Sunday, January 10, 2010

The PowerPoint Horn Section

This is a picture of PowerPoint who has played in every 70's Nightclub Reunion from the events inception. This March will see the return of PowerPoint's two man horn section, Wayne DeSilva on saxophones and Robert Woosley on trumpet. With the return of Wayne and Robert, the band that we will see on stage this March will pretty much be a reunion of the band that used to rock the Point After in the 70's. Cool!!

Saturday, January 09, 2010

The 70's Nightclub Reunion VII


It's official, the poster is out, the Ala Moana Hotel, number VII!!! Cool!!

Friday, January 08, 2010

Ashberry.......Restored......Now This is Cool!!!

A little known fact is that the 70's Nightclub Reunion official doorman Superman Irwin Santos specializes in photo restoration among the other ten million things that he does well. The pictures you see above are the before and after being restored picture of "Ashberry", one of the groups that reunited in 2008. The original photo that was used was old, old, old, and on top of that it wasn't a real high quality, but with so many years passing, any photo at that was hard to find. We originally posted a photo earlier that wasn't totally restored, but now thanks to Superman Irwin's we have a pretty cool photo. Thanks Irwin!!! Cool!! P.S. hopefully the 70's Nightclub Reunion will feature "Ashberry" again down the road. Now that would be pretty, pretty cool!!!

The New Kid on the Block at the 70's Nightclub Reunion VII

VII is a lucky number in many a people's book and VII will happen on March 20, 2010 at the Hibiscus Ballroom at the Ala Moana Hotel. With VII comes another band that played the 70's nighclub circuit. "Reach" was a very talented group of musicians brought together by former Greenwood lead vocalist Ronnie Tokunaga. When "Reach" hit the nightclub circuit in the 70's, the band included former Greenwood saxophonist Wayne Nakamura, former Talismen & Greenwood trumpeteer Richard Field and future Power Point & SOSLVer Freddy Paraz on drums. A very impressive band indeed, "Reach" on March 20th will reunite original members Ronnie Tokunaga, Wayne Nakamura, Richard Field and Freddy Paraz along with "Reach" alumnus Dayton Arima on bass. Completing the "Reach" lineup that night will be Curtis Takahama on lead and background vocals, Brian Nakashima on guitar and John Loo on keyboards. It's gonna be cool to see "Reach" in action again. Here's some additional information on "Reach" as provided by Superman Irwin Santos from the 70's Nightclub Reunion official website. Cool!!!

Reach


In 1978, Reach, a 7-piece funk band was formed by Ron Tokunaga. The original members were Richard Field on trumpet and trombone, Wayne Nakamura on saxes, Gilbert Farias on bass, Clyde Pascua on guitar, Fred Von Paraz on drums, Greg Lee on keyboards, and Ron Tokunaga on lead vocals, keyboards and percussion.

Other members who played for Reach were Eddie Felipe, Dayton Arima, Todd Hayashi, Mark Stone, Wendell Ching, Eddie Pascua and Jarry Gomes. We note the sad passing of our “Brothers-in-Music”, Eddie Felipe (drums) and Greg Lee (keyboards).

The band's first gig was at Napoleon's Night Club on Kapahulu where Starbucks and Jamba Juice are now located. They later went on to play at the venues such as C'est Si Bon, Oceania's Empire Room, The Junction, The Jazz Cellar, Kauai Beach Resort, Maui Beach Resort, and da Sting which had a large tourist crowd.

When John Rowles, the singer who had the hit Cheryl Moana Marie, heard Reach at da Sting, he asked the band to be his back up band and go on a world tour. It was a tempting offer but one they ultimately turned down. They also backed Greg Pinho the Hana Boy during da Sting’s Disco Ohana.

Reach did all types of dance tunes but specialized in the slap popping funk of Rubicon, Commodores and Earth Wind & Fire to name a few. Some of the covers at the time included Jupiter, Magic Mind, Fantasy, Love's Holiday, Reasons.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

The 70's Nightclub Reunion VII


This picture here is the official poster of the 70's Nightclub Reunion VI and is here only until the official VII poster comes out. But......it's almost that time again. So hard to believe that six months have already gone by. Are you ready for another blast from the past? For pictures and more news on this event please check out the official website 70snightclubreunion.com . The events official doorman and webmaster Superman Irwin Santos wets our appetite for some good music with a short note to all of the peeps out there. Noone writes it better than Irwin. See you on March 20, 2010 at the Ala Moana Hotel!!!! It's gonna be real cool!!!!


Aloha Fellow 70's Nightclub Reunion Peeps
http://www.70snightclubreunion.com/

Hey Folks...

The 70s NCR VII poster is almost ready from the designer and we'll soon reveal who's on performing. There will be several returning bands to the stage, plus a "new" kid on the block and after 30 years in hiding will make their appearance.

For those of you that have attended previously SOLD OUT 70s NCR events, we need to reiterate the roots of the founding story which makes the event a success...Back at the very first dance, the bands who performed (Asian Blend, Rock Candy, Power Point, New Experience, and Greenwood) were united for a single blowout party bash. Immediate friends and family of the bands were invited. That in itself was ALOT of peeps. At that time, the event was held at the Ilikai where Rob Kimura (the Mastermind of 70s NCR) got together with Candy Au (Banquet Hall Queen) to form the shindig. Since not all of the Ilikai Ballroom had been filled, the general public had been invited. Check out the poster here;
http://www.greenwoodhawaii.com/images/70sReunion.jpg (HEY!! don't get confused now...pay attention, this is from 5 years ago)

You can also read this article "Getting the Band Back Together"

The Ilikai had changed ownership about 4 years ago, which meant staffing would too. Candy moved over to the Ala Moana Hotel and through her effort had been instrumental in coordinating the bash. Unlike the Ilikai, the Hibiscus Grand Ballroom and Garden Lanai rooms combined at the Ala Moana were not as large as the Ilikai. But still, we have that ever growing group of 70s retro peepage.

What does that mean for those of you in this email? Well, and frankly, there will not be enough seating for all. This email list alone has 493 addresses in my database. Some are band members, and many are from those that wanted the "in" information about the event. I personally know at least 300 of ya'.

After the bands secure seats for their immediate families and friends, you folks get first dibs before we announce to the media (TV/Radio/Newspapers). It's the formula that had always been in place and we're grateful and truly appreciate EVERYONE. Sadly though, not all can make it to the BIG DANCE. Most of you understand the math and see this as unique. There is NOTHING in Hawaii that comes close to in size with 1000 or so Boomers gyrating on a Saturday night. There will be some that are dissapointed because we go SRO (Standing Room Only) in the first 15 minutes of tickets sale...AND there are others that have the BALLS to tell me to my face "YOU SUCK"...kid you not, that happened at the last event. That's because they weren't quick enough to call in for tickets and more than likely didn't understand the math.

FYI, here's the math:
600 seats in the Hibiscus Grand Ballroom
200 seats in the Garden Lanai (this is the place to be, it's COOLER and has it's own dance floor)
800 total seats available

The expense...Say 40 musicians to perform, plus their significant others, add 2 friends per musician. Roughly 200 peeps...this is a LOW number. Subtract that from 800 and you get 600. 493 peeps of this email list want to go and will bring their friend/date/FB...whatever...that's close to 1000.

Somewhere along that line we have NEGATIVE 400...or in other words, not enough seats. AND that's not including those that hear about it in the media and not through my email announcements.

Well Supes...why not a LARGER place? No can do! Unless you like paying DOUBLE the amount of the ticket price, I'm happy being at the Ala Moana. There's not a whole lot of profit to be made (and not the point of this event) because the biggest expense is FLYING member musicians in is part of the allotted expense for 70s NCR. That's right! Reunion groups that have transplanted musicians OUTSIDE of Hawaii are given bucks to fly those guys in for the weekend. Let's not forget that this is the 70s Nightclub REUNION. The whole project was about the "good feel" of reliving all our pasts and certainly not the dough.

...and THERE!! It's my heads up for you guys & gals. Hope you understand AND no get hu-hu.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

The Story Behind the Story.....Cool Story........

There are packrats out there everywhere, but maybe this story gives us all a reason to not throw away everything that seems to have lost its usefulness in our lives. Anyway, a cool story emailed to John Berger of the Honolulu Star Bulletin who has been a friend of ours since the early 70's till today. Cool story. Guess I'm gonna be extra careful now when throwing out things.-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Kimura
To: 'John Berger'
Sent: Wed, Jan 6, 2010 12:01 am
Subject: FW: 45-rpm

Happy New Year John,

Thought this might be of interest to you so here’s the history behind this email chain. As you recall (since you have such a great memory), when we released our 45-rpm record “Cheerleader Strut” and “Sparkle” in 1985, it went nowhere locally. Well, lo and behold, here we are almost 35 years later and the record has found “new life” in Japan!

In 2008, we received an email inquiry unexpectedly from a vintage record store company in Japan (East Records). Somehow, they got a hold of our record from a “second hand” Jelly’s like store somewhere in Japan. They purchased whatever we had of our original pressing (about 80 pieces). What I didn’t realize at the time was that a vinyl resurgence was happening in Japan. Our record was suddenly selling for an exorbitant price (hundreds of dollars per copy) as a vintage recording in mint condition! To add fuel to the fire, prominent DJ in Japan named DJ Muro started spinning our record in clubs and its popularity grew exponentially.

Then, last year in ’09, another inquiry came from Art Union who I presume is a distributor that sells to record stores in and around the Tokyo area. They wanted to purchase copies but since we didn’t have anymore of the original pressings, they requested that we look into repressing more copies. We found a record company in LA that has been pressing records since 1939 and started the process (which was long and grueling) in June. They initially ordered 100 pieces but in a few months, it grew to 400 copies. We finally sent it off before Christmas. It was received and sold to Jet Set records, which is one of the larger record companies in Tokyo (is what I’m told). The status of the record sales since it’s introduction were reported to us today (below) as the #1 selling record on the Jet Set Records R&B Charts and #2 seller in the Dance Music category. Now they want an additional 250 copies!

In hindsight, we could have made a better product initially. The mix wasn’t all it was supposed to be and overall, we were disappointed when the record was first released. But, with what has happened with the resurgence of our 45-rpm, we are planning to revive the LP project that we never finished and will remaster these two songs as part of the offering. We will more than likely start on this project next year as we are building the foundation for the mix of songs we want to include. I am currently working on a concept. To set things straight, we are in no means blinded by the recent modest success of our 45-rpm record. Rather it has inspired us to finish what we started before time passes us by! Just like the 70’s NCR has done for bands of the era, it has given new life to what was once forgotten!

I’ll keep you posted as things progress! Sorry, for this long email but I just had to share this with you! Take care and hope to connect with you soon!

A Hui Ho!

Rob

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

You Just Never Know.....

From: yuji yamauchi [mailto:yamauchi@artuniongroup.co.jp]
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 4:40 PM
To: Robin Kimura
Subject: Re: 45-rpm

Hi Rob

A Happy New Year!
How was your holiday season?

BTW,
Sparkle 7inch is selling very well:)
JET SET RECORDS selling chart Soul/Funk chart No.1 ranking!!!
Dance Music Records selling chart R&B chart No.2 ranking!!!

So,Can you repress around 250pc's for me?
If possible,I want you to do it:)

Best,

Yuji

Wow!!! Rob forwarded the above email he received very recently from Yuji Yamauchi in Japan to all of the members of Greenwood. Cool!!! It has got to be that more than a couple of decades have passed since our bandleader Robin Kimura completed the Greenwood 45 project featuring the songs Sparkle and Cheerleader Strut. The initial pressing sold more than expected locally, but overall it was more of a nice project for the band to have closure as the band members all began to pursue their respective "real job" lives after putting in hours and hours in the music circuit in Hawaii. Then one day for some strange reason, Robin gets this email from Japan of all places, inquiring about Greenwood's 45. It seemed that someone for some reason had gone to a second hand store and found a copy of the Sparkle and Cheerleader Strut 45. As one thing led to another, some small record store convinced Robin to repress a bunch of these records to be sold in Japan. You just never know what will happen in this lifetime but Robin just received news that the Greenwood 45 had hit number one and two on two record charts in Japan. All I can say is that's pretty cool!!!!


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