Payam’s Friends

Murray: You get a love triangle, you know, a Fleetwood Mac situation. Although there was four of them, so more of a love square. But you know, no-one gets on.

Jemaine: Ok, I see.

Murray: Mind you, they did make some of their best music back then.

Bret: Rumours?

Murray: No it's all true.

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This Citay album (Little Kingdom...

2008-04-24T22:30:20Z

This Citay album (Little Kingdom) makes me very happy. It's like a contemporary version of Led Zeppelin, completely earnest without being cheesy.

Little Kingdom

Citay

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A whole new era of music videos

2008-04-15T17:40:45Z

I love this: who needs an expensive film crew, casting agents, hundreds of extras, when you can just create your own entire music video inside a video game?

Handys B-Buck Music Video (Remake)

I don't play video games very often, so I can't imagine how long it took this person to figure out how to make all the characters dANCE like that. Amazing.

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This is contemporary Hawaiian culture

2008-03-31T17:52:29Z

I listen to a salad radio station on Maui (the best reception we get here on the north side of the Big Island) when I'm not listening to the iPodinets. This station has been advertising one (and only one) concert for the past couple of months, probably because they'll need roughly 5% of the entire population of Maui to attend in order to fill the venue.

Two of the acts are nationally-known artists (though I'm guessing not as popular on the mainland as they might be here): Sean Kingston and Collie Buddz. The third is a local Maui group, Ekolu.

Near as I can tell, Ekolu is your basic Hawaiian local band. They play a little bit of everything, they play well, and they sing well. Unlike the SF indie scene, it's hard to imagine a local Hawaiian band doing well if they could not sing well. Everybody sings here: the local kids are rocking the karaoke machines shortly after they speak their first words.

So it's not surprising that a lot of locals feel inspired to cover Ekolu. On the couch, with a ukulele, with a NAVY t-shirt:

Honestly- by Ekolu (cover)

On the floor, in front of the dog stretching on the couch:

Ekolu - Honestly (Cover)

In your bedroom, while you're still learning to play the guitar, in your favorite powder blue sweatshirt:

honesty - ekolu (cover)

In your dorm room, too shy to look at the camera:

Honestly - Ekolu

In the subdivision park, with your cousin playing the guitar, in between cigarettes:

ekolu -honestly

And of course, other local bands are obliged to cover the song, with pretty much the same quality as the amateurs, but with bigger amps and more cousins:

Honestly (Acoustic)

Brothers Kakaio performing "Honestly" by Ekolu

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I'm back in San Francisco..for just a little while

2008-02-22T08:39:17Z

If you haven't already heard: After years of trying, Tammy and I finally won the San Francisco TIC condo conversion lottery a few weeks ago. (Happy New Year!)

This is great news. Unfortunately, when we left SF for Hawaii, we left some things unfinished that need to get finished for the condo conversion process to move forward. So, I'm back in SF right now to take care of these things, and I'm heading back to Hawaii on March 2nd.

Anyhow, I'm around til then, but I'm totally out of touch with the SF calendar right now-- so let's get drinks or see a movie or something!

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Current reading!

2008-01-24T20:37:56Z

Six Months in the Sandwich Islands

The title of this book was just TOO appropriate for me, so I checked it out at the local library (which has a HUGE Hawaiiana section.) It is one of a few travel diary style books published by an amazing Victorian Scottish woman, Isabella L. Bird, who traveled all over the world alone -- seemingly unflappable, easygoing, and full of wonder. She spent six months in the Hawaiian Islands in 1871, and the whole story is presented through a series of eloquent letters written by Ms. Bird to her sister in Edinburgh, describing every detail of her explorations. She spent the majority of her time on the big island, and so far her descriptions of visiting the volcano and riding around through the jungle on horseback are just amazing!

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Biodiesel peeps?

2008-01-22T18:36:12Z

Anyone personally know someone (or know someone who knows someone) who has personally made their own biodiesel? I ask because we might be helping a friend start up his own biodiesel mini-factory, and it'd be good to get some firsthand advice on mixing all these fun chemicals. Our friend already has a shit-ton of used cooking oil and some other associated stuff.

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