AlohaLauLea producers hope musical diversity will draw a wider audience

Tribal Seeds will perform during T&C Surf's AlohaLauLea. --Courtesy photo

Six thousand people attended last year’s AlohaLauLea’s musical block party at Aloha Tower Marketplace, and promoters are expecting to break that attendance mark with the addition of DJ dance music.

The 2010 debut of the massive event was the creation of co-promoters Raymond Ho Jr. (aka Ray Jr.) and the Artist Groove Network’s Thaddeus Park.

This year, it was their intention to diversify the party with more music for attendees to move with, so they included club promoters Rick Rock and Greg Dehnert (aka Double 00Spot) to add a fourth stage that will showcase electronic, house, mash-up and hip-hop beats. This will be the Univibe stage.

Stages at The Waterfront, the former Don Ho’s Island Grill and Gordon Biersch Brewery will showcase acts including Anuhea, Kolohe Kai, Hi-Trey, Rebel Souljahz, Ooklah the Moc, Nesian N.I.N.E., and headlining mainland act Tribal Seeds.

In all, more than 30 bands and DJs will fill the marketplace with grooving sounds.

“In order to make it a more musical event, we wanted to include other different genres than just island reggae, and change up the overall vibe,” Ho said.

He added that the San Diego-based Tribal Seeds, a personal favorite of his, consider the islands a home away from home and are returning to Hawaii for a second time this year. The track “In Your Eyes” from the band’s recent EP “Soundwaves” is getting

a lot of local radio play.

“Tribal Seeds was a perfect fit (for the event) because of their unique style of music and growing popularity in islands,” he said.

The Jacobo brothers, Steven and Tony-Ray, began Tribal Seeds in high school. “Our focus was originally that roots reggae thing,” Tony-Ray said by phone Tuesday, “but since then, we’ve branched out to a little more modern electronic sound that will open up avenues of experimentation. Our fans should hear more of that in our new album, which we hope will be out by next spring.

“We try to bring in variety in our music. One of the first audiences to come over to our sound was the surf/beach community, but we’re finding out that more crowds are latching on as well the more we tour, so we continue to give out the love.

“The band made its first visit to Hawaii in ’09, and since then, we try to make it there once a year. We love going there because reggae is huge.

“Our love for the 808 state is forever,” Jacobo said.

Ho said that this year’s AlohaLauLea — helping to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the popular T&C Surf shops — will help fill a need that he sees that will include “a demographic that includes more locals who decide not to go into Waikiki (for the annual ho’olaulea) and enjoy their own musical block

party.

“Plus, we’ve helped create a great security plan with the Liquor Commission, the Honolulu Police Department and Aloha Tower. After

numerous meetings, we’ve decided not to allow bags and purses to help create

an event as safe as possible for the public. It’s all about taking that extra precaution to make the AlohaLauLea fun and enjoyable,” he said.

–Gary Chun / gchun@staradvertiser.com