This year, Tiki Oasis explores the Hawaiian influence on American music. Part Americana, part Hawaiiana, Hulabilly is an American music style derived from the blending of Rockabilly and Haole Hawaiian music. The live musical entertainment at this year’s four-day Polynesian Pop festival/celebration features numerous roots and rockabilly performers, a couple of Elvis (the King of Hulabilly) salutes as well as the essential exotica / surf / instrumental sounds Tiki Oasis is known for.  DJs will be covering the gamut of these musical styles as well and this year, LuxuriaMusic.com will be featuring their DJs in the indoor marketplace.

Two current and one future Dionysus artists will be playing the event this year. Big Sandy, whose still in-print first album, “Fly Rite With” was released by the label in 1989, will be headlining the event at a special Sunday Hoedown with the legendary El Vez. Surf / Exotica creeps, Creepxotica who have released their “Haunted Bossa Nova” LP on Dionysus this year, will be playing at the Bali Hai Meet and Mingle on Thursday Aug. 15, along with The Fishermen, featuring Brian Lease, former vibe player of  ’90s Dionysus lounge sensations, Frenchy, and Tiki Oasis favorite, Kim Tsoy who will be backed up by a band including Dionysus’ Records Lee Joseph on bass. Jason Lee  and the RIP Tides, whose debut LP will be released on Dionysus, will be playing poolside on Friday. Jason Lee will be teaching a “Twang Guitar” seminar on Saturday at 1:00 PM. Dionysus Records’ Lee Joseph will be doing a DJ set of all rockabilly, poolside, on Saturday at 2:15 PM. There will be a Dionysus Records vending booth in the Outdoor Marketplace on both Saturday and Sunday.

For detailed information check the Tiki Oasis website. Here is the schedule of bands on the main stage:

THURSDAY (Bali Hai)
Emcee: King Kukulele
Lanai Stage 7pm
King Kukulele
Lanai Bar 6pm – Midnight Eric Musick
Lanai Bar 7:30 and 9:30 sets
Fisherman & Kitty Chow
Lanai Stage 8pm Kim Tsoy
Lanai Stage 9pm
Interlude Featuring Coco Tiki, Mimi Le Meux & Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid
Lanai Stage 9:30pm Creepxotica

FRIDAY (Crowne Plaza)
King Kukulele/Co-Emcee: El Vez
5:15 – Hukilau Hot Shots
5:45 – Polynesian Paradise Dancers
6:15 –  B Stars
6:45 – Molotov & Dixie D’Lish
7pm – Miss Tiki Oasis Contest hosted by El Vez and Nikki Napalm
7:30  Lucky Stars
8:15 Vic Trevino Jr
9pm  18 Wheelers

Saturday (Crowne Plaza)
Emcee: King Kukulele/Co-Emcee: Big Sandy
5:30 -The Cheap Leis
6pm –  Hulabilly Costume Contest  – Prizes for Kids & Couples!
6:30 -Acapulco Radio 7pm – Round Two Hulabilly Costume Contest – Prizes for Best Male, Best Female
7:20 – Molotov & Dixie D’Lish
7:40 –  Dancers Ke Polani Ohana E Kai
8:15 The Hula Girls
9pm Southern Culture on the Skids

SUNDAY (Crowne Plaza)
Emcee: Otto von Stroheim
5:30 –  Doors open, come dance with the Hang Ten Hoppers!
5:30PM – 10:00PM Okie Oran Disc Jockeying
6:30PM –  El Vez Special Solo Performance Featuring a tribute to “The King”
7:30PM  Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys
8:30PM  Intermission interlude with Hang Ten Hoppers
8:45PM  Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

Images: Creepxotica, Jason Lee, Kim Tsoy

Here is my playlist and podcast link for Over Under Sideways Down, show #11, my first live show in the newly moved and improved LuxuriaMusic studios. A departure from my usual focused theme shows, I plucked an assortment of records from the unfiled stacks in my house and came up with quite the musical roller coaster ride. Podcast links below. Hope you enjoy!

First Hour of Over Under Sideways Down on LuxuriaMusic 1/9/13

Second Hour of Over Under Sideways Down on LuxuriaMusic 1/9/13

Over Under Sideways Down with Lee Joseph
LuxuriaMusic.com
Wednesday, January 9, 2013, 3pm – 5pm Pacific
Show number 11
A mixture of tracks from the stacks of unfiled records in my house!
Title – Artist – Source – Label

(opening featuring “A Thinking Man’s Record, 1950s Capitol Records promo 7” and “Over Under Sideways Down” by The Yardbirds)

Set One
I’m Alive  – Don Fardon – I’ve Paid My Dues LP – Decca US
Message From The Country –  The Move – Message From The Country LP – Harvest UK
Action Packed – Ronnie Dawson – Rockin’ Bones collection – No Hit Records Uk
All Through The Night –  Paris Sisters – Gregmark 7”  (Flip of “I Love How You Love Me” )
Feather from Your Tree (mono mix )  –Blue Cheer –  Phillips 7” (worn copy sorry about the noise)
Cycle Annie – The Beachnuts (early Lou Reed) – V/A Soundsville LP – Design Records
Smokes – Question Mark & the  Mysterians –  Cameo/Parkway 7” (Flip of Can’t Get Enough Of You Baby)
Theme from the Vindicators – The Fleshtones –  Up Front 12” – IRS Records
Streets of Calcutta – Ananda Shankar –  Ananda Shankar and His Music  LP (reissue)   – Fallout Records

Set Two
Romesville – Googie Rene – Romesville LP (stereo) – Class Records
Hey Brother Pour The Wine – Dean Martin – Hey Brother Pour The Wine LP – Capitol Records
Mind Reader – The Johnny Howard Group –  Decca UK 7”
I Sympathize – Thee Fourgiven – It Ain’t Pretty Down Here LP – Dionysus (that’s me on the high harmonies)
Looking For Myself – David Neil – The Wilderness Years LP – self released (Riky Maymi)
Babalu – Yma Sumac – Capitol Records 7”
Chitlins Etc.  – The Counts – Panorma 7”
Is It True – Brenda Lee – Decca US 7”
Psychotic Pineapple – I Wanna Get Rid Of You – Richmond 7”
Cassinos – Leader of the Band – Alpha 7” (also on East Side Sound Vol 2 – Bacchus)

Set Three
Let My Baby Ride – RL Burnside –  Come On In LP – Fat Possum
Frustrating Sound – S/T LP  – Alive Records
Baby Don’t Go – Hacienda – Loud Is The Night LP –  Alive Records
Hellbound – Spindrift – Classic Soundtracks LP – XEMU Records
He Doesn’t Share Well – The Love Me Nots – The Demon and The Devotee LP – Project Infinity Records
Derrick 2000 – Lou Hoffner Trio – Sheep Records 7”

Set Four
Musical Tribute to the Oscar Meyer Weiner Wagon – The Baroques –  S/T LP – Chess Records
Just Like Your Mom – Voxpop  –  Bad Trip 7”
Ha Lese – The New Life – The Sidehackers soundtrack LP – Amaret Records
The Rubber Room – Porter Wagoner – What Aint To Be Just Might Happen LP – RCA
You Ain’t Goin Nowhere (mono mix) – The Byrds – Columbia 7”
Tarantula – The Black Widows – Atlantic 7”
Bombay Duck – The Shadows – Columbia UK  7”
Let Me (edited mono version)- Paul Revere and The Raiders – Columbia 7”
El Curaca-  Frank Weir – V/A Mondo Inferno LP – Devilles Pad Records
Kambiz – Lovew Knowleget – V/A Persian Underground – Persianna LP

Set Five
Nobody Knows – Baby Woodrose – Love Comes Down LP – Bad Afro Records
Jewel Eyed Judy – Fleetwood Mac – Klin House LP – Reprise Records
Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) Mott the Hoople – Wildlife LP – Atlantic Records

Closing

Jonny Whiteside Presents The Messaround’s Lucky 13 Edition with wah-wah overlord Del Casher, punk legend Dave Drive & The Zoomies, roots alchemists The Skip Heller Trio, destructo-rock sensations The Ingrates! Dick Deluxe fronts the houseband! All Ages! No Cover! No Prisoners!

Jonny Whiteside’s Messaround at Viva Cantina
Sun., March 20, 5-9 p.m.
900 West Riverside Drive,
Burbank, CA 91506
all ages; no cover.
FREE PARKING across the street at Pickwick Bowl (same owners)
www.vivacantina.com

Strap on Yer Dribble Cups To Suck Up This Highly Spiced Burgoo of Outright Slash & Burn Chaos Versus Cool, Controlled Old School Perfection

Messaround Witch Doctor Jonny Whiteside ecstatically yields to popular demand and welcomes back the incomparable guitar stylist Del Casher. The first visionary to adapt the wah-wah peddle unto a guitar (and the first to record with it), Casher is intimately conversant with the full spectrum of American music, from pure communicative jazz to frosty cocktail blues to rabble-rousing rockabilly. This is the cat who truly did the 1960’s Hollywood music business “A-Z”–as lead guitarist for Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch by day and as hired hand for Frank Zappa at the Whisky by night; an in-demand session player, who has cut with everyone from Frank Sinatra to supplying the twang for TV’s Bonanza theme and backing up Elvis Presley onscreen in Roustabout, Casher’s dazzling, wah-wah laced mastery is nothing less than mesmerizing.

The Thrill-O-Meter is sure to bust with Big Beat Mayhem Supergroup The Zoomies. Fronted by punk rock icon Dave Drive (Gears, D.I.’s) on guitar and vocals (!!!) with the equally esteemed veterano Dig Pig on guitar, plus Marty Perez, Ralph Lopez and (maybe even) Mike Manifold–the Zoomies will throw down thunderous, sublime trash rock for what is certain to be an auspicious Messaround debut, and we’re proud as hell to be hosting these gnarsome artistes.

Get-around singer-musician Skip Heller, the formidable, Les Baxter-mentored stylist who has collaborated with the likes of Sun Goddess Yma Sumac and Pachuco Boogie Godfather Lalo Guerrero, brings his crack trio, eccentric repertoire, decades of far-ranging experience and rare insider insight. The prolific and passionate Heller ranks as one of the West Coast’s most discriminating and broad minded talents, a man whose innate hep quotient and well-chilled instincts guarantees a performance loaded with sizzle and sensitivity.

Making another wild-hair Messaround debut tonight is the Ingrates, who’ll fire a high-calibre barrage of Iggy-Motorhead-Ramones bunker-busters directly into your soul. Fronted by untamed rock doll Paige Darling (whose 20th century incarnation the Darlings were good enough to make the Bomp Records roster) and featuring tenured Hollywood hellraisers Chris “Poobah” Bailey, Tommy Wright (late of 80’s-era Raji’s miscreants the Little Kings), along with Chris Schwartz and Jill Guido, this frantic combo is certain to live up to their name via a distinctive wall-to-wall-FTW-with-a-backbeat disregard for every known form of societal normalcy.

With an opening benediction from our brand spankin’ new houseband frontman Dick Deluxe and beloved ‘Mess stalwarts Paul Marshall and David Raven–the righteous rockers upon which we build this tabernacle–plus the inevitable surprise guest performers and the singular culture of lurid flat-git-it balling which the Messaround has created, it’s yet another blow-top schizo-phonic session of the highest order.

Friday, Feb 25 2011  9pm

The Skip Heller Trio
The Dick and Jane Family Orchestra
Christopher Lockett

At Rafa’s Lounge and Gallery
1836 Sunset – at Glendale Blvd, right next to The Echo / The Echoplex – enter on Glendale Blvd

www.rafaslounge.com

Rafa’s is a well kept secret, right in the middle of Echo Park – the beautiful  but small hand-built gallery shows sculpture and paintings, and also boasts a small stage with a intimate living-room vibe.

Historian, music fan, guitarist, singer, songwriter Skip Heller has researched and produced records with the likes of Les Baxter, Robert Drasnin, Sammy Masters, has played with legends such as Yma Sumac, has written and produced music for The Flinstones and Dexter’s Laboratory, among many other things. His current group, The Skip Heller Trio, provides Heller with a vehicle to play and sing his songs which are as inspired by great American songwriters of the Brill Building era as they are Americana roots, country and rockabilly. The Trio performs covers such as Jimmy Skinner’s “Doin’ My Time” which showcase Heller’s ability to really smoke on lead – played on an acoustic guitar. Backed by Dionysus Records’ head honcho Lee Joseph on bass and Mark Borinstein on drums, the combo also has the ability to whip out cover tunes they’ve never played before and make them sound like they’ve rehearsed them!

The Dick and Jane Family Orchestra were formerly known as Dick and Jane, a husband-wife duo featuring Richard Ross and one of Los Angeles original “100 punks,” filmmaker and producer Jane Cantillon who has worked with the likes of Tyra, Hard Copy, Howie Mandell and many others.  When Lee Joseph was approaching the end of his almost decade long DJ residencies, he was invited  to see a screening of Cantillon’s “The Other Side” documentary. The duo performed and Joseph told them that that they could use a bassist. After dusting off an instrument he pretty much put down in 2000, Joseph joined the duo in February of 2010. Shortly after, Michael Peffer, drummer of Biblical Proof of UFOs joined the threesome as their percussionist and the group became The Dick and Jane Family Orchestra (with Joseph and D&J’s “fake” son and Pefffer as their “fake” nephiew.) The group plays a hybrid of beat, folk and garage with acoustified versions of Velvet Underground, Question Mark and The Mysterians and Jimi Hendrix, along with Cantillon’s catchy and humorous originals about Los Angeles, the last taboo (smoking)and of course, men.

The two groups will be joined by singer-songwriter Christopher Lockett.
A $5 donation is appreciated!

Sunday, February 20, 2011
Chris Clark’s Tiki Brunch Presents…
The Skip Heller Trio
The Oddfaces
Bumtech

All Star Lanes
4459 Eagle Rock Blvd.
Eagle Rock, CA, 90041
(323) 254-2579
www.allstarlanesbowling.com

The event opens at 1pm first band starts around 2pm
Only $5 to get in! Come spend an afternoon dancing, drinking and bowling.

The Skip Heller Trio featuring Skip Heller on guitar and vocals, Dionysus Records’ Lee Joseph on bass and vocals, and Mark Borinstien on drums will be playing two shows this coming weekend:

Feb 11, 2011
9:00 PM
Café Amsterdam
10905 Magnolia Boulevard
North Hollywood, CA 91601
(818) 506-1938
www.amsterdamcafenoho.com
All ages, no cover

Feb 12, 2011
8:30 PM
Redballs Rock & Roll Pizza
6551 Topanga Canyon Blvd
Woodland Hills, CA 91303
(818) 348-1524
www.redballs.com
All ages, no cover

Skip Heller Blogspot
Skip Heller Trio Myspace Page
Skip Heller Trio Facebook Page

The Skip Heller Trio
Saturday, January 22th, 8:30pm
Amsterdam Cafe
10905 Magnolia Boulevard
North Hollywood, CA 91601
(818) 506-1938
All ages – FREE!

Venue directions – reviews – here!

As some of you may or may not know – since I started playing bass again in 2010,  I’ve joined not one but two combos – and am playing in both The Dick and Jane Family Orchestra and The Skip Heller Trio with long-time Dionysus Records friend, producer and artist Skip Heller.  Here’s a couple of videos of the trio performing – around Los Angeles. This combo should be recording something in 2011, stay tuned!

“You Got Me Dizzy” live at the back porch of The Echo in Echo Park with our drummer Mark Borinstein

“Doin’ My Tme” and “California Blues” live at The Redwood in Downtown Los Angeles with guest drummer D.J. Bonebrake, of X, Orchestra Superstring and The Bonebrake Syncopators

In November of 1983 while managing the Roads to Moscow record store in Tucson, AZ., I released a 45 by my then band Yard Trauma. “Some People” b/w “No Conclusions,” written by my bandmate and lead singer Joe Dodge, with nifty op-art graphics by our pal Jonathan L, then editor of Tucson’s Newsreal Magazine, became the first release on Dionysus Records. It took a year and a half and a move to Southern California for the first full-length LP releases to appear on the label thus 1985 has always been referred to as the label’s start date. However, this single is where it really started. “Some People” was also released in 1984 on the Voxx/Bomp compilation “Battle of the Garages Vol II”

In its 27th year, the Dionysus Records will forge ahead with “Meet Redondo Beat,” a full-length album by Germany’s pop-rock trio Redondo Beat in January of 2011, “Easy,” the second release by Latin Jazz exotics Orchestra Superstring featuring X’s DJ Bonebrake on vibes in February of 2011,  country and roots combo Ruby Dee and The Snakehandlers‘ “Live from Austin, Texas,” their third full-length release in March of 2011 and another yet-to-be-announced title or two.  For the first time since 1994 I may release a couple of records by bands I play in! Several out of print titles such as The Dils “Dils, Dils Dils” and Gexa X’s “You Goddamn Kids” plus many others will be repressed on vinyl with free digital download codes as well.

Thanks for your continued support. Love to you all!

Lee

The Skip Heller Trio
Saturday Oct 2, 8pm
Live At Rafa’s Lounge
1836 W Sunset Blvd (at Glendale Bl)
Los Angeles, CA 90026
suggested admission: $3

“An American hero flying below the radar.” — Time Out New York

The Skip Heller Trio — featuring Lee Joseph on bass and Mark Borinstein on drums — once again takes the stage at Rafa’s Gallery, a
tiny and charming venue at Sunset and Glendale in Echo Park. Ostensibly a country band, the trio is also colored by a love for 60s garage rock, Philly soul, exotica, and Roger Miller.  The crack rhythm team of Joesph and Borinstein is a perfect match for Heller’s virtuoso jazz-meets-bluegrass guitar and his soulful baritone.  The great Patria Jacobs opens.

Also worth noting about this show: it’s Heller’s birthday party.