Dear Readers,
The final two week are coming by fast and I am pressuring out. I have two weeks to be confident and ready for the big day when we play at Ala Moana Center Stage. I am more pumped to play than nervous. Well, that will probably change as the performance comes closer and closer.
I hope we will kill it in all the songs. I hope Claire starts it up with a kickin' groove on Tighten Up! I also hope our harmony in Kouman Sa Ta Ye is spotless. I hope Spirits in the Material World will have a great upbeat tempo for the crowd to love. I hope Max makes everyone have a beautiful day when sings Beautiful Day. I hope I don't screw up in Sweet Darlin'. I believe that Melissa is going to make Iris great with the accompaniment of the orchestra.
Hopefully we will rock it and see you there at Center Stage!
Catch you Ala Moana,
Micah
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Nervous Nelly...
I don't know when it happened, but someone definitely pressed the fast forward button on time. All of a sudden it is only a couple of days before our first Friday Funk on the Lawn, which will take place this upcoming Friday, (April 17th) right after school around 2:50 p.m. I have been practicing, but I am still very nervous. My palms definitely sweat whenever I think about it.
I don't exactly know where my nervous anxiety is coming from, but I think it could be a number of things. It could be from the fact that I might have to emcee again this year. Talking to a crowd and trying to motivate them is definitely not as easy as it looks. Especially for me, because when I get nervous I start talking faster and faster, and then words start coming out before I've even thought of them yet. A can of paint becomes a pan of caint. Great will become grood because I started off saying great and ended up saying good. Almost... Hopefully, this year those things won't happen. I just need to remember to breathe. Breathing is good. :)
I could also be nervous from the lack of a long productive practice this past weekend. During school days we only have about 30 minutes together, tops and that really isn't enough to put some changes in effect, or do anything other than run through songs or perfect sections we already know. Maybe I could talk to the principal and ask to have a day when funk band is excused from classes, so we can prepare for this Friday. I think he would say yes...don't you think? Perhaps not then, but I know that if we can just practice really productively at home, and put forth a lot of positive energy on Friday, we can do it. I know we can, I just hope my mouth does us justice.
That's all for now -
Claire
Monday, April 13, 2009
Ala Moana Rescheduled...
So recently we have found out that we have to cancel our big funk band performance on the last day of school. The reason is because we have to go to the Senior Aloha to help out. But don't worry everyone, because we have rescheduled. May 8th is now the big day. It is the Friday before school is over. So please, all of you, come to our Ala Moana performance.
We currently have a lot of work to do in one month. I really want to be able to play the new songs we are working on - they are all so awesome, but we all really need to get all of our parts down. It's a lot of work getting a single song down - I really hope we get all of them together for you guys.
Oh, and don't forget that this Friday is our first Friday Funk on the Lawn. We will be playing a lot of songs for you guys. So after school, just come out and dance and have fun listening to us.
Melissa
Monday, April 6, 2009
Recycling, Chilla and T's...
Hey what's up guys!
We just finished sorting the recycling. It's hard work! We were given boxes upon boxes of cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles. We had to sort them into different plastic garbage bags. I must admit, the work is tedious, but it is a lot of fun to be with my fellow band mates. If anyone ever said recycling is easy they are crazy! It's a vast amount of effort to put in in order to save the planet, but it is so worth it!
Not long ago we had an amazing chilla! For two straight days we camped out, read books (books called "Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things" and "Zen Guitar") and played music. The first book was about how much is put into products like coffee and newspaper. It truly amazed me how immoral these companies are and how they use child labor to create their products. The "Zen Guitar" book was about how the mind set of music practice is one of the most important parts of practicing. You can "practice" all you want but if you do not put your mind into it, it can be worthless.
The recording part of our chilla was just awesome. Since I am a vocalist, I got to use a killer microphone and learn how to use the recording software vaguely. It is really interesting. I really like being up there singing and laying down my vocals. It was a really fun and interesting experience and it opened up my eyes to see how it would be to be a working musician. It really appeals to me to become a performer and to record music. There is something about recording - it is fun to think that your recording could be around for all time - even when we are dead and gone, our recording will live on. It is almost difficult to comprehend. I love recording. I hope to get another opportunity like that again.
Guess what?!! If you have not heard, we have t-shirts! What? I know...how awesome! They are made from 100% pure organic cotton or cotton bamboo mix. The shirts are amazingly soft and are a great bargain. They are great for the environment for all you Earth lovers - there were no poisons like pesticides or other harmful dyes used to make our shirts, keeping our rivers and streams and oceans clean from horrible chemicals. But you must hurry - the t-shirts are going fast. Limited on bamboo, we are mainly taking orders for organic cotton so hurry and buy your very own funk band t-shirt. I promise you will love them!
Thanks for checking in!
Until next time, Groove Green!
Max
We just finished sorting the recycling. It's hard work! We were given boxes upon boxes of cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles. We had to sort them into different plastic garbage bags. I must admit, the work is tedious, but it is a lot of fun to be with my fellow band mates. If anyone ever said recycling is easy they are crazy! It's a vast amount of effort to put in in order to save the planet, but it is so worth it!
Not long ago we had an amazing chilla! For two straight days we camped out, read books (books called "Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things" and "Zen Guitar") and played music. The first book was about how much is put into products like coffee and newspaper. It truly amazed me how immoral these companies are and how they use child labor to create their products. The "Zen Guitar" book was about how the mind set of music practice is one of the most important parts of practicing. You can "practice" all you want but if you do not put your mind into it, it can be worthless.The recording part of our chilla was just awesome. Since I am a vocalist, I got to use a killer microphone and learn how to use the recording software vaguely. It is really interesting. I really like being up there singing and laying down my vocals. It was a really fun and interesting experience and it opened up my eyes to see how it would be to be a working musician. It really appeals to me to become a performer and to record music. There is something about recording - it is fun to think that your recording could be around for all time - even when we are dead and gone, our recording will live on. It is almost difficult to comprehend. I love recording. I hope to get another opportunity like that again.
Guess what?!! If you have not heard, we have t-shirts! What? I know...how awesome! They are made from 100% pure organic cotton or cotton bamboo mix. The shirts are amazingly soft and are a great bargain. They are great for the environment for all you Earth lovers - there were no poisons like pesticides or other harmful dyes used to make our shirts, keeping our rivers and streams and oceans clean from horrible chemicals. But you must hurry - the t-shirts are going fast. Limited on bamboo, we are mainly taking orders for organic cotton so hurry and buy your very own funk band t-shirt. I promise you will love them!
Thanks for checking in!
Until next time, Groove Green!
Max
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Recycling Heaven
Who doesn't love the smell of old recycling stench on a Saturday morning?! I certainly do. The smell of crusty soda cans and slimy beer bottles not only smells like support for the Funk Band, it smells like we are helping the environment.
Instead of sleeping in and being lazy while basically creating more trash and wasting more electricity by sitting on the couch watching TV and eating potato chips, I got up early and went to support my band members by loading my car with recyclables. I even solicited some donations from my Girl Scout leader Maggie.
At first when I asked her on the phone, I thought she was exaggerating or making a joke. But when I walked up the stairs and finally saw the walkway to her corner apartment, I realized I didn't need my empty Volvo station wagon, I needed a semi. She told me to bring some help with me, so I brought my father along. I was able to fill my car completely, drop it off at the school, go back for another completely full car load and she still had about a third of what she had in the beginning crowding her front door.
So I definitely want to take time out of this blog to give a shout out to Maggie and say THANK YOU from the Funk Band!
As soon as I got back with the second load, we all got down and dirty and were able to bag up 40 full garbage bags ready for pickup in about an hour. I was very proud of our work. Especially considering how far we've come since our first recycling Saturday. We were all here today and all prepared to work hard.
I hope we can put this money toward getting more of our super-cool t-shirts. We have started selling our Funk Band t-shirts for 15 dollars and I think we are doing really well. People like them so much they are even starting to take sizes that they didn't ask for. Also, the bamboo-t-shirts are a huge hit. I think we have sold out of most of them.
I would definitely want more t-shirts because seeing everyone wearing them around the school makes me smile. We have accomplished many great things with these t-shirts. We have started a wave of school pride, we have promoted the funk band and we have done all this in a completely environmentally friendly way by raising the money with recyclables and using eco-friendly materials for the t-shirts. Which I think is very cool. So contact any funk band member if you want one!
I'm off,
Claire
Recycling & Upcoming Events...
Hey viewers!
Today, we were so lucky that the school let us recycle their HI-5 recyclables to gain some money to support our funk band. We started to recycle at nine o'clock and we had many many cans and bottles to clean and sort. It was a very dirty job, but it was fun.
We were also lucky that Claire's girl scout leader was generous enough to donate her cans and bottles to the ULS Funk Band. Her husband used to collect cans and he used to sort all of the cans stacked up in their house - Claire said it was hard just to walk through their house. They had so many that we only took half of their bottles and that was plenty. Just that amount took 2 carloads to bring over to our recycling center. It was incredible how they organized the cans back into their original cases. We were grateful for all of the can donations today.
It looked like we had more cans and bottles recycled this week than the last time we recycled at our school. Hopefully that is true because we can use that money to buy more Funk Band t-shirts to distribute to our friends and family. Also, we might use this money to create a music video for one of our songs. That would be a fun project for our Funk Band to take on. Also, we can use this money to go on our dream band tour around the island or even to the neighbor islands to perform at public events.
Tomorrow, we have a funk band practice. It is going to be fun to brush up on old and new songs again. So this week-end is full of funk band events.
Coming up, we are having our 1st Funk on the Lawn of the year on Friday, April 17th. It is going to be fun to start playing in front our classmates again. I remember that last year's funk on the lawn was fun. So I am expecting it to be awesome. The only thing missing from last year was that we don't have our awesome saxophone player Gavin Vestal back from last year. Man, I miss his jokes and his great playing.
Also, if anyone wants to buy an official funk band t-shirt, you can come to Claire, Tem, Max, Melissa, Kule'a or myself or even Mr. Zorn to purchase it, or if you just have questions about the t-shirts. I hope you can purchase these t-shirts. What makes these t-shirts to special is that they are world-friendly. One style is made out of bamboo, so it is a renewable resource and therefore it is friendly to our Earth. Another style we have is organic cotton, which doesn't use any chemicals that will run off into streams. So both types of t-shirts are friendly to the Earth, cheap and very stylish. They are only 15 dollars. What a deal!
Well, I go to go, so I will catch you later!
Bye!
Micah
Today, we were so lucky that the school let us recycle their HI-5 recyclables to gain some money to support our funk band. We started to recycle at nine o'clock and we had many many cans and bottles to clean and sort. It was a very dirty job, but it was fun.
We were also lucky that Claire's girl scout leader was generous enough to donate her cans and bottles to the ULS Funk Band. Her husband used to collect cans and he used to sort all of the cans stacked up in their house - Claire said it was hard just to walk through their house. They had so many that we only took half of their bottles and that was plenty. Just that amount took 2 carloads to bring over to our recycling center. It was incredible how they organized the cans back into their original cases. We were grateful for all of the can donations today.
It looked like we had more cans and bottles recycled this week than the last time we recycled at our school. Hopefully that is true because we can use that money to buy more Funk Band t-shirts to distribute to our friends and family. Also, we might use this money to create a music video for one of our songs. That would be a fun project for our Funk Band to take on. Also, we can use this money to go on our dream band tour around the island or even to the neighbor islands to perform at public events.
Tomorrow, we have a funk band practice. It is going to be fun to brush up on old and new songs again. So this week-end is full of funk band events.
Coming up, we are having our 1st Funk on the Lawn of the year on Friday, April 17th. It is going to be fun to start playing in front our classmates again. I remember that last year's funk on the lawn was fun. So I am expecting it to be awesome. The only thing missing from last year was that we don't have our awesome saxophone player Gavin Vestal back from last year. Man, I miss his jokes and his great playing.
Also, if anyone wants to buy an official funk band t-shirt, you can come to Claire, Tem, Max, Melissa, Kule'a or myself or even Mr. Zorn to purchase it, or if you just have questions about the t-shirts. I hope you can purchase these t-shirts. What makes these t-shirts to special is that they are world-friendly. One style is made out of bamboo, so it is a renewable resource and therefore it is friendly to our Earth. Another style we have is organic cotton, which doesn't use any chemicals that will run off into streams. So both types of t-shirts are friendly to the Earth, cheap and very stylish. They are only 15 dollars. What a deal!
Well, I go to go, so I will catch you later!
Bye!
Micah
Recycling and Rehearsals...
Hey funk band fans!
Today we are recycling at school to make money for the funk band. Pretty much what happens is we get all the recycling trash cans from the whole school and we dump out all the bottles and cans into a big pile. Besides all the bottles and cans from around the school, we bring all of our own cans and bottles that we've saved up at home. And all together that is a lot of cans and bottles. So after everything is in one big pile we separate the aluminum cans, the plastic bottles and glass bottles. Sometimes it is really gross because people throw some pretty reandom and disgusting things into the recycling cans. Ewww! There were orange peels, pancake on a stick and lots of bugs. Thank goodness we had plastic gloves - it would really suck if we had to pick up everything without them. Anyway, at least for everything we recycle today we will get cash in return!
Tomorrow (Sunday) we are coming in to start rehearsing again. We have six more weeks 'til the end of school, which means five more weeks until our big performance at Ala Moana Center Stage! (Friday, May 8th) I'm scared but excited. Last year, it went really well. I just hope it's at least as good as last year. Maybe, hopefully even better. Besides preparing ourselves for our big Ala Moana performance, we are rehearsing for our Friday Funk on the Lab School Lawn, which is the same thing we did last year where we play five or six songs outside the MPB for all you guys.
We are working on a few new songs besides the ones we played for Homecoming. We have Sweet Darling by Fiji, Molde Canticle (jazz/funk by Jan Garbarek), and Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. They are all really good songs. I hope that you all come out and support us at our Friday Funk on the Lawn and just have fun. We might even be selling our CDs of recordings by then.
Oh, and don't forget about our funk band t-shirts for sale! They are going fast and they might be gone soon, so make sure you talk to one of the funk band members to get one. So be here or be square on April 17th (our first Friday performance)!
Thanks!
Melissa
Today we are recycling at school to make money for the funk band. Pretty much what happens is we get all the recycling trash cans from the whole school and we dump out all the bottles and cans into a big pile. Besides all the bottles and cans from around the school, we bring all of our own cans and bottles that we've saved up at home. And all together that is a lot of cans and bottles. So after everything is in one big pile we separate the aluminum cans, the plastic bottles and glass bottles. Sometimes it is really gross because people throw some pretty reandom and disgusting things into the recycling cans. Ewww! There were orange peels, pancake on a stick and lots of bugs. Thank goodness we had plastic gloves - it would really suck if we had to pick up everything without them. Anyway, at least for everything we recycle today we will get cash in return!
Tomorrow (Sunday) we are coming in to start rehearsing again. We have six more weeks 'til the end of school, which means five more weeks until our big performance at Ala Moana Center Stage! (Friday, May 8th) I'm scared but excited. Last year, it went really well. I just hope it's at least as good as last year. Maybe, hopefully even better. Besides preparing ourselves for our big Ala Moana performance, we are rehearsing for our Friday Funk on the Lab School Lawn, which is the same thing we did last year where we play five or six songs outside the MPB for all you guys.
We are working on a few new songs besides the ones we played for Homecoming. We have Sweet Darling by Fiji, Molde Canticle (jazz/funk by Jan Garbarek), and Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. They are all really good songs. I hope that you all come out and support us at our Friday Funk on the Lawn and just have fun. We might even be selling our CDs of recordings by then.
Oh, and don't forget about our funk band t-shirts for sale! They are going fast and they might be gone soon, so make sure you talk to one of the funk band members to get one. So be here or be square on April 17th (our first Friday performance)!
Thanks!
Melissa
A Day of Recycling
Today we recycled to raise money for our t-shirts that we ordered. We made a nice design out of our rock etude #9 and it is really cool. It is a black t-shirt with the rock etude written in white and the shirts are made out of either organic cotton or organic cotton and bamboo. It is so soft compared to a regular t-shirt. Mr. Zorn surprised us with them the night we finished our studio recordings. We each got a shirt - everybody took the bamboo because they were 2 times softer than the all-cotton ones. The thing that is really cool is that when you wash it won't fade like regular t-shirts. And we are selling them for only $15 compared to $45.
Today we made 36 something bags of plastics, cans and bottles. It took us about an hour and a half. I wish that people wouldn't be so lazy. They put all of the breakfast foods and trash in the recycling bins, even when the trash can is 2 or 3 steps away. We found a hot dog on a stick (that they serve for breakfast) in the recycling bin. Disgusting! And people waste so much water, soda and juice - we found a bunch of water bottles, soda bottles and a gatorade bottle all still full!
We were so good - we got through the recycling really fast. There was a lot more compared to last month's load and we finished in about the same amount of time. We all knew what we had to do and how to do it. For example, I would go get all of the recycle bins throughout the campus and dump them all into the main pile with everything else. Claire, Tem, Melissa and Max would start sorting the recyclables into all of the trash bags and Micah would wash out all of the bins that I would bring to him. He would spray it all down with the hose in the back of the cafeteria and it is disgusting what comes out of those bins. Once Micah and I are done with our part we go help everyone else with bagging everything. We put the bags in three bins - one for cans, one for plastic and one for bottles. We keep throwing everything from the big pile into the bins and when they get full, we change the bags. That is just basically what we do and the faster we do it the more time we have to chill and relax - and just wait for the truck to show up and take all the bags.
So that's what we did today!
C ya later.
Kule'a
Today we made 36 something bags of plastics, cans and bottles. It took us about an hour and a half. I wish that people wouldn't be so lazy. They put all of the breakfast foods and trash in the recycling bins, even when the trash can is 2 or 3 steps away. We found a hot dog on a stick (that they serve for breakfast) in the recycling bin. Disgusting! And people waste so much water, soda and juice - we found a bunch of water bottles, soda bottles and a gatorade bottle all still full!
We were so good - we got through the recycling really fast. There was a lot more compared to last month's load and we finished in about the same amount of time. We all knew what we had to do and how to do it. For example, I would go get all of the recycle bins throughout the campus and dump them all into the main pile with everything else. Claire, Tem, Melissa and Max would start sorting the recyclables into all of the trash bags and Micah would wash out all of the bins that I would bring to him. He would spray it all down with the hose in the back of the cafeteria and it is disgusting what comes out of those bins. Once Micah and I are done with our part we go help everyone else with bagging everything. We put the bags in three bins - one for cans, one for plastic and one for bottles. We keep throwing everything from the big pile into the bins and when they get full, we change the bags. That is just basically what we do and the faster we do it the more time we have to chill and relax - and just wait for the truck to show up and take all the bags.
So that's what we did today!
C ya later.
Kule'a
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