Post #492688 by bigbrotiki on Sun, Nov 8, 2009 8:01 AM

On 2009-11-06 22:30, Tiki Shaker wrote:
Did restaurants play music back in the day? Sure, I know some had live shows.. but were the eating establishments equipped with speakers so that music could be piped in?
I've never thought of this before, but is tiki music basically whatever people played at home in their tiki bar basements and backyard luaus?

Very good point. We already know that live Exotica music, though the perfect supporting soundtrack to the Polynesian restaurant experience, was not performed regularly in mainland Tiki temples. Sure, Arthur Lyman played live at the Bali Hai and Lattitude 20, but if you look at the long list of mainland venues that Martin Denny performed at, you will find but a few outright Polynesian clubs.

But when did RECORDED music make its debut in the food and drink industry? It's hard to imagine that restaurateurs did not make use of the piped in "Muzak" concept in Tiki times, it having been established in 1936:
"The first actual delivery of Muzak to commercial customers took place in New York City in 1936. At this time the technology involved remained rather crude as the music originated from record players manually operated at a central office location..."

Even president Eisenhower, in office from 1953 to 1961 (the Tiki period president!), made use of it:
"President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first to pump Muzak into the West Wing."

I have seen 1940s Hapa Haole records with a Don The Beachcomber label on them, I am assuming they were not only sold in the gift shop -all the restaurateur needed was a record player and some speakers. Hawaiian music was the very EARLIEST form of Polynesian pop that got imported to the mainland, from the early 1900s on, through live performers, records, and sheet music, it helped to inspire the first bamboo hideaways!

This is one of those things that were just assumed to always have been there, but there is no certainty of WHEN exactly the initial event occurred. So we need to talk to some veterans pronto to see if they remember IF and WHEN they heard exotic music in a Tiki restaurant first --and I am sure THEY will have a hard time pinning it down.

And then, more specifically, was it ever Exotica that got played? I think the answer to Tiki Shaker's second question ("I've never thought of this before, but is tiki music basically whatever people played at home in their tiki bar basements and backyard luaus?") is a YES:
Exotica music was the parallel contemporary of the Tiki Lounge, meaning that the generation that frequented Polynesian supper clubs were the same people that had Marty, Arty, and Les in their record cabinet. And they certainly must have played them in their rumpus rooms.

My compilation is entitled "The Sound of TIKI" (as in "The Spirit of Tiki"), not "The Sound of the Tiki Restaurant". But my very aim is to connect the Polynesian pop of the Tiki Lounge with the Polynesian pop of Exotica, by pointing out all the parallels in their themes and concepts.

To avoid the historical shaky ground of Tiki restaurant music, I formulated it like this in my liner notes:

Polynesian supper clubs used a variety of musical styles to support the escapist atmosphere of their establishments, but vinyl archaeologists have since discovered and defined the musical category of “Exotica” as the perfect complementary soundscape to the layered environs of a Tiki bar.