Post #351522 by bigbrotiki on Thu, Dec 27, 2007 12:25 PM

Good concept for a thread! My first "exposure" to Exotica was (appropriately) of purely visual nature. I moved to Berlin as a young lad of 17, partially to escape the German army's mandatory draft, because Berlin was still under allied forces supervision defense-wise back then (...that was in 1972).
A year later, I found a basement apartment in the suburb of Berlin Dahlem, where the American Forces were stationed nearby. Now, ever since I can remember I was what I would consider an "Americanophile", as opposed to other people, whose cultural inclinations would maybe make them Francophiles, or Anglophiles (people who would be into French culture, or Brtitish pop). Maybe it had to do with the fact that my parents lived in Chicago in the 1950s (before I was born), where my dad worked for my grandfather's Hamburg-Chicago shipping line.

So the US Armed Forces in Berlin had their own neighborhood with a Cinema, their own stores, even their own trash system. I was a frequent visitor to their thrift shop, where, as you can imagine in the 70s, lots of good stuff was to be had for cheap.

It was here that I first set eyes on Martin Denny's "Primitiva", and it was love at first sight! NOT the music, mind you, it was clearly the "exposure" of Sandy Warner's cleavage (and her eyes!) that shook my young man's world. I was blown away by the cover's sensuality and promise of "primitive" sexuality.
Funnily, in 1973, I was not "advanced" enough in Kitsch culture to make the leap to appreciate the MUSIC on the album, that came years later, when my friend Moritz R. had been introduced to Exotica through Boyd Rice's visit to Germany.

And I certainly had NO idea back in '73 that a whole 30 years later I would be in Hawaii one day and actually MEET the man who recorded "Primitiva", and hear him play (and that I eventually would have a reproduction of that enticing cover in TIKI MODERN).

It is pretty amazing how things can come full circle in ones life!