Forgotten local tunes resurface at DJ Roger Bong’s monthly Soul Time party

More than a few customers did a double take watching Aloha Got Soul’s Roger Bong and Los Angeles-based ethnomusicologist Brian Shimkovitz play all-cassette sets at Bevy earlier this month.

Mixing with cassettes? In 2015?

“Mediums like vinyl or cassette tape, there’s a lot of stuff you can’t find anywhere else,” said Bong, 28, during a break in the action at Bevy, where he hosts the monthly Soul Time in Hawaii listening party. “Music has gone through phases. Records were the thing. That went out. Tapes came in and went out. Then CDs came in. Now it’s digital downloads.

“I think for what we’re doing, it’s just a process of rediscovery for us. It’s like a game for me. It’s a passion.”

Starting this month, Soul Time in Hawaii moves to the last Saturday of every month at Bevy. Bong will be joined by DJs Oliver Sequin and Hideki Yamamoto for another evening of soul, funk, disco, jazz, boogie and Hawaiian music.

Bong built a name for himself digging through the music of generations past. He released two well-received mixtapes in 2012 and 2013, and in 2014 began sharing his best finds with like-minded fans at Bevy in Kakaako. He now has partners in Chicago and London who host Soul Time events in those cities as well.

“We’re really not trying to do anything different. We’re just doing what we enjoy,” he said. “I think it’s because throughout the world there’s a lot of like-minded people doing the same thing. In Europe and Japan there’s a much bigger audience.

“The music scene here is pretty small compared to other places, so the level of interest for something like this is even smaller than what it might be somewhere else.”

Bong also assumed the duties of a record label executive after rereleasing Nohelani Cypriano’s self-titled 1979 album on vinyl in August. That followed the release of a 7-inch vinyl single of 1960s and ’70s local recording artist Mike Lundy’s “The Rhythm of Life” and “Tropic Lightning.” (A follow-up pressing of the complete “The Rhythm of Life” LP released in September sold out as well.)

IN FEBRUARY Bong will partner with Strut Records to release an “Aloha Got Soul” compilation that features “rare Hawaiian grooves” by Lundy, Cypriano, Aura, Nova, Hal Bradbury and ‘Aina that were originally released between 1979 and 1985. It’s just the first of multiple releases planned for 2016.

“At the end of next year, I’m planning to release a compilation by a new-age artist who made electronic music here in the 1980s,” he said. “It’s in the same vein of what we’ve been doing so far.”

Looking to the past to uncover forgotten music has worked well to establish the Aloha Got Soul brand, Bong said, but there’s only so much old music from Hawaii available to rediscover.

“Hawaii is a musically rich place,” he said. “What we try to do, I’d say we’re 65 to 70 percent of the way through.

“It can only grow so much. I’m trying to grow and evolve this naturally. It’s not always going to be us looking for old-school stuff. We’re going to need to bring the old and new together.”