The Mouse is in the house

• Promoter's back home but still busy

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Eek-A-Mouse (the stage name of reggae star Ripton Joseph Hylton) changes his singing style to fit whatever is happening in the world, whether it be animation, assassination or falling in and out of love. Eek-A-Mouse At Hands Up! with Quadraphonix 9 p.m.-2 a.m. today Hawaiian Hut $25 general, $20 advance 941-5205 At The Drop with 420, Baba B, Soul Free, Maacho & Cool Connection, Crosspoint 6 p.m.-2 a.m. Saturday Blue Tropix $20 944-0001

More than a quarter-century of recording, global touring and enough years of residency in the suburbs of Irvine to justify an accent heavy on

California mall girl-isms have hardly changed the dancehall godfather's husky Kingston patois. Though his voice is smooth and rich in tone, Mouse's unique re-imagining of English grammatical rules can prove challenging to the unprepared ear.

Take a conversation touching on Mouse's feelings about his music's place among reggae's current crop of dancehall favorites. While a couple of decades removed from the early '80s Jamaican dancehall scene that solidified his reputation as one of the genre's most irreverent and oft-copied toasters, The Mouse — as he is fond of calling himself — hardly feels his career has peaked or that his time has passed.

"I'm Mouse, you know? I'm Mouse, so I can change my style any time," said the former Ripton Joseph Hylton, as if the fact should've been embedded in my mind like so much common sense. "There's different reggae now ... hip-hop, dance, regular reggae. Just like Eek-A-Mouse. I'm also unique, you know?

Different."

Uh, yeah.

The Mouse will be back in Honolulu this weekend for performances at the Hands Up! monthly at Hawaiian Hut and the weekly Blue Tropix party The Drop — both Matty Liu and Hawaiian Hurricane Productions events.

"I was singing when I was a child, yeah," said Mouse, asked about his hand-to-mouth beginnings in Kingston's notorious Trench Town ghetto. "I would sing with my mama. I was singing all the while. Then the kids got interested, and sometimes I would sing them songs. Sometimes there would be little concerts going on in school and I would participate in singing, you know? But I knew I was gonna be a singer soon."

Mouse's diverse list of early musical influences reads like a Magic 8-Ball of the varied styles that would eventually color his inventive lyricism and instrumentation.

"I loved Nat King Cole, Marty Robbins, Cab Calloway, Patsy Cline ... all different singers. Sam Cooke and The Beatles ... and stuff like that," said Mouse, rhapsodically. "And then I came up with my own original style."

That "original style" included elements of "sing-jaying," an early form of toasting (boastful catch phrases, singing and DJ work) mixed with funky vocal gymnastics and effects. Mouse's contribution to the genre was a percussive, nasally vocal style, and a talent for using his voice as a musical instrument that moved The Boston Globe to call him "the Al Jarreau of reggae." Much to his chagrin, Mouse has also often been called the originator of "sing-jaying."

"I don't know why they call me that," said Mouse, chuckling. "Maybe ... it's a good vibe. Maybe a good vibe is what they feel, you know? Using my voice as an instrument ... (it's) just what I do, you know?

"Sometimes, if I'm freestyling lyrics ... I'm thinking about the sound. I say, 'bam-ding-ding' and stuff like that to get the lyrics together."

Over the years, Mouse's core audience has also happily accepted his frequent lyrical switch-ups from half-baked humor ("The Mouse and The Man" is about a Disney World meeting of the minds with Mickey) and pointed social commentary ("Operation Eradication" is about the murder of his friend Errol Scorcher by politically-motivated Jamaican eradication squads).

"That just came natural," said Mouse, of not being pigeon-holed to a sole lyrical style. "I never worried about ... sounding the same because I'm always seeing stuff happen to people. And I'm alive, you know? So I just sing about current stuff happening in the world ... and just make it unique to The Mouse."

And as evidenced by some off-the-cuff long-distance crooning, what seemed to be on The Mouse's mind of late was some serious fascination with amour.

"I've got a song called 'Pretty Girl,'" said Mouse, offering a track from this summer's still untitled followup CD to 2001's "Eeksperience."

He began singing softly and sweetly, "She's a pretty girl. Pretty like a diamond. Pretty like a-gold." After finishing, Mouse shared a few verses from another gently performed love song called "I'll Be Waiting," this one using all manner of weather-related lyrical metaphors as a promise of keeping one's love real.

You in love, Mouse?

"Yeah, you know ... but not really," he said, laughing again. "I go through stuff sometimes, you know? — and I'll sing about it. It's like stress release."

We know.

Promoter's back home but still busy

Besides promotions, Matty Liu's work includes free-lance writing and photography, and voice work for a cartoon series.

He's tried acting, professional surfing, writing, photography and club promotions, and still has his hands in all but one (surfing is more like a daily hobby now). Since returning home last April after a decade in Los Angeles, though, Liu's passion has been throwing parties.

Launched last June as a summer weekly, Liu's intimate Tuesday night Chemistry Lounge parties at Auntie Pasto's Kapahulu still draw a dressy following of workweek night crawlers to its intelligent mix of DJed hip-hop. Together with Turk Cazimero's Hawaiian Hurricane Productions, Liu last month bowed hip-hop weekly The Drop at Blue Tropix, and DJ/live band monthly Hands Up! at the Hawaiian Hut. On the same weekend!

Both events turn a month old this weekend with performances by dancehall maestro Eek-A-Mouse, and a handful of Honolulu musicians including Quadraphonix, Baba B, and Maacho & Cool Connection. Already signed for the May edition of Hands Up! are California ska-punkers Slightly Stoopid and the former Kailua-Kona boys of Pepper.

"With Hands Up! we just wanted to do a monthly party at a really cool venue," Liu said of the final-Friday-of-the-month party. "It's mainly up for whatever we can pull together. It's always going to be a big DJ, hip-hop themed party. But if we can get live bands in ... we're definitely going to go for that, too." Last month's well-attended first edition of Hands Up! featured an exceptional performance by Quadraphonix.

While living in L.A., Liu put together hip-hop-themed parties at clubs like The Sunset Room, H20 Manhattan Beach and On The Rox with former business partner Darren Carroll, while pursuing acting gigs and a wave career on the Professional Surfing Association of America's California circuit. His acting stints have included recurring roles in "The Byrds of Paradise," "Wind on Water," "MTV's Undressed" and the locally lensed 1998 surf flick "In God's Hands."

Besides promotions, Liu's current work gigs include freelance writing and photography assignments for Surfer magazine, and voice work for Nickelodeon's popular "Rocket Power" cartoon series. If you're wondering, he plays Keoni.

"I'm still going to audition here in Hawai'i," Liu said about acting. "But honestly, I really love doing events and promotions, so I'm going to stick with that mainly. Turk and I have a good partnership. I want that to grow, and I want us to bring in huge acts one day. That kind of stuff takes time."