Post #292265 by professahhummingflowah on Thu, Mar 15, 2007 9:58 PM

Ah, this place was the original inspiration for starting the band WAITIKI. The Tiki Room opened up in June, 2003. Right after I finished college. I got home from a trip, Space Kadet and I were watching "Password" reruns on Game Show Network, and he told me that a tiki place opened up on Lansdowne. Which was about a 5 minute walk from my place at the time. I think I groaned, then said

me: "a tiki place?"
space kadet: "you know, haole hawaiian places. like da kine get in waik's"
me: "so?"
sk: "maybe they need live music. we go, play"
me: "shoots"

we went down there that night to go check'um. i think it was only the 2nd tiki place we'd each been in. cuz he'd played at the closing of kahiki's with don tiki. and i had accidentally wandered into luau hale (in lenox, ma), hoping to find some plate lunch or hawaiian food, five thousand miles away from home.

WAITIKI never played there as a quartet, but we did get hired as a duo: uke & bass. One show, about 45 minutes. It sucked. the room's not set up for live music. The drinks are awful. They have smores, that you can roast over a volcano flame. But the Lansdowne/Lyons Group (that's the firm that owns all those properties there) vibe sucks. Nowadays, it's fairly similar in theme to Tequila Rain, which is right next door. Except that Tequila Rain is bigger, and has a dance floor. TMoX played a gig at Tequila Rain once. (I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but I did! Hahahahaha). I haven't set foot in the Tiki Room since our gig there, December 2003.

It's worth noting that, before we gigged there, we advised the manager Daren about what kind of music to play. We burned him a couple CDs with Denny, Lyman, & Don Tiki stuff we had around, and he had that stuff playing pretty constantly for 3-4 weeks. (How many modern tiki bars do you go in, that have classic exotica playing?) That was until upper management told him to put top 40 shit on. Egad.

If you've never been, I don't suggest you go. You'll be disappointed.