of winter, but a few thought the drinks were a little pricey. (We don't know what they were expecting at BVI!) Some attendees on the very long list of our acquaintances who attended: Sue Milne Haydock from 92.5 The River, Lauren Collins Cline of NECN fame, Kristin Crawford, who works for The Hippo Press, Ryan O'Connor from Patch, and our Union Leader colleague Lucy Gappens. Hey, wait a minute! These people are all from media companies. We're not sure what that says about people in our industry, but we know we definitely need to attend next year.

How flattering?

According to its website, the Main Street Concord program has officially changed its name to Intown Concord. When we first saw their new logo, which can be viewed at www.mainstreetconcord.com, we assumed they were a new branch of our city's own Intown Manchester organization. Not so, says Intown Concord's interim Director Kim Murdoch. Since breaking ties with the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street program, Main Street Concord organization was forced to come up with a new name. The use of the word “intown” over “downtown” is a growing trend for many community organizations, she said, and the Concord board chose it after considering many names.

We can't imagine we're the only ones who will think Intown Manchester and Intown Concord are somehow related. Maybe their taglines will set them apart. Manchester's uses the words “Live, Work & Play” while Concord's uses “Shop, Dine, Play, Live.” Yes, we think that clears it up.

No matter the name, we're just glad the Concord organization will live on to support the great city to our North. We also hear they will continue to host the city's Market Days Festival, scheduled this year for July 19th through the 21st.

Clever and creative

As non-techies, we are still not sure what services our friends at Dyn provide. Whatever it is, they already boast some pretty big names like CNBC, Zappos, and Twitter among their clientele.

But, hungry for more, they recently produced six funny, personalized music videos in hopes of setting themselves apart and attracting a few new major clients. The videos, which have been sent to Hulu.com, Expedia.com, CareerBuilder.com, LivingSocial.com, Posterous.com and FunnyOrDie.com, are also being released through social media in hopes they'll attract the companies' attention that way. It's working! FunnyOrDie.com has already contacted them for a meeting, which makes sense to us since FunnyOrDie specializes in funny videos.

The instrumentals for the videos were produced by John Helmig of Verse Media in Manchester; local filmmaker Nick Edgar directed and edited them. A handful of Dyn's more shy employees — account representatives Tom Denniston, Ashley Caron, and John Zahr, business development representative Rich Fisher, and engineers Alex Lessard, Ben Anderson, and Isaac Onigman — worked as onscreen talent.

It's refreshing to see a local company that isn't afraid to take a marketing risk to make us all laugh. You can see one of Dyn's videos at www.dyn.com/hulu.

Scene in Manchester is a weekly column of social tidbits from around the Queen City assembled by Teresa Robinson and Katie McQuaid. If you have an interesting item for Scene in Manchester, email it to scene@unionleader.com.