The Making of Poi Dog

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Dunbar Wakayama’s Audio Media recording studio was one of the first places Rap took me when we started dating. It was on the ground floor of a low rise office building on Waimanu Street in the shadow of Ala Moana Center, Ewa side. Producer/concert promoter/radio personality Tom Moffatt (whose record label Rap would later record on) had his offices upstairs – one for his staff, up one floor and Tom’s “penthouse” office on the third level.

But when producer Jon deMello hired Dunbar to engineer Rap’s first solo album, Poi Dog, Audio Media was located in the Gold Bond Building on Ala Moana Boulevard. Dunbar had worked with Rap before, when Rap was a member of the popular comedy group, Booga Booga (which Jon deMello managed), when they recorded a commercial with him and then again for a couple of Booga Booga albums.

This video is built around two interviews I did in 2015 while writing Rap’s bio, Paradise to Paradise: The Rap Reiplinger Story.  I was able to meet with producer and owner of Mountain Apple Records, Jon de Mello on one of my many trips to Hawaii to do research for the book. Jon was generous with his time and we sat down in his studio in Nauru Tower on Ala Moana Boulevard, near where KITV stood when I worked there as a news reporter and anchor in the 80s. Part of my wide-ranging conversation with Jon is included in this video.

But since Dunbar had moved to Utah, an in-person meeting wasn’t possible, so we used either FaceTime or Skype for the interview because practically no one, including me, had even heard of Zoom back then (or Google Meet or Teams or any of the other platforms we use now). To record his interview, we shot my computer screen with a video camera and taped a lavaliere mic near the speaker on my computer. I used this same set up for several other interviews with people from Rap’s life, which I hope to incorporate into future videos. Watch this space!

When we spoke, Dunbar was as personable and friendly as I remembered him and had very detailed memories of working with Rap on Poi Dog. Although, sadly, he did not have any photos of them working together on the album. (Note: back then, we didn’t take pictures of anything and everyone as people do now, probably because we didn’t walk around with a camera at all times as people do now with their phones)

Honolulu-born, internationally renowned ‘ukulele virtuoso, Jake Shimabukuro has said that Rap was “ahead of his time. He used multi-tracking techniques just how we do with our instruments, creating conversations, creating dialogue between himself and himself, or three or four different people talking to each other.  He was just amazing at creating atmosphere.”

That’s one of the approaches Dunbar describes in this video and in a separate audio recording using clips of Poi Dog which I’ll be posting here soon, called “Dunbar’s Treatise.”

Dunbar was impressed at how Rap knew exactly what he wanted and where he wanted to put the different voices he recorded on the seven tracks Dunbar had available.

I’m grateful that I was able to speak with Jon and Dunbar and capture their memories for the book, and especially thankful in Dunbar’s case, as he passed away last year. Their work, foresight and Rap’s talents carry on in the enduring force of Poi Dog (later released in a compilation, Poi Dog With Crabs – which is a combination of Poi Dog and Rap’s second album, Crab Dreams) and in Rap’s Hawaii, Rap’s award-winning television show.*

And for an even more behind the scenes look, like how Jon had to fight naysayers who tried to talk him out of releasing Poi Dog, plus the story of how Poi Dog’s classic album cover came about with a famous rock music photographer behind the lens and much more – get your hands and eyeballs on the book!

And I hope you enjoy this video – The Making of Poi Dog!

Aloha,

Leesa Clark Stone

*Fun factoid – Dunbar said it was his idea to have Rap make the engine sputtering sound at the end of the Mahalo Airlines album cut, which made it into the TV show. Dunbar said that made him proud!