aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser
#079: Princess Kaiulani – ‘Alamoana Fade Away’ (Motorway Records ’99)
Hello friends,
well, let’s be honest – this was bound to happen one day: a record I know NOTHING about whatsoever!
Those of you who listened to Peel more or less frequently back then will be able to confirm that some of the stuff he played was of quite some obscurity at times … still great, but nevertheless obscure. But despite of this it doesn’t happen all too often that you don’t find anything at all about the obscure record in question nor about the band on the internet these days – one would think there are at least an additional handful of people on the globe who had approved of it as well.
Not so today! But I always liked this single so much from the moment on I first heard it, it simply had to feature here. On the other hand you might be relieved that you don’t have to bear with my usual debouchery this time, who knows?
So here are the facts:
a) Princess Kaiulani (as pictured above) is correctly spelled Princess Ka’iulani, with an apostrophe, or, for the faultfinders amongst you, Victoria Kawēkiu Kaʻiulani Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Cleghorn.
b) she was Hawaii’s last princess and she died in 1899, aged only 23, after „gleefully galloping through the rain without a coat“ (now, this should teach you not to do the same – alway wear a coat when riding your horse!).
c) she was, and probably still is, famous in Hawaii for standing up against the American annexation of the island.
d) Motorway Records are based – or at least they were in 1999 – in Chiba, Japan.
e) „Ala Moana“ is a huge shopping center and also a hotel in Honolulu.
And that’s it, to be frank, fact fans. Feel free to figure out by yourself what all of this means or may not mean: did the band come from Hawaii, did they come from Japan? No one can tell, for all I know they could have come from the nearby village, the one I look at when staring out of my window right now!
If all of this hasn’t already put you off, listen to the tune: it’s rather hard to describe other than ‘avant-garde’, but still worth a few minutes of your time. Perhaps it even grows on you the way it grew on me, who knows? If so: mission accomplished, I would think!
mp3: Princess Kaiulani – Alamoana Fade Away
Enjoy,
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 