NahenaheNet FAQ

How did NahenaheNet come into being?

NahenaheNet started shortly after I helped my friend Keola Beamer get his web presence started back in 1994 or so. It was fun, and I thought it was a great way to promote Hawaiian music. I had become acquainted with many of the musicians who are represented on NahenaheNet over the years, a number of them before anyone outside of Maui had heard them. On more than a few occassions I asked a number of them to help out our Hawaiian immersion schools by performing at benefit concerts, and almost always they graciously agreed to do so.

Not being a very wealthy individual I offered a few of them to return the favor and do a webpage for them. Some accepted, some did not, those that did formed the basis for NahenaheNet. It seemed silly to have Hawaiian music webpages spread out all over the place, so they all found a home here. Some, like the website I started for Na Leo Pilimehana has evolved and the ladies have taken over direction of their site and gotten their own domain. Great for them, they recognized the value of having a presence on the web and getting involved with its direction.

One of my favorite sites over the years has been a page called Scripting News, maintained by Dave Winer, the author of Frontier, the program I now use to maintain NahenaheNet. Scripting News is updated daily with news and links to things that Dave finds interesting, and I tend to find interesting as well. The NahenaheNet home page is modeled somewhat after the Scripting News homepage, though with a Hawaiian music theme.

I don’t do the site for profit, its for fun, for friends, and for love of the music. No hooks, no catch.

Will you create a webpage for me on NahenaheNet?

At this time, probably not. I’m not interested in adding new sites to the ones on Nahenahe already. The only exception would be for those artists who I previously offered to create pages for (you know who you are).

Back when Nahenahe started the World Wide Web was a bit of mystery to a lot of people. It’s a lot easier now for people to get online and create web pages.

If you have a web page or site up someplace I’ll happily point to it from Nahenahe, just send me the URL.

How do I get my release announced on NahenaheNet?

Just send me the announcement. If you have a web site I’ll gladly point to it, if you just want me to post the announcement online I’ll happily do that, too. Better yet, you can join the discussion group and post your announcement there and I’ll point to it from the home page.

Do I have to send you a CD or something?

No. Sending me a CD is not going to get you any more coverage on Nahenahe, or guarantee that I’ll say nice things about it. When I really like something I plug it heavily; if I don’t like it I’ll still post an announcement and try to keep my negative thoughts to myself (whenever possible).

Will you write a review of the CD for me/us? (updated 2/27/01)

Maybe, but remember the saying “be careful of what you ask for; you just might get it.”

I have not done many reviews over the years because I tend to be pretty blunt about what I like and don’t like in music. However, with Susan J’s recent retirement/sabbatical from doing reviews, I’ve decided to start doing them myself. I’m trying to be a bit more diplomatic than I have in the past, but I don’t do “fluff” reviews. If you really believe in your release and want me to review it, send me email.

You don’t like reggae or ‘Jawaiian’ music, do you?

I have nothing against either as a musical form, but the former is not really my cup of tea, and I’ve heard very little to like in the latter. Adding a skank guitar to an old pop tune or Hawaiian standard is not my idea of creativity, and most of the original lyrics tend to be of the “I’m a local boy and I love my local girl” variety. Zzzzzzzzzzz….

You don’t like cover tunes either, do you?

No I don’t, at least on recordings. Very few local acts have enough original material to make it through a live gig, so I don’t begrudge anyone doing covers live. However, if you don’t have something original to say on a recording, why bother?

I’m going into the studio to record my debut CD. Any advice?

It depends on what you want to do. If you want to get radio play and potentially make some money, ignore everything I’ve said above. Record nothing but covers, and skank that guitar until your fingers bleed. Try to sound exactly like everybody else that you hear on ‘island music’ radio stations.

If none of the above means anything to you, record nothing but original songs. Be very creative with the music, using more than 4 chords, and sophisticated arrangements.

What are your thoughts on file sharing via the Internet? From some of your commentary on Nahenahe, it’s hard to figure out if you’re on the side of the labels and artists or people who share music on the ‘net.

I find it difficult to take sides in this, and see merit in both sides of the argument. I don’t group artists with the RIAA and labels; I think the artists are stuck in the middle of it all. Recording artists (with the exception of a handufl of incredibly popular and powerful ones) get far too small a slice of the pie from their CD sales, and can even find themselves owing labels money after selling a million CDs. On the other hand, the recording, mixing, manufacturing process does cost money. Someone needs to pay for it, and takes a risk that they might lose all that money. That risk justifies reward if the CD does sell, but the risk and reward need to be divided equitably between the artist, label and others involved in the process. At this time, in most cases, they are not.

As far as the people who say that “we can find all the music for free so why should we pay for it,” I hope that someday they find themselves in the position of creating something, and find that they can’t make money off of it because people can get it off the ‘net for free, forcing them to flip burgers at McDonald’s to pay rent.

Any last thoughts?

If you can’t trace your musical genealogy further than the Ka’au Crater Boys (the original incarnation), you need to do some homework. I appreciate music that shows a musician knows about musical styles outside of what they normally perform or record. Willie K. can play just about any musical style, and play each as well as most people who specialize in that one style. He brings all of those elements to everything he plays, and it shows. Keali’i Reichel brings his depth of knowledge of Hawaiian language, chant, and culture to every performance and every recording he has done.

You don’t have to do one of those “something for everyone” kind of releases (which tend to disappoint anyway), but when you have that depth to your musical being, it shows. Expand your horizons.

Keola
Last updated: 7/20/2005