I will be doing a special concert with Nashville producer/songwriter Jeff Lokomaika‘i Dayton. We will be playing our original compositions and sharing some life stories. Please join us this Thursday at Trees Lounge on the island of Kaua‘i 8:30 – 11:00pm. For those of you on the island, come on down and enjoy some great music with friends and family. Hope to see you there!
I will be doing a special two hour concert with Nashville producer/songwriter Jeff Lokomaika‘i Dayton. We will be playing our original compositions and sharing some life stories. Please join us this Saturday 7:30 – 9:30pm at Wardʻs Rafters on 3810 Maunaloa Ave in Kaimuki. I promise you wonʻt be disappointed.
This is a blog by my friend Keola Donaghy from his blog site regarding the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts Board of Governors Elections and Email blast issue.
Keola Donaghy:
HARA members should have received their ballots for the HARA Board of Governors election last week. If you did, please mail them by Friday, October 16, 2009. If you did not receive one please contact the HARA office by calling (808) 593-9424 or (808) 548-9424.
I also have some thoughts I’d like to share on the email blasts which have been sent out from the HARA office in support of certain candidates over the past week.
HARA does offer a service to all HARA members – the use of HARA’s member postal and email list to distribute information. This is a paid service, and the cost depends on which service you use, and in the case of postal mail, what kind of mail it is (postcard, letter, CD/DVD package, etc.) The most common use of this service is during the voting process for the Nā Hōkū Hanohano awards – artists and labels can use the service to send out postcards, letters, copies of CDs or “email blasts” to inform members about their entries and nominees.
I have no problem with HARA offering this service. In the case of both Nā Hōkū and Board of Governor voting, it can help to level the playing field – artists and those seeking a seat on the Board of Governors who are less known by the membership have the opportunity to let potential voters know about their releases or candidacy.
I have some reservations about a recent email blast that went out in support of a substantial list of candidates – 11 candidates were endorsed by a group only identified as “their friends and family”, even though only five seats are open for the election. I learned from our office staff that the endorser(s) requested anonymity, which I found even more troubling. I began to wonder if the endorsement was as much an endorsement of those candidates, or against those not listed as there were far more listed on the endoresment than were not.
I have discussed this situation with some of my colleagues on the Board of Governors, and we will be addressing it at our meeting this week. I’m still not sure how I really feel about this. Regardless, members should know that no email blast that comes from the HARA office is an endoresment by HARA or its Board of Governors, and this fact is stated clearly in each email blast that goes out.
If any HARA member has a strong feeling one way or another about this service in either context – for Nā Hōkū Hanohano voting or for the Board of Governor election, please feel free to share your thoughts with me.
I have come to realize that the degree of proficiency in anything, including songwriting, guitar playing, engineering and producing is in direct correlation with usually high amounts of time spent improving the skill. Once acquired, it needs to be additional time invested to just stay in the status quo.
In my songwriting consciousness, I continually search out new musical styles in any language to study rhythmic patterns, chord structures, vocal phrasings, and arrangement nuances. I’ve noticed that the current songs don’t draw in the listener like the older song arrangements. The intros into the first verse seem more like a plastic drum fill salad. There is no musical hook, some catchy instrumental melody or just breathing space the listener can grab on to from the beginning. I’m not bashing anything, only observing society-accepted changes. Seems that in a world of fast moving information, the listener wants to get down and dirty, sans the romantic lead-in; let’s skip introductions, what do you have to say to me.
As I have stated, I put in a lot of time listening to new sounds in order to keep pace with the current happenings. I do have style preferences, but I enjoy all kinds of music because I respect all forms of self-expression.
For every style there is someone out there who can relate. It’s that sympathetic vibratory physics thing that goes on in our energy fields. I have this acquaintance that doesn’t really care for the stuff on the radio but listens anyway. She was driving down the road, heard this singer emoting this song, started crying and had to pull over to regain her composure. She had no clue who was singing, what the name of the song was or anything else, so she later sang a bit of the melody to her daughter who immediately said it was a song called 100 Years by the group 5 For Fighting. Songs resonate in people, allowing their senses to truthfully overwhelm their physical being. This is the beauty of a song, the essence of life, the power of the human spirit.
Face it, I’m in the intangible business of moving air; how nuts is that!
Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, HI
I am traveling to Hilo this week to be a part of the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival. While on the Big Island, I will be performing at different locations throughout the week. You can check out my calendar for specific performance times and venues.
One of the fun things I will be doing is speaking about collaborative works in contemporary Hawaiian language and musical composition, along with UH-Hilo Hawaiian language professor Keola Donaghy at the Imiloa Astronomy Center on Thursday morning. I hope to video our conversation and post it on YouTube some time in the future.
Blue Manoa (click on the name to view the video)
Today I did an interview with Japanese DJ Sachiko Uchida Kaaihue on J-Wave radio. She was asking me several questions about my career and my newest release entitled “The Dash” which is available online at iTunes and at Islandbeats.
During the course of the interview, I was asked to sing one of the songs from the new CD. I decided to do the song Blue Manoa, which I wrote for the communityʻs battle against the electric company who wanted to eradicate the the mountain top of Wa‘ahila ridge in order to string power lines for a new sub-station. This song talks about a person coming home to Manoa, hoping that his childhood memories are still intact. It is a resounding theme for each of us who has moved away from home, only to return to drastic changes…….
I was talking to Wanda Certo who lives in Northern Virginia via email about my new CD and she began to asks some questions, which I answered in progressive emails. The wonderful woman took the bits and pieces of our chats and made a wonderful blog comment about it on Taropatch.net forum to my surprise. Let me paste her commentary below.
WANDA:
“Our friend Kennth has been relatively quiet, but working hard behind the scenes. He has a brand new CD entitled “The Dash” which has recently been released.
Kenneth intrigues me because of his word craft. He is a consummate poet and story teller. I even told him that the stories he is telling are what’s important to me and the music is almost like frosting on the cake. It is so interesting to me to get a glimpse into someones life at that specific point in time. You learn what is important to them, what is going on in their life at that point. It is indeed a piece of history — as good as a history book, but infinitely more enjoyable. Listening to his music is almost like sitting down and talking story while he is noodling around on a guitar. Just sonversation among friends.
If you go to his: Makuakane Blog, you can get instructions on how to download one of the beautiful love songs from his new CD. The song is Ku`u Pua Lei Melia. Here is his story behind the mele:
The mele was written at the end of summer for my son and his girlfriend who just graduated from high school and moving on to college on the mainland. He is in Oregon and she is in Las Vegas; he is the mountain and she is the pua. Since she left for school first, we say that he held the flower in his bosom, now only her fragrance remains there. The manu is his ipo or sweetheart. The thought of V3 continues to the shifting of metaphor is fine, common in older mele. She’s now the manu lele loa, he reminisces. This, to Keola, is the best line. Manu heu is a bird which is “feathering out”, figuratively a bird ready to leave the nest. Second meaning, manu is an intransitive verb, and it means that she (ke aloha) is maturing. Final meaning, similar, but ke aloha the emotion – their love is growing from a younger to a mature form of aloha.
If you go to you tube, you can listen to another (Auntie’s personal favorite from the CD) – Okie Dokie Makou
YouTube video
Here is Kenneth’s story behind the mele for this one:
Regard the YouTube song, the first verse was written about my cousin Skippy Ioane, who is actually a Kanaka‘ole, and seen as a Hawaiian activist. I see him as a passionate warrior. We are both from Keaukaha and remember when the State took half of our Hawaiian Homes land away to extend the Hilo Airport, and relocated those displaced Hawaiians to Panaewa Homestead. Regarding the Hilo Airport, the State never paid Hawaiian Homes the lease on it for 30 years and settled payment of only 20% during the Waihe‘e term – paying it to OHA instead. Mmm, thereʻs another injustice.
And now for the big questions — how the CD came to be entitled “The Dash” — you know, that dash between your birth date and the date you leave this earthly plane.
Lastly, The Dash is our lives. Itʻs that line between the two dates. It is our lifeʻs journey. Because I am into genealogy, I wanted to know more about my kupuna kahiko than those two dates. Who were they, what did they stand for, how did their lives impact the next generation? Since having these thoughts, I want to set a legacy for my life, something that will remain in the hearts of my ‘ohana forever. This is my kuleana to my keiki and my community.
Auntie thinks you guys will enjoy Kenneth’s music — contemporary, but so well rooted in tradition. And you know that extreme care has been taken with the `olelo Hawai`i. Keola D. would give him false cracks if he screwed up.
You can listen to samples here or download the whole album or buy a song at a time: on the Island Beats website.
A fine job, Kenneth. A fine job.”
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda
Folks are having an unsuccessful time downloading my song. The information to download my song was a bit confusing, so I changed the site information.
Go to: http://public.me.com/kmakuakane
password: thedash
Click on the mp3 and it will direct you to the download button. Remember to download all three files.
If you like this song, please go to KINE Hawaiian105.com to request this song. Again, the song is called Kuu Pua Lei Melia. I thank you so much for your support.
Kenneth
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My brand new CD entitled THE DASH is out and Iʻm very excited about it. I will be giving away a free download of one of the cuts.