Post #521312 by Luckydesigns on Wed, Mar 31, 2010 9:50 PM

That is awesome.... And speaking of tiki and punk AGAIN.... The Hula Girls are opening up for TSOL's Ron Emory at the Blue Cafe on May 7th! Ron asked me, personally, for us to open his own solo CD release party! Pretty rad stuff.

Now, back to the conversation at hand...

I think the purist mentality of tiki music is limiting. Hapa Hoele music is played with uke, steel, upright bass and minimal to no drums... Or exotica should only be upright bass, vibes, percussion, and piano.... While I do think that certain music is NOT tiki music (we don't need to do the Buffet thing again on this thread) I don't think tiki music should be limited to just the traditional purist elements as they were played during the period.

In fact, I don't think that Jim's Tikiyaki Orchestra would necessarily be considered a 'traditional exotica' band...And they might be considered one of the premiere modern 'tiki' bands...and that's what I love about it... They combine the greatest elements of all things cocktail and surf and jazz and it comes out fresh and new and super cool.

The Blue Hawaiians were kind of the same way. They fused exotica with surf to create the ultimate dark and foreboding dreamscape that finds itself very comfortable in a tiki atmosphere. New and exciting music when it came out.

And that's what I'm working on with The Hula Girls... Taking elements of rockabilly and hapa haole, surf and jazz, and fusing it with tiki/ hawaiian themes. Bands have touched on it in the past, but I thought it would be killer to have a band where these themes were the whole focus. Charlie Feathers goes to Hawaii or Carl Perkins goes to Easter Island.

Hopefully you will all really dig our debut album, "The Curse of the Tiki" that we begin recording in April! I think we have some really good songs that you'll be able to carve tikis and mix cocktails to. And some amazing guests playing on the album.

So for me, tiki music is a conglomeration of the music that came out of the period when tiki was seeing it's greatest popularity. I would consider it everything from jazz to exotica from the 40s-50s, rockabilly to surf and spy from the 50's and early 60's, and bachelor pad and space music from the 40's, 50's, and 60's. So that's how I would define 'tiki' music.

I'm sure there will be plenty of comments to what I have bloviated on... What is your interpretation?