Going Beyond The Groove for Honolulu's Newest Weekly, Metro

While I've been busy *not* updating the blog here, (sorry, folks!) I've been juggling a handful of other projects. Firstly, I've been prepping for the forthcoming Aloha Got Soul record label—which tentatively launches by year's end with the label's first release, a 7-inch single by Mike Lundy. The music's been mastered and went to the vinyl manufacturer last week, logo design is done, but there are still a few things left to take care of. Packaging, distribution, and likely a redesign of this website to accompany the label launch. Oh, and t-shirts. Gotta get some t-shirts printed up. Secondly, Soul Time In Hawaii is still going strong. Last month I invited my fiancé (we got engaged in August) to be our guest DJ. It was her first time spinning outside of the KTUH studio, and she did a damn good job of it. Soul Time In Hawaii is October 30 at Bevy, happening as it does on the last Thursday of every month. Except this time around, Soul Time's UK counterpart, Cedric Bardawil, has secured the date of October 29 at Brilliant Corners. We'll be cross-promoting Soul Time In London and Soul Time In Hawaii just as we did back in March. Any of you in the London area? And there's a new weekly newspaper in town, Metro, of which I am the regular music columnist. My column is called Beyond The Groove, because each week I'll be pushing myself to "dig deep into Hawaii's musical present and past to feature stories that transcend music itself." Metro launched at the beginning of October 2014. We haven't really had a print weekly since last year. Of course, there are online news hubs like Honolulu Pulse, Frolic Hawaii, or The Offsetter (probably my favorite of them all for its witty newsbits and wittier headlines), but perhaps the Metro offers something Oahu's been in need of since the Honolulu Weekly ceased publication in June 2013. In any case, I'm hoping Metro will be around for a good while (which it probably will, seeing that it was conceived by the team at Honolulu's longstanding Midweek periodical). So... this means my time will continue to be devoted to a variety of projects. I'll still be blogging here, of course, and continuing to build Aloha Got Soul. But, I'm delighted to be contributing to Honolulu's newest source of arts, culture and entertainment, which means I'll likely be making new connections in Honolulu's music scene, discovering stories I might normally not see (since I blog mostly about 1970s and 1980s Hawaiian funk), and learning a thing or two about myself along the way. You can read my latest columns at www.metrohnl.com.