Soul Time Celebrates First Birthday

It feels like I’m having a birthday this week. Soul Time In Hawaii, the monthly all-vinyl party that I co-host with DJ Oliver Twist, turns 1 year old this Thursday.

We didn’t make the event “all-vinyl” to make some kind of statement. After all, Oliver started his DJ career some 20 years ago, when vinyl-only DJs were the norm, long before Serato was even an inkling of the human imagination.

Instead, we set out to spin music that we love so that others can enjoy it, too. Much of that music just so happens to be in our record collections, so it was only natural that we’d bring these records to spin.

After a full year of all-vinyl gigs behind us, Oliver and I still rely on that simple concept to support us along the way: Play records that we love.

But this month, there’s an exception to that rule. Because it’s the one-year anniversary of Soul Time, we’re celebrating by playing strictly Hawaiian vinyl all evening.

With a few back-breaking stacks of local records in tow, Oliver and I endeavor to fill eight full hours of Thursday evening with all kinds of island-grown tunes: Hawaiian boogie, psych, Hawaiian ‘80s hiphop (seriously!), Hawaiian funk, soul, jazz, new age, hippie folk and disco.

There’s been a handful of recent vinyl releases that’ll be heard that evening, including Scott Ohtoro’s beat album When The Right Time and The Rightovers’ jangly pop LP Blue Blood (which just released last Saturday).

There’s also a number of local bands that have recorded outside of Hawaii and artists whose songs have been covered by non-Hawaiian bands — both of which surely will find their way into the evening’s soundtrack.

One example: In 1978, Mackey Feary’s band was flown to Japan to back singer Haruko Kuwana in the studio for her LP Million Stars. The LP not only features Mack’s crew, it also contains cover versions of songs that Mackey originally recorded on his first solo release.

I digress. I don’t want to be a bore with details I’ve obsessed over since I first started collecting Hawaiian music five years ago. Oliver’s been at it for 15 years, and we both are still making vinyl discoveries to this day. We’re excited to spin them for you.

There’s a lot of music born from the Islands, but rarely a single event that encompasses the breadth of Hawaiian music that’s out there — which is exactly what Soul Time will do this Thursday evening.

Soul Time In Hawaii takes place from 4 p.m. to midnight March 26 at Bevy. No cover.

(It’s also Oliver’s birthday this week, so drop by to wish him hau’oli la hanau!)

For more from Roger, check out his blog at alohagotsoul.com.