Why I “hate” “PNI Nation”

Details

Category: Opinion

Published on Wednesday, 27 June 2012 13:05

Written by Bill Jaynes

Hits: 687

K PRESS PERSPECTIVE

Why I "hate" "PNI Nation"
Or is it text messages? I can't remember

I imagine that on publication day I will be able to actually hear the gasps and the little sucking sounds from thousands of fan navels collectively puckering when they read the headline for this KPress Perspective. Before "PNI Nation" fans get nuts and storm my front door and etch little hateful messages into the paint on my car take a deep breath and read on.

At least half of the above headline is untrue. Let's get that straight right up front. So is the posting on Facebook that says that KPress (aka "me") is one of "PNI Nation's" many "haters".

I haven't heard of ANY "PNI Nation haters," much less, MANY.

I freely confess that I have not heard PNI Nation's music yet but WAIT!

I was an early fan of "Boyz N Harmony." It wasn't "my" style of music but then "my" style of music wasn't theirs either and we were cool with that. When I ran V6AV FM 88.1 The Mixx ("your favorite music on the island," back in the day) I played their music and promoted it.

I actually laid down a few guitar tracks for the "Kastaway" compact disc. I played their music as well and I promoted it too. I always promoted local musicians and it wouldn't hurt my feelings to be able to do the same thing with the newspaper.

"Boys N Harmony" is "Kastaway" is "PNI Nation".

Of course, that's over simplified but I know that those Salomon boys can wail and I know that they write great music. I'm hoping they'll ask me to sit in with them on their next recording project. As those people who are significantly less than 50 years old say, "I'm totally down with that."

I am NOT a hater of "PNI Nation".

Just the same, of the nearly 1700 words in my article on Australia's Music Festival for Reconciliation, the 34 of them I wrote about "PNI Nation" have become a focal point; a bone of contention since the article was published on June 11, 2012.

From a purely journalistic point of view, I stand behind what I wrote based on a written communication from Jun Salomon. HOWEVER, and it's an important "HOWEVER", text messages don't always say all that they mean to say and sometimes they don't get to the person to whom they were sent.

That seems to have been the case this time.

Salomon says that he sent other text messages to the Paradise organizers of the festival. William Hoffman of Paradise says that he never received those other text messages.

None of the "he said, she said," matters at this point. The fact is, I now know that PNI Nation had very good family related reasons for why they could not perform at the music festival and that's why I took a chance on a dicey headline so that you'd actually read this KPress Perspective. I wanted you to know what I didn't know when I wrote that "PNI Nation" representatives canceled their performance because the money wasn't sufficient.

"PNI Nation" demonstrated as recently as April 28 of this year, just over a month before the June 2 Music Festival that it was not "all about the money." On that day they put on a show they called "2012 Keamealis" (which means "Mix" in the language of Pingelap) at the College of Micronesia that featured local artists purely for the sake of promoting local musicians and dancers.

Salomon said that the event was a "non-paid, admission free gig."

He says that there were so many people at that gig (concert) that people outside the door had to wait for another person to leave before they could get a seat.

I hear that "PNI Nation's" sponsors have threatened to pull their funding if they don't clear up the 34 words I wrote in what otherwise was an uplifting article about a first time concert event. I think that would be a mistake. The Salomon boys, Berney (AKA PNI Pride), Berysin (AKA JR, AKA Jun, AKA J-Starrz) and Holland (AKA Nemesis 691) seem to be very interested in promoting not only themselves but also the music of other locals.

The Salomon boys (I should say men) run 691 Underground Productions. "Our goal is to push Micronesian music, especially Pohnpei, so the rest of the world could hear and recognize it," Jun wrote in an email.

Sounds like an admirable goal.

So, my apologies to PNI Nation and the Salomon boys for taking your text message to mean only what it said.

I don't hate PNI Nation but I'm starting to hate text messages!

Bill Jaynes
Managing Editor

Listen to PNI Nation