Earliest exposure to Exotica. That I can remember. - Tiki Music

QVI Quiet Village Idiot Member Stockholm, Sweden Joined: Dec 13, 2007 Posts: 152	QVI Quiet Village Idiot Posted posted on Sat, Dec 29, 2007 2:04 PM I don't know if this counts, as it's not exactly classic exotica, but my parents' record collection when I was a kid in the 1970s was probably my first exposure. My dad, a university lecturer in Arabic and part-time Russian interpreter in the Royal Navy, had a number of LPs such as Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" and Borodin's "Prince Igor" that I remember listening to almost until I knew them inside out. Classical rather than Hawaiian, but nevertheless the kind of stuff that constantly turns up on the "light orchestral" variety of exotica LPs. My dad also had an unintentionally hilarious 10" by the Orchestra and Choir of the Red Army, with versions of stuff like "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" sung in heavy Russian accents, but I digress.... Anyway, as a little kid, I also incessantly listened to stuff like the Beatles and the Monkees. This led to a life-long love affair with mid-60s beat music. By high school in the mid-80s, everybody else was listening to either rap or metal - but I was too busy ploughing my own furrow with the Chocolate Watchband and all the Nuggets & Pebbles stuff to care. By university in the early 90s, this retro hipster thing had expanded to include rockabilly, 50s R&B, surf, "Las Vegas Grind" LPs, Mose Allison, you name it. Round about this time, I picked up a UK fanzine entitled "Ungawa", which contained an article concerning one Martin Denny, a completely unfamiliar name to me at the time. This was my first encounter with classic exotica, just in time for the upsurge in interest in this sort of music in the mid-90s, with all the reissues, the "Incredibly Strange Music" books etc. And, until I started hanging out at this site, I had assumed (for some reason) that most current exotica fans had a similar background to me --- that exotica was another phase or facet of a general interest in retro cool, along with surf, rockabilly, garage rock, whatever. Now, of course, I realise that there's a much more diverse group of people involved. It's pretty cool. [ Edited by: Quiet Village Idiot 2007-12-29 14:06 ]

I don't know if this counts, as it's not exactly classic exotica, but my parents' record collection when I was a kid in the 1970s was probably my first exposure. My dad, a university lecturer in Arabic and part-time Russian interpreter in the Royal Navy, had a number of LPs such as Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" and Borodin's "Prince Igor" that I remember listening to almost until I knew them inside out. Classical rather than Hawaiian, but nevertheless the kind of stuff that constantly turns up on the "light orchestral" variety of exotica LPs.

My dad also had an unintentionally hilarious 10" by the Orchestra and Choir of the Red Army, with versions of stuff like "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" sung in heavy Russian accents, but I digress....

Anyway, as a little kid, I also incessantly listened to stuff like the Beatles and the Monkees. This led to a life-long love affair with mid-60s beat music. By high school in the mid-80s, everybody else was listening to either rap or metal - but I was too busy ploughing my own furrow with the Chocolate Watchband and all the Nuggets & Pebbles stuff to care.

By university in the early 90s, this retro hipster thing had expanded to include rockabilly, 50s R&B, surf, "Las Vegas Grind" LPs, Mose Allison, you name it. Round about this time, I picked up a UK fanzine entitled "Ungawa", which contained an article concerning one Martin Denny, a completely unfamiliar name to me at the time. This was my first encounter with classic exotica, just in time for the upsurge in interest in this sort of music in the mid-90s, with all the reissues, the "Incredibly Strange Music" books etc.

And, until I started hanging out at this site, I had assumed (for some reason) that most current exotica fans had a similar background to me --- that exotica was another phase or facet of a general interest in retro cool, along with surf, rockabilly, garage rock, whatever. Now, of course, I realise that there's a much more diverse group of people involved. It's pretty cool.

[ Edited by: Quiet Village Idiot 2007-12-29 14:06 ]

Post #351897 by Quiet Village Idiot on Sat, Dec 29, 2007 2:04 PM