On March 26, 2015, Aloha Got Soul celebrated the one-year anniversary of Soul Time In Hawaii, our monthly all-vinyl party right here in Honolulu.
To celebrate, we played 100% Hawaiian vinyl all night: 8 hours straight.
Initially, the Soul Time party was a one-off event in two cities to promote a
tee/mixtape collab I did with a new London apparel company called
Weekends West. We held it in Honolulu and London. The events were a success, so we turned Soul Time into a monthly gig on both sides of the globe. (We recently had the opportunity to expand to the windy city for
Soul Time In Chicago!).
OK, you might've known that already, but the question still remains—8 hours?! Of local records?! Serious?!
...Serious!
We did all-Hawaiian vinyl at the launch party
back in March 2014, which was 4pm - 10pm. (That recording was seriously botched, I still don't know why, so we never released it). We launched Soul Time with all Hawaiian records, so it only makes sense to
continue the tradition with the one-year anniversary of Soul Time In Hawaii.
All Hawaiian vinyl, all evening long! Every March!
So yes, below you have the entire 8-hour live set featuring resident Soul Time In Hawaii DJs
Roger Bong and
Oliver Twist, accompanied by s
pecial guest DJ shitzr to close out the party. The live set is split into two 4-hour parts.
There are what some may consider a few (tiny, nit-picky) exceptions to the "all Hawaiian" rule that evening: Hawaii-based artists who recorded outside of the islands (namely
Seawind,
Martin Denny,
Merrell Fankhauser, and
Mackey Feary's band) as well as a cover tune of Seawind's "Free" recorded recently by London's
Da Lata (Great job,
Patrick!).
So here we are: 8 hours, 100% Hawaiian vinyl, live at
Soul Time In Hawaii:
PART 1
PART 2
It was also Oliver's birthday two days prior to the event, so we celebrated with cupcakes, turntable cakes, and lots of one-of-a-kind Soul Time memorabilia, like that hat Oliver's wearing in the photo above. Big thanks to Oliver's other half, Cianté, for baking the amazing turntable cakes (which featured a rotating platter, no kidding!) and the hand-crafted goods.
Prior to the evening, we mapped out a tentative schedule for our sets, a plan of what to spin so that we weren't all over the place for 8 hours.
The idea was similar to last year's "music menu", an hour-by-hour set of a specific genre of Hawaiian music. This year's plan was rougher than last year's, leaving us with flexibility to play what we felt was right at the moment. Here's the breakdown of our 8-hour-long set:
- Acoustic/folk/psych, selection by Oliver Twist
- Acoustic/new age/jazz, selection by Roger Bong
- Rock/surf/garage, selection by Oliver Twist
- Soul/AOR/rare groove, selection by Roger Bong
- Funk/soul/disco/boogie, selection by shitzr
shitzr was our special guest for the evening. There couldn't have been a more perfect guest to grace the decks for our anniversary party: shitzr's been digging Hawaiian vinyl for longer than anyone else we know.
shitzr, in fact, was one of the first people to help solve the
tracklist mystery to DJ Muro's Hawaiian Breaks mix about 5 years back. This was back when I used to troll the Soulstrut forums and finally decided to post a thread seeking to chart the tracks to Muro's mix. From what I recall, shitzr had posted a photo of the entire tracklist in album covers, laid out on the floor from start to finish. There I sat, eyes wide as I stared at the computer screen trying to decipher artist names and titles from the photo.
Fast-forward to 2015, and a lot has happened since: Hal Bradbury's LP got a full reissue from BBE, Greenwood recorded their debut CD featuring "Sparkle" some 30 years after-the-fact, "Hunk Of Heaven"
got covered by Canada's The Spandettes, and Mike Lundy's music has been reissued on the Aloha Got Soul label—the opening track to Muro's mix will be featured as the A-side of the forthcoming second release,
AGS-7002.
All in all, there must've been about 350 Hawaiian records scattered in DJ bags, vintage vinyl carriers, and plastic milk crates behind the decks that evening.
The best part? We didn't even get to spin everything we wanted to that evening. In fact, Oliver made a special appearance
at Motown On Mondays Honolulu the following week and opened his set with a bunch of reggae records he never got around to at Soul Time.
The crazy part? I've spent the past two weeks listening to this 8-hour mix before
making it public on Soundcloud, soaking up all the sunny vibes from that evening. Within those magnanimous 8 hours of Hawaiian music, we only played
one Mike Lundy track! "
Tropic Lightning".
Mike Lundy has been the only artist released thus far on the
Aloha Got Soul label—which goes without saying that there is
plenty more AGS releases on the horizon.
Let me indulge you, starting with the first letter of the alphabet:
Coming soon to the Aloha Got Soul record label are releases by Aura, Al Nobriga, Aeolus, and Aiko.
Enjoy the mix, and as always: thank you for your continued support.
Preorders are now open for AGS-7002 and AGS-7001R. Snag your copies now.
