Music Blogs

For a major travel destination, you'd really think Hawaii would have more to musically recommend it than the collected works of Don Ho and his daughter Hoku.  Hoku even moved to Orange County, California. (To be on that housewives show?) And after an eight-year gap has a new album coming out this Spring!  But go looking for songs to represent this great state and it gets pretty tough. I guess it's like teenagers and poetry. They only write it when they're bored, angry and depressed. No one writes it when they're happy. And everyone in Hawaii is obviously happy. You have to be happy in Paradise. It's the law.

"Hawaii 5-0 Theme"--The Ventures: One of the great travesties of late night TV is that Nick at Nite no longer shows Mary Tyler Moore, Lou Grant, Phyllis or Rhoda anymore and instead focuses on what? Home Improvement? The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? The George Lopez Show? Talk about Instant Nostalgia. They should be bringing back the old shows: My Three Sons, Family Affair, Custer, and, of course, Hawaii 5-0, a television show about surfers turning 50!

"Blue Hawaii"--Elvis Presley: Aside from Jailhouse Rock I've never sat through an entire Elvis movie. Maybe it was the way they were described in the TV Guide. For example, Blue Hawaii would read something like this: "Stunning Hawaiian scenery and Angela Lansbury star in this Elvis film where as Chad Gates he resumes a life of surfing after years spent in the army." They complimented the scenery?

"The Hula Hula Boys"--Warren Zevon: As I promised at year's beginning, 2008 would not be a Zevon-free year. Zevon sings, "I didn't have to come to Maui to be treated like a jerk," to which I can only relate. No, Warren, you could've stayed home for that. I know first-hand. I can't mail a package at my post office without being treated like the Unabomber. "Are you sure they're nothing explosive in this package?" Well, I didn't know the gum was loaded!

"Jesus Goes To Hawaii"--Radio Free Vestibule: Apparently Jesus left Chicago to go to Hawaii. Radio Free Vestibule may be one of the worst names I've heard for a group. Aren't most vestibules radio-free? Where aren't they? Applebee's?

"Hawaiian Punch"--Roy Buchanan: Maybe Roy Buchanan needed money and decided he'd record a song that if the execs at Hawaiian Punch Drink, Inc. caught wind of it, it would immediately make Buchanan an overnight star. Sorry, Roy, but you have to be subtler than that. Nick Drake didn't write "Epistle To Volkswagen." Even the Who didn't name their tune: "Bargain (The Nissan Exterra Song)," though it sometimes seems like they did.