The Tikiyaki Orchestra is a musical experience unlike any other today. Utilizing a unique combination of sounds....smooth, mellow vibraphone, twanging, reverb-drenched surf guitar, pulsating theater organ, lilting Hawaiian steel guitar, bongos,congas, and an arsenal of exotic percussion from around the world, all set against the sounds of the ocean and jungle.... the Tikiyaki Orchestra transports the audience to a place and time when Cantonese food was dubbed “exotic cuisine”, and people escaped the mundane with the aid of strong, sweet rum-based cocktails served in Tiki Mugs with little colorful umbrellas... ie : Waikiki in 1960.

Evoking the spirit of past masters such as Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Les Baxter, The Tikiyaki Orchestra performs original material from their CD “StereoExotique”, written by award winning composer and band leader Jim Bacchi, as well as classics of the Exotica,traditional Hawaiian, lounge, surf, spy and cocktail genres, and provide the ideal sonic landscape for any tropical, Luau, swinger, fifties, lounge cocktail party, or other similarly-themed event.

The band has performed to sold-out crowds in Southern California and were the headliners at the 2008 Hukilau in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Hukilau is the East Coast's biggest and most attended Tiki weekender, attracting people from around the world.

Tikiyaki Orchestra Web Site

Tikiyaki video 'Mai Tai's On The Moon (Quicktime)

With a repertoire spanning over a dozen years and 1,500 professional performances worldwide, Flam Chen has innovated a new form of extreme theater, utilizing aspects of circus, martial arts, dance, ritual, aerial acrobatics, stilt-walking, installation art and physical theater to create unique panoramas of spectacle and narrative unlike anything you have ever seen.

Performers spin Balinese fire chains, combat with fire staffs and flaming swords, dance with fire fingers and fire fans, eat and breathe flames, light costume pieces, sculptures and very often the set itself ablaze during the course of an evening. Other performances have included aerial antics lifted high in the air from helium balloons, flying trapeze, zip lines, rappels, bungee, or a grand entrance from a 250 ft crane. Dazzling characters mesmerize and amaze audiences alike-designed and fabricated “in-house” using the vast talents and skills of the troupe and its talented creative community.

Collaboration has brought Flam Chen together with some of the most innovative artists and musicians in the country (many of them based in the Southwest), including gypsy/folk sensation, Molehill Orkestrah, industrial/noise legend Not Breathing, African drum ensemble, Dambe Project, electronic whiz-kid BARK BARK BARK, San Francisco-based stilting troupe The Carpetbag Brigade, and the internationally acclaimed VERBOBALA Spoken Video, to name a few of our close collaborators. Over the last 2 years, Flam Chen have been the exclusive flyers for Scream Awards and flown and created performance for such luminaries as director Tim Burton and Spiderman/Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee.

Flam Chen Web Site

Rumor has it, or damned near insists that a music fan will rarely come across anything fresh or innovative anymore. So where does a surf trio from Las Vegas come in? Simple, by offering one of the most fervent, insistent live sets ever witnessed by a partygoer worth their weight in beer suds!

Now for those who thought the surf scene was bottoming out, Thee Swank Bastards have definitely been on hand to rev it back up again. With their distinctively retro look: mutton chops, narrow ties, black suits; countered with riveting instrumentals that combine danceable rhythms, Eric Schauer’s syncopated drum patterns, Shaun Coleman’s propulsive bass lines, and best of all – the serpentine guitar licks of Jesse Del Quadro, create a musical sensibility that is at once deft and daring. In the end, their genius speaks for itself. They manage to take the period fetishism of old-school surf music and distill it with a modern twist that makes them instantly melodic and highly memorable.

Now if you haven’t experienced the Bastards before – what are you waiting for?

Thee Swank Bastards Web Site

Thee Swank Bastards do some Black Sabbath (edited)

Shrimp Chaperone

"Stay in school, kids"

The Disillusionists