The host of a popular tiki-centric YouTube show is producing a weekend of music and drinks in Palm Springs.
Matt “Spike” Marble is hosting The Breezeway Getaway, a get-together for fans of surf rock, cocktails, tiki culture and his webseries Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Hour. More than 4 million people have tuned in to watch the tiki connoisseur re-create iconic drinks, explore famous bars and interview drink-makers from across the world. He has more than a few videos about the rich tiki culture of Palm Springs, including a couple of them rating of all three local tiki haunts.
The Breezeway Getaway will celebrate the three tiki spots in Palm Springs. On top of cocktails all weekend long, the event will feature a vendor village and live music from Marble’s band, The Hula Girls, along with other notable acts in the surf/rockabilly space such as Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, Swingin’ Coconuts, The Volcanics, Hilo Hi-Flyers, The Hexxers and The Centuries.
The Breezeway Getaway will take place from Friday, Jan. 23, through Sunday, Jan. 25, at the Caliente Tropics Hotel in Palm Springs.
During a recent phone interview, Marble said that even though the event will be hosted at Caliente Tropics, home of The Reef tiki bar, the opening night of the Breezeway Getaway will also feature drinks from Bootlegger Tiki and the Tonga Hut
“We’ve actually been able to get all three of the tiki bars in Palm Springs together for the Friday-night welcoming party, and each bar is going to be presenting their own cocktail,” Marble said. “It’s really exciting, especially with Bootlegger, who hasn’t been part of that in all these years. This is the first time Bootlegger is really going to be participating in a tiki thing.”
Bootlegger Tiki is one of the most iconic Palm Springs tiki spots, as the bar is located in the same space as the Don the Beachcomber restaurant that opened in 1953. It was this Don the Beachcomber location, which attracted celebrities like Frank Sinatra, that helped mark Palm Springs as a tiki hotspot.
“There’s a little bit of a history there, but they’re under new ownership now, and the guy’s super-passionate about participating more in the local tiki world,” Marble said.
Marble got the idea to host a weekend of fun in Palm Springs during Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Cruise, a get-together for fans of the show and tiki culture, hosted at sea.
“I found myself out floating around in the Bahamas with a bunch of fans of the show, and I go, ‘Do you guys think that we could sell out the Caliente Tropics Resort Hotel?’ My buddy Scott, who was sitting next to me, goes, ‘Yeah, of course you can,’” he said. “It started as kind of an impromptu get-together, and I told people that we’re going to be doing it, and before I knew it, we sold out the hotel in two days. All of a sudden, people are coming in from Europe and coming from across the country, and I was like, ‘I’d better have something for them to be entertained by.’
“I fell into turning it into a festival. I have seven bands booked, and a whole vendor village with 20-plus vendors that are going to be involved, and then room parties throughout the hotel.”
The Breezeway Getaway will join other tiki-weekender events that happen in Palm Springs such as Tiki Caliente, an event entering its 17th year that almost always sells out. Marble hopes that The Breezeway Getaway will add some variety to local tiki celebrations, and place more of an emphasis on modern tiki-adjacent music.
“(At Tiki Caliente), if you booked a hotel room the year before, then you get preference to book your room again, so it kind of guarantees a sellout every year,” he said. “I think it’s a great concept, but I also think it kind of limits the people who can go. My intention is to make this thing so that hopefully it rotates through guests every year, and it’s a little bit more of a rock ’n’ roll, rockabilly, punk-rock kind of event.”
Marble is bringing some of his labelmates from Hi-Tide Recordings to perform in Palm Springs, including Big Sandy, “a legend in Orange County rockabilly.”
“I have been to a lot of these tiki weekenders, and I’ve always thought that there are great bands, but where is that headliner that I’m really dying to see?” Marble said. “For me, Big Sandy is that, and I already have ideas for the following years—trying to bring ‘big’ small bands to the pool deck there at the Tropics.”
Fans of Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Hour will be treated to a meet-and-greet with Marble and stars from the show, as well as a special Q&A session.
“We’re talking about doing a panel with people who have been on my show,” he said. “There are some recurring characters who have become a part of the YouTube show, so it’ll be more of a Q&A than a live show. The intention is just allowing people to ask questions about the show.”
Marble is confident that, after getting a bunch of likeminded fans of cocktails and music together, “the event will guide itself.”
“The whole thing, aside from the organization of the bands and the bar situation, I’m just going to see what happens,” Marble said.
Marble looks forward to what guests of the festival will get up to in between the event’s scheduling.
“The great thing about the Caliente Tropics hotel is that the (customers) are all enthusiastic, so that means that they end up having their own bars in their own rooms, and people travel from room to room,” Marble said. “It’s not exactly a sanctioned part of the event, but people create their own fun outside of the planned events.”
As of this writing, there are still tickets left in the Cocktail Club Pass tier, which includes a limited-edition Breezeway Getaway tiki mug that resembles the tiki found at the Tropics.
“The Tropics was built in 1963 by Ken Kimes, and the tiki that is on the pool deck used to be 20 feet tall,” Marble said. “Over the years, they just kind of degrade, because even out in the desert, the wood rots. All that’s left is this giant head, so that’s what the tiki mug depicts—this guy’s giant head with his tongue hanging out.”
The Breezeway Getaway will take place from Friday, Jan. 23, through Sunday, Jan. 25, at the Caliente Tropics, at 411 E. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs. General admission tickets are $150. For tickets and more information, visit www.breezewaycocktailhour.com.