About Me (danno):
Some folks have asked about the path I took to performing like this,
so here are some random mumblings about me and my history...
So... Hello there, I'm Danno, a guitar-playing fellow with fingers
that usually do what they're told, a mostly-reliable
noggin, generally on-key voice, and a strangely persistent
urge to share music and smiles in a "less than refined"
street-busking style ("honky-tonk guitar" anyone?)*.
I can't hit a nail or golf-ball the same way twice, but it seems I
can kinda hold a tune and generally get relevant and recognizable
guitar chords down - in mostly the right order and roughly in
time..., so that's a "feature". While I'm very little like my
performance heroes, I've been lucky enough to recently learn that I
am good enough to get folks smiling, singing,
dancing, crying (in the good way), and generally enjoying my musical
contributions, so ... why not, right?
If you come see me, you'll find that I play a broad mix of
old/new/classic/local stuff that most folks have heard, and I sneak
in some melancholy gems because I like them.
* Of course, this all causes my gracious wife to
wonder about me, but she keeps me around anyway - so far...
What's with "Danno"?
In real life, I'm simply 'Dan', but 'Danno' is a throwback to me
growing up in 'The Islands' (Oahu) and then going to college on the
mainland for photography and computer science. Folks there thought
my migrating from Hawaii to UpState New York was nutz - but I liked
it there! But yeah, "book'm danno" stuck, and you don't get to
choose your nicknames...
So, 'Danno' was recently (re)born when I considered the idea of
performing. I thought I'd help myself get into 'musician mode',
using a new pseudonym and a magic hat to conjure a (semi-)new
persona - hence 'Danno' was (re)born. It's kinda silly, but fun.
Playing Guitar
I've been plunking at the guitar and ukelele since I was a wee lad -
I found an old "buss-up" tenor ukulele near some trash cans on the
way home from school, and with some Elmer's Wood Glue, rubber-bands,
and thick fishing line (100lb test), we were off! "In the Jungle"
was my first song (a-weeem-a-wep a-weeem-a-wep...), and of
name-dropping note, I learned that from watching classmate Casey
Kamaka (of Kamaka Ukelele fame) play it in the halls of St Anns
School with Russel and Randal Tam.
I borrowed my mom's guitar and learned to play lots of stuff,
starting with a cool part of Rush's '2112' album story ('Discovery -
i still love the song) and of course the beggining of 'Stairway to
Heaven'... As time went on, I played for my own purposes, and a bit
in college with dorm-mates and friends, but nothing serious. After
that, I always kept a guitar and ukulele around and would pick it up
and play the old stuff and songs for my kids at bedtime (out of
college now!) , but I didn't do anything new for ~25 years... So,
much as I've loved playing, I never did much with it - always
assuming I'd "get to that later"...
Mid-life Crisis? Busking? Really?
Well... let me tell you... "later" happens much faster
than you'd think, so a few months before my 60th birthday I had some
form of reality-check 'ah-ha' mid(?)-life crisis go off thing in my
head, insisting that I best understand that life ain't gonna wait! (My poor lovely tolerant wife!!! I'm so lucky!!!)
So... I decided I was going to go sing and play my guitar on
the streets of Paia... yeah - busking, somehow, somewhere...
I 'cased' the town and got a few places in my mind to play, talked
to the local Police about sound ordinances and street performance
laws, and started my journey in that direction. I then committed to
the goal of to consolidating and refining my life's scattered
song-learnings, and get at least 100 complete, perform-able
songs - with guitar *and* lyrics - into my brain
before I hit that Big Six-Oh (60). And, man, I am not
a lyrics memorizing guy, so this was a big deal for my
aging cranial mass.
Well, damn if I didn't get about 60 of 'em in there by my
deadline, so that's one-song-per-year! that'll do - so, hey, look at
me go! (and I'm still slowly adding to that list too! I'm always
adding more, trying to get new songs in some form of "up-to-snuff"
and added to the list and into my brain about every two weeks...)
Add to that, I have always been one of those folks who can't walk by
a compelling street musician and not stop... They aren't ever the
same - never predictable! Too Cool! It's like that wonderful
sidewalk chalk art you see in big cities, but with sound. And either
you're there for it, or it's gone! Precious moments.
Busking in Paia
All of this inspiration had somehow converged to expose,
somewhere deep in me, a latent obsession with busking on the
street (a bucket-list kind of thing? Oh, and "what will the
neighbors think?", etc.). But, I just wanted to, no, needed
to... do that... so...
After over a year of learning songs, practicing singing, playing
guitar, and getting used to using a mic and sound system to decent
effect, I was 'ready' to do this... (BTW, you're never ready, you
just gotta go do it!...) at which point I entered the 'avoidance
mode', where I always had an excuse not to go.
With good advice from a friend, and having made enough noise
about doing this 'busking thing', I finally had to
go, so I loaded up my truck and ... I did it - I went out and
played for passers-by on a busy street-corner in Paia, Maui.
Oddly, loading up the truck was the most courageous
part - after that it was just parking, packing, setting up, and
then that last deep breath as I hit the first notes!
It went very well. Folks seemed to like it. It was fun.
I made enough tips to get a beer when I was done, with some extra
to take a home after that... I'm hooked!
Somewheres around the beginning of 2025, I was having a friendly
chat about random things with a friend Daniel, who,
unbeknownst to me, was the Events Coordinator of The
Paia Bay Coffee & Bar Restaurant/Cafe (PBCB). I
mentioned that I had a crazy plan to busk/play on a nearby street
corner in Paia, and he thought that was great, and insisted that
I come play at PBCB during one of their quiet spells, simply
trusting that I was probably good enough for that, if I was willing
to play on the streets! (?)
It may have been that he'd had a few beers at the time, but he was
eventually good to his word and let me play, site-unseen
at the institution he was responsible for... While I didn't think
the risk was that great, it could have been a nightmare as far as he
was concerned... lol! Well, I held him to his invitation, and we
were able to coordinate a good performance time on a Monday morning
in March of 2025, St. Paddy's day, to be exact, and I played
guitar and sang for almost 3 hours, made some new friends, and had a
raging good time. As expected, I learned a lot about
how complicated and involved good (and bad) stage-craft is... I also
made some great friends while singing, and made a few bucks for my
pet Seabury Hall
Chorus "FUN-d" project. How cool is that?!? For as nervous as
I was, I played much better than I expected - pretty well,
it turned out!
So with the blessings of Daniel and PBCB's (co?)owner Sara,
I continued to play on the available Saturday lunch-times for a
couple of months, learning how it all works, refining my
performances and stage presence, and collecting some wonderful
donations for our project.
Update: With the advent of the current football season, the Jazz
Band that usually plays on Sundays is now filling the Saturday
mid-day slot through January. For now, I've let that gig go as I
move on with the practicalities of my life, but I may approach them
again for a quiet afternoon slot sometime, as I really enjoyed their
environment and they always treated me really well.
Baked
On Maui - A chill spot out in the 'country'!
I've since added two more gigs to my monthly schedule via a
long-time friends (and guitar player) Trish and her son
Levi who opened and runs the Baked on Maui Cafe in Haiku.
You can find me there, dodging the Haiku morning mists on the every-other
Saturday (weather-permitting), from 9:30AM to sometime
before their 1PM closing. It's a very relaxed setup, though
occasionally damp, and it's been a great series of sessions
generating smiles and some wonderful customer feedback.
Note that it's an open-air venue for the performer, so weather can
impact reliability... but I do have some protection that I can set
up and duck under if the mists are more than intermittent. If it's
pouring (as it sometimes does in the greens of Haiku), I'll defer to
the next nice(r) Saturday. Please check my schedule
for the latest status (esp. on the morning of, if the skies look
sketchy!).
After playing a small Seabury
Hall Chorus FUN-d-raiser at a recent Milagros
Food Company happy hour, I've been asked to make it a regular
thing, so Wednesdays from 3:30PM to 6-ish (tbd) are
happening (please confirm my presence using my current
schedule)! I would say they've got one of the best
locations on the entire island, the vibe is always
great, and the service has been exceptional for my wife and I, as
regulars there (taquitos appetizer! mmm). Recommended highly, and
look out for me on Wednesday afternoons!
The Future...
Folks smile, clap, sing-along, and occasionally drop a few bucks
- So, yeah, I'm hooked. What fun! And I love the songs I play.
It's a rush when folks sing along, dance, or otherwise indicate
that they really liked something I played. So now I'm always
looking for compatible establishments where I might share my music
and collect a few smiles, beers, and, if I earn a few bucks, icing
on the cake.
I'm also putting together a simple/portable busking 'rig' with
plans to play in an open Paia town courtyard for a few hours each
week, just to add to the town's cool vibe. My best girl isn't sure
that Paia town is 'ready yet' for this new influence, so we'll
have to finesse it a bit and see how it all goes!
It seems clear that, if I'm gonna do this with any regularity, I
need to up my marketing game and generate some 'seriousness'
promos and videos of me playing on the 'socials', and learn how to
collect donations via digital mechanisms like Venmo, Paypal,
Apple-Pay, etc. That means I'll be (re)working on this crude (but
functional) web-site as well. But I'd rather play guitar... So far
I've got the biz-card, some beer-coaster designs, and some video
clips to add to this site, so folks I approach can get a sense of
'my thing', beyond my verbal reassurances that "I can play pretty
well...". It's all going to a good place, I think.
And, I've got about 7000 songs I really want to
play,
but... I'll probably get to learning around 200 of them in
the lifetime I have left... (I'm 63 right now...). I'm realizing
that intimate cafes work well with my melancholy repertoire, but
for the more energetic venues, I really need to kick it up a
notch, and so I'm working on more upbeat songs to round out my
playlist! Not enough hours in a minute!
So that's about it for now! Check my schedule, come see me play a song you like,
and stop by and say "Hi"!
--danno - "You've Heard Verse!"
