Hawaii: Homegrown Product

The Aloha State offers everything—recording studios, record labels and distributors—to help area artists reach the local market and beyond.

There was a time when Hawaii's local recording industry didn't reach "beyond the reef," but in recent years local music has been branching out to America and the world on every front.

The largest Hawaii-based labels—Hula Records, the Mountain Apple Company and Punahele Productions—can handle everything from recording and talent management to worldwide distribution and marketing. Next come several tiers of well-established smaller labels: Some are several decades old and have extensive back catalogs, as well as new artists, while others of more recent origin are coming on strong with mixed catalogs of new artists.

Some labels represent a single well-established artist, such as Kapena on KDE Records, Na Leo on NLP Music or the late Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole on Big Boy. Countless others come into existence each year as vehicles for new artists; many don't survive past that first release.

A major shake-out occurred last year when Hawaii-based Olinda Road Distribution filed for bankruptcy and Navarre Distribution shut down its Hawaiian operations. That left two major independent distributors—Pacific Hawaiian Music Distribution and Aloha Music International (a division of Booklines Hawaii)—and several smaller companies to divide the local market along with the Mountain Apple Company, Hula Records' Kona-Kai Distributors, ADA and Quiet Storm Records/Distributors.

The steady increase in what are essentially DIY projects makes it difficult to determine how many titles are released each year, but there appears to have been about 11% fewer releases in 2002 than in 2001. As of the end of April this year, the number of new releases was 10% lower in 2003 than a year ago.

MORE EXPOSURE, SUCCESS

HanaOla Records and Dancing Cat are based in California but are significant for Hawaiian music. HanaOla specializes in leasing and electronically restoring recordings made by extinct Hawaiian labels from the late-1940s through the 1970s. Dancing Cat is steadily adding to its catalog of perfect ki ho'alu (slack- key guitar) albums.

Punahele Productions has long been known for the high quality of its recordings and has built a stable that includes high-profile refugees from other labels. Label spokesman Jim Linkner says the next step is breaking them nationally.

"At this point in time, performance is where a lot of the money is for the artists. Not only is it not downloadable or burnable, but I think people are more attracted than ever to seeing an actual performance," Linkner says. Punahele will be taking its top artists on a bus tour of the West Coast this summer for a live concert album produced for CD and DVD release in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. Punahele is also marketing its catalog for placement in film, TV and advertising.

"The success of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole was directly attributable to his exposure through TV and movies," Link-ner says, adding that there's no reason why his label's franchise artist, Hawaiian superstar Keali'i Reichel, can't have similar impact once America discovers his music.

Another significant figure is John Iervolino of Quiet Storm. Iervolino introduced Hawaii to a unique hybrid compilation format in which a few rare hits leased from national labels are included on an album of local recordings. Quiet Storm also releases new recordings and anthologies of Hawaiian music, and Iervolino has been one of the most outspoken leaders in the campaign to stop "burning" in Hawaii.

The impact of burning here is unclear. Bob St. John of Neos Productions, a major mid-level label, saw local sales drop as the price of blank CDs plummeted but says Hawaii's fragile economy and changes in radio programming also impact sales. Leah Bernstein of the Mountain Apple Company describes burning as "a promotional tool—certainly for Israel Kamakawiwo'ole—but also a double-edged sword. There's an entire generation that believes it's their God-given right to burn CDs off the Internet."

Roni "H-Diggler" Yurong, head of Hobo House on the Hill, a recording studio, production house and record label, says that, like it or not, local teenagers get "every song they want off the computer…more people may be hearing our music, but less money is being made."

Radio play is essential, and stations on the neighbor islands are seen by many as more flexible in adding new songs and new artists than those in Honolulu—Cox Broadcasting's KCCN FM100 (Jawaiian/island music) and Hawaiian KINE 105 (contemporary Hawaiian), Clean Channel Communication's Island Rhythms 98.5 (Jawaiian/island music) and Wave Broadcasting's 99.5 The Breeze (local Jawaiian/island music and rap).

LOCAL RECORDING

Whether local radio is doing enough to support island music remains an open question. Many observers say that the audio quality of local recordings is no longer a significant issue when it comes to local radio play.

"That may be a testament to where home recording has gone," says Kimo Akane, programming consultant for KCCN FM100 and Hawaiian KINE 105, a 30-year veteran of Hawaii's turbulent radio industry.

The quality of the performances is another matter. A growing number of local acts are recording before they have fully mastered the skills necessary to do so, and artists and producers alike rely heavily on electronics to make up for it. The widespread use of sound cards in "bedroom" recording has had a devastating effect on Hawaii's mid-level recording studios, as well.

"It's very similar, as far as the trends in most national markets," says Tony Hugar, the owner of Audio Resource Honolulu, who has downsized to focus on serving a top-end national and international clientele. Several local labels have in-house recording facilities, but mid-level commercial studios have been replaced for the most part by computer-based bedroom operations that, in some cases, have limited production capabilities.

Avex Honolulu Studio (formerly TK Studios) is Oahu's other world-class facility. It has been particularly popular with Japanese artists, although spokesman Gaylord Holomalia says Avex also works with upscale local artists.

Despite the problems that confront Hawaii's record industry, the bottom line, according to Sharlene Aoki Oshiro of Aloha Music International, is that local acts "can still move product. We thought the economy was bad, but Kapena sold out [the initial shipment of its new album]. If the music is good, it will sell," she says.

Hawaii's record labels and distributors now want to see those sales going worldwide.