Q&A: Music then and now

How’s the skyline lately? Filled with cranes tending to countless condominiums. Construction sites currently are scattered throughout Honolulu, lending to the rapidly changing identity of our city.

Honolulu will look very different in the next 10 years. Will we remember what it looked like? What it felt like? What it sounded like?

I’d like to share excerpts of interviews I’ve done in recent months with musicians who experienced Honolulu’s fervent live music scene during the late 1970s and the changes that occurred during that time, lest we forget what Honolulu was like then.

Kit Ebersbach, June 4

Was Waikiki changing in 1976?

A little bit, but it still had a lot of (live) music. I think it changed with the advent of the bean counters, the CFOs running the hotels.

What else led to the demise of the nightclub scene in Waikiki?

It was all economics. There were two things: the Vietnam War ended, so that ended a lot of need for musicians to play. The bases all shrunk, so they didn’t provide entertainment. Also: Big hotels came in. They became more of a package thing where people would have everything planned for their vacation before they arrived. It was the beginnings of the situation that we’re living in right now.

Steve Maii, June 10

I think people need that human element in music, the feeling that makes things a little off here and there, but it feels real.

When we did the Catching A Wave album (in 1983), it was analog. Then for the second album, (recording engineer) Rick Keefer went digital. It was a little more difficult because digital is kind of robotic. You don’t have the natural bends and blends like you do in analog. Like you said, it’s a little bit off. In human life, it feels good.

That’s the thing about drum machines, they’re so perfectly on time.

You know, your heartbeat is not on time. There’s nothing like live music.

Mike Lundy, Jan. 14

What’s the backstory on the song The Rhythm of Life?

A great saying someone once told me goes, “No one shows up late, everyone’s on time, because everybody moves according to their own time.”

I don’t know if there’s life after death, but I know that when you play with great (musicians), and everything is locked in, you know there’s something more out there than just playing a note or playing a chord. It moves you, it lifts you! It’s bigger than you.

That’s why I wrote The Rhythm of Life. It’s the pulse that we all live our lives to. Each of us has that pulse. The thing that sucks is … the one thing that rules our life is time. We can’t stop it. It’s going to keep going. Eventually we’re all going to kick it! Can’t stop that! And that kind of irritates me, because it’s not fair.

You gotta make the most of it while you have it.

Either that, or find some kind of escape in quantum physics. (laughs)

Roger recently turned his blog, Aloha Got Soul, into a record label: alohagotsoul.com.