Guilty pleasure confessional time. A bit of an ironic counterpoint to my previous post on the human race being “entertained to extinction”. Although I am very clearly not in the target demographic of Dan Deacon (see above picture for evidence), I find his hyperactive brand of sugary synth pop electro both addictive and mesmerizing. Yes, it is unabashed empty party music for degenerate teenage post-hipsters. But it’s got a compelling voice and energy, which is more than I can say for most of the post-everything watered down sounds of today posing as music. Here’s a guy just going for it, full on, all the way. The way they used to. Look at his live show footage. He’s a Jesus Christ Superstar. Messianic.
Recently acquired a whole raft of Frank Zappa albums, and felt compelled to honor his awesomeness with a quick post. Most of my prior Zappa experience was sadly filtered through a single album: Apostrophe. While that album is very good, it represents a very small slice of the Zappa pie, and captures none of the super-polished musicianship of the live performances. It goes without saying that Zappa was one of the bona fide musical geniuses of the last century, an acutely self-aware deconstructionist whose passion for satirizing musical and social conventions was only matched by his passion for embracing and enlivening the very conventions he mocked. I used to equate his dadaist lyrical bent with Weird Al Yankovic, but gawd how unfair I was!
Just after Thanksgiving I had the rare opportunity to see a band I actually care about. Rare because as I may have mentioned in previous posts the only bands that seem to make stops on the islands are those with boomer appeal. That band was the ever masterful Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.
So stoked was I when I heard they were coming I ran out and bought tickets a couple months in advance. The first thing I noticed, standing in the sweltering sun in front of the ticket seller window, was the price seemed a bit exorbitant. Hmm. Then there was the fact that the best available seats (seats, another eyebrow-raiser) were already twenty-plus rows back. Double hmm.
And then, a few weeks later, I saw the new ads: Flecktones Play Christmas Songs with the Honolulu Symphony. Holy crimony, I’ve been had!
I hate to say it, but I’m starting to get the feeling they just don’t know how to do things “right” here in the land of too much sunshine. Okay, the fact was the Flecktones were touring in support of a Christmas album. But that does not give the ailing Honolulu Symphony the right to hijack their show in a transparent attempt to boost ticket sales. There are some things you just don’t do in the name of a cheap dollar (and I would know!), but some people have no shame.
This is not to say the Flecktones do not belong on stage with a symphony orchestra. I could see a talented, fully prepared pit adding real depth to their sound. But this pairing was like having Don Ho sit in with Sigur Ros.
In reality it played out even worse. The Symphony had the chutzpah to introduce the Flecks as their special guests and regale us with an introductory medley of Christmas tunes that sounded like they had been arranged in the 70s. The Tones were allowed a few moments unhindered by the banal droning of the strings, and when they were, the contrast was painfully obvious – at least to my biased ears. The absolutely insane take on the 12 Days of Christmas – played in 12 different keys and time signatures – was simply jaw-dropping.
Only for the encore did we get treated to the Flecktones on stage alone, for the first time, a glimpse at what might have been. A touching solo performance by Bela followed by a rousing Throwdown at the Hoedown – my favorite tune of all – made the evening almost worthwhile.
Message to Blaisdell: next time put them in the Shell where they belong!
Filed under: Events, Hawaii, Honolulu, Music | Tags: freaks, halloween, Honolulu, logic, maceo
This was the inaugural year of the Hallowballoo Festival in the Arts District. Three blocks of live music, open bars and freaky costumes.
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Papa Mali was smokin as the free show headliner. I remember checking out his sound several years back and thinking, meh. He’s definitely grown as a player. Second tune in was an inspired Bertha that had the oldtimers bouncing around the avenue.
Then it was off for a date with DJ Logic and the legend Maceo Parker. No one was around for the first half of DJ Logic. It was me on the floor and Logic on the boards.
As the crowd filled out and Maceo came out, it was time to slip on my mask and dance my way into the night. Which is just what I did. He had lost a step or two since I saw him in Philly circa 2002, but still they are few who can hold a torch to such funkiness.
The other day I obtained the full Kraftwerk discography. To be honest, I wasn’t all that stoked about it. I almost felt it was kind of an obligation as a music collector, more than any real desire to have their music. I’ve been listening to Trans-Europe Express for years, but always with mixed feelings. It was one of those albums I felt I should like more than I really did. I also saw them live, at a festival, but the strongest impression I took away was the question of whether it was really them on stage or mannequins.
But with my recent acquisition, and a few patient listens, I suddenly understand. With The Man-Machine and Computer World, you can hear the precursors of everything to come in electronic music. I also think their music has aged well. In my iTunes shuffle tracks from those albums blend perfectly well with more contemporary electronic artists. With Autobahn, I was also able to understand how they were often thrown in with the Kraut Rock movement. I used to listen to Can and think apples and oranges. But Autobahn is a little more organic, and much more trancey, with the band’s Kraut Rock roots still evident.
Anyway. Just wanted to point out how much Kraftwerk rocks. In case anyone besides me had forgotten.
After witnessing a less than satisfactory Jake Shimabukuro performance in early July, we headed out to Hawaii Kai Town Center to catch another, hopefully better, free show. Jake’s play is never in question. He is a consummate professional with a heart of gold who gives 100% at every show. What was in question were the things beyond his control: namely, venue and organization.
This time, there was to be no disappointment. The folk of Hawaii Kai are a more discerning demographic, and their shopping centers know they have to step up their game to cater to local taste.
If the seating arrangements at the Hawaii Kai Town Center left a little to be desired, the setting was picture perfect. The pavilion where Jake played is right on an inlet from the ocean, and a few high rollers even hitched their boats to the dock to catch the sounds.
The early evening start time was a nice touch: two sets of music stretching over a couple of hours as the sun dipped toward the horizon. A Hawaiian dusk extra mellow.
And there was the ohana factor: this was truly a family affair. Not in the sense of being a G-rated gathering, but because Jake’s local friends and family were out in force. Jake played to the crowd, reminiscing about the way things were, talking about shared memories and forgotten places.
But the music was all his own. Infused with Hawaiian spirit, characterized by an astonishing diversity of styles and repertoire. There was the obligatory “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” but there was also just about every styling under the sun – something for your granny and your alcoholic uncle.
Jake, true island original, in the homecoming performance he deserves.
First off, yes, the ukulele is, on the surface, a rather gay instrument. It’s a toy guitar, for christ’s sake. The sight of island legend IZ, a Samoan in the truest sense, pawing a ukulele, is, to the non-islander, nearly comical.
That said, I was mega-stoked to see virtuoso ukulele meister Jake Shimabukuro at the pre-fourth festivities at Aloha Tower Marketplace. He is to the ukulele what Bela Fleck is to the banjo – in fact, they have toured together. Like Bela, Jake has not been content to let his chosen instrument be defined by the traditional music attached to it. Yes, he is a master of local island music, and everything he plays is necessarily inflected with aloha, but his play is freed of genre, crossing into jazz, rock and classical.
Caveat on Aloha Tower: I had heard that the shopping/entertainment center was, like many local, tourist-dependent businesses, struggling to compete in challenging times. Its location is a mixed blessing – superb on-the-harbor setting with historical cred, but far from Waikiki, not easily accessible and nearly invisible from Nimitz Highway. It hasn’t done a great job of cashing in on the locational strengths and innovated enough to give folks – local or non – a compelling reason to make the trek.
This was evident in the way the whole event was managed. Ostensibly it was a pre-fourth celebration with fireworks and Jake as centerpiece entertainer. But there were numerous stages throughout the facility, none clearly marked. Luckily I stumbled upon the modest waterfront stage where Jake’s performance was already underway. But what was this? Not 100 yards away, on-stage at Gordon Biersch’s, a soul-funk band was pounding out the Top 20 party classics. Suffice to say it is a bit hard to enjoy the nuances of a solo ukulele when Play That Funky Music White Boy is blasting in your other ear.
Jake, humble, good-natured soul that he is, took it all in stride, joking it off.
And then, in mid-show, Jake was suddenly joined by the VERY EXCITED KCCN FM 100 MC who loves Jake’s music so much he decided to take ten minutes out of his timeslot to share it with everyone – and thank the sponsors – plus, a free ukulele giveaway! Sheesh. It didn’t seem that Jake had even been informed this was going to happen, but again he rolled with it.
The shabby setup made me wonder if there was any ill will toward the local-boy-made-good who spends most of his time these days touring the mainland… Or was it just bad organizing?
And then Jake played his finale: Star Spangled Banner. It wasn’t Hendrix or anything, but goddamn he sure does make that little guitar sing.
So I had to come all the way to Hawaii to witness my first live J-Pops performance.
Last weekend as part of a beachfront festival the band TUBE took to the stage to pound out a few summertime tunes for the faithful. They were certainly seasoned pros, with a very charismatic frontman and capable instrumentalists, but I felt about as ambivalent as I ever have about J-Pops. The music stirred up visions of wacky Japanese commercials or the opening/closing credits of a TBS tv drama.
Not so for the couple hundred J-touristas who were jammed in front of the small stage, no doubt chou ureshii to witness such an intimate performance as they waved their hands in the rote-memorized patterns and shyly sang along through the choruses.
As one of my job interviewers walked me back to my car the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, she told me I ought to check out the floating lantern ceremony held down at Ala Moana Beach. I was thinking to myself (as I do as soon as anyone here tells me any little bit of unknown info), sweet, a dank nug of insider knowledge. Man, I’m half local already.
As we parked our car at the Ala Moana Center Monday evening, I could already see the hordes straggling in from all directions. This was no hidden secret, more like a pilgrimage to Mecca (great metaphor – let’s see how long it takes for this blog to reach the office of Homeland Security). We took our spot among the 30,000 along the beach, purchased our obligatory overpriced snacks and watched the sun dip toward the horizon as the mc’s warmed the crowd with banal platitudes (“Welcome to a truly special evening in paradiiise”).
Leading up to the main event was a program of music. The Americanized taiko kicked things off. I had never heard gongs used in taiko before, and man did they ever MAX out on the gongs, to the ultimate extreme. All the crescendos had their own crescendos. I can already feel myself turning into some kind of wabi-sabi Japan culture snob (you call that fish-rice slop sushi? show me your sushi chef license!), but it just isn’t sumo.
Fortunately, the triumphal rock-concert taiko was followed up by some kind of local Hawaiian singer-poet whose chanted stylings reminded me vaguely of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He was channeling some kind of dirt-stained, gnarly-rooted earth god from the depths. It was moving to say the least.
And then there was some pleasant and forgettable slack-key island music, a fake priestess with a bad Japanese accent (here I go again) and some more rock concert taiko that morphed into this weird symphony that sounded something like what the brilliant soundtrack of Conan the Barbarian would if it had been composed by Enya. I guess the strangest thing about the music was that it in no way evoked either Japan or Hawaii.
The sun down, it was finally it was time to float some lanterns. The idea is Japanese-Buddhist: a simple yet profound gesture to honor your ancestors and deceased loved ones. And you had everyone, all ethnicities, tourists and locals, wading into the gentle surf and submitting their tidings to the tide.
Next year I think I’ll just show up for this part.
