2 posts tagged “local hawaii bands”

  There was this great local band called Pagan Babies that played world / reggae “roots dansemusic” here in the mid-eighties. They played weekly at at a bar/club named Anna Bannanas and it was not unusual to see flyers for their gigs plastered around town, so one night, me and a couple of college friends went down to check them out!

It’s hard to describe Anna’s. Situated in Moiliili, it’s not anywhere near Waikiki as most of the other clubs are, and set in this huge wooden  two story house, it almost seems more like a neighborhood restaurant (in feel) that a club. Really relaxed atmosphere, and PERFECT for a World Music band like the Pagan Babies! Perhaps that added to the whole picture, but we ended up really loving that band! They performed (I think) two separate sets (maybe three), lots of long songs sprinkled with percussion instruments, and a handful of easily recognizable Bob Marley tunes, as well!

A few weeks later, I was down at the local record store (to pick up my special order of The Church’s Of Skins and Hearts CD import…but I digress), and while waiting to pay for it, noticed they were selling a cassette of the Pagan Babies! I pointed to it, and said “I’ll take one of those, too!”

Well, we were promptly blown away by what we heard- for the most part, it was a small distilaltion of what we’d seen the few weeks before, a lot of great songs, a Bob Marley cover, and quite a few we hadn’t heard before. One of these songs was a tune called “Sushi By The Pool”, and when it started, my friend perked up, and said, “Hey, yeah! NOW I remember…I read a review in the paper and I think they were promoting this song, or something!” Which is odd, since  I’ve never heard them play this, at least not any of the many, many times I’d seen them, but what the heck.

 Later, me and a couple of friends started working just down  the street from Anna’s, and it was SO convenient to just mosey on down to the club after work, hook up with friends, and check out the band!

  I was always happy to hear favorite songs off the cassette like “Surfing in Tunisia” and “Vertical Jerk”, but  there were so many terrific tunes they performed live that they’ve never recorded  on ANY of their albums, and that’s really a shame! A personal fave was their take on a song called “Fire In Belize”, this song was such a crowd pleaser that the band would usually keep it saved for later in the night!  Or maybe it just SEEMED that way to me!

 Then there were the more popular cover tunes like “Bed’s Too Big” and “Three Little Birds”, which is probably my favorite version of the song of all the covers I've hard over the years! Oh, and they closed many nights with the rousing “Hot! Hot! Hot!” Yes, that song that Buster Poindexter covered!

Ah, what memories…!

Self-introduction written on their flyers:

“Their live shows include numerous  cover tunes from the Carribean (Reggae from Jamaica, Soca and Calypso from Trinidad, Zouk from the French Antilles, Compas from Haiti) and Africa (Soukos from Zaire, Makossa from Cameroun, Mbaqanga from South Africa, Highlife from Ghana, Chimurenga from Zimbabwe), along with some Brazilian, Latin and New Orleans “Second Line”. as well as their original material, which reflect all of these influences.

The Band Members are:

Bill Danos (drums)
Seth Markow (keyboards)
Mike Muldoon (percussion)
Craig Okino (bass guitar and vocals)
Chris Planas (guitar and vocals)
Elyce Tajima (vocals and keyboards)

 Besides their regular weekend gig at Anna Bannana’s, the Pagan Babies have done numerous benefits for Oxfam (African Famine aid), La Casa (medical aid to El Salvador), Muscular Dystrophy, Ground Zero (nuclear-free Pacific) and the Anti-Aparthied Coalition. They were the opening act for Black Uhuru in July 1984 and for Mutabaruka in March 1986, and sponsored and performed at “An Evening of African Dance” with South Afrcan choreographer Desiree Williams.

They released a self produced cassette of their original material in November of 1985.”

While we’re on the subject of 80’s groups, there was this terrific locally-based band called Hat Makes The Man that me and my friends just loved. The band had a regular gig at Waikiki club Wave Waikiki that we checked out every weekend, but the group would pop up in other places too, and the bunch of us always made an attempt to see them wherever they happened to play. Merchant Street Block Party? Check! Mid-Pac Carnival? We’re there! Pearlridge Shopping Center Centerstage? Yep! We went to that one, too!

   But it was the Wave Waikiki gigs that we remembered the fondest- I remember, we’d sit outside before the club opened, and listen to Hat Makes The Man rehearsing inside. The great thing about that was that you’d hear the group playing songs they never did in their onstage repertoire, and I distinctively remember hearing them doing “Teenage Lobotomy” by the Ramones in their practice sessions, and wishing they’d do it in their set!

  Between the years 1984 and 1985 they managed to release two terrific albums, one their self-titled debut “Hat Makes The Man”, and a live album featuring new songs called “Searching…For The Fertile Fields”. The former was only available as a cassette at the time, although they did release “Fertile Fields” on Vinyl.

At some point, the band moved up to the “mainland” to try their luck, until, eventually, each member went onto different projects, most notably drummer Frank Quimby Orral with Poi Dog Pondering… ( a group that almost seems like a continuation of HMTM; several other Hat members have  helped on some of the early releases, and heck, the first album even featured different versions of Hat songs!)