Greenwood "Pioneers of Hawaii Citypop"
Greenwood is a Hawaii band whose music spans the genres of soul, jazz, rock, latin, funk, pop, disco, and City-pop. They are among the most legendary Hawaii bands of the Hawaii-disco era with a name meaning a forest in foliage, wood, or forest when green. It was the band that took disco and went into rock and then could cover whatever you could imagine. They were a band that would bring the shows to Hawaii’s entertainment venues and took the sound that people were listening to and made it live for the local crowds and drew in the tourists as well. The legacy of their unleashing Hawaii citypop before anywhere else in the United States would be something later on seen as unimaginable, but it happened.
Robin Kimura was born March 8th, 19--, local band, bass player, band-leader, and entertainment coordinator from Honolulu Hawaii. He had grown up townside where Honolulu was relatively rural and the high rises were just starting to come and tourism was changing. Old Hawaii was in full bloom as there were hula dancers, polynesian revues, and entertainers galore and the growing scene was the highschool talent circuit where people would show what they got. In 1967 being brought up in Kaimuki it was a real neighborhood that was always into music and grew up with all sorts of people playing instruments, even when he was in 5th grade back then there was “Wolf-Pack” that was how things started with the music. Dabbling with that was a sort of testing to see what was the feeling of even hearing the music and paying attention to it for fun with the lip synching.
In 1972, Robin Kimura was watching other bands at a really young age and be influenced by them, so at this time he approached classmate Bradley Choi. Robin knew that he played drums in the 7th grade and knew the guy could play, but it was 9th grade, things were different, so he told him that he was making a band. Robin asked Bradley “Hey Brad, do you play any instruments?” Bradley replied, “I played drums in band while I was in the 7th grade.” Robin said, “Good, go by a drum set! You’re our drummer!”, so if Bradley wanted to join the band he would have to go buy a drum set and that was that. They talked to a bunch of friends and asked if they played anything and some said “we play the radio”, so it was sort of annoying, because Robin was serious about this band thing.
Robin and Bradley planned on doing more recruiting and in news writing class Bradley was drawing up concept album covers and that got Robin thinking about things. Robin started envisioning what their band lineup would be based on and that would include the instrumentation that was needed. Robin would do the recruiting in his school at Kaimuki Intermediate School and began recruiting the musicians that would make up the original band that he had in his mind. Robin went to the band room and asked his friends if he could have their first two seats by asking “who is your first two seat trumpet and trombone players?” the trumpet, trombone, and saxes because Robin was creating a Brass Band like Chicago and they did a Rare Earth group that they gravitated towards. The search would continue in recruiting the rest of the members needed, a guitarist (eventually from Kaiser) Keyboardist (from McKinley) and lead vocalist (KCC- Kapiolani Community College).
Year? Warren Cone
“I came in pretty early when Alan Nakamoto and Warren Cone. I came in when Warren was on his way out. Playing music for me was something for do, I got away from bad kine criminal kine friends and I started playing music and it took me away from all that. The kids never have much to do back then, 15th-16th Wilhelmina Rise by Kaimuki. I enjoyed music and it was fun and it was time consuming, and the challenge, and it was a good bunch of kids with a common goal to play music. It was fun and it was comradery, but I liked playing the trumpet.” -Jeremy Gomes
The Music people were those who had something really focused and time consuming, so there was never really time to go to the pool hall, no time to cut class for socializing at Mcdonalds, or going Waialae Bowl to kill time. The practice room was at school and there was a easy place to meet up, which was the school, so it kept people grounded in school if they were into music and it kept people coming to school. When people needed to meet in person they would go and take an elective course in “Study Hall” where the group could practice and take time in the study hall period to write music and the song lyrics down to memorize them. The group would have a process where the group would learn to write 'em out and practice on their own for covers: Chicago, Tower of Power, Santana, Malo, and Stevie Wonder, and Earth Wind & Fire.
Robin had a knack for keeping with the top-charts and connected to what was going on in Music to get people on the dance floor. He wasn’t a DJ, but the sort of awareness he had was a lot like one where he would get into a variety of stuff before it was cool, listen to the hot hits and quickly see what they were doing and break it down about why it was good.
Etymology
The name Greenwood for the band, was derived from a British songwriters name from “Roger Cook & Roger Greenaway”. Deriving from that was “Greenway” and it usually meant a shared use path along a strip of undeveloped land in a rural area. But to the group members it had no real meaning to it and after a while it would be changed as a friend recommended a name based on a definition. The idea morphed from Greenway to Greenwood that was inspired by the Ecology Movement that was in and the name sounded fresh, new, and appealing, so the decision was made. The group easily agreed on it.
Greenwood would be practicing in the portables at Kaimuki Intermediate Portables Classrooms. The group would be jamming and one day a dude showed up. It was Felix Almestica and he asked if he could jam with the group with congas and by the end of that day of practice he was a member. The group would also in the summer practice Robin’s Sophomore year at Kalani High School with Bradley Choi and the brass section.
Underage in Highschool was a challenge with the crew needing to get their parents okay to play in the club. There were these legal wavers the parents had to sign off on and those who were underage couldn't play full time in the clubs where people wanted to dance and they weren’t as interested in the Exotica that was like Space Age Pop, Hawaiian Jazz, and Hawaiian Folk Rock. Plenty of people wanted to party and Disco dancing brought the party or people wanted a Rock party, but that was a different scene.
Highschool Circuit
Greenwood would be recruited by Hawaii Booking Services and begin entering the Highschool Circuits that were run by the Hawaii Social Clubs. The Hawaii Booking Service had different names, because in their business they go off to own the name, so who knows what they did with none of the members of those bands and a different alias. Exotic Five changed to New Experience, Sage changed to Ashberry, Talisman changed to Natural High, and so a lot of bands were a part of it back then. Playing Highschool Circuit you didn't make a ton of money and even night clubs when people thought a band like Greenwood would be going to get all this money and fame and fortune. But it wasn’t the case, the bands, the bigger ones, only the top of the top or the mainland ones brought in money that people could live off of. But the six-night bands would be how you knew they would make more money like the ones working for Spencecliff. Highschool Circuits paid: First band was 50$ an hour. Middle band 80$ hour and a half. More popular band 60$ for one hour at the end.
These Social Clubs would increase interaction between people in schools and encourage them to not stay within their exclusive circle of friends, which happened after socials were looked down upon. People kept it on the down low as people who tended to be into dancing, chatting it up, and looking for the right kind of partner were things associated with it. The events would have advisors (highschoolers), adults to chaperone the kids and protect them from the riff raff. It got to a point where if someone formed a “social club” they would probably would have gotten ridiculed. There were stereotypes as well for people interested in Social Clubs like they would drive Supras, Slinky long dresses with rubber slippers, those who snapped their gum. But for a group people wanted to disassociate themselves with there were an awful lot of them and that is what brought the audience for the bands to go and have a good time. It was obviously a dating track that was welcomed often by relieved parents -that their girls were looking for the “right kine” partner and at least a decent prom date and the same for the boys! Rather than angry parents- their kid was looking for a “foxy kine” partner with bad intentions. The whole point though was for groups of people to show up to “socials”.
At the time Greenwood were probably the third or fourth wave of highschool bands that would be going in to compete with all the other schools around Oahu. In the 70s the group would always follow the senior bands that were popular. But every weekend there would be multiple dances happening and every band's goal would be to make it in the highschool circuit to go and have the chance to move up, because as things got down to the wire things would get better, the voices better and some of these acts would be picked up. Greenwood would be slotted for the middle hour half slot to receive much of the exposure. The senior bands such as Forgotten Dynasty, The Sounds of Innocence, Pinky’s Rose Garden, Caliente’s, Talismen (which later became Natural High), Together, White Light, New Experience (which later on became the Krush), Johnny Rock Society and many more would do the double gigs opening as the first band for the “opening set” hour, then packing up and going elsewhere to finish the night as the third band at that dance for an hour “end set”. Greenwood would be working its way to those sorts of schedules by the end.
Greenwood got started during this time and they started to be the first band to play at one highschool, packed their stuff or gear and went to another highschool to finish up the night as the senior bands once did before them. Toward the end of the highschool circuit Greenwood had graduated to the senior circuit and would be playing up to 3 gigs per night. There wasn’t a highschool they didn’t play with notable locations: Kaimuki High School Gym, Nuuanu YMCA Gym, Aiea High School Cafeteria or Gym, St. Louis High School Gym, Molokai, and Kauai High Senior proms. Just an array of high schools around the island coupled with a few performances at the Ala Moana Lanai Stage. Things were going fast and it would only be a matter of time before they went to nightclubs, because they were doing really good. This is a time when people spend a lot of time with other people. The time would then arrive after graduating to senior positioning in the highschools the group would find itself entering the Nightclub Circuit.
“At first we never had a van, we had my truck and pack whatever in the cars. My mom bought me the truck because then we could take the equipment around. Robin bought the van later on.” -Jeremy Gomes
Band Equipment Challenges
Jeremy was one of the band's equipment-drivers and that was a big deal with all the heavy-equipment, Greenwood had to take the equipment: (1.) out of the house when they performed, (2.) drive it to the gigs themselves and unload it to set it up on stage, (3.) take everything back into the truck from gigs, (4.) drive 'em' home and put it back in the house. He had his vehicle before anyone else with his Pick up Truck, before anyone else could drive, and before the vans. It was in the back of his truck and the trombone player's station wagon. When the group got a van they stored everything in the van, but getting the van was an issue in itself. The group went to the old Aloha Motors when it was pretty barren and Kapiolani Coffee House nearby and the guy there sold the group a bust up delivery van for $500 and that the group spray painted gray. The second van came in and was smaller, bought from the same place for around the same price and for a bunch of kids that was expensive.
“We had two vans full of equipment. Another thing is back in the day too Hammond B3-Organ pounds was really heavy it wasn’t portable at all and designed to be a home unit it took 4 of us or 5. The older places had no elevators and we took it up or down the stairs and we went under it. There were two places with one being Inn of the Six Happiness (chinese restaurant) and the other C’est bon (Nightclub in Pagoda Hotel), we would carry 'em up. I was in Hilo for a week and was working on my moms place over there. I stayed at Naniloa Surf, the small island with the bridge going to it. I saw a group go there and drag a Hammond B3 over there, just 3 years 2021, so the struggle never change, it just goes on.” -Owen Kajiwara
Another place was Victoria Inn in Kaimuki now the spot for 12th Avenue Grill. The stairs going up required us to make a turn since the first half went up one way and the second half the other. We had a difficult time making that turn with four people carrying the organ).
Roosevelt Peeps when Cockroach the Monitors
Playing the circuit had its own challenges as people knew that the group was young, had to already have a ride to get there, and most challenging was affording all the equipment to go on stage. Lead Vocalist Neil Lum Hoy had a small Van at the time and lots of the equipment was in there and in particular two Altec Monitor Speakers that were big and heavy, but he brought it over to the gigs. There was one time at Roosevelt when Greenwood's stuff got ripped off at part of the show where it was between bands and they had to shut the whole thing down. The people who when steal they took cameras, wallets, and whatever they could, so the dance was canceled and cops were all over the place.
“I still remember White Light was playing, we had our stuff in the van. I think we played already and we were watching them, and our van, all our cars got hit. They shut down the dance. I recovered my stuff the next day cause our booking agent called me and said, 'I found some stuff in the bushes, try go back.' They stole our monitors! Kinda heavy, yeah?”
Greenwood went out and Robin went to go look for Neil and he saw him talking to the cops outside with all the lights going off. He asked Neil if they hit his car and he said yeah man, so Robin wondered what they took and he asked about the monitors. Neil responded “they stole my annual pass to sea life park?”, but the band was worried about the equipment. Robin said “who gives a shit, what about our monitors” and Neil responded “yeah they are gone” flash of thoughts of being financially in the hole for two monitors was going through Robin's mind as the band went their separate ways to go home and sleep on it. Robin drove off in his Chevy Nova back home until he was called by a Hawaii Booking Service guy named Blake Nuibe who was driving a Cutlass Supreme the same as the Hawaii Police Department. The robbers saw the car thinking it was police and ran for it, so Blake called Robin telling him “They was in the bushes in the back of the gym with what look like stuff from white light”. It looked like those guys were back to finish the job, so Robin tried to call all the band members but they never like come, so he went himself to go look.
So I went back the next morning—nobody wanted to come with me: 'You wanna come wit me?' 'Uhh I tired...' 'Ah you dicks!' I had to go by myself! I was like, oh shit I hope these guys don't come back! So I'm looking behind the bushes, and on the side of my eye there is something shimmering. There in the tall grass the name plate Altec. I thought, crap, they'll walk up there and get our speakers, they just dumped it cause it was too heavy to carry. I took one in each hand, running down the hill—you know how you get that superhuman strength, right—throw 'em in my car…” -Robin Kimura
The year was going by with summer quickly behind them. It was already into December when the group got their first gig and it was for a social at the YMCA in Kaimuki for $15.00. Then there was the second gig, but the third gig for this unseasoned band would be a challenge with who was playing alongside Greenwood. These would be groups like Glass Candle and Rock Candy that opened up for El Chicano, so it was pretty scary, some of the members were petrified, but the group made it through the evening. When Greenwood first started, the band looked up to Glass Candle, the Dimensions, and the Insights. Those sorts of groups would make a name for the next generation of bands to go into Waikiki. These would be paved by Glass Candle that rode into Waikiki and become part of the sounds of the 1970's club scene that started gaining momentum.
1973, After El Chicano, Owen Kajiwara (guitar and vocals) a highschool graduate was invited by Greenwood who was established at this point to a practice and after the practice he was part of the band.
1972, Arnold Agena (Michael Nakamitsu) Original Keyboardist
Robert Nakano (Diamond head video. keyboards) he tried out for the band.
1979, Curtis Takahama,
In 1975, the recruiting really never stopped and there would be people who would join for a bit and leave, so this included groups that would be looking to join in or getting people from groups that left.
Together (Music Group)
One of these groups would be a group called “Together” that was managed by Wilbert Koelkebeck with three others Michael Chock (trombone,vocalist), Bruce (keyboard) and Warren Furuya (vocalist) all would go on to join Greenwood. The group Together
Not having anything going on a lot of kids don't think about it, a lot of times they never even think about anything too much, because they have the feeling that they don’t care. It is a good thing that some members actually thought a lot about it like Robin, because when it came to the gigs many of the group didn’t care about the pace, how heavy the stuff was, they just don't think about it. So this is sort of an experience many youth share and looking back maybe there are times to care, but a lot can be done by just struggling.
The Original Logo was made by Warren Furuya. He was the Lead Vocalist playing from Mushroom and Spencecliff offnights. He took the Chicago logo and adapted that sort of graphic style and fit in colors and the shapes and he graduated from highschool and worked for Eagle distributors the Budweiser guys they had their own art department and he was a graphic designer. By hand they use to have to paint the trucks, do all the promotional posters, never have digital printing, all the graphics on panel trucks are printed on a digital machine, but back then had to paint everything by hand. He hand painted a Greenwood logo on a White Van on the manager's van and back in the day with instruments all the instruments never had gig bags which were soft-cases. All hard-cases for the brass and guitars and bass. He did the logo Warren did on the Precision Hard Case on it and painted the greed wood on what we call Trap-cases, the hardware for the drums and all the percussion instruments and side instruments. Greenwood on the Conga-cases.
Dwayne Higa
ask Dwayne Higa (keyboard) about the struggle of moving things back and forth.
Coke and acid were the heavy back then, but everyone was smoking weed.
Wayne Nakamura
Wayne Nakamura (sax player) the original sax player for the group. He would be the guy keeping a lot of memorabilia and at the events he would set up boards with old articles, news clippings, and he kept the “Youth Unlimited” that was a newspaper for the teen scene in the 1970’s.
Stepping Stone before Waikiki
Greenwood, Waikiki, the group performing regularly at “The Magic Mushroom” located in the Gold Bond Building following in the footsteps of bands such as Natural High, The New Experience/Krush, White Light, and Ashberry (formerly Sage) to name a few. Greenwood made their mark in Waikiki by being the premiere off-night band with a full time schedule. At the height of their run, their weekly schedule looked something like this. Sunday’s at the C’est Ci Bon, Monday’s at the Hula Hut, Tuesday’s at the Tiki Wednesday’s at the Waikiki Beef N’ Grog with Friday and Saturday’s gigging on Kauai or Maui. At one point a local publication Sun Bums and its writer John Berger, appropriately named Greenwood “army on the move” due to their green uniforms, the nine-man lineup and rigorous schedule night after night.
The Disco Scene
Spencecliff was known as a Premier House of Entertainers where if people made it to the top of being in demand they would be playing there and if they were lucky they were the resident band. The top places to be playing at would consist primarily of the Hawaiian Hut, Hula Hut, Tiki Broiler, and Waikiki Beef N’ Grog. The other places that people would be performing were all over. Greenwood was the off-night band on Monday’s for Natural High at the Hula Hut. The Tiki Broiler was a spot for many years thanks to the Dimensions and Greenwood would play the off-nights on Tuesdays while White Light was the resident group. On Wednesdays, Greenwood would be the off-night band at the Waikiki Beef N’ Grog. Regular bands would be there all the time and nicknamed resident bands as they were residents of the place, so when they would take one night off that is when Greenwood would come in. The way they did things was instead of becoming a full-time band at one place they did the exact opposite because we played full-time off-nights at a bunch of places and it was great exposure.
“Live Disco at the Hula Hut! Greenwood sets a feverish pace every weekend at the Hula Hut. Dance to pop, disco, swing disco, and rhythm and blues disco. Dazzling arrangements and the power sounds, go disco, with Greenwood!” -Hula Hut, Spencecliff Archives
Jeremy Gomes was known as the “Portagee Flash” the story behind he was lively and entertaining with all this movement on stage. Being very animated made him bring a lot of attention to himself and the crowd would just love it in the way he played and did things. It automatically came to the group the words portagee flash where it draws attention to a flash of lightning. Warren would continue working on the graphics and painted Portagee Flash on Jeremy’s Trumpet case hand painted on a hard case.
Greenwood also found success on the neighbor islands of Kauai, touted as Kauai’s favorite band with monthly gigs at the Kauai Resort showroom. They then moved on to Maui and played at Kauai Resort’s sister hotel the Maui Beach and broke attendance records there. Playing on the neighbor islands through several successful New Year’s Eve celebrations, both hotels began vying for Greenwood to play on conflicting weekends. Maui eventually won out as Greenwood felt a need for a change in venue.
1978, Greenwood on the off nights at The Point After and that was the place to be where people would be seen, because you never know who would show up to those live shows that musicians would perform. There were the sounds and the lights with that floor, everything was happening, it was a happening place. It was all live music back then and not piped-in music wasn’t dominating just yet at this point. You could go into a live club for two hours, get up and go to another one and see another band, then from there you could walk the strip and go into five different clubs on that strip and see five different bands playing funky music all in their versions. The cool thing about the entertainment acts knowing each other as they were going on stage while another got off and hung at the same places people would be rooting for one another. Everyone kind of knew each other right, so when concerts were in town these musicians would visit the clubs and one night when the group was playing and Tower of Power walked in, Steven Stills walked in, or it would be Tom Jones walking in. During one off-night at the Point, Tom Jones stayed the whole night and took the time to stop to tell Greenwood he enjoyed listening to them for the evening – what a classy guy he was!
Edward McGee, lead vocalist for TOP and Rocco Prestia, bassist from TOP did jam with Greenwood along with members of Hiroshima, Jimmy Borges and Tony Compton.
The Greenwood logo
2010, he was doing all of our banners for the 70s nightclub reunion at that time and when we did our first album lost in paradise we had a cd release party and he made the banner for that a Greenwood one and at that time he updated it a little bit. (Call Warren)
1983, Forest in Leaf Records, Warren Furuya also designed the Record Label logo after the definition of greenwood.
He designed the album 2 cover Music Book and designed album 3
Story about the Greenwood Logo,
Art Director
“Warren Furuya, he logo was created by our vocalist Warren Furuya!” -Owen Kajiwara
The Music in Waikiki back then was all about rolling into the Dance music and the Dance scene and it was all about that Dancing where people would be moving and walking and going all over the place in person. Greenwood had a guitar, drummer, a four man horn section, two lead vocalists, and keyboards. Disco instrumentally wasn’t enough to keep people interested and dancing was taking a turn from dancing with someone to dancing by yourself as popping and locking slowly but surely showed disco the way out with couples and such. The songs didn’t keep the musicians into it because Disco was only happening for the keyboardist. Being the keyboardist they were like the star and they had all the good lines they had all the moving parts in the song and it has to be looked at in contrast to the rest of the band playing. The drums were one beat, the bass was monotone, and the guitar was a simple rhythm with minimal chord changes. But people were linked to the beat because it was designed for dancing. So understanding that “Touch dancing”, if you're a musician, there's not much variety.
“I was more into Jazz and Fusion and I missed a bunch of the Rock years, because I was just listening to fusion, but I missed out. Anything instrumental. I was playing every week so I couldn't.” -Owen Kajiwara
1981, the Band Broke Up played for nine years and broke up unofficially. They took it to the club level and never did record. It was a rough decision for the group because things were so busy.
It was a grind, Mike, Robin, Dwayne, and Miles who were in college Owen and Curt were working full time and it turned into a light schedule, to a moderate schedule, to a heavy schedule. So while they went to UH, they were gigging for 5 hours till 10:30 pm-3:30am and breakdown the set up and go home and by the time you hit the bed only 45 minutes of sleep, before it would be time to go work till the after noon and sleep before the gig. Some members decided to carry on thereafter.
“Kamasami Kong a really dear friend is the one who introduced us to Tatsuro Yamashita” -Robin Kimura
1984, about three years after the band broke up Robin decided to get core members of the band back together and he said why don’t we go back into the studio and record something and “Sparkle” stood out. That signature City-Pop guitar riff from Father of City Pop Tatsurō Yamashita album “For You” (1982) just grabbed Robin’s attention from the sound of it. Tatsurō had many songs that were not all that great upon release, but he was known for pioneering the city pop style of music. The story is that DJ Kamasami Kong found an interest in the hooks and the beats of Citypop and would be credited as the person who brought Hawaii the genre of City Pop that people would play and form a micro-genre in the islands for those who heard a translated version of the song “Sparkle”. The song was recorded on a group called “Greenwoods” side B in 1984 where people in Japanese music circles called it Hawaiian City Pop and thus it is how it got its name. Greenwood would agree that doing it would be going for it, because they wanted to, before the group would end it all they would at least get a recording to look back on.
“Musically if we put english lyrics people wouldn’t know its a Japanese song, so we took a song called sparkle. At that time my girlfriend was bi-lingual and I rewrote the translation into lyrical form to fit the melodic melodies of the song. So we said, 'OK, let's do a 45, and then maybe we can do an album.” -Robin Kimura
Sparkle died most likely due to the communication and cultural differences of international business with the Japanese; it wasn't like how people did business in Hawaii. In a pre-internet world it was really hard to communicate, not to mention expensive for every minute to talk to a person would cost someone lots of money through calling cards! just to communicate with someone in Japan you would have to type something from a typewriter in english and mail it off and hope that it went to the right place and hope they could translate it into the Japanese language. 3 weeks later hoping you're going to get a letter back. There Robin was left hoping to get a letter back and nothing, nothing happened, so… the group… forgot about it… they were planning it for the launch of an LP, but they didn’t do anything.
The group would break up this time was official
2005, Greenwood Reunited
When the group got back together it was much different with the full-time jobs being not music and the full families and all the extra responsibility was much more to carry on their shoulders than their younger years. Greenwood members would agree that after nine years of playing together that it would be really easy to get into a routine with how comfortable, familiar, and fun they were having, so they made it a point to make it a reunion utilizing the lineup they had at the Point After plus their original drummer, but it was supposed to be a “one shot event”, however little did they know it was going to last 14 years. It was healthy to pick up those instruments, rejuvenating to the spirit, it was a dose of goodness the group needed as there was all sorts of things the members by this time were going on in their personal lives. Losing parents, family members, friends, recognizable names in the obituary, and pushing all that on the side for just a moment the group thought about a cd.
Everyone was still in touch with one another all those years, so they knew what each other were into. And they would talk about the songs they were listening to and everyone pretty much had different stuff. A couple members were listening to international stuff from Japan and they thought that the songs were pretty cool and even were surprised by it in a good way. A lot of people didn't know about those sorts of songs, so the group thought it might be a neat angle. Lots of the frequencies got lost when it got translated into vinyl and it didn’t turn out the way the group wanted it to, but they never really went out to the record stores and it ended up with each member's homes with about 1000 copies made.
“Let's do a CD. Doesn't matter if it sells or not. We have a concept for it, the angle we want to take is—we're not into originals, we wrote a bunch of 'em but what we wanted to do was—you know, what the 70s Night Club Reunion showed us was that truly, that period of time with Hawaiian entertainment, contemporary entertainment was very special. It was at its height, you know?” -Robin Kimura
2009, DJ Muro, Sparkles second life, 24 years later, now the world wide web is in this time… an E-mail happened and there is a guy from Japan who owns an oldies record shop and vinyl was making a comeback. The small oldies record shop in Japan heard it and they wanted more records and asked if Greenwood had the sparkle record, so Robin looked for the 1000 45’s sold for 3-5$, but only 80 was left, and it was selling online for 200$ a piece. Robin was wondering what in the world was happening as one after another and another would be requesting the record. The group would need to repress the vinyl and then they would go back in to digitize it and that is how Sparkle was meant to be from the intention that Greenwood would have to instill their essence into the CD “Lost in Paradise”. When Greenwood was getting all these calls from these record shops in Japan they had no idea we were on the CD Hawaii Breaks.
“A good friend of mine who helped me record Sparkle said it's because of this they are playing it in the clubs and Robin said “What?” that gave us our second life for a song that we recorded in 1984 it went nowhere. DJ Muro included the song on his CD mix “Hawaiian Breaks” and when people heard it the song was in clubs.” -Robin Kimura
Meanwhile in Japan people were nodding their heads to the old school feel of showa era jams that reminded them of the good times and the vibes from the english version was just a plus. The music origins were known and about how it started from trips to Hawaii and that really got people talking as well. The group was considered the best of “Hawaii Citypop” by the Japanese who were familiar with the sounds who were visiting the clubs. When Sparkle was on an LP the english version of Sparkle was a hit in Japan. The strings came out very clear and to many fans it enhanced the listening experience, there were even parts that some considered better than the original and with the vocals. Greenwood was simply amazing to people around the world who came upon the search for the original version.
“I can’t figure it out, i just can't figure it out this record absolutely did nothing and it was a crappy recording it isn't mixed right it wasn't pressed right and it was crappy. We had no idea what was going on and I forgot about it and then this record shop chain contacts us and two of em and they want copies and I said i don't got em. I find this vinyl record pressing company California Rainbow Records and I had the two inch tape and the final mixed song copy and it wasn’t from our master” -Robin Kimura
The Japan guy had said to just send the original 45 and they printed 800 copies and they took the whole lot. Robin didn't know what was going on and the guy in Japan who helped us with the recording said DJ Muro made a compilation CD called Hawaiian Breaks and you're on it, Sparkle is in there, Robin said he didn't get it. He said they were playing it in the clubs and Robin said “We have to finish this album” and we have to remaster this thing into what it should sound like. We put out a CD and it went to this Disc Union in Japan with 50 stores and they asked if were going to press a LP and we did 500 and they took everything and it took 6 months to press it because everything is backlogged and we printed another 45 and here we are together. He must have sold all of them because they kept on asking for more.
“I could never imagine in my wildest dreams, I could have never imagined where it is going now.” -Robin Kimura
Chantal Weaver from Spencecliff Corporation had held its first Spencecliff Reunion and got in contact with Greenwood to perform. Going back on stage and the stage that the group was trying to get on for a long time, the Hawaiian Hut stage that was part of the Ala Moana Hotel. This showroom had some premier marque bands performing there to include Phase VII, The Manila Machine and Sound Barrier to name a few. Greenwood never got to perform there until the reunion event and it was surreal to the members of Greenwood… a moment to finally play on stage where so many great bands performed.
“I believe I saw their pic in the Eat Beat magazine. Michael Chock was my CPA as well. A BIG MAHALO to all of them for such a marvelous performance!!! Everyone loved those guys and I'm sure they knew it too!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for everyone!“ -Chantal Weaver
2011, As the group begins to get rediscovered by DJs the song has been played more and more with places like “Aloha Got Soul” getting more people into the song. The song itself had really brought over a sound that people who never got to hear that sound in its time get to hear it in a time where there is a platform to show everybody that Hawaii had good Citypop and it was official with the legend himself Tatsurō Yamashita who would end up marrying equally as legendary Mariya Takeuchi. Robin would be playing with Royal Kunio Street Band “RKSB”.
2015, Greenwood with their background helped bridge the gap between Japan and Hawaii just like how Kamasami Kong was doing in Japan as well. And the inclusion in Kamasami Kong's compilation CD Pacific Oasis.
“Hi everyone! And Aloooooha!!! I am… Kamasami Kong! Welcome in.. to our program, called… the Pacific Oasis!!! This program is going to be a little bit like… a time machine! When we go back to the 80s and play some of the best hits.. Of that era. Starting with this monster! By Greenwood “Sparkle”. Oh yeah, those are my buddies from Hawaii covering Tatsuro Yamashita’s song “Sparkle” and it's on their cd called “Lost in Paradise” with lots…of…feel good…music!” -Kamasami Kong
Later during our 14 year 70’s Nightclub Reunion run, these notable recording artists joined us on stage.
2016 – John Gilleran - guitarist for the band JAMESTOWN MASSACRE who has a huge hit SUMMER SUN in 1972.
2017 – Richard Bean - songwriter, vocalist and founding member of the band MALO. He wrote and sang on their biggest hit SUAVECITO.
2018- Peter Rivera (Hoorelbeke) – Lead Vocalist and Drummer for the band RARE EARTH. The only Motown signed “white act” with multi-platinum and gold record awards, Five Billboard Top 20 hits with three in the Top 10
2019 – Brent Carter – Lead Vocalist for the Average Hite Band and Tower of Power
2018, The Citypop Phenomena, Mariya Takeuchi was relatively unknown to the western world and the one day the YouTube algorithm had on just about everyone's suggestion was “Plastic Love”. It was uploaded by a user by the name Plastic Lover and it was taken down by copyright strike from Alan Levenson who took down the song for the image at 18 million views. RCA shot out of a van on Hollywood boulevard for that sort of California feel and they didn’t have money for a photographer, so Levenson took the photo to be the face of City Pop in 2018. It was a gateway to 1980 Japan to a world of music they never knew existed where they would search about the artist that would turn them to connect them to her husband Tatsurō Yamashita “The King of City Pop”. For those seeking out all the variations that were being uploaded online they would end up finding out there was an english version of the song on CD where people would use it as the basis for translation of english citypop and singing covers as an example to follow by. This would create the mystery question of who was “Greenwood” and being part of the legacy of being Pioneers of Hawaii Citypop.
All across the internet Greenwood would be having the song “Sparkle” having them exploding in the City Pop music scene ever since people discovered their connection to the album “For You” and the cult following of albums: Spacy, Go Ahead!, Ride on Time, and more. There would be online discussions talking about people's wish lists for the band to cover with songs coming up like: Silent Screamer, Magic Ways, Love Talkin’ (Honey it’s you), Morning Glory, Love Space, Ride on Time, Itsuka (Someday), Only With You, Music Book, and Magic Ways as the most wished for. The people who heard the official cover of sparkle said they could feel the raw emotion from the singing and the melody resonated with them at a profound level that truly touched their heart. It was tightly played notes that captured the essence of an era and brought the familiar song in a brand new light a green light.
2019, Greenwood was making all sorts of playlists and the branding was just great with everyone knowing who they were in Japan. To put it into perspective “Sparkle” was on the McDonald's Japan playlist, the huge store Japan Tokyu Hands was playing “Summer Sun”, and the Uniqlo in Hawaii, it was playing everywhere.
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