Post #291588 by DJ Terence Gunn on Tue, Mar 13, 2007 1:31 PM

On 2007-03-13 09:30, Kawentzmann wrote:
From this thread I get the feeling that Exotica listeners today are a totally different breed than ten years ago.

KK

There are always and always will be new people discovering this music. I'm fairly new to TC, but I first started delving into Lounge music in the early 1990s -- nearly 17 years ago. I first started DJing Lounge music in public in 1995. During these earlier times there was no trend happening, no official 'scene'; but the seed of what was to soon follow, and grow at a rapid rate, had been planted. It was unbelievable, all those CD compilations and re-releases that came out at that time, all trying to cash-in on the craze. And there were 'scenes' in Vancouver, B.C., L.A., and San Francisco that were as unaware of the scene here in Seattle, as we were of them. Zines and travelling helped solve this issue. The internet wasn't as much, as available, or as popular a thing back then as it is today. To that today's 'scene' has more an advantage.

Back then Exotica music was a mere component in Lounge music, along side 1950s/'60s Latin, Easy Listening, Swingin' Pop Jazz vocals and instrumentals, Calypso, Spy & Sleuth, Soundtrack themes and cuts, Go-Go (or EZ), even Surf and vintage Western, etc., etc. Combustible Edison always called it 'Cocktail Nation'. I abhored that title, and used the term 'Cocktail Culture' -- a term invented by my friend Russ Scheidelman, who published a zine back then called 'Organ & Bongos'. I always used the term attached to my public and weekly theme nights, and soon the term caught on world wide.

But it wasn't until I met Otto Von Stroheim in early 1996, that I had ever met anyone who was so obstinate about Exotica, Hawaiian, and Surf being in a class of their own. I didn't care much for the narrowness of such a scope, myself, but I nevertheless was impressed by the integrity and conviction of his taste. His pools were less in number and smaller than mine, but he knew his pools very well. He was dedicated. He was a man on a mission; and, dare I say, he inspired many people, who in turn inspired many others, to embrace this new old culture.

The tikiphiles of today (of which I'm not; I'll always be a Lounge guy through and through, to the bitter end) I don't think are much different from those of old. But many still have yet to blossom; to determine if this is just a passing fad for them, or a culture they will live and die with.