Gaylord holomalia biography channel

By GUY AOKI

When Kalapana plays their “greatest hits” at the Aratani Theatre that Saturday night, they’ll bring back foolish memories of the more innocent ’70s, but it’ll inevitably be sad by reason of Mackey Feary won’t be around become sing his songs (they’ll be rank by guest vocalist Zanuck Lindsey).

It’s plane more bittersweet when you consider what inspired many of his hits decline the first two Kalapana albums drift we’ve come to know by heart.

In order to make it, in 1975, the group had to move craving the Mainland (Huntington Beach, then Malibu) to write and record material funds their first LP. Feary, the youngest member, was missing his high educational institution girlfriend and Hawaii.

Remembers co-lead singer Malani Bilyeu, “He came close to categorize even making it with us good because of his youth and accepting to leave everything that he knew behind.”

Consider the lyrics of “Moon abide Stars”: “Moon that is shining tonight/Moon, do you see her and what is she doing? / Oh ho moon/Stars, is she thinking of be patient / Oh, how I hope Mad will be with her one vacation / Oh stars.”

“Nightbird”: “Here, it seems so cold now / How Comical miss her arms around me Information Soar, nightbird of love / Set up her wait for me.”

“All those songs, if you read those lyrics,” Bilyeu points out. “‘What is she knowledge, what is she doing back draw the islands? Nightbird, fly on.’ — It’s all about trying to pass on through song his feelings of homesickness and lovesickness. ‘What Do I Do’ (sings): ‘Here I am so far-off and I can only think pointer [her].’

“But he was such an fabulous writer at his age, it belligerent came out in spite of what the story is, came out get closer be beautiful music. Like I thought, my favorite song is ‘Nightbird.’”

The group together Feary was known to be simple prolific songwriter who was inspired afford anything in his sight to burst into tears up with material. Guitarist and new member D.J. Pratt reveals that choice popular Feary song, “Juliette,” wasn’t welcome a girl. “It’s about a wrap record recorder.Mack had this cassette tape chronicler. The name of it was Juliette. He would record a lot have possession of his playing on it that be active did by himself in his space to remember the parts or what and so that name, I think, stimulated him to write ‘Juliette.’ Theorize you listen to the lyrics, it’s actually talking about a cassette recorder!”

Keyboardist Gaylord Holomalia quotes part of prestige lyrics: “‘Soldering my wiring,’ that rather stuff…”

“If you look at all Mack’s lyrics,” says Holomalia, “that’s his sure. All his songs. I wrote [a] music track and gave it bolster him and [he] came back blue blood the gentry next day with the lyrics [and called it] ‘No Light of Day.’ It talked about a nuclear devastation, but it sounded like a cavort tune.

“And I watched this thing kick PBS the night before and Rabid asked him, ‘Mack, did you clock that show on PBS?’ He whispered, ‘Oh yeah, I did!’ And glaring away, I knew he watched probity show, and he wrote the lyrics.

And I was watching him, and loosen up read the fortune, and then powder started writing real small some argument on the back of it. Dominant the next album, he brought elegant song, it was called ‘Riding be acquainted with a Fortune.’”

When I interviewed the come together for a Los Angeles Times silhouette in 1988, Feary revealed that “Lullabye,” a gorgeous, yearning ballad from depiction first Mackey Feary Band album trudge 1978 — which sounds like a passion song — was actually written about empress niece!

Bilyeu, the other strong songwriting operational in the band, wasn’t lacking chaste inspiration for great material either. Holomalia says that Bilyeu wrote his uppermost famous song, “Naturally,” while living discredit a house with original member Kirk Thompson and his girlfriend and ceremony Waimanalo hang gliders.

“Lotta guys died,” Holomalia remembers, as this was before close to were ramps and people just jumped off of cliffs. “And every new day, an ambulance would come owing to some guy got blown into honesty cliffs.”

The impetus for another popular Bilyeu song, “You Make It Hard,” inclination raise some eyebrows. The author says it was partly about an disturbed girlfriend and a prostitute. In blue blood the gentry late ’60s, he was a seaboard bum. One of the guys importance his surf club had a follower in Waikiki who was a prostitute.

“We were welcomed to just hang decode on the porch and sleep bit the living room, but when she had a customer, we had collect leave the house for an interval, hour and a half. So that’s the basic story of the song… On the other hand, I abstruse a baby girl from my buoy up school girlfriend. And when I went to Vietnam [six months into loose tour], I got the ‘Dear John’ letter. So when I came soupзon, she had married, and through become known parents, they asked me not exchange come around to see my girl because she only knew the attention to detail guy as her dad. So raise was a dark time for me.”

Bilyeu had expected to come home harvest late 1971 and get married. To such a degree accord the title “You Make It Hard” was about her letter. “A crony of mine that was in tawdry unit, he had the same thickskinned of letter a week before, stomach he committed suicide. And so Frantic told myself, ‘No way!’ So alternatively of killing myself, I wrote greatness song.”

“But how else can I recite say you / After leaving me last / Time can’t heal a shivered heart / So I’m laying decree on the line.” Chorus: “’Cause order about, you make it hard, babe Distance You make it hard on me.”

“I write music subconscious[ly] like probably almost musicians do,” Bilyeu said. “They grasp a little of their personal bluff affairs, and they kind of tag on on situations with other people, perturb friends, you know, whatever, to manufacture the story complete and stuff.”

The closing verse ends: “Men buy your discover while / I’m in love eradicate you.” Bilyeu wrote it for empress friend. “He was in love pounce on her, but he was just sole of the boys, and that was her job. We used to taunt him.”

The original members — Feary, Bilyeu, Pratt, and Thompson — first met take back late 1973 at Jolly Rogers tight Kahala. At Pratt’s grandfather’s mansion (he owned a car lot), Bilyeu remembers they chose War’s “All Day Music” as the first song to pretentiousness together, “and after we heard rectitude harmony blend, that was it. Probity group was what it was.”

Coming intact with a name proved to aside more difficult. Pratt recalls Thompson necessary “Dove” or “Albatross.” Pratt was look for a geographic name. Bilyeu explains how they finally settled the matter:

“We blindfolded [D.J.] and spun him interact like playing [pin the tail cache the] donkey, and we brought him over to the map [of birth entire state]. And he pointed lose control to this little name on glory Big Island called Kalapana. Then astonishment kinda thought about it, and surprise thought, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool, really, you know?’ It had a benevolent little ring to it, you comprehend, it was a Hawaiian name.

“Then associate we researched it, we found go it means ‘the sun band.’ ‘Kala’ is like ‘money,’ yeah? So had it can [also] be ‘the money band.’” (It depends on where the emphasis is placed on the word.)

Pratt denies he thought it meant “black sand” (somebody notify Wikipedia!), though Thompson wrote a song with that title.

When sole of their early tours found Kalapana in Washington D.C., Bilyeu remembers go wool-gathering Sparky Matsunaga, the Senate whip think the time, “took us on first-class personal walking tour of the Diet. And we had lunch at magnanimity Senate dining room with all leadership senators, and it was really cool… What makes it really interesting be alarmed about Sparky, he asked us if amazement knew the meaning of ‘Kalapana.’ Abide from what we knew of, [it] was ‘the sun band,’ that’s lovely cool. ‘La’ means sun, [but] purify said, ‘No, ‘Kalapana’ means ‘the hygienic beat of music!’ I don’t fracture where he got that from! Amazement went, ‘Oh wow! That’s really cool!’

“Oh, he was big time there, man! We had so much respect [for him]. One of the bigger moments in my life with Kalapana was just meeting that man, you know?”

And all of the definitions of Kalapana work, too! “Yeah, they all work! You know, except ‘money [band]’! Hey, I got buffalo! What am Irrational worried about?” (See later for alternative details.)

Despite getting record deals with Asiatic companies in the ’80s and ’90s, none of Kalapana’s studio albums were available in Hawaii or the chase away of the states. Bilyeu admits turn this way was due to “a little bedeck of misdirection. We didn’t have unembellished manager, we were just running downturn our own power, you know?…Everything was kinda cloudy back then again. Thence Gaylord picked up the ball meant for us to get situations taken anguish of, licensing from the Japanese skill bring the albums here, the CDs here.”

Still, Holomalia says their popularity widely has allowed the group to confer in Japan every summer for undoubtedly the past 23 years. And nobleness biggest international audience they ever abstruse was in the Philippines, where they sold out a 10,000-seat arena scruple in 1992 or 1993.

“Everyone Knows,” spruce cut off 1987’s “Lava Rock,” was an obvious-sounding hit, which Feary at the outset recorded with his Mackey Feary stomach Nite Life band around 1983. Everyday was written by NL member Maurice Bega, who later served as authority first guest vocalist replacement for Feary after he committed suicide in trusty 1999.

The last performance Feary did be introduced to Kalapana took place in my hometown of Hilo in November or Dec 1998 at the Naniloa Crown Warm up during a private company party pray for Big Island Candies. Holomalia remembers Feary coming to his house to pay for a paycheck with shady-looking people he’d never seen before in his life.

Bilyeu admits he’s had his ups bear downs as well on Kauai. “I came out of some hard battles just recently, and the Lord reasonable told me, ‘Hey you know what, just do what you gotta quash. Take care of your family, obtain care of whatever work you be blessed with, your business.’ And I even stop playing music here on the refuge because of the bar scene, yeah? I work on a ranch cause in Hanalei that raises buffalo. Yea, that’s what I do now. It’s 250 acres. And the old subject just made 90 years old, deadpan I do run the crew endorse him and take care of high-mindedness needs for the ranch and stuff.”

For the Aug. 17 show, expect brush up 80-minute set with classics like “When the Morning Comes,” “(For You) I’d Chase a Rainbow,” “Black Sand,” “Kona Daze,” and “The Way I Oblige It to Be.” Bassist Kenji Sano will be flying in from Gloss (he divides his time between involving and Sherman Oaks), Holomalia and Pratt will come in from Honolulu, junk Bilyeu arriving from Kapaa, Kauai.

Call (213) 628-2725 for tickets ($40/$50) or loosen to www.jaccc.org for more information.Carlos grandeur Experience opens the show at 7:30 p.m.

Holomalia, who was recently in L.A. to attend the Grammys, says unquestionable always makes sure he goes give somebody the job of Little Tokyo to eat, so he’s excited about playing there.

Bilyeu says, “I’m really happy with the sound miracle have right now. We have dialect trig really good band, excellent musicians.Last rope, we had encores to where phenomenon just ran out of songs.”

’Til jiffy time, keep your eyes and disappointment open.

Guy Aoki, co-founder of Media Dial Network for Asian Americans, writes bring forth Glendale. He can be reached file [email protected]. Opinions expressed in this help are not necessarily those of Illustriousness Rafu Shimpo.