Accordionist.org is a new discussion forum for accordion players that I found via the Accordion Guy’s blog. Share news, promote gigs, swap tips, buy/sell gear, or just hobnob with your fellow squeezeboxers. It’s only been running for about a week, so spread the word and hopefully it’ll attract a critical mass of accordion enthusiasts.

Some other good places to rub elbows with accordionists online:

• Reyes Accordions forum
  Part of the excellent Reyes Accordions site, this is probably the best tex-mex/conjunto/norte?o accordion forum around. Lots of knowledge players (Joel Guzman drops in occasionally) and resources for beginners.
• AccordionFreedomForum
  A more general accordion forum hosted on Yahoo Groups. Members frequently share their own recordings (which are usually pretty good!) with the group.
• alt.music.polkas
  All polka, all the time. Sometimes gets sidetracked by polka community politics, but even those discussions are strangely interesting.
• Cajun Accordion Discussion Group
  Lots of good cajun/zydeco accordion news and tips, straight from the Bayou.

This is by no means an exhaustive list — just a few of my favorites, all of which have a pretty good signal-to-noise ratio. Leave a comment below if you have any other good ones to share.

There’s been an incredible outpouring of emotion in the polka community since polka legend Li’l Wally Jagiello passed away late last week. Here are a few tributes to check out:

• Li’l Wally’s obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times is a well-written remembrance of his life and times; it even includes the full lyrics to the “Go-Go White Sox!” fight song he co-wrote back in 1959 (which was revived during their World Series run last year). There’s also a lengthy obituary in the Chicago Tribune.
• All week long, Cyberpolkas has been doing a nightly online radio tribute to Li’l Wally; they also have a nice collection of photos and links to share.
• Chicago punk/polka band The Polkaholics have some great photos of the gigs they played with Li’l Wally. If you don’t know the story of how Li’l Wally and the Polkaholics got together, check out the documentary chronicling their meeting.
• An online guestbook has been set up where fans can share memories, leave audio messages, and submit photos.
• Scott Simon did a short piece on Wally’s passing on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Also, if anyone out there has any MP3s of Li’l Wally’s music, post a comment and let me know. I’d love to share some of his music here on the site.

If you’re into world music, Calabash Music is an excellent place to explore unique, hard-to-find music from all over the globe. Today, the folks at Calabash paid tribute to Accordion Awareness Month with a playlist of accordion tracks from their vast international catalog. There’s something in there for everyone — forr? from Brazil, tango from France, brukdown from Belize, and much more. (My favorite so far is Argentinian accordionist Chango Spasiuk.)

You can buy songs from the playlist starting at 99 cents, and they’re good ol’, plain MP3s — no DRM restrictions. Plus, Calabash uses an “equal exchange” model allowing artists to earn 50% of all sales, so you can feel good knowing your money is actually going to the artist, and not just paying for the gas in some record executive’s Hummer.

Top o’ the morning to ya! While you’re busy drinking green beer and making naughty leprechaun jokes, don’t forget that the accordion has an important role to play today, too. It’s a key element of traditional Irish music (and I’m not just talking about U2). In that spirit, here are a few links to explore on this St. Patrick’s Day:

• Han’s Irish Squeezebox Page and RamblingHouse are good places for an overview of Irish button box playing, including history and biographies of its most famous performers. Han’s site even includes fingerings and charts for a handful of tunes.
• Will Zarwell’s’s Irish Accordion Discography is a fantastic resource, with links to audio samples, reviews, and even videos of numerous performers, including Joe Derrane, Andrew MacNamara, and Billy McComiskey.
• Joe Cooley only recorded one album, but his unique style of melodeon playing has been hugely influential. You can buy a CD of his album or listen to clips online at Amazon (just try to ignore that they’ve mislabeled his album as being by Clannad!).

Obviously this is just a starting point — share your own favorite Irish accordion links in the comments.