Honolulu's night scene has never looked brighter
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
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| Wave Waikiki's Glitter N Glamour Dancers are an all-male quintet whose performance elevates the event's general outrageousness.
Photos by Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser |
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| The Glitter N Glamour events are themed. Those dressing for last month's '80s-themed event sported hair bows, Adidas track suits, skinny belts, ties, bangles, mousse and Drakkar Noir aftershave. |
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| Co-hostess Cheryl Bunag dances the night away at the Glitter N Glamour Experience. Yes, she's wearing a Pat Benatar top. |
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| B-boy master Michael Terrell entertains the crowd — '80s style — at Wave Wakiki's Glitter N Glamour Experience. |
The occasion was last month's '80s-themed Glitter N Glamour Experience at Wave Waikiki. And Pascalis wasn't the real name of the terminally excitable guy who I first noticed grooving solo and quite originally on the dancefloor to Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield." (Such information as his actual name, he said with a cocked eyebrow, would be of little significance to the story I was writing anyway.)
Pascalis, however, insisted that he was a consistent GNG patron, and could clue me in on exactly what made the monthly addendum to Wave Waikiki's Pussycat Lounge the early a.m. weeknight success story it has been for 10 months.
"The Wave is the culmination of the highest and lowest," said Pascalis, after grandly ordering up Vanilla Bacardi and Cokes. "And the epitome of that combination is Glitter N Glamour."
He paused, scanning the room and its largely '80s-garbed clientele from our stools at the downstairs bar. Before us, enough of the best and worst of '80s fashion to make me feel like the requisite straight-laced and dorky Anthony Michael Hall character in a John Hughes flick.
For starters, think acid-washed jeans, Adidas track suits, checkerboard Vans, Kangol caps, skinny belts and ties, bangle bracelets, barettes with ribbons, and
multicolored leg warmers. There were Madonna wannabes, punk rockers, metal boys and New Romantics. Bi-level haircuts and Mohawks weren't represented nearly enough, but a smattering of asymmetrical cuts and enough sculpting mousse for a "Valley Girl" sequel were.
Not surprisingly (given the era's noted fashion extremes), the dress was mostly early-'80s inspired. None of the women present chose Laura Ashley or one of those gargantuan hair bows Debbie Gibson sported in her "Foolish Beat" video circa 1988, but I swear some guy whizzed by me reeking of Drakkar Noir.
"Glitter N Glamour is the best thing that The Wave has ever done," said Pascalis, confidently. "Here before us you have saints and sinners ... divas and doo-doo."
Divas, dress-up and drag
The idea for Glitter N Glamour happened over lunch at Hula Dogs last spring.
"It was actually Matty's idea," said Flash Hansen, chilling at an Internet cafe across from Wave Waikiki with GNG partner Matt Hazelgrove a week after Pascalis' talk of good guys and poo. "I think one of the things Matty wanted was a dress-up party. I think we're both drag queens at heart. When we go out, we like to dress up and have fun. We wanted the night to be an excuse for that."
Said Hazelgrove: "It was a mesh of a lot of things. I had an idea. Then Flash threw in an idea. And we just gelled it all together."
Hazelgrove was, and still is, an independent event promoter; Hansen was, and still is, Wave Waikiki's promotions director and independent promoter of the club's 5-year-old Pussycat Lounge. Hansen liked Hazelgrove's idea so much, he decided to toss it into his Tuesday-night Pussycat Lounge mix as a monthly special event.
"That kind of ensured that we wouldn't lose any money on it, because Pussycat already had a built-in crowd," said Hansen. "I thought it would also help make an already good night better. Plus, it was just a good fit for Pussycat."
The first edition of Glitter N Glamour Experience dropped last June. Also part of GNG's mix — per Hansen and Hazelgrove — were free makeovers, free massages, an art expo and, for the first four months, a variety of guest DJs from the Mainland.
But back to playing dress-up.
"What we try to tell everybody is to dress up creatively and artistically in a way that you would never feel comfortable at another club," said Hazelgrove. "We wanted the night to be an outlet for self-expression through hair, fashion, makeup, art and music."
'Thriller' girls
"What are you supposed to be?" asked a woman sporting a mix of fashions that looked part Madonna, part Stacy Q.
My closet long expunged of anything '80s, I was sporting a Harvard T-shirt, loose jeans and Doc Martens. My thought: I never went to Harvard, but I was in college during the '80s. Ha ha ha. Hardly impressed, Madonna Q smiled and bolted to dance solo to Magazine 60's "Don Quichotte."
"Did I mention the women here?" asked Pascalis excitedly, returning to his stool. Just five minutes earlier, he had disappeared into the stage-front crowd screaming, "Yeah!" when a collection of female dancers in zombie garb commenced an impressively choreographed routine to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."
He grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed me in the direction of another group of females. "The women here are like the icing on the cake!"
By that point, I had to ask: Dude, are you, like, always this on?
"I've taken my Up Time, my Excedrin. I've had my workout today, and, of course, there's my booze," said Pascalis, before grinning wide and shouting, "Ahhhhhh!" for no apparent reason.
After that, he thoughtfully introduced me to every woman who walked by. Oddly enough, most seemed to know him.
Got theme?
Hansen and Hazelgrove tweaked the GNG formula over the event's first few months, removing what wasn't working from the mix. Guest DJs from the Mainland were the first, and most noteworthy, of these to go.
"What we found after about four months was that not only was the idea not financially feasible, but people really didn't care who the DJ was," said Hansen. "People were coming just for the party. It was becoming more about Glitter N Glamour and not about having DJ so-and-so there."
The recent addition of live entertainment to GNG (á la University of Hawai'i dance instructor Corina Brillon's dance students doing "Thriller") was born out of the duo's decision to assign a theme to each party.
"A lot of people had a hard time in the beginning with how they were supposed to dress for this," said Hansen. "How do you dress glitter and glamour? We thought it was pretty self-explanatory. But people needed ... a little sound-bite version of what that was."
Said Hazelgrove: "We thought ... if we did themes, then maybe it would help put people in the right direction."
The first of these, last November, featured a '60s theme. After a December GNG New Year's party at the W came a '70s-themed January GNG. Last month's '80s GNG was the first where Hansen and Hazelgrove inserted several blocks of live entertainment into the evening.
In-house, over the top
"CoCo Chandelier ... get your sweet tight @#* to the DJ booth," announced someone over Wave Waikiki's sound system.
An obscure Vanity 6 funk track beckoned the famed Honolulu drag artist's House of Chandelier on stage for a hilarious performance that mixed everything from a salacious phone conversation to simulated intercourse with a stuffed lion to a catfight climax.
Later in the evening, "The Glitter N Glamour Dancers" (an all-male revue made up of Hansen, Hazelgrove and some friends) did an aerobic workout to 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny." Dressed in '80s female gym gear (headbands, day-glo Spandex tights, leg warmers) with big wigs and hairy armpits, Hansen and Hazelgrove seemed comfortably in their element. The crowd, no surprise, loved it.
"Don't you think 'Physical' would've been a better choice?" asked Ashley Kinoshita (uh-huh, her real name).
Perhaps, I replied. But "Physical," hilarious and hopelessly dated in its own right, would've likely cut in on the routine's own inherent humor.
"I guess," she said, grimacing, before asking "Did you actually go to Harvard?"
Guilty pleasures
"We were the Village People last month," said Hazelgrove, about the GNG Dancers' January debut with "Y.M.C.A." "I was the construction worker." Hansen, in case you're wondering, was the policeman.
"The choreography wasn't complicated, and we learned it in a half an hour," said Hansen. "We got the Village People outfits (except for the Indian's headdress) at Savers, no problem. It was fun. And people just went nuts. After we were done, we were, like, "$&#@, we're on to something here. We need to do this again next time."
Their formula paying off with GNG attendance eclipsing even Pussycat's enviable weeknight door counts, Hansen and Hazelgrove said the Tuesday-night faithful should expect more themed nights and live entertainment in the months ahead. Country-western and '50s themed GNGs are already in the offing.
"And we already know what our next Glitter N Glamour is gonna be," said Hansen, a wicked grin on his face. "April 15 is 'Bootylicious!' It's all booty music."
A whole night of Quad City DJs, 69 Boyz, Freaknasty and 95 South certainly sounded like the formula for yet another blissed-out GNG. Still, I had to ask the Glitter Twins what prompted their decision.
"Like the '80s, I think booty music is a guilty pleasure," said Hansen. "I also think it's a very palatable genre of music to everybody. I mean, whether you're a tourist walking in or a jaded clubgoer, it's hard not to smile if "Big Booty Ho's" comes on, you know?
Actually, the song is called "Hoochie Mama, but why quibble.
"And honestly, we were thinking it'd be real easy for the Glitter N Glamour Dancers to do one of our performances to a booty song."
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Pussycat Lounge turns 5 years old
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"I'm pretty surprised," said Hansen, laughing. "Did I tell you that on the third anniversary?"
Yeah, ya did, Flash. And no surprise, Hansen will throw down another huge party at Pussycat's longtime Wave Waikiki home to celebrate it all.
Headlining the March 25 fifth anniversary celebration of all things Pussycat will be Hawai'i-raised Superstar DJ Keoki — one of the most mainstream-famous trance and house DJs to emerge from the New York club scene in the 1990s. Hansen is also trying to gather most, if not all, of the DJs who have done residencies during Pussycat's first half-decade for some turntable time.
Pussycat got its start in March 1998 after Hansen and several business partners shuttered a decently-attended, but cash-poor nightclub/lounge experiment at 1739 Kalakaua. Hansen brought his 1739 ethos to Wave Waikiki and his clientele followed.
"(We) get a lot of club people ... a lot of professionals, I call them," said Hansen, about Pussycat's devoted flock of regulars. "These are the kind of people who are willing to dress up on a Tuesday night to go out and party. We also get a lot of the other club promoters and DJs ... a lot of people on the scene where this is all fun to them."
Add to the mix nightclub and restaurant industry workers just off their evening shifts, exotic dancers, and folks for whom a Wednesday morning in the office is about as foreign as "Y Tu Mama También" and is it any wonder that Pussycat's crowd peaks only after 2 a.m.?
"The Pussycat Lounge has a lot of the same people week in and week out," said Hansen. "And I think that's what makes any weekly or any party a success ... those repeat customers. Most of those people get in for free, but thank God for those people. They're the ones who have been supporting me from day one."
With Pussycat on an upswing after a year of post-9/11 doldrums that affected much of the city's afterhours scene, "I've been really refocusing on Pussycat a lot lately ... doing more big events as opposed to just ... opening the doors every week."
Last week's Pussycat featured Cali-based rock, funk, blues and acid jazz outfit ALO; this week's will host L.A. hip-hop collective B-Side featuring Moleman and Gershwin BLX. And for Pussycat's birthday bash?
"I'm working on getting as much as I can out of the night," said Hansen. "It doesn't seem like a night where I'm gonna make money because the party is going to be so expensive, so I just want to do what I can to make it a really wild night."
— Derek Paiva
