Best of Let’s Polka 2007

No, we haven’t joined the writers’ strike; we’ve just been in hibernation for the past couple weeks. Now we’re rested and ready to squeeze into 2008 with more accordion news, reviews, and events than ever before!

But first, let’s look back at some Let’s Polka highlights from the past year:

• In addition to launching our calendar of accordion events, we covered local events like the Monsters of Accordion and Cotati Accordion Festival, and recapped events further afield, including the Coupe Mondiale in Washington, the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, and South by Southwest.
• We interviewed accordionist (and Monsters of Accordion organizer) Jason Webley, and profiled a number of hard-working accordionists, ranging from Frank Marocco to Eva Ybarra. We said goodbye to legendary teacher Maddalena Belfiore and our writeup on the Big Joe Polka Show has become a popular destination for Big Joe fans.
• We’re not as prolific as Rolling Stone (yet), but we did review a bunch of new accordion albums. Some of our favorites included new releases by Those Darn Accordions, Acadian accordionist Elly Kelly, Tom Hagerman (of DeVotchKa), and Zevy Zions.
• Once again, we spent (too many) hours on YouTube watching how to build a diatonic accordion, an incredible accordion performance of Flight of the Bumblebee, classic clips of Those Darn Accordions, Johnny Pecon, an all-star Tejano accordion jam, and much more. We also contributed to the drop in productivity with our own video of Corn Mo’s “We are the Champions”.
• And there was plenty more… fantastic accordion photos, the debate over online polka radio, a polka book/CD giveaway, and the mysterious disappearance of a Texas polka star.

And we have even bigger plans for 2008 — so stay tuned, keep squeezin’, and have a happy New Year!