I always played what I liked to hear on steel. Of course, this is from the perspective of a steel player, that typically only enjoys (for the most part, folks.. Now just sit back down!)hearing steel.

But my ukulele player, a Hawaiian fellow named Pat Enos, taught me to understand that audiences want to see a show.

They're not gonna just "ooo, and ahh" by fancy steel pickin', but rather by a combination of sensory perception (if this sounds like a television commercial, I'm appologize).

They want vocals, hula dancers, having folks come up from the audience and learn to hula, wild burps on the mic (just kidding).

What I just said should have nothing to impact your decision on what your band's song list it.

Just go wit' what you like braddah!

P.s Sorry, I forgot to tell you my rule-of-thumb for number of Hawaiian songs for a workable list:

1) Number of songs really depends on how good your front man is to working the audience with BS between songs, you know like: "yeah, I was born in Kaneohe and as a keike kane, I... blah, blah, blah"

2) If you got a hula dancer or no. You can run a hula song fo' 10 minutes! Ooo'ee!

3) How drunk the audience is (come on, you know what I takin' 'bout)

4) As a general rule, 10 songs for 30 minutes.

(hey, if you playin' Hawaiian language tunes, the audience doesn't really know if you play same tune 2 or 3 time! It ain't FreeBird!)

[This message was edited by Kevin Bullat on 02 September 2006 at 05:48 PM.]

You have to have a very minimum of 2 sets to gig. 4 sets is safer. i like 50 minute sets.
Which songs? Doesn't matter. Most people you're playing for wont' know the tunes. You're creating an atmosphere.
Also don't forget value added stuff like helping them figure out decorations, getting them silk leis from Hawaii, etc.
Ultimately have fun and the audienc eiwll enjoy it. Now the downsid ebut, the necessary evil; you might have to do other tropical music on request. So Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffet, reggae might be requested. You cam either set a no way rule or bend when necessary. Onsite request i frown on but, pre-requests I am open to. Althoug,h you might get the odd drunk asking FOR Freebird lol

However, the more you learn about the small and large parts of Hawaiian culture, and the more you hang out with the island braddahs, the more they begin to accept you - haole! - as one of their own.

I'll be hanging out with my ukulele player and his fellow local boys, and inevitably someone will say 'and some damn haole...' and they're talking to me and the group, but they don't think of me as haole right then.

They word really has a number of inflections which can be added, changing its intention at a moments notice.

Just be respectful as you would be in any neighbors house...

[This message was edited by Kevin Bullat on 03 September 2006 at 07:46 PM.]

quote:

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I'm curious to know how you put the wheels in motion once you made the decision.

For example, how did you choose your repertoire? How many tunes did you feel was necessary to learn for a party gig or lu'au? Was one hour of material enough to start on or did you not market yourselves until you had more?

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Matt - I sort of 'fell' into it, to be honest. When I moved here to the Tampa area, a friend hooked me up a friend of theirs who did his hapa-haole Hawaiian schtick with solo guitar. He played for parties, mostly. He's also the first to tell you that he's not what he'd call a 'real' musician, but an entertainer (a summation with which I would agree, btw!). Anyway, he was looking for someone who could play some Hawaiian steel backup for him on certain gigs.

After doing some of those with him, and picking up several tunes I hadn't known of before, I met Dick Sanft, and learned a TON from him about steel playing, as well as more tunes.

About two and a half years ago, I felt I had enough of a list to at least do a two hour hapa-haole gig. So, I put together about 30 backing tracks with bass/ukulele on my Roland VS-890 recorder, and put them on mini-disc. This allowed me to do solo background music gigs, playing steel live with my tracks. The thing is, playing solo like that just isn't fun, IMO. I need other musicians to play off of. So, I asked the drummer and guitarist in my swing band, Wholly Cats!!!, if they'd be into putting together a set or two of this stuff. To my surprise, they said yes, and that's how we now do our alter ego as Haole Kats!!!.

Another thing we've found is people say they want just all Hawaiian music for the duration of their party, but the fact is, they DON'T. You have to be able to do other material too, especially if it's more than an hour gig. I've found this to be true 100% of the time, for all the parties we've done, and I guess we've done about 30 or 40 of them.

If you have an hour's worth of Hawaiian tunes, that's enough to start bookin', IMO. Good luck!

TJW www.whollycatsband.com

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Todd James Weger --
1956 Fender Stringmaster T-8 (C6, A6, B11); 1960 Fender Stringmaster D-8 (C6, B11/A6); Regal resonator (C6); 1938 Epiphone Electar (A6); assorted ukuleles; upright bass

Thank you for all the useful info. You have just saved me at least 1-2 years of misdirected effort.

There's no rule against pursuing a dream even while dealing with day-to-day realities.

If you want it bad enough, you'll make it happen. If not today, maybe tomorrow.

There are no age barriers--37, 57, 107, doesn't matter. The only real barrier is "me."