It’s been a while, but a man donning dresses and surgical gowns, spouting rap-rock assaults over a bed of crunchy guitars, has drifted back into the sunbeam of MTV like a forgotten fleck of light. With the spastic delivery of a fallen patient from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Matt Shultz, lead singer of Cage The Elephant, is channeling the preeminent poster-child of grunge–Kurt Cobain.
Boys, beaches, bags of weed. In 2010, Best Coast blazed onto the music scene with a sealed Zip-lock of 7” singles that led the indie pop duo to roll out a fatty debut record called Crazy For You.
Spring Arts / A Dragon’s Horde of Premiere Plays The spring season’s theme is “innovation,” as local theaters roll out the debuts to befit the auspicious Year of the Dragon. Look for a trove of original, locally created shows, plus a few fire-breathing FOBs from Broadway and beyond.
Spring Arts / Ridin’ Jazz Waves In Honolulu, some believe we’re hard pressed to find a thriving jazz scene, but it’s here, hidden in neighborhood living rooms and restaurants and bars where candles are dim and drinks are strong. In fact, according to [honolulujazzscene.com], there are over 140 venues on the island that feature live jazz, at least once a year, in Honolulu.
Spring Arts / Classical and Beyond: Exciting Tastes Starting now, there is seriously delightful music being played throughout Honolulu by marvelous players, both local and visitor. It is definitely a season of fresher flavors than those served up in the standard repertoire, and why not?
Spring Arts / The Last Mixtape You’ll Ever Need Start the new year with a musical bang! Check out these upcoming shows to plan the soundtrack to your last year on Earth.
Spring Arts / Out of the Garage Unless you’re Kanye West or Mariah Carey, you may be out of luck when it comes to recording your next multi-platinum album. Sure, we are in the age of home recording and for many reasons, that’s a great thing.
Spring Arts / Creative Futures New year, new art. Like the seasons itself, local galleries run on a cycle.
Spring Arts / Cinema Forecast The Oscars are a month away, but the cinephiles here at the Weekly are pretty sure who’s taking home Best Picture (*cough* The Artist *cough*). That’s why where film is concerned, we’re already looking past the awards season and into what the rest of the year has to offer us: twelve studio films you haven’t heard of (yet), a series of DIY screenings and a film festival renaissance.
No. 1 Danger: The road.
Waterfalls are both beautiful and dangerous. High in more sense than one, people drawn to dive end up hurt, paralyzed or dead.
Like seeing your name in the paper? Go hiking.
Shailene Woodley Speaking by phone from Texas on a day set aside for media interviews, Shailene Woodley, 20, who plays Alexandra, Matt King’s 17-year-old daughter, sounds as fresh and spontaneous as if this is her first call of the day (it’s not). “Aloha,” she says.
Celia Kenney At Town, her father Ed’s restaurant, we caught up with 13-year-old Celia Kenney, a Punahou 8th grader who plays Reina, the “bad example” pal of Scottie in the film. Do you think the film toned down Reina’s character a bit?
“The way Alex goes underwater to cry, the dialog, the mood of the scenes, the way it’s not too bright, it captures the beauty and greenness. They kept everything I liked about Hawaii.
Filthy Farm Girl Soap Gretchen Wetzel had a real problem with soap. Her friends called her a “dirty hippie,” a “filthy farm girl,” and that fun-loving name calling, which derived from her working on an organic tomato farm, soon became the impetus for an incredibly successful line of body products.
Made in Hawaii / Maui’s Winery at ‘Ulupalakua Ranch The story of the Valley Isle’s sole commercial winery is one of sustainability. In 1974, Maui’s Winery, in collaboration with ‘Ulupalakua Ranch, began growing grapes, remaining true to the area’s agricultural heritage.
Q&A with Maile Meyer, owner of Native Books/Na Mea Hawaii How do you feel about the Made in Hawaii brand, is it a good business choice? Supporting locally made products is a philosophical position.
Pineapple Crush Pau Maui Vodka The only ultra-premium vodka fermented from Hawaiian pineapples is Pau Maui, a local brand of vodka that’s actually made in Maui. The pineapple provides a clean “mash” from which to start the fermentation process, and luckily for us, there isn’t a single hint of pineapple left on the palette.
Island Slipper “I felt like I was giving up on my employees, Hawaii and, ultimately, my ability to carry on the Island Slipper tradition,” says John Carpenter, owner of Island Slipper, referring to a decision that could’ve changed his business entirely. To move to Asia or not to move to Asia, it was a matter of money, and in the end, he made the uncommon choice to stay.
Twenty-five years ago Becky Burns was a single mom living in the Anahola Valley on Kauai. After hurricane Iniki hit, Burns decided to offer a solution to a problem faced by some of the hotel kitchens that were out of commission–breakfast.
What a Tees [idkwhat2wear.com] The owners of idkwhat2wear are Karl Miyashiro and Terri Dux, who’ve been friends a long time. Their wicked sense of humor and Neanderthal sense of fashion are what make their tee shirt company amusing.
Damien: The Making of A Saint by: assembly of researchers and editors Mutual Publishing Hardcover 136 pages For young adults $22.95 Priesthood…not the first item on a twenty-three-year-old’s to do list. A life of devotion, careful instruction, a confining list of do’s and don’ts–what twenty-three-year-old would choose that over all the more exciting options available?
Look around. See all the aging single-wall-construction houses that fill the flats, valleys and older ridges of Oahu–with their canec ceilings made of pressed refuse from the sugar fields, with their screened sliding windows, miniscule bedrooms and overhanging eaves.
Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii Gerald Horne University of Hawaii Press 336 pages $28.99 In this deeply researched portrait of Hawaii’s plantation era zeitgeist, Dr. Gerald Horne, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston intimately details Hawaii’s transition from a conservative citadel to the liberal bastion it remains to this day.
Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
I’d never been to a Honolulu City Council meeting until a few weeks ago. Features, not politics, was my beat.
Victoria Holt Takamine is a kumu hula, a cultural activist and a teacher and has an impeccable pedigree to back up all these titles. Born of an alii family whose kuleana was in Moanalua, she graduated as a hula teacher under the legendary Auntie Maiki Aiu Lake and taught hundreds of students in her own halau (Pua Alii ‘Ilima) and at the University of Hawaii.
On April 25, a state judge dismissed trespassing charges against a Kauai man after finding that he had been exercising traditional native Hawaiian rights hunting wild pigs on private land. Kui Palama, 28, was arrested on Jan.
The city plans to dish out $3.5 million from its Affordable Housing Fund and either purchase or renovate a structure to provide transitional housing for Honolulu’s special needs homeless population. “Our community has invested considerable effort and resources in addressing homelessness,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement, “but there remains a population whose disabilities or chronic conditions make it difficult for them to participate in traditional shelter programs.” Carlisle is referring to those homeless with mental illnesses, addictions and physical disabilities.
Makaweli Poi faces an uncertain future after its owner, a corporate subsidiary of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) ordered the West Kauai mill to suspend operations May 23. Mona Bernardino, chief operating officer of the corporation, Hiipoi LLC, says the move to shut down Makaweli Poi was prompted mainly by financial concerns.
A resolution adopted by the City Council will solidify an agreement between the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii Water Resources Research Center (UH-WRRC) to conduct an analysis of impacts from ocean sewer outfalls on the marine environments off of Oahu. The city will pay UH-WRRC as much as $2.5 million for biological and sediment studies in portions between now and June 30, 2017 .
Along with the deep, verdant growth of spring sprouts an unyielding desire to spend more time in the open air. That’s why it should come as no surprise that National Bike Month falls in the sun-drenched time of May.
Of the many letters you publish against rail, how many offer an alternative that won’t send us into further economic demise? Billions of gallons of oil are imported for us from every oil-producing nation on this planet so that we can buy billions of gallons of gasoline.
TheBus is taking a back seat to rail. At the May 3 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, an audience member asked city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka when we could expect the bus route cancellations and changes to be reversed.
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