COURTESY KOA ENTERTAINMENT Get ready for some laughs with local entertainers, from left, Marlene Sai, Tony Conjugacion, Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom, Brickwood Galuteria and Melveen Leed.

Melveen steps
on the gas

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By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com

Saimin is usually a safe choice when I can't decide what I really want for lunch. Melveen Leed wouldn't let me do it.

The official reason we were getting together for an all-too-infrequent lunch date was to get the info on her concert this weekend at the Royal Hawaiian, but first things first.

"Take the bowl off the plate," she said when the saimin arrived. She then slid the larger of two crispy deep fried menpachi from her plate to mine. She ordered me a bowl of rice, and, when it arrived, poured in a little Japanese genmaicha tea, and added a splash or two of Tabasco to the small saucer of shoyu between us.

The saimin went uneaten as she conducted a quick tutorial on the proper technique to eating a deep fried fish from the "cheeks" to the crunchy tail -- and don't forget to crack the skull and suck out the brain!

Francis Ho'okano stopped by with his wife and we got to talking about local musicians alive and dead, the changes for the worse in the musical line-up at a popular Waikiki beachfront hotel, and some hairstylist (didn't catch his name) who's worth driving all the way to Hawaii Kai to see.

The chatty Leed shared a funny story about the time she was seated with her first ex-husband's first ex-wife while attending his fiftysomething-ith high school reunion, shared some very well-informed observations about a new trend in international music that has yet to reach Hawaii, and spoke off the record (until things jell) about her plans for 2003.

"I was never at the Royal (as a headliner)," Leed said when we finally got around to talking about this weekend's show. She's sharing the stage with five fellow Na Hoku Hanohano award winners -- Tony Conjugacion, Ernie Cruz Jr., Brickwood Galuteria, Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom, and Marlene Sai -- and three hula halau, including kumu hula Chinky Mahoe's Kawailiula, Howard and Olana Ai's Halau Hula Olana and the Hula Halau O Kamuela.

LEED WAS a headliner almost everywhere else when Waikiki showrooms were booming -- at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, the Sheraton-Waikiki, for 12 years at the Ala Moana Hotel and with her longtime friend Loyal Garner at the Polynesian Palace. So it was well past time to get her at the Monarch Room, even if only for a night. Leed plans to sing Hawaiian and jazz, play some 'ukulele, demonstrate her Hawaiian falsetto range and help out one of the halau by singing one of their numbers as well.

Beyond whatever Leed and the others are planning to do, the possibilities for Rat Pack-style ad-libs and improvisation seem almost unlimited. Leed and Conjugacion go back to the days when "Little Anthony" Conjugacion was her protégé and Cruz and Gilliom are "cuzzy wuzzies" who've spent much of the summer working together.

Galuteria, representing Hawaiian 105 KINE, is the designated master of ceremonies but will almost certainly sing a few songs. Sai has been the least visible of the group in recent years, so that makes her presence an event as well.

But back to Leed, who continues to be one of the most enterprising and engaging superstars in local music; she's a singer, musician, recording artist, entertainer, teacher, graphic artist, jewelry and fashion designer, and booking agent.

This is another typically busy month for her. She headlined the Windward Mall Ho'olaule'a last weekend, and takes off on the first of a series of tours with the Makaha Sons that will take them to California, Tahiti and possibly locales as far away as France.

"Me and my partners in Tahiti have formed a little booking agency to help the music industry here in Hawaii," she said. "They need to work and so we're going to take groups and entertainers from here to Tahiti ... and eventually to New Zealand and New Caledonia to do shows."

There are also concerts confirmed for Whittier College and Santa Cruz, Calif. (visualize Leed in a sexy, slinky gown trading one-liners with the Sons' irrepressible Jerome Koko, and it's clear that Californians will be getting a hilarious Hawaiian show). She plans to do some shows with the Sons here as well when their schedules permit.

"I'm looking forward to that because they're wonderful to work with and they're like my brothers," she said. "It's going to be a riot because (Jerry and I) are both crazy, we're both nuts and we're going to play off of each other. Jerry just called me a little while ago to ask what kind of bed I wanted -- single or double!

"I think it's going to be an annual thing, which is great," she added.

The conversation drifted back to the show at the Royal. "Hopefully it's a door, an open door, so that we can get back into Waikiki again and have these venues going."

Oh, and one more thing. Her designer-brand perfume Manoa (in fragrances for both kane and wahine) is on the way. She's just been too darn busy to launch it.

"I've been soooooooooo busy," she said. "I'm so busy, it's still in my house, waiting!"

The 1st Annual Kulia I Na Hoku Concert Where: Monarch Room, Royal Hawaiian Hotel When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow Tickets: $45 ($40 w/Aloha Festivals ribbon) Call: 931-7194

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