2002-06-29 | RADIO FREE HAWAII

we haven't had a concert here in ages.

I mean, we've had some, but not any worth going to.

I missed a couple that I should've went to, but I didn't really have anyone to go with. I shouldn't have let that stop me. One was Hot Hot Heat. I'm hearing all this great stuff around them now, but for some reason when I was asking people before the concert, nobody knew who the hell they were. So I missed that one, and before that Piebald, and before that Jimmy Eat World, which I'm not super crazy about, but if I knew how long the drought would be, I would've gone.

There was a time when Hawaii had a pretty decent concert scene. We used to go to concerts at least once a month for like 3 years. One time we had 3 in one week. Breeders/Urge Overkill, Pantera/White Zombie, and Anthrax all in one week. Not the greatest shows of all time, but just cool to go to 3 shows in like 5 days. I caught the drumstick from Vinnie Paul at the Pantera show. I'll always remember that. And Diamond (now Dimebag) Darrell, was extremely nice after the show.

There was a station called Radio Free Hawaii who was in operation back then, and they were a big difference. They played alot of bands that nobody else played on the radio. They had balls. They had these ballots in record stores, and all over the place, and people would write down 10 songs they wanted to hear, and the djs would randomly pull out the ballots, one by one, and play one of their songs. The listeners were in total control. If you didn't get a chance to experience this phenomenon, then you have not lived.

They had this show called "Monkey Train", where someone would call up, pick a band, and the dj would play 3 songs in a row from that band. But, after the first song of each band picked, they would take 7 phone calls, or however many it was, and they would take votes on if you wanted to keep hearing the same band, or if you wanted to hear something else. So if at least 4 people said they wanted it to keep going, they would just play the 3 songs, and then take a vote again after those 3 songs. Some bands would keep getting positive votes. Some bands literally controlled the airwaves for hours, because they never got enough negative votes. If at least 4 people said they wanted the train to end, then the person that made the deciding negative vote, got to pick the next band. It was fucking amazing. Also, the deciding voter, whether positive or negative, would be the one to keep the train going, or end it altogether. Sometimes the monkey train would go on for hours. I think one time the whole thing went more then 8 hours. It would go through like 3 djs. You'd be working, and after you were done, you'd turn the radio on, and it would still be going. Maybe it was way more then 8 hours. The number 14 seems to be in my head for some reason. Sometimes the train would last one band, because one guy trying to be all punk rock would call up and end up being the deciding vote, and he'd be like "kill the train! yeah I'm punk!!". So it was so exciting. Every day on that station was different. You never knew what was going to happen.

The station was already playing primarily underground music. The most popular bands were the usual suspects like Bob Marley, the Beatles, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins. (they based the top 20 bands on how many songs were voted for by each artist during that week) But other bands on the top 20 list were bands such as NOFX, Fugazi, and Metallica, before alot of them were cool to like. During one hour you'd hear like, for example, Da Lench Mob, then the Skatalites, then Portishead, then like Weird Al Yankovic, and topped off with a little Slayer, or one of the many pop punk, or ska bands who were popular on the station.

So, the station was already very bold, for a major market station, but once a month or every 2 months, i can't remember, they went even more crazy.

This was known as "Dark Horse Week". They'd pick the bands that were just on the verge of being on the top 35 and top 20 every week, and put them in the spotlight, and this is where I learned so much about music. It was wonderful. I wish I could have tapes of entire days of the station. I would listen to them all.

Anyway, I tell you more about this station later. It was the greatest.

- premature ejaculation | tantra +