THE LEFT LANE
Advice for the college bound
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Think of it as high-end guidance counseling. Know a junior-year high school student who could use one-on-one college advising from a professional ... free of charge? College Connections Hawaii, a nonprofit educational charity seeking to improve educational opportunities for Hawai'i students, is offering a full year of individual college advisement to 50 students from low-income families or whose parents did not graduate from college.
Advisers will guide students through college research, college applications, essay writing and scholarship and financial aid applications. Apply online, or through high school guidance counselors — by April 30. Applicants must have a 3.0 or better GPA, and intentions of enrolling at a four-year college. Winners will be selected in May.
Aloha to Amplified
Another Honolulu band departs this weekend to seek fame and fortune on the Mainland. Heavy-rock quartet Amplified will hop a flight for Los Angeles on Saturday to record a single and film a video for its new label, Santa Monica-based indie SOL Records
A tour of California follows in May, with the band recording its first album for Sol in June. Except for occasional visits home for shows and to see family, Amplified plans to be away for at least a year. "The band thanks the people of Hawai'i for supporting local music," said Amplified manager Tim Richardson. "Hawai'i will always be home for these guys." Catch them at the KPOI-FM/Wave Waikiki Sweet Leilani fund-raiser, 9 p.m. Friday at the Wave Waikiki.
Salute to Island divas
"Hawai'i's Women of Song" is the theme of Emme Tomimbang's next "Emme's Island Moments," at 9 p.m. tomorrow (repeating at 4 p.m. Sunday) on KHON-2. Auntie Genoa Keawe, who has kept the Hawaiian music torch burning for decades, is one of the women featured and an inspiration to a new generation of performers.
Auntie Genoa Keawe
Auntie Irmgard Aluli
Others in the spotlight are Na Leo Pilimehana (Nalani Choy, Lehua Heine and Angela Morales), and the late Auntie Irmgard Aluli, whose 1997 interview with Tomimbang will be shown.
Songs that stink
"We Built This City" is the single worst single ever constructed, according to Blender's ranking of reeking tunes. The magazine's list of "The 50 Worst Songs Ever," which hits newsstands nationwide on April 27, distills the lamest popular rock-era records into one sonic landfill.
Starship's 1985 anthem, the runaway No. 1 stinker, "seems to inspire the most virulent feelings of outrage," editor Craig Marks says. "It purports to be anti-commercial but reeks of '80s corporate-rock commercialism."
