Greetings, I went out last night to Anna O'brien's, a hangout for University Of Hawaii students, bikers, punkers, rockers, metal heads, etc etc....It was Blues Night. I caught MP playing with His Enablers. Pretty damn good. We were at one of the only two credible blues hangouts in Hawaii. The other is OnStage Drinks and Grinds. Somebody has to document this stuff. It might as well be me. I really don't care if anyone shows up. It's just a lot more fun...eh?
Flash! Rumour has it, Frisco native, Wes McDaniel, will be joining Mark and His Enablers. Nice! Wes recently moved from Frisco to Honolulu. Landing himself a nice spot in one of the premier blues bands in Honolulu.
Why is it that we all just can't get along?<
Last Edited by on Aug 27, 2012 1:08 PM
Wes is a fine guitarist and a good friend of mine. He's originally from North Carolina and has moved all over the world. He spent several years in the SF Bay Area learning some from of the finest players in the area. He knows how to back a harp player and is a cool guy to hang with. Y'all are luck to have him.
So you got beer, lobster, beautiful women, the waves, and a little bit of southside chicago minus the Dan Ryan. Now why would anyone want to put up with all of that.
thanks scojo! i think the camera was buggin' me so i couldn't get quite in the 'zone'.
@Chickenthief,
i dunno why i put up w/ this shite:-) what is a Dan Ryan? i was born and raised in Honolulu, so it's just home to me. ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
The Dan Ryan is an expressway that cuts through the South side of Chicago. It's always congested. It may be one of the worst commutes in the country. ---------- The Blues Photo Gallery
@Joe L. thanks! you know Wes and Dallas are out playing n checking out the music scene every time i turnaround. my late wife- God i still love her!- would come to all my gigs. i haven't seen any wives w/ those two, even though they told me they followed them here to Honolulu.
@Bee thanks for the clarification. i love the South Pacific. Actually, Hawaii is north of the equator so we Hawaiians are- obviously, north Pacific islanders. we are roughly 2,200 miles north of Samoa.
once i pulled a reverse Gaugin and went to live and play music all over the US east coast. 7 and 1/2 years. i should have remembered Chicagos Dan Ryan but even northside clubs like Kingston Mines and Blues (across the street) w/ Little Sammy Fender impressed me more. i'd get lost in Chicago a lot. i'd find the first homeless vet i saw and would pay him to show me how to get back to my hotel room. i'd get lost in New Orleans too but you can't trust the street dwellers at all over there.
Yes! Go Fiji or Tahiti or Palau. i would if i wasn't such a body surfing fool. Oahu waves are the finest in the world. i quit smoking. i'm going to body surf Ehukai again soon w/out fear of drowning cuz i ran out of air. The Banzai Pipeline is one of several surf breaks at Ehukai beach.
Aloha, Mark ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
it is a kalamazoo model one. i kid you not. it was piggybacked in it's own 'Matchless' style head and drives 2/12 Rola Alnico smooth cones in the matching snakeskin cab.
i don't believe i know a Jerry Fox. i know most of the sound guys around here. did he work for a company or was he a one man show? did he do installations?
thanks, aloha, mark ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
I took a few harmonica lessons from a Blues Harp player when I was stationed on Oahu, about '87. I can't remember his name, but he had the blues band market cornered in Honolulu at that time.
Aha!!! Ha Ha!! "Mark" had come to me and I've spent the last 2 hours going through trunks and seabags looking for a notebook I was keeping 25 years ago with your name, phone number and directions to some house in the hills above Waikiki. I don't think I'm ever goimg to find the notebook, thanks for coming forward.
Heathen! hah! what a kick! 25 years! yes, that house was in Palolo Valley, a three bedroom i shared w/ two other musicians. we had a print of Picassos 'Three Musicians' near the door. i fixed brass woodwind and reed instruments as my day job, gave lessons, my girlfriend gigged in waikiki singing hawaiian songs, and i played a hell of a lot of gigs. harp lessons alone payed my rent. great times! Aloha, Mark
i believe i charged you $8 a lesson because i talk so damn much we'd go over 1/2 an hour.
PS hi george! ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name for info-
Last Edited by on Sep 01, 2012 9:22 PM
I would not expect you to remember me, I only took about 3 lessons, but you might recall a squid with a ’68 ragtop Skylark. I did not turn into a pro harp player, but I did not, by a long shot, come away from your teaching empty handed. What you were teaching me about breathing and tone was almost the same thing I heard from Will Scarlett last month when I was lucky enough to sit down with him at a “Teach-in” at the SPAH convention here in Dallas. Your encouraging reaction to the bends I was already working on sent me on my way knowing practice was all it was going to take. And, I practiced.
I went to college after I got out of the Navy in ’88 and spent my college years playing on street corners with the street guitar crowd. And always blues jams and all the folk & blues festivals I could get to. The first kid came along in ’91 and he was a regular at most of the blues jams. The 2nd kid was ’97 and the 3rd was in ’01, and that put my harp playing on the back burner for about 10 years.
I am back at blues jams now and with a little more practice I’ll get back to where I was 10 years ago. Probably another month or 2. Funny thing about laying out for awhile is you come back a little different. The ruts and plateaus seem less established.
I can’t recall the exact sequence of events that led me to your teaching. I don’t think I approached the harmonica player for Mojo Hand, maybe it was an add in the paper? How did we do those things before the internet? Great that we both turned up here. I hope Hawaii is good to you again. Mojo Hand was a rockin’ blues band.
the fact that you had a car, a convertible no less, must have made you the envy of all your mates.
since you were Navy you were at Pearl or Barbers Point right? we played Pearl clubs a lot and the Coasties club at Barbers. the navy guys didn't like their own clubs so they'd go to the other guys club. you could have seen an ad at the UH. Anna Bananas ring a bell? i dunno. we played hotel st. too. hookers, the whole bit. lotta military down there.
in the olden days,before the net, when flying dinosaurs stole our children, we managed quite well. if you wanted to find something, you found it. if you didn't, you probably didn't really need it anyway.
thanks for the kind words. it is only lately that i realize just how great a player scarlett is. the net probably:) i was always aware of him.
i live quietly now. i play a club tonight within walking distance (two blocks) but i'm not going to carry my amp that far- i'm not 49 anymore:)
i feel good today. laters Brah! ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name for info-
Last Edited by on Sep 02, 2012 11:22 AM
It was Barbers Point. The car was not that unusual among my mates because we were in a squadron that was stationed at Barbers Point. I lived in a house up on Makakilo.
The way the Navy did things in those days, we would be in HI for a year and then go on deployment for 6 months and then come back to HI for another year. I did that for 3 of the 6 month out cycles. I believe I took a few lessons from you and then we deployed to Adak, AK and then I got out a few weeks after we returned to HI.
I’d forgotten the rates. $8 for ½ an hour brings back memories. I think we were making cassettes for home study. I think the dinosaurs must have got those, along with my notebook.
I never caught Mojo Hand at the Coasty Club and I did go their often. Perhaps y’all were there when I was deployed or started gigging there after I left in Feb. ’88. I only went to the club on Pearl once or twice so I must have been seeing you either downtown or Anna Bananas.
Compared to what the internet offers today, I was learning to play in a vacuum back then. Practically nothing on the radio, and only 1 band with a harmonica player within a 4000 mile radius. I think there was a Sound Warehouse downtown off of Ala Moana Blvd. where I started buying up their blues section which was only about 1 row, but unbelievably, they had a bunch of re-released jug band stuff from the 20’s. Next time somebody say’s, “what in the hell is that you’re playing” I’ll have an answer. I’ll say, “that’s a Noah Lewis lick with a little Mark Prados influence”.
Mahalo Mojokane for starting this thread. In another 25 years I probably would not have made the connection.
alright chris! that Coasty club is still the best military club hands down. volley ball, basketball,nice ladies,it's on the beach, you can drink outside and the DJ booth up in the wall is a helicopter. BIG THANKS MojoKane! he's my nieghbor. i'm watching his cat. he'll be back this afternoon from a vac on the big island. this is the best thread ever! ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
