Blogging the Aloha State and Beyond
I’m a proud alumnus of Mililani High School, and this year, I’m also a proud parent of a Mililani High School senior. My daughter Katie is developing a passion for the performing arts, and joined both the MHS theater and chorus programs. Of course that means year-end performances before family and...
KTUH, the college radio station based at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is shifting frequencies and doubling its signal strength next month. Currently broadcasting at 90.3FM in urban Honolulu and 91.1FM on the North Shore, KTUH will then be heard island-wide at 90.1FM. The student-run radio station first hit the...
San Francisco musician Curt Yagi is flying out for a short Honolulu tour next week, following up a set of successful gigs on Maui last year. The award-winning singer songwriter and his band “The People Standing Behind Me” are known throughout the Bay Area for “happy acoustic rock with a touch of...
Hawaiian music legend Cyril Pahinui turned to Kickstarter to fund what he called his “lifetime dream project,” and the community stepped up as his campaign to crowdfund a music video series surpassed its $65,000 goal yesterday. “We received a few texts and calls while at work today with the incredible news,”...
My wife and I love music. My kids love music. But while my wife and I have fumbled around with vinyl records, eight-track cartridges, cassette tapes, CDs and MP3s (my wife even working at the late Tower Records), our 17-year-old daughter barely remembers MP3s, and today our offspring live entirely in streaming...
Stories of modern life in Honolulu will be told in the folksy midwestern style of classic radio on Sunday, when Hawaii Public Radio takes over Agora in Kakaako. The event is a celebration of both Agora’s first birthday as well as the 40th anniversary of “A Prarie Home Companion,” a popular program of...
Wiliam “Willie K” Kahaialii is a spectacular musical performer. While that may be stating the obvious, that thought has lingered in my mind for a whole day following the latest opportunity I had to watch him perform live. The company I work for, Hawaii Information Service, was the entertainment sponsor for an awards...
I confess, my very limited awareness of indie Irish music begins and ends with the local Celtic rock band Doolin’ Rakes, and that’s only because I’m a fan of founder and guitarist Jamie Winpenny, who is both a talented musician and a talented writer. But I do know what I like, and...
I confess, I’m hopelessly unqualified to fully appreciate rap and hip hop music. But it turns out there’s a way to start with rap and hip hop music, add in some databases and algorithms, and with some serious talent in design and data visualization, generate a whole new level of art. Two...
The summer of 1995. Bill Clinton was president. A First Class stamp cost $0.32. The first Boeing 777 entered service for United Airlines, and Joe Montana announced that he was retiring from football. I was 20 years old, very much in love with my girlfriend (now wife), and living in...
Four years ago, local musician Jon Yamasato was struck by how much his young daughter was into watching music videos on YouTube, and he wondered what it would take to bring similar exposure to Hawaii musicians. “I noticed that a lot of local artists didn’t have good video of themselves,...
The history of Hawaii has inspired an unlikely advocate in the form of a pop/folk musical duo from North Carolina. It was 122 years ago today, Jan. 17, 1893, that the kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown. Two years later, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned in Iolani Palace by a Western mililtary tribunal,...
If you were a kid during the “golden age of arcade video games,” chances are you lost many potentially productive hours to a Nintendo game system. As a result, even today, the sound of 8-bit music likely sparks waves of nostalgia. In my case, the theme to Super Mario Bros....
This Saturday, the Eisa Drum Festival returns for its fourth year. The celebration of Okinawan music, dance and culture has grown larger and more diverse since 2010, and I wanted to get a behind-the-scenes view of its evolution. Lead organizer Shari Tamashiro is a friend as well as the “cybrarian” at...
I admit, I’m not exactly in the key demographic for “Allstar Weekend,” a band of shiny happy California guys that was catapulted to tween-to-teen stardom by The Disney Channel. But I am the father of a teenage girl, and she’s heard of them, and that’s got to count for something....
Thanks to crowdfunding service Kickstarter, and a lot of hard work and community support, two local projects met their fundraising goals last week and took a solid step toward reality. The delightfully simple Juicies project, which I profiled on Earth Day, blew past its $5,000 goal in only three days,...
The first ever (and hopefully annual) Eisa Drum Festival took place on Saturday on the Great Lawn of Kapiolani Community College. It was a great event, and lead organizer Shari Tamashiro — along with advisors Norman Kaneshiro and Derek Ichiro Shiroma, and countless other volunteers and performers — deserves a standing...
Lovers of Okinawan drums won’t want to miss the first Eisa Drum Festival next Saturday at Kapiolani Community College. This special, evening event is bringing together several groups that practice and perform a variety of dances and drumming styles unique to Okinawa… plus a touch of Japanese taiko. Participating eisa...
As fans prepare to gather in Waikiki tonight for the “Sunset on the Beach” advance screening of the premiere episode of the new “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS has launched an online “Marching Band Mania” competition focused on the show’s iconic theme song. Over 40 bands from across the country have been...
The “Breath of Life” blew out a big candle last night. One year ago, the Polynesian Cultural Center unveiled its new evening show, “Hā: Breath of Life.” The ambitious, 90-minute production took three years and $3 million to prepare. And by all accounts, it was worth it. The show staged...
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