Updated July 11, 2008

Notable Quotes

Exotica historian Jeff Chenault in Tiki Magazine (Summer ‘08)

Boston-based WAITIKI is one of the most original and talented bands working in Exotica music today. They create an Exotica hybrid that is well-crafted and wickedly infectious. Their pioneering efforts have brought Exotica music into the new Millennium and beyond.

Otto von Stroheim (Founder, Tiki Oasis festival & Tiki News)

“WAITIKI is the best new Exotica band in the world right now.”

Haus der Kulturenen der Welt / House of World Cultures (The Host of WASSERMUSIK ‘08)

When Waitiki play their exotica style, audiences start flicking their fingers almost without realising it. At the House of World Cultures, the band invite their audience to join them on a South Pacific adventure. Images of endlessly long deserted beaches come to mind when they play classics like ‘Voodoo Love’, ‘Quiet Village’ and their own recent Polynesian pop compositions. No wonder that this tiki-tainment band headlined the Hawaii International Jazz Festival.

Reviews & Articles

February, 2008

Hawaii Music Awards

Best Album: Exotica category

WAITIKI’s album Rendezvous in Okonkuluku won us another Hawaii Music Award for Best New Album in the Exotica category.

August 24, 2007

Boston Herald: Feature in The Edge

Exotica band Waitiki rocks New England’s tiny Tiki scene

Brian “Mr. Ho” O’Neill is particular about his zombies. The vibraphonist for local exotica band Waitiki isn’t picky about the undead. Where he demands perfection is in dead-strong, faux-Polynesian cocktails. “Ah, these look like approved containers,” said O’Neill, 30, spying the well-balanced tray of Tiki-head glasses being carried across Malden’s Tiki Island restaurant…

August 17, 2007

Reax Music Review

The floral-shirted exotica specialists in Waitiki aren’t really from the island paradise of Okonkuluku – they made that shit up, along with an entire mythology that turns their lounged-out South Pacific sound into an entire sensory experience. The guys might be from Boston, but their vibraphones, trembly, trebly wind instruments, eccentric rhythm toys and yes, even bird calls inspire visions of tiki-torched midnight jungle parties; you can almost taste the Mai Tais. This, the band’s second full-length effort, is a bit more meandering and stylistically diverse than its predecessor. It’s still firmly rooted in the traditions of Les Baxter and Martin Denny (whose “Tiki” and “Voodoo Love,” respectively, are recreated here), though, and more than capable of making the listener believe in a fictional Polynesian Eden where the rum never stops flowing, and the fun just never stops. (waitiki.com) – Scott Harrell

May 10, 2007

Bradenton Herald: Full Story in Weekend Section

WAITIKI brings exotica to funky festival

Exotica. These days, the term is used as vague short-hand for anything that seems fancy and foreign…rarely performed lived with any sort of widespread regularity since its ’60s vogue among mainland America’s West Coast hipsters. But a highly-entertaining outfit from Boston, of all places, has been bringing its sound and experience to audiences from its hometown to such, ahem, exotica locales as Fort Lauderdale, Mexico, and Hawaii, the land of its birth. . .Full story

February 2007

Hawaii Music Awards

Exotica Album of the Year

WAITIKI’s album Charred Mammal Flesh: Exotic Music for BBQ wins the Hawaii Music Awards for Best New Album in the Exotica category.

April 3, 2006

La Cronica: Concert Review

They pay tribute to Juan García Esquivel with the Waitiki Orchestronica

April 1, 2006

La Jornada: Feature

Se presenta hoy la Orquestrótica Waitiki en el Teatro de la Ciudad

La única orquesta en el mundo que interpreta la música de Juan García Esquivel -considerado por el cliché musical como el padre del lounge-, la Orquestrótica Waitiki, dirigida por Brian O’Neill, se presentará este sábado a las 20:30 horas en el Teatro. . .

March 2006

Article in magazine Districto Federal (March 2006)

Mexico Celebrates Esquivel

(translated from Spanish) “The first time I heard those arrangements that were so cool using totally familar songs, and at the same time intelligent and humorous, I felt that I had discovered a sister music to our Exotica” says Brian O’Neill. . .Full story

Winter, 2005

Album reviews

Various DJs review “Charred Mammal Flesh”.

March 4, 2005

Boston Globe: Cover Story in Weekend Section

Hawaiian punch: Waitiki throws a Polynesian party to play the music of Juan Garcia Esquivel

Waitiki is different from other bands. It’s not just that the group plays exotica, a term better suited to a decorating motif or a category of porn than a musical genre. Or that by all accounts it’s one of two ensembles in the world that still performs exotica. . .Full story

March 4, 2005

Boston Herald: Full page story in The Edge

Light the Torches for a Night with WAITIKI

Here’s a combination that will melt the icicles in any New Englander’s brain: Polynesian drums, grass-skirted singers, groovy rhythms courtesy of lounge music hero Juan Garcia Esquivel, and the tiki-torch exclamation point - a full tropical drink list. That should thaw… Full story

February 3, 2004

The Lowell Sun

“. . . Hawai‘i is big on the spirit of “ho’okipa” (to entertain)…The high-energy WAITIKI Band was afire with irresistible music, the hibachis merrily cooked away with exotic delicacies and the drinks table offered gorgeous refreshers. . . Randy Wong and Abe Lagrimas in lava lava outfits guided the Waitiki crew with lots of ukuleles, gongs, African percussion and Hawaiian Exotica, added to bass, saxophone and vibes. They were a huge success. . .” Full Story

October 1, 2003

The Honolulu Weekly

“…Forty-four years since Martin Denny hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 13 weeks (he remains the only Hawai’i-based musician to climb that high) with the iconic album Quiet Village, he’s still influencing people. The degrees of separation are few. The late Arthur Lyman, that other earl of exotica, got his start in Denny’s band. Now a Lyman proteégé, Randy Wong, is the cofounder and bassist of WAITIKI, a band spreading the tenets of tiki in Boston where Wong is getting his master’s in arts education at Harvard. His bandmate is wunderkind drummer Abe Lagrimas, a Waipahu boy who performed with Don Tiki before moving to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music. . .” Full Story