Post #789601 by Cammo on Sat, Sep 1, 2018 10:59 AM

(Thanks to Hakalugi for some of these entries!)

I'll think about expanding the list, but I'm still trying to just get to the year 2000!!!!

There are updates all through this, too. Combustible Edison is becoming a very interesting turning point here....

Recent Tiki History

1951 Les Baxter’s The Quiet Village song is released on an unsuspecting public. Oddly it is about a village in Africa, not Hawaii.

1957 Martin Denny releases his version of Les Baxter’s Quiet Village song. By 1959 it reaches number 4 on the pop charts, making Elvis Presley a bit nervous.

1959 Hawaii becomes a state. The country goes wild for anything Polynesian.

1959 Adventures in Paradise TV show premiers.

1959 Hawaiian Eye TV show premiers.

1959 Gidget movie released.

1961 Elvis stars in Blue Hawaii.

1961 The Beach Boys record Surfin’.

1962 The Trade Winds motel chain cracks open a few.

1963 Jan & Dean record Surf City

1963 The Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room opens. Walt himself supervises all the details, including that not a single nail, electrical cord, screw or speaker wire shows anywhere inside. The rain effect, subtly moving Tiki poles and birds from the rafters are still astounding.

1963 The film Beach Party opens to an appreciative audience.

1964 The Ilikai opens; the first ultra-modern high rise hotel on Waikiki beach. It’s the one Jack Lord smiles from the top of. A frantic land grab starts and Honolulu tourism skyrockets.

1964 Gilligan’s Island TV show premiers.

1964 Ed “Big Daddy” Roth releases the Surfite surfers’ mini-car and Revell model kit, with “Tiki Hut” included.

1965 Hawaiian born and raised Bette Midler moves to New Your City with a stack of sheet music arranged for her personally by Paul Conrad, the pianist/arranger for the Gene Rains Group. For the rest of her career she becomes a spokesperson for the aloha life; playing ukuleles, singing classic Hawaiian songs and having hula parties whenever possible.

1966 Boyd Rice wears a cheap Robert Hall Hawaiian Shirt and the Tiki Necklace sold with it to elementary school. His favorite TV show at this time is Hawaiian Eye, already in reruns. He is part of a huge group of imaginative, often West Coast baby boomers who were more interested in Tikis and Hawaii than the Hippie Beatle Drug shenanigans just starting to explode nationally.

1967 I Dream of Jeannie visits Waikiki for real, visits Duke’s, stays at the Ilikai and hangs out with Don Ho.

1968 The Hawaii Five-0 TV show premiers.

1969 Retro rockers Sha-Na-Na play Teen Angel before Jimi Hendrix goes on the stage at Woodstock.

1969 Arthur Lyman and his Combo continue playing live in Honolulu.

1971 Disneyworld’s Polynesian Village opens for business. Restaurants and bars in the Orlando area stock a LOT more Tiki Mugs, as does the Village itself.

1972 Oahu’s North Shore surfing gets real popular with Californian surfers.

1972 Bett Midler’s first album, The Divine Miss M goes platinum, snags her a Grammy, and makes Boogoe Woogie Bugle Boy a chart-topper for the first time in 30 years. Bette continues to sing and release retro swing songs, ones that her Honolulu based Navy dad played at home.

1972 The Brady Bunch visits Waikiki for real; Greg gets cursed, tanned and shows off on his shortboard. Mr. Brady throws back a few tall ones with Florence. The girls learn to hula. The entire nation feels like they just visited Hawaii.

1973 American Graffiti movie is released. Retro is now cool; a PG rating ensures that younger kids just coming of age pack the seats.

1973 American Graffiti 2-LP set goes triple platinum. Classic retro mood music like Green Onions and The Stroll blows boomer’s minds when played on early 1970’s stereo sets with killer speakers turned ALL the way up.

1975 English group ‘Throbbing Gristle’ formed, coining the term Industrial Music. They used Nazi imagery, pornography, glaring lights and clashing noise in their performances. Their last show was in 1981, in San Francisco. Classic Exotica was played at the end of their concerts, partly just to cool the audience down so no riots would take place.

1976 Boyd Rice listens to Martin Denny albums given to him by a biker friend of his father’s. He starts collecting Martin Denny records around this time.

1978 Grease hits movie screens and the whole world goes nutzo over Olivia and John singing pseudo-50’s songs and dancing in penny loafers and white socks. Japan starts dressing in fluffy dresses and greasing their thick black hair. Even Michael Jackson sits up and takes notice, borrowing the Ravoltish dance moves for the rest of his career...

1978 Boyd Rice sees English group Throbbing Gristle for the first time in London.

1978 Boyd Rice goes to Kelbo’s for the first time. He has a drink that arrives in a skull shaped mug. On fire.

1979 Arthur Lyman and his Combo continue to play at the New Otani in Honolulu.

1980 Magnum P.I. TV show premiers.

1980 Boyd Rice uses Nazi imagery, pornography, glaring lights and clashing noise in his performances; just like his favorite group Throbbing Gristle. Some of his shows now take place at Kelbo’s.

1981 L.A. band Monitor releass a 7” single under band name The Tikis, with an enclosed coupon for a free Tiki. Album artwork by Boyd Rice and Jeffrey Vallance.

1981 Baby boomers born in 1960 turn 21 and can now go out to bars in most states.

1981 Stray Cat Strut released.; it hits big in the UK, then later in the US. Retro instruments, mid-century clothing and tattoos play a big part in the song’s video produced in England. It’s impossible to not snap your fingers and sway to the song. This becomes a favorite of the new MTV Network, also founded in 1981. A revival music genre and its anthem is born.

1982 Boyd Rice travels to Hawaii to meet Martin Denny and gives him a copy of Throbbing Gristle’s Greatest Hits, which was designed with a retro Denny-esque cover. Boyd begins to collect Tiki Mugs around this time, and searches for original Tiki Bars still in business.

1982 National Lampoon publishes "The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs", later made into a film in 1984. It features a neighbor with an exotic Tiki backyard and lots of Tiki drinks.

1982 Martin Denny releases The Enchanted Isle.

1983 Jeffrey Vallance travels to Polynesia to investigate the origins of Tiki. The resulting artwork is displayed worldwide and establishes a new genre; Tiki Art. Artists begin to use classic Moai Tikis in their work.

1983 Linda Ronstadt releases What’s New, a collection of lounge, swing and jazz standards. It goes triple platinum against all predictions, changing the music business overnight.

1985 Boyd Rice co-edits the book Incredibly Strange Films.

1985 A feeding frenzy starts on thrift shop and old record bin stores; most Exotica is available for 25 to 50 cents a record, no matter how rare or what condition it’s in. Student boomers, musicians, and hip young stereo owners with their own first time apartments grab dozens at a time.

1986 Retro-designed PeeWee’s Playhouse uses Quiet Village in it’s theme song, and PeeWee stands a big Tiki at his front door.

1987 San Francisco’s Amok Books founded.