Though they hail from the same Montreal music scene that spawned crossover electronica star Grimes, the members of Blue Hawaii don't have any illusions about where they rank in the popularity stakes.
"I come home for Christmas, and my family's like, 'Woah, you're going to Asia and all this stuff,' " says the duo's resident production whizz, Alex Cowan. "It's funny, because travel for them equates with a certain degree of success, and I think that that level of success has changed over the past 20 years. Now a smaller to mid-sized band is able to travel a lot more."
Still, Blue Hawaii's upcoming trip to Tokyo is notable for a couple of reasons. Not only does it kick off the duo's inaugural Asian tour, but it's also the first show organized by Alive.mu, a new website that uses a crowd-funding model to promote gigs in Japan.