Last week, the Chicago Tribune had a fun piece on Chicago punk/polka band The Polkaholics. Fortified with Old Style and Old Spice, The Polkaholics recently celebrated their 10th anniversary and continue their quest to bring polkas rocking and screaming into the 21st century. Guitarist “Dandy” Don Hedeker (day job: professor of biostatistics!) describes the reaction of older polka fans who sometimes stumble upon their shows:
“Sometimes they’re excited to see what we’re doing with the music… Other times they think we’re the devil.”
The band’s latest CD, Ten Years to the Floor, is a live album highlighting the band’s unique brand of polka madness. As with anything punk, it’s more about the spirit and raw energy than musicianship — “we may miss a note, but we never miss a party” — and you can practically hear the beergarden and mosh pit coming together. This is a Polkaholics original from that album:
Take one accordion virtuoso from Pennsylvania, son of a polka legend, with a diverse background in jazz, pop, and folk. Take one bass player from Texas, formerly of Brave Combo, known for rocking Tex-Mex and cumbias with Los Super Vatos. Put them together and what do you get? Polka Freak Out!
Polka Freak Out is a collaboration between Alex Meixner and Bubba Hernandez that combines polka styles from around the world (Slovenian, Austrian, Polish, you name it) with conjunto/tejano rhythms and rock and roll energy and enthusiasm. It started with a casual jam session a few years ago, while Hernandez was passing through Alex’s area during a Brave Combo tour. Now they’ve released their first self-titled album, which includes guest appearances by bajo sexto legend Max Baca and Texas Tornado keyboardist Augie Meyers.
The duo will be out on the road later this month, with shows in New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. Check our calendar for details.
What started as a lark — an accordion gang raiding San Francisco restaurants to play “Lady of Spain” — has turned into a very productive career for Those Darn Accordions. Their latest album, Squeeze Machine, continues the tradition of accordion rock and oddball humor that has made the band “America’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll accordion band” for more than 15 years.
The band has clearly evolved since the early days when they’d cram eight accordions on stage. Their older records leaned heavily on squeezebox-specific kitsch: songs about Lawrence Welk and all-accordion renditions of rock classics (often with octogenarian Clyde Forsman on vocals). But while the old TDA was an accordion band that played rock songs, the modern-day TDA is really a rock band that just happens to sport a few accordions. They’ve pared down the accordion lineup to four, turned the focus from covers to originals, and tightened up their sound.
One thing hasn’t changed, though: they’re still having a hell of a lot of fun. Lead singer/songwriter Paul Rogers populates the album with a cast of colorful characters, ranging from a disgruntled member of a Beatles tribute band (“This Song”), to a squabbling bicycling couple (“Tandem Bike”), and a Willy Loman-esque traveling salesman (“Wrinkle Suit”). Cleveland native (and new “Price is Right” host) Drew Carey even shows up to help renovate a house on “Glass of Beer Polka.”
Meanwhile, the band doesn’t stick to any one genre for long, trading rock ‘n’ roll for country hoedowns (“Heads and Horns”) and swing (“Cocktails in Tehran”) when the mood strikes. On some tracks, heavy wah-wah-like effects make you wonder if you’re actually listening to accordions at all. (You are.) And, of course, there are still a couple covers — AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and “It’s Now or Never” both get the TDA treatment. (Longtime fans may remember that a version of the latter appeared on the band’s first album, Vongole Fisarmonica, too.)
Squeeze Machine does an excellent job showcasing TDA‘s strengths: catchy, offbeat, high-energy, accordion-driven tunes. It’s tough to keep things fresh after 15 years, but Those Darn Accordions are clearly up to the challenge.
It isn’t every day you get to see five of North America’s hottest singer/songwriter/accordionists in one place, but we were lucky enough to do so last night at 12 Galaxies in San Francisco as the Monsters of Accordion tour rolled into town. The crowd was incredible — my amateur guesstimating skills say around 300 people — including a handful of Let’s Polka readers who came up and introduced themselves throughout the night (thanks for coming!).
The show kicked off with Geoff Berner whose “Canadian klezmer drinking songs” had the crowd singing along from the start. In between songs, he told stories of his great-grandfather’s move to Saskatchewan, incompetent French generals of the 1930s, and everything in-between. By contrast, Duckmandu (Aaron Seeman) was all-business, storming through punk covers, country songs, and originals from his new album, Shut the Duck Up and Play Accordion. He closed with his always-popular “flaming hat” rendition of “Highway to Hell.”
As soon as Corn Mo hit the stage, one of my friends turned and asked “Is this guy the love child of Meatloaf and Freddie Mercury?” His show-stopping performance of “We Are the Champions” did little to dispute that hypothesis and Corn Mo had the crowd eating out of his hand for his entire set. (Anna declared him “Best in Show” for the night.) Each show on the Monsters tour has featured a special guest and, after Corn Mo, we were treated to a rare set by the Bay Area’s own Mark Growden. (Mark wins the award for most drool-worthy accordion — what appeared to be a chromatic Bugari.)
Finally, the man who organized it all — Jason Webley — took the stage and whipped the crowd into a frenzy with nonstop sing-a-longs and even a cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” thrown in for good measure. He was floored by the passionate, accordion-loving crowd and remarked that “the tides are changing… in three or four years, people are going to be embarrassed to admit they took guitar lessons as a kid.” The show closed with all five accordionists onstage performing (or just drinking along to) Webley’s “Drinking Song” as the crowd spun in circles and headed out into the cool San Francisco night.
It was a fantastic event and, if you’re in the Bay Area tonight, be sure to catch the last show of the tour over at Smythe’s Accordion Center in Oakland. This is absolutely a can’t-miss, must-see show. Even if you’re up in Cotati today (we’re headed there now), you can still make it down in time for the Monsters show.
For those who couldn’t be there last night, here’s a video I recorded of Corn Mo performing “We Are the Champions”:
Few performers connect with their audiences as well as Seattle songwriter/accordionist Jason Webley. Known for his gravelly, Tom Waits-ish voice and feverish foot-stomping and bellows-pumping, he’s built a loyal following with theatrical shows that not only invite audience participation, but practically demand it. He also has a thing for tomatoes.
Jason is the brains behind the Monsters of Accordion tour, an all-accordion extravaganza taking place on the West Coast this week. We recently had the chance to talk to Jason briefly about the tour and his work.
If I’ve counted right, I think this is the third or fourth Monsters of Accordion tour. How did it all start? What was the inspiration?
We got the idea for the Monsters tour at an event I was invited to headline at Smythe’s Accordion Center maybe 4 years ago. I had never seen so many other accordion freaks before, and I really fell in love with a couple of them (Daniel Ari and Duckmandu) so we decided to try and do a little accordion only tour. So this is actually year three for “Monsters of Accordion.” The three of us did the west coast together twice, I think. But I was always the main draw on those tours and somewhere I decided that, if I was going to do it again, I wanted to make it bigger than just me. So I invited Corn Mo and Geoff Berner, who both tour all over and have their own followings. And they are amazing. I think it is going to be a great run.
Watch out, West Coast: the Monsters of Accordion are on the loose. Next week, four unique singer/songwriter/accordionists — Jason Webley, Corn Mo, Geoff Berner, and Duckmandu — will be spreading squeezebox mayhem in Seattle, Portland, Eugene, San Francisco, and Oakland. Special guests will join the tour in each town, including Amy Denio and Hell’s Bellows in Seattle, Eric Stern of Vagabond Opera in Portland, and Mark Growden in San Francisco. Needless to say, if you only attend one all-accordion extravaganza this summer, Monsters of Accordion should be it.
The Monsters of Accordion tour is the brainchild of the foot-stompin’, tomato lovin’ Jason Webley. I recently had the chance to talk with Jason about the tour and I’ll be posting our interview here soon.
It’s been almost a year since polka legend Li’l Wally Jagiello passed away, but he certainly hasn’t been forgotten. Chicago punk/polka band The Polkaholics are hosting a free tribute concert this Friday, and they’ll be playing a slew of Li’l Wally classics. There’ll also be some Li’l Wally memorabilia on display and raffled off to lucky attendees. (Note: the Polkaholics don’t have an accordion player, but I don’t hold that against them.)
Li’l Wally and the Polkaholics may seem like an odd match, given the generational gap and the latter’s leanings toward punk-ed up, guitar-driven polka, but they actually performed together at Chicago’s Zakopane Lounge back in 2002. Filmmaker Wes Hranchak chronicled their epic meeting in the appropriately-titled documentary, Polkaholics.
Posted August 15th, 2007 in Events, Polka, Rock · Comments off
“The band has added an accordion in the past few years and they use it like a lead guitar. [Mattox] laughs, ‘I am trying to make the accordion sexy… Today, it seems you see the accordion everywhere — but in my defense, I started playing over seven years ago.'”
He even has a great “first accordion” story to prove it:
“I saw a band called 16 Horsepower and the lead singer played a bandoneón. I was amazed and said, ‘I am going to have to play the accordion now.’ The next day, I saw an ad in the classifieds. I went to this old, old man on a farm. He told me he’d bought the accordion in Germany when he was in the war. I spent a great afternoon with him, then left with an accordion, a couple of watermelons and hot peppers.”
The band has been working on an album this summer; in the meantime, check their MySpace for clips like the one below.
Nobody has done more to keep polka music varied and vibrant than Brave Combo, the genre-busting quintet from Denton, Texas. For more than 25 years, they’ve been winning over listeners to their unique melting pot of musical styles. According to bandleader Carl Finch, their goal is to “break down people’s perceptions about what’s cool to like in music. Our deal is to shake up people’s ideas about what they label hip, or right or wrong.”
The two-time Grammy winners have a new album out, Polka’s Revenge, that continues that tradition by mixing rock and Tex-Mex-inspired polkas with old-world waltzes, schottisches, and obereks. Of the album’s twenty tracks, four are Brave Combo originals and the rest are new renditions of classics by polka greats like the Connecticut Twins, Wanda and Stephanie, and the Ampol Aires.
And, as if you needed another reason to attend the Cotati Accordion Festival later this month, Brave Combo is one of the headliners and will be performing on both Saturday and Sunday.
Just a couple weeks ago, They Might Be Giants released their new album The Else bundled with a super special bonus disc called Cast your Pod to the Wind, which contains music previously released only on their podcasts. It’s no doubt They Might Be Giants is one of the hardest working (and prolific) rock bands out there; releasing the equivalent of two albums at the same time is an impressive feat!
I love both of these discs. Yes, I am a long time fan, but every song included is quintessentially They Might Be Giants. From Flansburgh’s energetic power-pop guitar hooks to Linnell’s cleverly written lyrics and meticulously orchestrated geek-rock, both discs are a fabulous collection of musical experiments. I’ve listened to it about 20 times over, and yet I continue to get “Aha!” moments when I catch a lyrical phrase with a double meaning or a clever melodic riff. I can’t help but think “These guys are geniuses!”
Although light on accordion solos, I think any musician would appreciate the vast array of other instruments and effects used to enhance this otherwise straight-forward rock album and bonus disc. It’s a must for dedicated fans, and a great ‘starter’ album for people less familiar with the band.
Bruce over at 
