[Exotica] Under the spell of Tiki, the Polynesian man-god

[Brian Meagher]

I've met KBZ200 founder Gordon W several times - he is
most definitely a cool and strange character! I've
heard the Fuzzy Love Cd, and, uh, it's a bit of a
rough listen, but that's "irritainment" for ya!

When I first moved to Montreal in 1990, I hooked up
with Istvan Kantor / Monty Cantsin and his gang of
renegade artists known as the Neoists. The Neoists
basic premise was continuous self re-creation, to
create a new "ism" every day, and there were several
of them combining cooking with performance art.
Besides Gordon W, there was also Kiki Bonbon, who
later opened a vegetarian restaurant called Les
Vivres. The restaurant is still going, but without
Kiki, and I don't particularly recommend it, but I
digress....

A couple years later, Gordon and Monty moved to
Toronto, where they had monthly parties at their loft
space on Wabash Ave. One of the early KBZ200
performances consisted on Gordon W spraying various
types of air freshener while a DJ, Sir Spinner
Finevinyl, DJ'd lounge music in the background. Like
many of their performances, this one was fun at first,
but quickly became unbearable - hence the term
"irritainment".

A couple years after that, an ecclectic group of
artists gathered for the wedding of Gordon Monahan and
Laura Kikauka at Gordon Monahan's place in the Ontario
countryside. Gordon Monahan is a sound artist, most
famous for his "speaker swinging" performances where
he had speakers playing tones, and he would swing the
speakers around to take advantage of the doppler
effect. Monty and Gordon Monahan were friendly rivals
in the art scene and Monty and I once joked about
doing a performance of Gordon Monahan swinging. of
course, we really wouldn't - Gordon Monahan is a
really nice guy. He tolerated me, someone he didn't
know, showing up at his wedding using Monty's
invitation (Monty was on tour or something at the
time). This place was kitsch heaven! In fact, Gordon
Monahan had such a huge collection of kitsch artifacts
- vintage toys, furniture, records, you name it - that
he had a separate place nearby just to store his
stuff! People who were driving by kept stopping at his
storage cabin to see if it was a store! And Gordon
Monahan's record collection was thru the roof! Huge
bins of records, classified into sections like "Fake
Cowboy Music", "Circus Soundtrack Music", "Bongos",
etc... Anyway, the wedding was an incredible loung /
kitsch affair, and I might add, an inspiration for my
own wedding wich will take place in two weeks (!!),
although mine won't be as out there as Gordon
Monahan's. Again, I digress.... 

So, Gordon W was the chef at this wedding, and when he
says "the service is delayed as increasingly complex
rituals are performed around a giant flaming wok", he
is NOT kidding! Gordon W built an elaborate Tiki
temple to house his food preparation area. Food
preparation began in the early afternoon, and was
served sometime around midnight! Also, I should
mention that during the preparation, a DJ played Ryan
Kinney's "Spice Island" over and over again, everyone
had taken halluginogens, and Gordon W accidentally
dropped a beaded necklace into the noodles. "Everyone
watch out for beads in the food!"
This night was my "awakening" to exotica culture,
unsurprisingly!

The last time I ran into Gordon W was in Hungary in
1997, where a bunch of Neoists gathered for some
performances that Monty had organized. By this time,
Gordon was living in Berlin, and I think the "Exotic
Trilogy" CD has just come out. Again, Gordon W set up
his Tiki temple and after an agonizingly long wait,
"Gordon, when will the food NOT be ready?", a
Polynesian feast appeared.

I got his address from him at the end of that tour,
but Gordon was really drunk at the time and i could
never make out what he wrote. I'd love to get back in
touch with him if anyone has his coordinates..

--- Donna and Eric Taub <dandetaub at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Excerpt:
> This year is the 10th anniversary of the KBZ200, a
> group of about 20 artists 
> who explore a kitsch bent loosely based on the
> culture of Tiki -- the 
> mythical Polynesian man-god co-opted in the 1950s by
> Western restaurants and 
> bars serving up quasi-Polynesian food, drink, music
> and atmosphere to 
> swingers hungry for a taste of ersatz exotica.
> 
> A series of KBZ200 events throughout the year will
> celebrate a decade of the 
> group's often-delirious performances, which have
> been known to involve palm 
> trees, daiquiri-dispensing coconut bras, volcano
> woks, and much, much more.
> Full Article:
>
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fa20030625md.htm
> Cool stuff- Anybody able to check this out?
> Eric
> 
>
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