{"id":5488,"date":"2010-07-28T06:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-28T06:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/puka-bar-a-hotbed-of-diverse-musical-scenes-in-long-beach\/"},"modified":"2010-07-28T06:59:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-28T06:59:00","slug":"puka-bar-a-hotbed-of-diverse-musical-scenes-in-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/puka-bar-a-hotbed-of-diverse-musical-scenes-in-long-beach","title":{"rendered":"Puka Bar A Hotbed Of Diverse Musical Scenes In Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\"  alt=\"\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 267px; margin: 2px; border: 1px solid black;\" src=\"images\/archive\/s_image1280289388-77388.jpg\" align=\"right\"><a title=\"The Puka Bar on MySpace\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/pukabar\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Puka Bar<\/a>, located in the Wrigley District of Long Beach, has become a  hotbed of diverse musical scenes. Under the gentle guidance of Ken  Huntington (bar tender, talent booker, sound man, and gifted musician  and songwriter in his own right), the little Tiki bar that could, has. <\/p>\n<p>The  bar ls classic Tiki kitsch, with dessicated blow-fish, shrunken heads,  strange maritime trinkets, and an endless series of <em>Hawaii 5-0<\/em> episodes  on the flat screen TV. They also feature exotic cocktails, made to  order.<\/p>\n<p>The other half of the bar, however, is more practical.  There, a full stage with some lights, monitors, a decent PA, and a  semi-cavernous room that has seen nearly every great band that came out  of Long Beach.<\/p>\n<p>These days, Ken&#8217;s thinking outside the box. For  example, he&#8217;s dedicated the first Monday of every month to experimental  music. Thursdays feature karaoke and, on the weekends, the occasional  touring band pops in for a gig. He even has a &#8216;band development night&#8217;  where groups can simply practice, live, on a stage in a club, and refine  their performance chops. <\/p>\n<p>Here, Ken gives us a brief run-down of the Puka Bar&#8217;s specific assets:<\/p>\n<p>&lt;object width=&#8221;480&#8243; height=&#8221;385&#8243;&gt;&lt;param name=&#8221;movie&#8221; value=&#8221;http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/8tIH1zbLWnw&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6&#8243;&gt;&lt;\/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#8221;allowFullScreen&#8221; value=&#8221;true&#8221;&gt;&lt;\/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#8221;allowscriptaccess&#8221; value=&#8221;always&#8221;&gt;&lt;\/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&#8221;http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/8tIH1zbLWnw&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6&#8243; type=&#8221;application\/x-shockwave-flash&#8221; allowscriptaccess=&#8221;always&#8221; allowfullscreen=&#8221;true&#8221; width=&#8221;480&#8243; height=&#8221;385&#8243;&gt;&lt;\/embed&gt;&lt;\/object&gt;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The Puka Bar<\/strong><br \/>710 West Willow Street<br \/>Long Beach, CA 90806<br \/>562.997.6896<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ken Huntington, in a video interview, talks about the unique scene that he&#8217;s developed at the Puka Bar, which includes experimental music, blues, karaoke, and good old fashion roots rock.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}