I found my preliminary ballots for the 2009 and 2010 Grammy Awards. Here’s a breakdown of the entries in the three primary categories that will compete for the “Best Regional Roots Music Album” Grammy in…
Today The Recording Academy, bestowers of the annual Grammy Awards, announced a major restructuring of the awards that reduces the number of awards from 109 to 78. This change will be implemented in next years awards–the…
March has arrived, and with it comes the preparation, printing and mailing of the preliminary ballot for the 2011 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards. Like many, I was oblivious to the amount of work, consideration and communication…
The folks at the Aloha IBU blog have an interesting post with links to videos of people in Germany during Octoberfest, and they are lamenting the lack of beer in Hawai‘i. Not only ignorant but…
I had the privilege of being one of the instructors at the Kaua‘i Music Festival last week. The five day event brought together instructors from Hawai‘i and the mainland to talk about songwriting, the business…
In spring 1985 I moved to Hollywood to attend Musicians Institute. On the first day of instruction all of us students (@500) gathered in the school’s performance auditorium for orientation. As a “getting to know…
Last weekend my wife and I traveled to Kaua‘i to participate in the K?ke‘e Hawaiian Music Songwriters Camp. Kenneth Makuak?ne, Puakea Nogelmeier, Kaliko Beamer-Trapp, Walter Keale and I taught workshops on haku mele and other…
view original Originally uploaded by lylamerle I thought we did a really good job of cleaning house and getting rid of a lot of things that we’d likely never use again before taking off for…
view original Originally uploaded by LittleO2 I was saddened to hear that Steve Lukather officially disbanded the group Toto last month. They were on my list of acts that I hoped to see at some…
view original Originally uploaded by Napalm filled tires Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro starred in a pair of insipid yet entertaining comedies, with Crystal portraying a psychoanalyst and DeNiro the underworld kingpin he was treating.…