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Group Members: Cale Parks
All Music Guide:
Ohio's experimental rock quartet Aloha consist of guitarist/vocalist Tony Cavallario, bassist Matthew Gengler, multi-instrumentalist/percussionist Eric Koltnow, and drummer Cale Parks. On the group's two Polyvinyl Records releases, 1998's limited-edition 7" and the following year's The Great Communicators, the Interpreters, the Nonbelievers EP, Aloha incorporate jazz and post-rock elements with personal, emotional songwriting, which is mirrored in their intense, often improvised live performances. That's Your Fire marked the band's first full-length album. Released in 2000, That's Your Fire was welcomed by critics and indie cult favorites. Two years later, Koltnow was replaced by drummer/multi-instrumentalist TJ Lipple, and Aloha delved into a heavier soundscape for Sugar. Some Echoes followed in 2006. After releasing the EP Light Works in January 2008, Aloha announced a U.S. tour for spring that same year. By 2010, each of the bandmembers had moved to different cities, but even so, the group continued to pen songs over the Internet before reconvening in Lipple's Silver Sonya studio for Home Acres.
Wikipedia:
Aloha in the Hawaiian language means affection, peace, compassion and mercy. Since the middle of the 19th century, it also has come to be used as an English greeting to say goodbye and hello. Currently, it is mostly used in the sense of hello.
It is also the state nickname of Hawaii, the "Aloha State".
Etymology
The word aloha derives from the Proto-Polynesian root *qarofa, and ultimately from Proto-Polynesian. It has cognates in other Polynesian languages, such as Samoan alofa and Māori aroha, also meaning "love."
A folk etymology claims that it derives from a compound of the Hawaiian words alo meaning "presence", "front", "face", or "share"; and ha, meaning "breath of life" or "essence of life." Although alo does indeed mean "presence" etc., the word for breath is spelled with a macron or kahakoō over the a (hā) whereas the word aloha does not have a long a.
Usage
The use of the word as a greeting has been reconstructed to Proto-Polynesian. Before contact with the West, other words used for greeting included welina and anoai. Today, "aloha kakahiaka" is the phrase for "good morning." "Aloha ʻauinalā" means "good afternoon" and "aloha ahiahi" means "good evening." "Aloha kāakou" is a common form of "welcome to all."
In modern Hawaiʻi, numerous businesses have aloha in their names, with more than 3 pages of listings in the Oʻahu phone book alone.
Trends
Recent trends are popularizing the term elsewhere in the United States. Popular entertainer, Broadway star and Hollywood actress Bette Midler, born in Honolulu, uses the greeting frequently in national appearances. The word was also used frequently in the 1968 and 2010 versions of the hit television drama Hawaii Five-0. In the influential 1982 film comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High the student, and surfer, Jeff Spicolli, Sean Penn, uses the greeting with the eccentric teacher Mr. Hand, Ray Walston, who had earlier made use of the greeting himself. The Aloha Spirit is a major concept in Lilo and Stitch, a Disney series of movies and TV shows, set in Hawaiʻi. The drama series Lost, shot in Hawaiʻi, has a thank you note at the end of the credits saying "We thank the people of Hawaiʻi and their Aloha Spirit". Aloha is a term also used in the Nickelodeon program Rocket Power.
Arguably the most famous historical Hawaiian song, "Aloha ʻOe" was written by the last queen of Hawaii, Liliʻuokalani.
The term inspired the name of the ALOHA Protocol introduced in the 1970s by the University of Hawaii.
In Hawaiʻi someone can be said to have or show aloha in the way they treat others; whether family, friend, neighbor or stranger.
