Along with seeing and hearing Waitiki and Latin Lovers it was great meeting Virani, Jochen and Tanja Hirschfeld, Forbidden Paradise’ Hai Kai and Michael. It made me really happy to hear that the first part of Armchairtravelling in the World of Tiki DVD will be available later this year. I enjoyed seeing the work in progress on the big screen, especially interested how the pictures work with the music, I had the pleasure to record for it. It’s going to be a definitive must have for Tiki-philes. …once it’s actually available.

Latin Lovers (Berlin)

This band was opening the Tiki weekend at Wassermusik 08. The horn heavy line-up was proof to the theory that many ways lead to Exotica.

The Mayor of Exotica in Sumo dress

He didn’t quite look as big wearing his stage suit. An Exotica flute heavy weight if there ever was one!

Waitiki at Wassermusik 08

Accomplished performances by all musicians, beautiful arrangements and cheerful stage presence – it was a great experience seeing them. Thanks! Oh, and the birdcalls by Lopaka Colon – so great and all done while providing perfect groove in polyrythmic bongo-playing. Several people noted to me that we were listening actually to Augie Colon’s son. Playing again today with Don Tiki.

I had written a nice text about how I was introduced to The New Dimensions in the 80s. But I lost it trying out the new “Press This” feature of this blog software. It boiled down to the essence that any surf music fan worth his salt has to know this great teenage band from 1962.

Michael Lloyd, lead guitar; Jimmy Greenspoon, piano; Art Guy, drums, Danny Belsky, saxes; David Doud, bass; and Craig Nuttycombe, rhythm guitar.

The band never had any singles released. We worked with these hustler types by the name of Robert Hafner and Tony Hilder. They had a deal with a tiny budget label called Sutton to issue the New Dimension albums as ‘rack jobs.’ Essentially that meant their records would be pressed on cheap vinyl normally reserved for placemats, packaged in fairly generic sleeves, and shipped directly to the cut out bins with no hope of promotion, airplay, or royalties. We had three studio albums, ‘Surf ‘N Bongos’, ‘Soul’, and ‘Deuces & Eights’. We were part of a live album from the Santa Monica surf fair titled ‘Shake! Shout and Soul!’

Read the interview here.

First of all: it rained, so the two Surf shows and The Endless Summer projection took place indoors. The attendence was fair sized, could have been a little better, if outside sure some passer-bys would have joined the fun.

The first time I saw the Surfaris, and it was overwhelming. They cover the entire field of classic California Surf Music and each player added his personal style to great effect, especially Paul Johnson has to be noted here, a flawless player.

July 25 – 26, 2008

Enchanted Tiki Luau Blow-Out
An Egyptian Theatre exclusive!

After the success of our Tiki events the past three summers, we’re back again with more exotic ephemera: more fun feature films, diverting oddball shorts, vendors, food, music and more! We’ll be showing old-school island adventure pics Fair Wind to Java, Aloma of The South Seas and Her Jungle Love (all in gorgeously saturated color) will screen along with artist Kevin Kidney’s collection of rare, island-themed TV surprises. Join us in the Egyptian’s Courtyard for a Royal Southern California-style Luau with exotic musical entertainment from King Kukelele and his Friki Tikis and the Polynesian Paradise Dancers. There will also be Tiki vendors and other special surprises in the courtyard on Saturday from 1:00 PM until we shut it down.

read more at Tiki_Weekend_ET

I randomly clicked a track on the Spreeblick blog’s newest music review. And it was Doves Circle the Sky by Bodies of Water. And I must say once in a while there’s new music that I really like for some reason or other. This track was playing during one of these very rare moments. Maybe I should listen there more often, since this was the first time I did that!

Popgun! 24 Bodys of Water und Ladyhawke

Brian Chidester, co-author of Dumb Angel Magazine 4 and the upcoming Pop Surf Culture book (among other things) has a short film about the Waikiki Beachboys on YouTube currently.

Quote from Tiki central:

It’s a short documentary that I directed four years ago, as a teaser to a larger project about the Waikiki Beachboys… native Hawaiian surf instructors and nightclub entertainers from the jazz age up through the ’60s. There were two great generations of Beachboys, and even though there are still beachboy concessions on Waikiki Beach today, the music and scene is nowhere near what it was back in the day.
I hope you enjoy the clip. I have tons of interview footage ‘in the can.’

The event takes shape! As posted before, I will keep you updated.

Line Up Wassermusik

Surf
10.7. 19h Leopold Kraus Wellenkapelle; 20.30h The Surfaris
11.7. 19h Messer Chups; 20.30h La Pupuna
12.7.19h Boom Pam; 20.30h Bambi Molesters
13.7. 20.30h Marc Ribot Trio

Seemannslieder
17.7. 19h Juana Molina; 20.30h Eliza Carthy
18.7. 19h Chor der Kulturen der Welt; 20.30h Dori Caymmi
19.7. 19h Fikat al Bahrain; 20.30h Hamid Baroudi
20.07. 14h Family Concert with Fikat al Bahrain/ afterwards Ocean Club

Tiki
24.7. 19h Belli de Waikiki; 20.30h Waitiki
25.7. 20.30h Don Tiki
26.7. 19h Coconami; 20.30h Lushy
27.07 Chillout Kahuna Kawentzmann

www.myspace.com/festival_wassermusik

I found this blog by accidents – looking for the publisher of a Chubby Checker song. The first time I stumbled across a great blog by someone I know personally and I didn’t know he was doing it!

Berlin Beatet Bestes is where Andreas Michalke presents his odd vinyl findings. I think it’s just 7”s. He has a talent for finding incredible stuff of all kinds (and not just records). Often with great sleeves – being a comic book artist he wouldn’t let a nice artwork illustration pass by. It took a while until I gathered how to listen to his samples in the stream player on the right sidebar. Maybe this would be a good plug-in for his WordPress? He could have the sound where the article is – and not alphabetically crammed into a small box. Anyway, I totally dig this. Check out the thorough descriptions he writes for the records. He loves vinyl oddities. If you’re similarly adjusted have a look and a listen.

This is another beautiful trailer for a new surf video. I like the unusual and extreme choice of boards ridden and the impressionistic piano music. It works very nice, and casts yet another light on surfing. Very, very nice

Thanks to 70percent.org

I knew about this big back-catalogue re-issue being planned before, but I somehow never could view the web-page until now.

Arthur Lyman died a couple of years ago, and it was a great loss to the people into Exotica and Tiki as he was still performing. He used to play with Martin Denny before he ventured out with his own group. Both artists released similar styled albums, but Lyman kept more Hawai’i in his music as the sixties went on, being hawaiian might be a reason. He had some of the deepest, most atmospheric and soulful Exotica recordings, combining authentic ethnic instrumentation with modern jazz. Another interesting point of note are humorous tunes he often selected to appear towards the end of his LPs. He may not have had a Sandy Warner on the covers, but many are very beautiful, classic Exotica designs. Taboo 2 had an authentic shrunken head on the front, until it was repackaged with a shot from the Pele roll of film.

Kevin Crossman writes on the Exotica list:

Collectors has released 18 Lyman albums in their entirety as 9 two-fer CDs.
…
Don’t be fooled by lame, generic cover art. each release has the cover of both LPs printed in full color. All you have to do is take the front booklet out and fold it backwards to show the cool orig Lp cover art! The CD also contains a reprint of one of the Lp back covers
…
Look for the double titles separated by a slash. Steer clear of the Greatest Hits package – it is not bad but I’m sure you would rather have the full experience of a Lyman lp in its original format
…

go to Collectors’ Choice Music