Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Honolulu Pulse

Check out pictures and more from the Apartm3nt show.

This is me after my set (shetten bricks)
Peace, Kelli

Apt. 3 Gig Notes & More Gigs

Woah, I had a great time playing at Apartm3nt last night. Headlining the bill was Jess Penner (whom with which I am thoroughly impressed), and Sabrina (I was super excited to see and hear her again). Both of these girls have records out, so please support them by buying their music.

Jess Penner
Sabrina

Not only was a wee bit nervooos to play alongside such accomplished women, but I was literally singing to a wall of musicians. Johnny Helm, Kings of Spade (all 100 of them), Otis Schaper, Joni & Bran Apeles from Wait For It, Taryn Manning...

It's tough playing solo. The last time I was playing shows regularly, I had a band of friends backing me up. If things were going bad, we could look to the side and have a laugh about it. If things were going great, we could look to the side and have an even better laugh about it. But not anymore...I'm up there all nakey and alone. Laughing at/with myself.

Here's what I have going so far music-wise for the rest of 2010:

Saturday 11.27 - 12-3 PM Songwriter Radio Show on KTUH 90.3 FM (also feat. Sabrina!)
Thursday 12.23 - 7-9 PM The Peace Cafe (2239 S. King)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Halloweekend

This year, my Halloween weekend started on Wednesday. Well, actually it started on what I thought was Wednesday, but it was actually a Thursday.

So this year, my Halloween weekend started on Thursday.

Now that that's out of the way, on THURSDAY, I was bestowed the honor of delivering my guitar to one of my favorite bands, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.

They needed an acoustic guitar for an acoustic show. I was thrilled to deliver. But being that I was a day behind schedule (thank you, parenthood), I nearly messed it all up by being in the back of Manoa Valley at the exact time I should have been walking through the doors of the music hall with guitar. I frantically dialed my contact, then sped like a bat out of hell towards Dillingham, and made it there to find Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros mid-soundcheck, and happy to recieve the guitar, albeit a half hour behind schedule.



ES & The Magnetic Zeros (and Nico playing my guitar!)

Whew. Thankfully my Mom and Sister were able to keep Sebastien in Manoa so I could break the speed limit laws and roll through the 10 thousand stop signs in Manoa without endangering him.

Friday I was pumped to see Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros again, this time at the Waterfront at Aloha Tower. I was extra excited since I hadn't had a real night out with live music included. My Sister and I got there early to check out the 2 supporting bands, The Throwdowns & The Budos Band. In betwen sets we counted beards and Lady Gaga costumes. She had whiskey. I had a (single) vodka tonic.

After we met up with several other good friends, Edward Sharpe started playing and I soon found myself smashed up against some girl's fairy wings on one side and some white guy's fake dreads on the other. There was a dangerous and muggy looking armpit to my left, and Alex Ebert, a.k.a. Edward Sharpe, was pretty much dripping sweat on my nose. I had to duck every couple if minutes to avoid getting kicked in the head by falling crowd surfers.





At times the music became the mood. But mostly, the drunk and aggressive (mostly) guys trying their damndest to rush the stage by trampling all who stood in thier way made it hard to really let the music set it. There were several of them who could have taken one up the pooper, but I just shut my mouth instead to avoid becoming one of them.





Regardless, the show was a whole lot of much-needed reckless fun. My only wish was that the on stage monitors were more to the artists' liking, if only to relieve them of the awkward looks shooting across the stage. Oh well.

Home was patiently waiting for me, and I greeted it like a limp noodle at around 2 AM. I think Sebastien's spidey sense was on high alert because he woke up just to lecture me shortly after I walked in. I shmacked him with the boob and he fell back asleep pretty quickly...but he got up extra early Saturday to finish filing his complaints.

Saturday afternoon I found myself committed to helping set up a stage and sound downtown for the Hallowbaloo Art & Music Festival. Let me start by saying, live sound is a beast. It's overly stressful for me...me being someone who prefers the meticulous and controlled chaos of studio tracking over the masochistic task of doing live sound for 3 full bands. But I said yes. It was for a good friend. And there were no major heart attacks during set up. I helped out for about 3 hours, but Sebastien's babysitter (a.k.a. my Sis) gave me a good excuse to leave as she could only watch him until 6 PM.




I finished the night watching her and her friends get festive before heading Downtown for the freak show. Then headed home to Daddy with Sebastien.

On Sunday, Sebastien wore his Yoda hat (which he had been practicing doing for the last 3 days) to brunch at the Cream Pot. There were plenty of other babies in the house, but Sebastien was by far the loudest and hungriest.





Later on, I met up with my Mom and Sister, and we took him to Kahala Mall, where Sebastien promtly passed out, and missed the parade of costumes.




We then headed for UH Manoa to check out an Edward Gorey exhibit, but arrived too late.





Alas, Sebastien & I ended our Halloween eating spaghetti in Manoa before heading home to Papakolea.
Peace.