Seattle Twist

Welcome to Part 4 of The Home Bar: Resurrection of a Mid-20th Century Domestic Icon. In the last chapter we ended with the mid-1990s and the cocktail revival and Lounge music craze, as well as my Home Bar Review journalism for my own short-lived ‘zine, Cocktail Review, and Russ Scheidelman’s half-decade-running periodical Organ & Bongos.

Tiki News founder and editor, Otto Von Stroheim’s vintage Witco home Tiki bar. This is the same Witco design found in Elvis’ Graceland home bar. (Photo taken mid-1990s)

The Lounge craze of the mid-1990s — as fun and exciting as it was — was doomed to not last very long. Largely the reason for this was that the few people who put on events — weekly, monthly, or otherwise – simply became burned out and stopped putting them on. Another significant reason is that the scene, atmosphere, and various genres of music that made up the musical backdrop of Lounge, wasn’t easily interpreted and classified by the mainstream public. After all, it was considered a fad like any other, but, although it may have been undeliberately reactionary, Lounge wasn’t about dancing (though dancing was a small aspect), rebellion, drugs, and youthful angst — fads the mainstream public are used to and, although they may not like, at least understand and come to expect. Lounge was about discovery and implementation of a bygone Golden Age of adult social culture, music, and mid-20th Century style, into the daily lives and nightlife of younger generations — generations who weren’t old enough at the time to partake in such social culture. And the majority of these people were in their 30s and 40s, not their teens and 20s.

And so the scene faded and with it all the public curiosity behind it. But the music and reissues lived on (without the trendy cocktail packaging), as did the private parties and the hard-core fans; and, of course, the continued interest and appearance of home bars.

The Starlight Lounge basement bar in a friend’s 1960s-built Ballard Ranch home, The Atomic Abode. (Photo taken 2007)

The Cabana Bar in The Atomic Abode’s back yard. Space Age designs complement the vintage Stucco bar. (Photo taken 2007)

Marlow & Jo-David’s Dead Elvis Lounge. (Photo taken mid-2000s)

With the new millennium came a component and offspring of the Lounge craze: Tiki. The Tiki scene was narrower of scope than the Lounge scene and, hence, more easily interpreted by folks fascinated by it and new to it (though, like Lounge, misinterpreted largely by the general public). The hard–core movers and shakers of the Tiki world during the Lounge craze became revered. And by the mid-2000s the Tiki community had grown into a worldwide ’scene’, continuously obtaining fresh members, with related books, magazines and Tiki art galore, Exotica and Hawaiian music shares and reissues, websites, bands, and HUGE events. And with the Tiki craze came the home bar’s biggest resurgence. 

Pete’s Monkey Skull Voodoo Lounge. This eclectic basement lounge contains two tropical-themed bars at each end of the lounge (as well as an outdoor one!), Tiki mugs galore, and the awe-inspiring home-made Pond Of Voodoo, complete with Koi, Spouting Moai, eerie coloured lights, and fog.

Without a doubt exotic cocktails and an idealised Polynesian bar atmosphere (largely inspired by the designs of the Trader Vic’s chain) was a big draw for people new to Tiki. And though the continuing disappearance of classic Polynesian Restaurant lounges was a factor, creating one’s own Tiki lounge at home was a way of bringing this faux-Polynesian atmosphere directly into one’s domestic life (if one can’t get to the Tropics, bring the Tropics to you), as well as was a way of showing one’s devotion to the ’scene’. And building a home-made Tiki bar or seeking one out was a fairly simple task, as the references to what constitutes a proper Tiki bar are plentiful, the materials with which to make one fairly inexpensive and easy to obtain, and manufacturers of Tiki bars not as uncommon as one may think. 

By the mid-2000s home Tiki bars of all shapes, sizes, and elaborations began to surface and resurface. And with them, so did the premiere of the organised home bar tour.

Until next time, All the best and Okole Maluna!

-T.G.