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Courtesy Daniel Ho
Daniel Ho, top center, reunites with his old band
Kilauea, at the Waikiki Aquarium tonight.

Ho breaks free after
stint as music biz slave

---

By John Berger
Special to the Star-Bulletin

There's a music business adage about the inevitability of "paying your dues." Expatriate islander Daniel Ho paid his for several years as he languished in a contract he considers a cross between indentured servitude and an "earn while you learn" program.

"When I first moved (to California) I was mainly a writer and I was desperate to get a job. I was starving. I'd send a demo tape out to anyone and everyone and I got a nibble," Ho says of the circumstances that led him to sign a deal without legal counsel. He was eating "garbanzo beans and rice," driving a Hyundai and sharing a place with "five roommates and rats" trying to support himself while sending money home to help his family here.

IN CONCERT Who: Daniel Ho performs, part of the Ke Kani O Ke Kai concert series Date: 7 p.m. today Place: Waikiki Aquarium Tickets: $18; $13 for aquarium members; free for keiki under 12 Call: 923-9741

He soon discovered that he'd signed himself into a deal that allowed him almost no creative control over his own music.

"They told me what kind of songs to write, named the songs for me, and told me what I could and could not do when I recorded them. I did that for seven years and what I learned along the way was all the things involved in how to make a record. I learned how to play different instruments, how to arrange, I learned how to work with a band, management, sales, royalties, manufacturing, radio (and) how everything ties in. I learned how to engineer and how to master, although I'm still learning how to do it well."

Since completing his contractual obligations Ho's musical horizons have been expanding. He has recorded as a soloist and as a member of Blue Canoe, produced three albums with Wyland, and won a Hoku Award this year for "Hymns of Hawaii," the album he recorded with George Kahumoku Jr.

Ho plays at the Honolulu Aquarium tonight with his old band Kilauea -- Dean Taba (bass), Randy Drake (drums), Jimmy Mehlis (guitar) and Andy Seasick (sax/flute). It will be the first time that Kilauea has played in Hawaii and the first time Ho's father has seen him play since he moved to California 10 years ago.

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"That makes tonight kind of special for me," Ho says.

Noel Okimoto will sit in for the entire show. FM100 DJ Lena Girl will join Ho and Taba for a show-within-a-show performance by Canoe Club. Jake Shimabukuro will sit in with Canoe Club for a song or two and join Ho at some point to introduce a song they wrote last week after meeting one another at an O'Brien Eselu concert.

Bringing Kilauea to Honolulu and playing for his father are only two of the projects Ho has been working on this summer. The other projects are:

"A Culinary Concert" and "Taste the Music" will be released next month in collaboration with Russell Siu and the Kakaako Kitchen. The discs are intended to be soundtracks, one for a fine dining event, the other for an informal pupu party. Siu will include recipes and information on how to host an event in the liner notes.

"Beyond Blue," Ho's second slack-key album, is due later this year. It will include a duet with Hiroshima koto player June Kuramoto. Said Ho, "It also features my own (slack-key) tuning -- the D-Kilauea tuning -- and is all instrumental ... Sort of slack key, sort of contemporary jazz."

"Secrets of Contemporary Slack Key Guitar," the book Ho is writing with Stanford University professor Steve Sano, is scheduled to be published in January and will include an instructional CD-album. Ho says Sano is writing about traditional slack-key tunings, while he writes about the contemporary scene.

Ho also is working on second album with Kahumoku. "George has been playing at the Westin Maui for 30 years and people request the same songs over and over again so we're going to record (those songs) for them.

"My feeling about music is that if people enjoy it, they enjoy it. I do my share of serious stuff and then turn around and do something just for the fun of playing."

Ho adds that he feels particularly honored to be going to Germany with Kahumoku, Cyril Pahinui and Led Kaapana for a concert there later this month.

"I've been recording guitar for a long time (but) I started playing slack key a couple of years ago. I have a tuning that nobody uses, but George (Kahumoku) accepted what I was doing, my sound and the way I played, and from that I got to play with Cyril and Led. I guess I was really lucky and honored that they accept my little jazz or blues twists and allow me to play with them."

Ho and Kahumoku will be touring later this year. Ho also is looking at doing more small shows as a solo acoustic guitarist and is getting more involved in the business side of the music industry as well. He recently bought the label he's been recording for.

"I can make my own mistakes now, do the music that I want to do and do it the way that I want to do it," he says.

In retrospect then, his years as a contract slave have paid off. Ho says he is no longer as bitter as he used to be about the experience.

"I was fortunate to learn all the things that I did and do all the things that I did because now a national distributor will carry me as an individual (artist). Everyone now can do records at home so everyone wants distribution but the distributors aren't going to carry everyone.

"I've been fortunate that because of what I did before I can rise above the noise. Now I can do it with the people I want and it's a beautiful feeling."

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