The Best of Home Grown-Volume 1 - $15.00


Just over twenty years ago, a musical tradition began in Hawai`i. KKUA Radio and Habilitat began the search for "home-grown" music, music created by local artists who had been brought up in the traditions of Hawai`i but were making music that spoke about their generation.

It began as a contest: hundreds of undiscovered artists sent tapes to disc jockey Ron Jacobs at KKUA. A team of celebrity judges listened to each song and selected winners to appear on an album titled “Home Grown.” The rest is history.
Careers were launched, and many of Hawai`i’s favorite songs are the result of Home Grown beginnings. Nohelani Cypriano started here, and songs like “Oh, Akua!” remain island standards and still stir memories twenty years later.

Five albums were produced in just over two decades, each capturing the essence of a generation. And now, for the first time, the cream of each has been gathered to produce The Best of Home Grown Hawai`i.

This CD features 16 songs, capturing the best songs from the Home Grown albums Volumes I through V. Old and new favorites flow seamlessly, creating a picture of the real Hawai`i and capturing its essence. The music stands on its own merit. These songs truly capture Hawai`i's soul. The real treat is for those of us who once owned these now classic albums. Those lost treasures are found again on this wonderful recording.

Whether you’re looking for those lost treasures or experiencing these songs for the first time, you will not be disappointed. Best of Home Grown is the best of Hawai`i.
Journey from Hell - $18.00

This book tells the story of Vinny Marino’s life and describes his approach to drug and character rehabilitation while at the same time managing to be fun and exciting to read.

Vinny Marino founded Habilitat, this highly successful drug rehab program, following his own career as a junkie. Starting out in life as a feisty shoeshine boy in New York’s “Little Italy,” he grew into a fourteen-year-old street punk on heroin and then graduated to a thief, fence, and con man.

Marino crossed over the shaky bridge to rehabilitation, carrying with him his skills as a con artist and his genuine heart of gold. Vinny built Habilitat into a “School of Survival” in paradise Hawai`i.

Habilitat, still true to the way Vinny designed it, practices sound moral values and instills in its residents a sense of self-esteem and commitment to being productive through day-to-day encounter groups, seminars, individual sessions, and extensive vocational training. It re-orients the residents toward a lifestyle of positive values and high self-esteem as laid out in the later chapters of Journey from Hell.

Further, Journey from Hell deals with how one can contact the program and what is required for those seeking change. It would be difficult to count the number of lives this book has touched or the thousands of people who have turned their lives around as a result of Journey from Hell and Habilitat.