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"Summer Dream" Various artists (Daddy Leopard, no serial number)
The talents of more than two dozen musicians, vocalists and songwriters are found on this 16-song compilation album assembled by co-producers Michelle Aquino and Brandon Apeles for the dual purpose of showcasing local talent and raising money for the Surfrider Foundation. The participants range in age and experience from teenage singer-songwriters LIV and Chloe XOXO to music industry veterans like Kevin Jones and 2005 Na Hoku Hanohano Award winners SUGahDADDY ‘e Hawaiian Rock Band.
The music is equally eclectic. Acoustic rock, blistering buzz-saw punk, hip-hop, surf rock and Jawaiian tunes are all part of the playlist. Some of the songs have nautical or beach-party themes, others not, but each one has an interesting story to tell. The Swedish word "smorgasbord," describing a particularly lavish and diverse buffet, is appropriate regarding the diversity. Almost every selection is different from the others, each "tasty" in its own way.
The record label is donating 100 percent of the proceeds from this download-only project to the Surfrider Foundation’s Oahu Chapter. All going well, "Summer Dream" will boost the careers of the veterans and the new artists alike.
"Summer Dome" Secret Spot (Teajuana Music TM 062115)
Drew Steele and Mark "The Shark" Miller, members of the Surf Punks in Malibu, Calif., in the late 1970s and early 1980s and Hawaii residents since the 1990s, revisit their early work and do some updating of it with this collection of powerful surf-themed punk.
One of the things the Surf Punks wrote about was the conflict between the "locals," surfers who lived in Malibu and considered the beaches there to be their turf, and the "outsiders" who came from elsewhere. Steele and Miller now explore the subject of territoriality from new directions. They entertain with songs that include insults and adolescent sexual humor.
Sci-fi themes are raised with "Water on Mars," a song that imagines surfing on the red planet even though "the water on Mars is scary and red."
The group also does remakes of two songs from the 1960s: "Summer in the City," which was a chart-topping hit for the Lovin’ Spoonful in 1966, and "Pushin’ Too Hard," by the Seeds, which barely made the Top 40 nationally but was huge in Hawaii. They put a fresh neo-Surf Punks spin on both of them.
"The Citadel" SIN73 (Tin Idol Productions TIP0008)
Hawaii resident rock music veterans Mark Caldeira, Jimmy Caterine and Gerard K. Gonsalves are the foundation of this heavy-metal rock opera about an interplanetary war in the year A.D. 4157. Caldeira stars as D3V1N, a "bio-mechanically enhanced" human soldier who becomes separated from his unit in deep space, passes through a collapsing black hole and ends up crash-landing on Earth only to find that the civilization he was fighting for has been destroyed. Caterine sings the role of Carver, leader of a group of "tech scavengers" who hunt and kill cybersoldiers like D3V1N for the value of the "tech" within their bodies. Gonsalves is the producer of the project; he also plays drums and keyboards.
Another Tin Idol artist, Sandy "Storm" Essman, appears late in the story as the powerful Arc Angel.
"The Citadel" lives up to the high expectations set by two previous Tin Idol projects — "Jesus Christ Supernova" and "Metal Kalikimaka" — and is powerful heavy-metal music Hawaii can be proud to claim. It is also the first part of a projected trilogy. A graphic novel or computer-generated sci-fi film treatment of the story would be a logical spinoff.
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