Post #605967 by JOHN-O on Thu, Sep 8, 2011 2:11 PM

On 2011-09-08 12:11, lucas vigor wrote:
...But the honest fact is, if this was 1963 and you were at a tiki restaurant or tiki bar, and any of the surf rock or even rockabilly bands of today had been set up to play that night, it would have caused a huge stir with the generation that grew up with Glen Miller, Perez Prado or ever Perry Como...

You got no argument from me there Lucas. I share your belief that original Tiki culture is at its core, Lounge culture. Tiki's reach however did extend beyond the adults-only environs of the Tiki bar and became part of pre-Hippie youth culture. As documented by the BigBro and Dominic Priore, who devoted entire chapters to this in their respective books, Tiki was part of the iconography of the 1960's Surf culture youth scene.

Also to me, the two styles have more in common then not. Consider...

1. Tiki-style and Surf Music are both art forms indigenous to Southern California.
2. Both peaked at the same time in 1963, the final year of JFK's Camelot and before the Beatles came to America.
3. Both Exotica (as well as the related "South of the Border" sound) and Surf Music were the last instrumental-only musical genres to enjoy mainstream popularity.
4. Both former mainstream styles came back 30 years later as geek sub-cultures, Surf Music even beating out the Tiki/Exotica/Lounge revival by 15 years.

No one is saying that Surf Music is on par with Exotica as the definitive Tiki Music. I've had conversations with BTD on this and even he agrees with that. You have to admit however if you put Tiki in its overall mid-century influential context, Surf culture (and by default, its music) is a part of that. Also several song standards of the time like Miserlou and Bali Hai were covered in both genres.

And here's a vintage cross-over tune you might find interesting. "Tum-Tiki" by the Enchanters...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNIbFtuXb_Y

I'll leave it at that until next month (when it's time to bring up this cyclical argument again :D).

OK, so what were we talking about earlier? A burning man?

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2011-09-08 15:40 ]