Sunbum Hawaii

Sunbums Hawaii "Your Guide to Summer Fun Hawaii" (Music and Entertainment News) was a bi-weekly newspaper in the 1970s and that means it came out twice a week. Looking back at it the quality would be like comparing it to Rolling Stones Magazine, but the the Pacific variation. 

John Leonard, JFL, is a historical legendary figure in Hawaii's Music Scene and in the publishing field from his founding and ownership of Sunbums Hawaii. He worked hard to bring some of the biggest names in music to Hawaii from the late 1960s to the 1980s and paved the road for many who would be getting into promotion. He would do many Radio projects over the years with Andy Baker and handled himself well in a gentleman like manner. 

He was also the founder and co-owner of "Records Hawaii". A few of those he brought over was: Janis Joplin, Black Sabbath, Journey, ZZ Top, The Jacksons (with Michael), Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, and Carlos Santana.

The ads were filled with clothes stores like Male Slack's & Jeans as well as airline deals from Hawaiian Airlines and Western Airlines. There were individual ads for DJs, Bands, and all sorts of people as well as Job Postings that showed the wages, hours, and qualifications. 

In the online publication business, it has become a constant battle of tight deadlines and things are always changing, and even for non-news content, the chance to publish relevant articles is fleeting in the post-top chart era. Newspapers and Magazines, however, benefit from extensive planning of those times where it was typical for release every few weeks or months, so Sunbums was considered very-frequent back then. The editorial team can thoughtfully design each issue as a complete package, rather than just a collection of separate pieces, and so the articles inside a collection of papers developed a cohesive theme, or to meticulously balance diverse articles, making each publication uniquely engaging from cover to cover. It has been less engaging, but more relatable and more clicks and less readers.

"1977, just under a year out of the Navy, I was determined to become a political cartoonist. I walked into Sunbums and asked to speak to the publisher. I laid out some samples of my work and asked JFL, “What will you give me for my cartoons?” He smiled and said, “Tell you what, you go downstairs and tell Hank McMonigle to teach you everything he knows.” I said OK, went to Hank and he showed me how to make veloxes in the darkroom. I ended up working at Sunbums, for free, for six months. Essentially an unpaid internship. Got my first byline, first published work as a cartoonist, photographer, illustrator and graphic artist. Six months later I got my first paying job in the industry as a graphic camera operator and paste-up artist" -Blaine Fergerstrom

The early photography from the time show a local history, the Hawaii music scene at the time, and the energy the Pacific had back then. 

The Sunbums Hawaii T-Shirt (Sunbums x Crazy Shirts) was printed by Crazy Shirts with colors in pale-yellow and a white one. The staff could be seen wearing the shirts at the Crater Festivals in the 1970s .

Sunbums Building: 

Pre-Computer Publishing, computers back then seemed like something futuristic and high-tech with only places like NASA using them back then. There was a place called Mid-Pac Printers (Kailua) that did the printing. A Waxer-Machine was used to apply a thin coat of wax of typeset paper and physically set the lines of type by hand or machine as individual strips with text printed on them. The person using this machine was called "The Waxer" and as they placed the adhesive to hold it to the page they were "Pasting Up" as they said. These were used at the newspapers as well.

"Kids these days wouldn't have made it in our shoes, before computers" -Bill McPherson

There was a major printing mistake they did that happened from a well lit photo of Beck that went to be over contrasted and went from nice layers of black and white to almost a complete white and black wash.

"Mid-Pac Printers tried to blame their mistake on me! It was obvious that they considered me as being only a "local Popolo" and showed me no respect for my UCLA-Art Center College of Design, graphics education! They knew that all of us at Sunbums were nothing but a bunch of HIPPIES!!.....and proud of it, by the way!! A-l-o-h-a-a-a-a!!" -Blue Johnson

Jim Linkner (writer)

Kate Hellenbrand (managing editor)

Blue Johnson (graphic designer)

Bill McPherson (editor. 1976-1981)

Chris Leonard

John Berger (writer)

Mary Ann Lynch

Jan Maddox

Hank McMonigle

Tom York

Michael Corcoran

Harvey Roestler

Ross Gaspar

Robert Knight

Mike "Heavy" Palcic

Jackie Leonard

The HIC center (Honolulu International Center) would later become the Neil Blaisdell Center.

1973, Diamond Head Music Festival "Crater Festival"

Hank McMonigle flashing a shaka.

1974, Guess Who band. Steppenwolf played that year too. Aerosmith played and at one point the drummer threw his drumstick into the crowd and landed on Carolyn Boones head and as it hit the floor everyone dove onto her to get the stick. 

1975, HIC Arena: During that year Kenny Loggins and Messina (1975) was playing and Paul McCartney and his wife Linda came to the concert. KISS (1975) the night after the show the band showed up at O'Pehrs jamming with a group called "The Road Show" [members. Trent Downing and more] all night till 3:30am. They had a hydraulic drum riser and it made the drumset levitate up to ten feet in the air at certain points and for that time it was mind blowing. Jeff Beck (Blow by Blow Tour). Alvin Lee and Co came to town with Sugarloaf to open and at the end of the concert a young lady with a lei was on a guy's shoulders and leaned forward to put the lei around Alvin's neck, but it caught Alvin's guitar headstock instead, yanking Alvin's Gibson 335 out of tune and the lights came on and it came to an end. America (America Live in Concert).

The Pit Area, Pre-Rolling Stones Ron Wood and rock star Peter Frampton (Frampton Comes Alive tour) were playing with Rod Stewart in Hawaii. Rod Stewart and his band stayed at the Kahala Hilton, but there was an incident where someone insulted someone, the band trashed their rooms completely. The Hilton from that time wasn't fond of Rock stars.

UH Andrews Amphitheater: JJ Cale played and it was raining with Eggshell Lighting Company (Jay Robert Harmon). 

1976, HIC Arena: The Eagles, Frank Zappa, 

"It was the first time the band played in public without makeup." -Gene Simmons 

In 2013, Sunbums website was started by PF Bentley