It is the final day of Minnesota Week here on Another Flavor and that makes me very sad. To cheer myself up I am writing about a truly upbeat song by the most Minnesotan band in existence: The Hawaii Show. Now, you might think that it is strange that the most Minnesotan band has a different state in their name, but no matter. Check out this line:

“His mom is a slut and his dad is a dude who you always see hanging out at Deja Vu.” Deja Vu is a strip bar in Minneapolis. I looked it up on Yelp and the first review starts like this: “The Vu is the only strip club I have ever been to, and my review might be bias [sic] because I was there with a gang of Norwegian exchange students.” That is extremely Minnesotan. This is from the song “Super Fucked Up” which I will not be writing about.

What I will be writing about is a video from The Hawaii Show’s video called The Hawaii Video. The guy who does all the music for The Hawaii Show used to be in the best Minnesota band so far, Lifter Puller (also called Lftr Pllr, which is awesome). You may know them as the band where the singer and bassist went on to be the singer and guitar player in non-Minnesota band The Hold Steady. The drummer of Lifter Puller became a photographer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone and other publications. The guitar/keyboard player from Lifter Puller started The Hawaii Show. I saw them once at the Weisman Art Museum for an event called “Funk at the Fred”. The Hawaii Show’s live shows were all lip synced. That is core to their performances. At one point the singer bit the head off a stuffed bat and spit fake blood into the audience and some got in my hair. Is that why I’m frequently disappointed by live performances? Probably.

Anyway, the slogan of The Hawaii Show is “It’s not just a headset, it’s a mindset.” I think you’ll see what that means here:

The video looks super washed out, but I’m pretty sure that’s just the way it was made. Maybe the wall behind him wasn’t really white and he was trying to correct for that? He does say in a song not appearing in this video, “That’s right, I’m white. You know, whiter than off-white.” It doesn’t matter. This isn’t technically only a music video. It’s part of a approximately 12 minute long video that includes songs, skit-type stuff (including Mr. Hawaii Dude making a booty call and then promising to arrive in seven-and-a-half minutes), and some other weird things. I’ll be writing about the video for the song Choaderin’ that appears at the beginning of this video.

The video consists primarily of a single man singing and dancing.

He’s a good looking guy, similar in many ways to a Minnesotan Tom Cruise.

The singing and dancing is interspersed with shots of the man doing aerobics in front of an aerobics video that he is clearly not too familiar with.

He keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure he is doing whatever the people in the video are doing.

At the beginning of the song there is a keyboard solo and we get some air keyboard from Mr. Hawaii Dude.

Then the song starts with “Aloha!”

“It’s time to say goodbye.” There’s some really good literal and semi-literal interpretation of the lyrics in this guy’s dancing. I also like that he works aloha in since it is The Hawaii Show.

While singing, he starts looking through his pockets.

This is awesome. What is he looking for? I don’t even care.

That’s not it.

While he does this he gives a real Minnesotan shout-out. The lyrics are, “It’s so easy to get up and go. It’s so easy to choad. I really think so, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. There’s plenty of girls and guys right here in the land of 10,000 booty calls.”

We get some good pantomiming here. “It’s so easy to hit the road.”

He’s really knocking that one out of the park.

Then he gets into it.

“Yo. It’s Friday ladies and yesterday’s gone and tomorrow’s gonna bum you out if you don’t make out today. Do you remember last year when it started to rain and we took cover in the parking garage and dudes with mullets were trying to parallel park next to chicks with heavenly souls?”

Are those the best lyrics every written? Probably in the top 5. Especially if you look at the make-out music genre. He also throws in a reference to Minnesotan sex shop Sexworld.

Now we get a great series of dance moves. We get the action hands.

This is followed by a little kick.

Into some important clothing-related prep work.

And finally the pay off. He has arranged his clothing to properly flow in the breeze while he puts his hands out like Jesus.

That fan is really doing some work.

There is an extended outro that ends with a solid finger point.

“Ladies call me later!”

I’m not sure if I can describe how happy this video makes me. It certainly has done more for me than any major religion or intoxicant. It is ridiculous and funny and catchy and beautiful. It looks homemade (and certainly is) but doesn’t seem to be half done. You couldn’t make a video like this with a big budget. Having a guy prance around in front of a fan is a decidedly lo-fi and lo-brow venture but it really works here. If you watch his face throughout the video he is really trying to be maximally entertaining.

I’m entertained and so should you be. Join me next week when we return to the 49 other states.

-PTD