greetings and apology - General Tiki

E emspace Member Vancouver Joined: Jan 05, 2003 Posts: 879	E emspace Posted posted on Sat, Nov 17, 2018 10:06 AM On 2018-11-17 09:55, MrFab wrote: Wow! Ok. I think I might have been one of those people you mentioned, as I have said here that tiki (and early rock n roll, burlesque, kustom kulture, etc) were all part of the 'lowbrow' aesthetic that arose in post-punk SoCal. Not that there's anything particularly Polynesian Pop about, say, rockabilly, just that they were all aspects of mid-century sleaze culture that seemed to go well together.* Like how goth, Klingons, and gore movies are folded up into heavy metal culture, or how kung-fu movies, Kraftwerk, and certain designer labels ended up in hip-hop culture. Part of the cultural mosaic. May I ask how you arrived at this revelation, something in particular struck you, or it just finally sank in? *It would probably make more sense to refer to this all as 'lowbrow' culture, as in the art movement, rather than calling it all 'tiki,' and just use 'tiki' to specifically refer to Poly-pop. Heh heh, I'm fine with lowbrow as a good catchall. Well, the first thing is that I actually started listening seriously to surf and rockabilly, genres I'd more or less ignored till about five years back. You can mainly thank Deke Dickerson for that. Expanding from there, I started seeing people in those musical scenes who loved Polynesian pop culture - loved it every bit as much as any hardcore purist who rejected that connection. And I'd known and loved hot rod culture as a kid, Rat Fink and all that goodness, and could see the connections in retrospect. It all just makes sense if you look at the bigger picture in American culture rather than just one niche. It's not like people are trying to forge a spurious connection between Poly-pop and I dunno, death metal or something, the connection is genuine and has good historical roots! They might be later than the '40s and early '50s, but there's a real continuity there. Anyway thanks for the reply and the chance to expound further. Always been wordy so that works for me. :) [ Edited by: emspace 2018-11-17 10:27 ]

On 2018-11-17 09:55, MrFab wrote:
Wow! Ok. I think I might have been one of those people you mentioned, as I have said here that tiki (and early rock n roll, burlesque, kustom kulture, etc) were all part of the 'lowbrow' aesthetic that arose in post-punk SoCal. Not that there's anything particularly Polynesian Pop about, say, rockabilly, just that they were all aspects of mid-century sleaze culture that seemed to go well together.* Like how goth, Klingons, and gore movies are folded up into heavy metal culture, or how kung-fu movies, Kraftwerk, and certain designer labels ended up in hip-hop culture. Part of the cultural mosaic.

May I ask how you arrived at this revelation, something in particular struck you, or it just finally sank in?

*It would probably make more sense to refer to this all as 'lowbrow' culture, as in the art movement, rather than calling it all 'tiki,' and just use 'tiki' to specifically refer to Poly-pop.

Heh heh, I'm fine with lowbrow as a good catchall. Well, the first thing is that I actually started listening seriously to surf and rockabilly, genres I'd more or less ignored till about five years back. You can mainly thank Deke Dickerson for that. Expanding from there, I started seeing people in those musical scenes who loved Polynesian pop culture - loved it every bit as much as any hardcore purist who rejected that connection. And I'd known and loved hot rod culture as a kid, Rat Fink and all that goodness, and could see the connections in retrospect. It all just makes sense if you look at the bigger picture in American culture rather than just one niche. It's not like people are trying to forge a spurious connection between Poly-pop and I dunno, death metal or something, the connection is genuine and has good historical roots! They might be later than the '40s and early '50s, but there's a real continuity there.

Anyway thanks for the reply and the chance to expound further. Always been wordy so that works for me. :)

[ Edited by: emspace 2018-11-17 10:27 ]

Post #791221 by emspace on Sat, Nov 17, 2018 10:06 AM