Stories — Video

What a time to be alive, right graduates? It's 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has cancelled practically every in-person graduation ceremony. And, well, we're incredibly envious of you! Envious? Yep. Mainly because Barack Obama spoke at everyone's commencement the other day. Virtually, of course, but regardless — how cool is that? But also, and more importantly: being young today means you are only just beginning to make your mark on the world. So, congratulations on this opportunity to leave a positive impact! Here's a niche way to say congrats: vinyl records To show our appreciation in the best way we know...

Not sure if the title of this post made much sense, but there's two major happenings that take place this Friday, May 1st. For starters — Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share on all purchases, AGAIN. Friday, May 1st only. From midnight to midnight, PST. So if you've missed a few tracks or have been meaning to grab everything we've released out since 2015, Friday is your day. We're not kidding! Name your price, on all our digital releases. 24 hours only. This Friday. To thank our fans and showcase more fresh sounds from Hawaii, we're dropping some fresh tracks...

Debuting Sunday on Public Access, the community broadcasting platform created by Public Records NYC, is a new archival project we've embarked on: Islands Reflected. The concept is to compile archival and found footage that reflects life and music in Hawaii. Vinyl Don and I have spent a lot of time nerding out over YouTube finds and VHS discoveries. But that's been the extent of it so far — nerding out. He'd text me a link, "Check this out!!" at 1 in the morning (which, remember, there's a 3 hour difference between Hawaii and LA). Collectively, we've amassed a bulky playlist...

YouTube is a near endless universe of music discoveries waiting to happen. I've spent quite a bit of time surfing through hour-long mixes of latin grooves, channels that specialize in unearthing ambient gems, and users who've been digging up old video footage from the 1980s and 1990s of local musicians in Hawaii. There are also a few channels from Japan that almost exclusively share music from Hawaii. This is not surprising, especially when you consider that one of the reasons I started this blog was because the only information available online (at the time) about rare, collectible Hawaiian records were...

I suppose I didn't anticipate working from 9am to 9pm every day on this project. One of the most important things is the power of connecting with people. We created deep relationships between people who were worlds apart, but now here in Hawaii working passionately on this documentary film. I am forever changed because of this.