ONETOTHE4THPOWER: Press

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Aug 02 2006
CD release is
"Like A Dream"
By Leta Currie Marshall

It's simple, really: ONETOTHE4THPOWER = 1.

ONETOTHE4THPOWER equals one band of four musical friends who maintain a close bond across time, distance, and life's changes.

Lane Langford lives on Lopez; his friends Byl Leonard, Randy Yamabe, and Gregg Soleta are scattered across the Hawaiian islands. They've just released their first CD of original songs, Like A Dream. The tunes, categorized as acoustic rock, have a refreshing variety.

Byl, Gregg, and Randy made music together as teenagers on a nylon-string guitar, bongos, and a guitar with only four strings used as a bass. When Byl's girlfriend was a student at Whittier College, near L.A., she saw Lane playing his guitar on the quad and told Byl she thought the two should meet.

Byl knocked at Lane's door, guitar in hand. The two hit it off immediately and began writing songs and performing together, working side by side in a hospital kitchen to support themselves.

Randy and Gregg soon joined them, and the group played for five years around southern California.

Byl said the competition in L.A. was "incredible," and in rehearsing six to eight hours a day, the guys grew very close.

"We were always devoted to the music," he said. "Maybe that sounds weird, but it's a non-ego thing. We split everything exactly even, four ways."

In the late 1970s, the Hawaiians returned to their homeland, and Lane and his new wife Susie followed them. Now called Second Wind, the band played regularly in Honolulu and performed for a crowd of 3000 at the Crater Festival at Diamond Head.

A couple of years later, the Langfords moved back to Whittier and Lane formed a bluegrass band. They owned a bookstore for 20 years and raised two daughters before moving to Lopez Island in 2000. Lane continued to write songs and performed with the Lopez Island Singers and the Lopez Sound vocal octet.

In 2003, Second Wind held a "garage reunion" in Hawaii and found the magic still there. In the fall of 2004, after a year of emails and practice CDs flying back and forth, everyone returned to Oahu. "Like A Dream" was recorded outdoors, in Byl's plant nursery. Mixed on Maui, the final results impressed even the sound engineers at the CD company.

The members of ONETOTHE4THPOWER aren't sure what comes next. For Lane, 2007 will likely bring another trip to Hawaii and a concert on Lopez. Meanwhile, you can buy the music of ONETOTHE4THPOWER at the Lopez Saturday Market or Islandscape Nursery, or at CDBaby.com.

For more information and even photos of Byl's nursery, visit Onetothe4thPower.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


© Copyright 2006 Islands Weekly