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Sample Track 1:
"Sweet Pikake Serenade" from New Sounds of Exotica
Sample Track 2:
"Similau" from New Sounds of Exotica
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New Sounds of Exotica
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Feature

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Vintage Allies Variety Broadcasting, Feature >>

DON THE BEACHCOMBER Presents THE WAITIKI 7

By David Gasten

It’s a marriage made in Paradise. On December 29-31, 2010, the world’s premiere Exotica group and This is Vintage Now compilation contributors THE WAITIKI 7 make their West Coast debut at Huntington Beach, California’s DON THE BEACHCOMBER RESTAURANT, the world-renowned originator of Tiki Culture. If you are a fan of Tiki Culture, this is as authentic and as close to the source as it gets to experiencing this legendary but partially lost culture firsthand, and is an event that you will not want to miss. The historic three-night event has its own website at Don the Beachcomber presents WAITIKI, where you can buy tickets, find lodging arrangements, and learn more about Don the Beachcomber, The Waitiki 7, and the event itself.


About Tiki Culture

The West has long been obsessed with Hawaii and Polynesia, and when Allied soldiers returned from being stationed in the South Pacific post-World War II, their acclimation to Polynesian culture jump-started the bicultural experience that is Tiki Culture. Sadly, Tiki Culture also makes the A-List of the most unjustly maligned Vintage experiences, as does its official musical soundtrack, Exotica Music.

With Tiki’s mixture of Western and Polynesian cultures, people instantly assume that Western influences diluted the purity of the Polynesian culture, when just the opposite happened: Western innovations actually augmented the Polynesian elements. Tiki cocktails have some of the most complicated alcohol mixologies in the world, to the point that some of the most famous Tiki cocktails almost became extinct because their inventor tried to take their secret recipes to the grave with him. Likewise, Exotica Music also augmented and complimented original Polynesian sounds. The originators of Exotica—Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Les Baxter—applied the more intricate compositional qualities of orchestral and jazz music to Polynesian sounds to create a complex sound that takes as much training to learn to play as Tiki cocktails take to master. Tiki’s music and beverages are great in and of themselves, but together with the also well-developed Tiki decorum, they create a one-of-a-kind gourmet experience whose true essence is in its details.


About DON THE BEACHCOMBER and THE WAITIKI 7

Tiki Culture has its origins with DON THE BEACHCOMBER (born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt), a native Texan turned world traveler who began the legendary Don the Beachcomber restaurant in Hollywood in the 1930’s. The restaurant offered an escapist atmosphere that would soon become a favorite haunt for celebrities and which laid the groundwork for the Tiki culture craze of the 1950’s and beyond. Don the Beachcomber’s restaurants became a successful chain under the guiding hand of his wife Sunny Sund in the 1940’s while Don served in World War II, and the chain continued on far into the 1980’s. The current Don the Beachcomber restaurant is located at 16278 Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, CA, where it has been since 1969. Arthur Snyder bought out the Don the Beachcomber brand in 2007, and continues to preserve the lush atmosphere, the careful mixologies, and the one-of-a-kind dining experience that has been a Don the Beachcomber tradition for nearly seven decades.

Exotica music and Tiki Culture had a brief revival of interest in the 1990’s, with Don Tiki and Combustible Edison being the two artists representing the genre for that period. The musical tiki torch has since been handed to THE WAITIKI 7, a group that began in 2003 as a quartet called Waitiki. The group has become internationally renowned as the world’s premiere exotica group, and are the only exotica group who play the music all acoustic and without the aid of keyboards and electronics. The group features members that are either descendents of or have worked with members of Martin Denny’s and Arthur Lyman’s groups, and have worked alongside some of the world’s top mixologists, who have created special Polynesian-style cocktails especially for the group and their songs. In 2005, the Hawaii Music Awards began a “Best Exotica Album” category in honor of Waitiki’s revival of the exotica genre—the group has won in that category in one form or another ever since. As The Waitiki 7, the group has released two albums so far, Adventures In Paradise (2009) and New Sounds of Exotica (2010). Their song “Similau”, a Martin Denny cover with an explosive new arrangement by Waitiki 7 member Tim Mayer, is featured on the soon-to-be-released compilation This is Vintage Now, where it appears with songs by other renowned artists such as Big Jay McNeely, Beverly Kenney, and Caro Emerald.


The classic Waitiki quartet will be playing December 29, and the full Waitiki 7 group will be playing December 30 and 31, with the members of Nineties Exotica group Combustible Edison appearing as special guests. In 2010, it really doesn’t get much more Exotica than this, and it doesn’t really get more Tiki than the world’s foremost Exotica band appearing at the world’s pioneering Tiki Culture establishment.

 12/02/10 >> go there
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