What Did I Do This Week?

Hey everyone! Happy holidays! Since we are now in the holiday season, I want to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS! and HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Hopefully you are all healthy and happy and enjoying the holidays with people you love!

This was a busy week for myself and ManoaDNA as we kicked off the month of December with an action-packed week! Here’s a little recap for all of you who missed it live!

First, Friday was a busy day for me as I had a session of filming for the HI*Sessions show. We were honored to have two REALLY good musical acts, Mango Season and Ledward Ka’apana. Ledward is, of course, a slack-key master/falsetto singer/one of Hawai’i’s living treasures, and Mango Season is a super talented Hawaiian-Jazz-Fusion band. Both did really well, and we look forward to the result of the day!

Mango Season on HI*Sessions — On Friday, November 30th, the group “Mango Season” came on the HI*Sessions show. As with every month, we filmed two groups including Ledward Ka’apana and Mango Season. Check out every act on HISESSIONS.com.

Then it was off to Kaua’i for our friend Kenji’s wedding to Claire. It was a very humble gesture to invite us and bring us over to Kaua’i and we hope we were worth it!

Richard Kawakami Statue — The Kaua’i airport terminal is named after Dad’s Uncle Richard Kawakami. A 10-term representative and former speaker of the house, it is now customary for travelers to dress his statue with lei before they leave.

As the week went on, we had a busy ManoaDNA Tuesday. Before heading into the studio to help Pops Okami of KoAloha record a song, we stopped by Cox Radio to pre-record a show for the holiday season. During the Christmas break, they pre-record broadcast shows so that the real DJs have time off. As DJ Aaron recorded us, we tried our best to imitate the real DJs, Billy V & Bruddah Wade, but were probably WAY OFF! Stay tuned to our Twitter & Facebook feeds for the date of the broadcast.

Hawaiian105 KINE Radio Recording — On Tuesday, December 4th, we recorded a session on Hawaiian105 KINE radio for future broadcast. Thanks to DJ Aaron for helping us out, we hope it turned out well.

Finally, we close with a picture from our gig at Hyatt last night. It was a voggy day, so we really struggled with singing, but the vog gave us a spectacular sunset in Waikiki. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram had a lot of similar pictures, so I apologize for the duplicity!

Vog Sunset in Waikiki — Vog, or volcanic fog, is a by-product of the eruptions on the Big Island and gets blown over to O’ahu during Kona Winds. While terrible for asthma, vocal chords, and heat, it does create a spectacular sunset.

Have a good second week of December! It is another busy week for ManoaDNA, so I will try to recap it again next week!
Aloha!
Nick