Sven's The SOUND of TIKI CD -preview and discussion

Picked mine up about a week ago from 8-Ball and have to say the whole thing is definitely great listening pleasure! Though I have to say that "Aku Aku" and "Taboo Tu" are my favorites. I'm hoping to make it to the signing!!

As it appears on the back cover of the Hawaii Five-O
soundtrack album:

...
"That's what I asked Morton Stevens to put into music.
The value of a great one-minute theme to any television
series is inestimable and I wanted one for my then brand
spanking new HAWAII FIVE-O. No ukeleles or steel guitars
or falsetto singers or overused bongos, but a kind of
melding of the Polynesian, the classic, the jazz and most
of all the pop sound of today. HAWAII FIVE-O is all of
these things and so, happily, is Morton Stevens' music,
as you will discover. Aloha!" [My note: - Leonard Freeman
(creator of the TV series "Hawaii Five-O")]

Haha! That's right, nuke the ukes, the Hapa Haole singing and the "overused bongos"! Those are tired cliches!
This again proves that Hawaii 5-0 was post-Tiki. I bet Leonard Freeman did not expect Don Ho to vocalize his "pop sound of today", dragging it right back into the realm of the Ueber-Kitsch he aimed to avoid. :)

I think I figured out why the CD's shipping at 8-Ball seemed so high: Do not click on the UPS option, but use the USPS button, which halfs the cost.

Hope folk don't mind me cross-posting this but the ever erudite Sven Kirsten will be signing copies of the CD and answering your questions on "The Sounds Of Tiki" at Trader Vic's LA on Thursday 29th April from 8pm onwards. Jay Strongman will be playing the CD and other great Exotica past and present so come and enjoy an evening of rum n' rhythm and welcome Sven back from his European travels (he'll be a thirsty man after his long flight back to LA).

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36205&forum=17&8

can't wait for next thursday, and to get a copy of the cd.

Jeff(btd)

DejaVoodoo, thanks for the Amazon heads-up. I'm about 250 miles behind the 8-ball, I had found it on Amazon and was planning on ordering it there. Scratch that idea

I will be playing Sven's new cd,
and he will be on hand to sell and sign them.
this Sat May 8th at Dons in So. Cal.

more info here:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36348&forum=17&10

Whoaa, I just got an e-mail from Ivy from The Cramps, commending me on the Sound of Tiki ! How nice to get kudos from such a seasoned aficionado of esoteric music rarities! I am flat out flattered...

"Hi Sven, I just received your super cool CD from Amazon, and just wanted to tell you: What a treat! very cool. Hope all is swell with you. xo, ivy."

That is pretty damn cool .... Hipsters....

wow!
kudos from the Cramps!
Well-deserved!
Glad to see the CD is slowly spreading across the globe
and into the hands of a deserving populace!
Way to go,Sven!

Thank everybody for chiming in with your expertise.

I have another question for those who got my CD and thus first heard of Bear Family Records:

Has anyone checked out their incredible storehouse of great re-issues? I think they are the best label out there for esoteric vintage pop and rock!:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Family_Records

I am happy to announce that I just got the green light for a Sound of Tiki Two. I will not make it a multi-CD box set with book, because I have done big books before, and we know how long that takes! I love the smaller format of a CD with booklet, and this will fit nicely next to the first, with a BLUE Kevin Kidney cover, and the working title "The Mystic Musings of Tiki".
See and hear it in 2011. :)

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/BearFamily.html

http://www.bear-family.de/index.php?shp=1&&cl=tcstart_mailorder&changelang=1

Congrats! Bigbro - great news regarding Sound of Tiki 2.

Still haven't bought a personal copy of your first CD (shame) but I have a hunch that will change soon :) I was checking out the CD booklet last night at Kirby's Rumpus Room...beautiful.

Yeah, Bear Family has provided me and friends with numerous discoveries via their reissues over the years. Great stuff. G

Bear Family is great. We've been listening to their giant Louis Prima / Keely Smith / Sam Butera box recently, but there's lots more from that label.

Leave it to the Germans to be a rich source (and in some cases the ONLY source) for re-issuing great American music. And sometimes the Japanese. Come to think of it, isn't that a bit ironic, considering that a lot of this music is coming from the 20-25 years after WWII?

The point is not totally true if you consider some other great re-issue labels like Ace and Sundazed, which are neither German nor Japanese. Anyway, kinda interesting all the same.

Looking forward to seeing the blue cover for SOT2!

-Randy

SOT2...woo-hoo!

I've heard of Bear Family and the great job they do, but SOT1 is the first product of theirs I've purchased.

"Sound of Tiki Two"? Very nice. Can't wait to hear it? 2011? Doh!!!

Swaying and Playing since 64’

[ Edited by: Danno 2010-06-04 11:45 ]

Rerouted from another Tiki Music thread (as it has a better fit here)....

On 2010-06-12 13:36, bigbrotiki wrote:

Just because Rockabilly and some Honky Tonk happened in the same time period is not enough reason for it to ever being called Tiki music....

Well actually I was thinking more of specific sub-genres like "Blue Hawaii Elvis-style Rockabilly" or "Hillbilly Hawaiian".

Here's a question though. I can see straightforward arguments for Hapa Haole and Exotica as Tiki Music but Lounge is a little trickier. In the SOT liner notes, you cite the Mary Kaye Trio as a Lounge example but are there any other good examples? To me, even without the MKT, (classic) Lounge would easily fit into the mid-century Tiki aesthetic but it's more of a "feeling" than an academic argument that's easy to articulate.

And while we're on the MKT, are there any specific reasons why you chose "Hilo Boy" over other "Our Hawaii" tracks. The reason I ask is because I've sought out additional music from them as a result. Mary Kaye's voice is AMAZING but as far as I can tell, only Norman Kaye and Frank Ross are singing on that song.

Thank you.

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2010-06-12 16:18 ]

Oh. Yes, good question. Well as I said in the SOT liner notes, the fact that the Kaye siblings are descendant from Hawaiian royalty, and also from a Hapa Haole bandleader, and then started the Vegas Lounge concept makes them Lounge performers that are part of the Tiki sound. So I hope that makes sense.
I chose Hilo Boy because it swings the most. A lot of the tunes on their "Our Hawaii" are too slow, or not so original, or too original. like "Pleeza No Peencha Da Hula Girls"!? And though I personally like multi-vocal jazz ensembles like Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, some of the Kaye Trio multi vocal acrobatics seemed to demanding for the average listener to me. Hilo Boy is the most pop.

So how does Lounge touch on Tiki? Well, what is Lounge? Essentially it is mid-century Jazz in the popular vein, played by a small combo that could perform in a bar, instrumental or with a vocalist. (The bar location is important, cause lounge rhymes with liquor). For me, the two main "Lounge" instruments are the vibraphone and the piano. Many jazz musicians played those, in lounges, like Cal Tjader and Bobby Troup, but so did Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny. What I am saying is that their sound was very much informed by Lounge jazz, and when they did not employ exotic percussion and sound effects but played standards, they were very "loungey". Paul Page sometimes displays a mixture of three genres: Hapa Haole, Exotica and Lounge (which he played in bars and restaurants). I even would call Don Ho a Lounge act to some degree, that whole interaction with the audience thing is part of the genre.

Thanks for the clarification on your "Lounge" defintion.

My takeaway to that is that while all Exotica and Hapa-Haole would fall into the Tiki Music definition as musical genres, the Lounge connection would be more of appropriation of the style in the proper Poly-Pop context. In other words all Exotica is Tiki Music, all traditional Hapa-Haole is Tiki Music, but not all Lounge music is Tiki Music.

So can all mid-century Surf music be considered Tiki Music? I can see how the less aggressive slower-paced tunes might qualify.

I think the problem with "Lounge" is that the term has so many definitions. It can be used to refer to an easy-listening superset that includes Space-age and Exotica as well as the Las Vegas Swing Sound popularized by the Rat Pack (Blame the Cocktail Nation). When first looking at the Tiki Music Island map, I asked myself "Does Frank Sinatra live on that Lounge island?" " :)

You can see how your following post might be confusing:

On 2010-06-12 11:05, bigbrotiki wrote:

Please play all the Lounge music you want, but it still remains just that: Lounge

"Hey, wait a minute, didn't Bigbro just include Lounge on the Tiki Sound Archipelago?"

OK, now I get it. :)

Love the CD Sven...

One thing that has stuck in my head - Hilo Boy by the Mary Kaye Trio... am I the only one that thinks this sounds like the oompa loompa's singing this?? I'm talking about the OG Gene Wilder version here...

-Trad'r Bill

Hey,

Go to Amazon and mark "Chubby's" review as unhelpful! This guy has obviously not even listened to the CD.

Here's the link

http://www.amazon.com/Sven-Kirsten-Presents-Sound/dp/B0036ULAPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285116032&sr=8-1

Leave a positive review while you're there.

[ Edited by: nature boy 2010-09-21 17:54 ]

On 2010-09-21 17:50, nature boy wrote:
Hey,
Go to Amazon and mark "Chubby's" review as unhelpful! This guy has obviously not even listened to the CD.
Here's the link
http://www.amazon.com/Sven-Kirsten-Presents-Sound/dp/B0036ULAPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285116032&sr=8-1
Leave a positive review while you're there.

Thank You, Nature Boy, for pointing this out. Yeah, it looks like someone has a personal beef with me. What b.s. to state I was doing it for the money:

"What a waste of Tiki cash from the so called 'Tiki God'..... guess when the mortgage comes due you got to due something. Look for this CD in a discount bin in the near future."

This unspecific review is obviously just aimed to bring my rating down. Someone did that years ago with the BOT too, but was soon overwhelmed by 5 star reviews. Please folks do that here too, we authors are otherwise defenseless against such ill will.

I am not saying my work is unassailable, I appreciate intelligent criticism, but this is simply internet sabotage with nothing to say.

Thanks for the CD...positive review on it's way.

Great CD !!
I'm looking forward to vol. 2

Thank you Vamp and John, your posts filled it up half a star. Thanks John for pointing out all the aspects why a one star rating just does not make sense. Please post some more reviews, folks, and the malevolent machinations of some grudge-bearing envyer will be foiled. It's as easy as posting on Tiki Central!

Thanks to another nice review by Tom, SOT has inched another half star towards its old status. :)
C'mon, who's got in them to spent a few minutes to give whoever hides themselves behind that false I.D as "Chubby" the finger, and help The Sound of Tiki back on track?

It's got a good beat and it's easy to dance to. GROG give it 7.5.

Great, thank you, Ernie. But where's your review?

I think Chubby may have thought it was gonna be filled with Buffett tunes or something and was a little sore.
And come on, if BB wanted to rake in piles of cash, he'd pick another genre other than exotica. Either that or he'd a gotten Justin Bieber for the CD cover and had him doing a version of Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai or something on it somewhere...

Thank You everybody for their reviews. Though I have no idea who Justin Bieber is, I don't think "Chubby" expected anything, nor did he really listen to or read the booklet. He is some sorry individual somewhere who was solely bent on posting a one star rating to bring down the 5 Star one the CD was at. After 7 five star ratings it should sort of become obvious that ONE one star rating is not an honest critique, but Tiki Tea-Party-ism.

I would not make such a fuss about this, but I want my label to be successful with this CD so they will let me do the next one (which so far, they will). Bear Family is not that well known in the U.S., and I won't let some malevolent crank mess with the impression they make here.

Should "Chubby" GROG change GROG' review then?

P.S. GROG not really "Chubby". GROG just "big-boned".

Whatever it is, it would be nice if Grog could possibly make some productive contribution here, other than just fooling around.

Put my review in. Not too eloquent, but it made my point.

bump,
get this cd if you don't have it.

bump

SNL's October 1st show had a skit called "The Comment Section". People who make uninformed or anonymous nasty online comments are confronted by their targets. It was a reasonably funny skit and reminded me of Mr. Chubby's comment.

On 2011-10-18 09:51, Tonga Tiki wrote:
SNL's October 1st show had a skit called "The Comment Section". People who make uninformed or anonymous nasty online comments are confronted by their targets. It was a reasonably funny skit and reminded me of Mr. Chubby's comment.

i believe that is known as "confronting your haters".

Finally got my copy from Sven a couple weeks ago & am doing my best to spread the gospel here in the East.

I just found this on U-Tube:

One of the performers featured on my CD, Mary Kaye and her band, appeared in an episode of 77 Sunset Strip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za6UQPBp6a0&feature=related

Just like Arthur Lyman on the 77 Sunset spin-off Hawaiian Eye. Plus, in the 2nd half, there's a cool "Beatnik lingo" duet with Ed "Kookie" Byrnes - too bad it is so out of sync! The Brylcreem commercial is perfect for Kookie, and don't miss the South Pacific "Green Lustre Creme" spot at the end. :)

Here are two versions of "Kookie's Love Song":

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/05/365_days_141_ed.html

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2012-11-25 06:49 ]

That was great!

Why did 1964 ever have to happen?