If Hawaiian music via New Jersey sounds like a toxic cocktail, mixing rum with olive oil, you're in for a pleasant surprise. Scott Warnasch, Kurt Westphal, and their Mai Tai mob offer a perfect soundtrack to your next backyard luau, equally suited to Atlantic City, Honolulu, and anyplace in between or beyond.

Sort of the East Coast answer to Marin County's Mai Kai Gents, the Brothers' swaying blend of ukuleles, bass, steel guitar, maracas, fiddles, percussion and more will definitely put you in that tropical vacation mood. The colorful tracks include "Hoppin' Hula Holiday", "Full Moon of Hawaii", "Hosin' Down the Devil", "Monkey's Brain", and my favorite, "Action Figure", which takes me back to my own youthful pre-hipster Jersey days.

All of their songs are like little story-poems, too—musical narratives with a message, set to a Hula-Calypso beat. There is also a fair amount of religious imagery, with light-hearted references to Jesus and Satan, so apparently their creative influences are not all of a purely Polynesian pagan nature, though they don't clobber you with any specific dogma.

It's all good, irreverent fun. Dig it—Goomba Tiki Folk Gospel Music…a whole new genre. Now we know why all the wiseguys wear those aloha shirts on The Sopranos. Yo, aloha.

www.hoppinhaole.com

Will "The Thrill" Viharo is a freelance writer, host of the film series “Forbidden Thrills” at Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, and creator of the long running cult movie cabaret “Thrillville.” He lives in Alameda, CA with his wife Monica “Tiki Goddess” Cortes and their two cats. His pulp novels “A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge,” "Chumpy Walnut," and "Down a Dark Alley" are now available at http://stores.lulu.com/willviharo For more please surf over to www.thrillville.net