I try to avoid watching reality TV because it usually just makes me angry. For example, take this clip from the latest episode of America’s Got Talent in which Branson accordionists Dan and Kim Christian get the boot simply because they play the accordion.

“If there’s one thing worse than an accordion, it’s two accordions.” But what about three accordions? Or five accordions? Or (gasp) fourteen? Frankly, I don’t think you can ever have too many accordions.

With so many Grammy categories, it’s no surprise that what you see on TV is only a tiny fraction of the awards presented (usually about 12 out of 110 total). Most awards are given out during a ceremony before the televised show.

This year, for the first time, you can watch those pre-televised awards — including Best Polka Album and Best Cajun/Zydeco Album — live online at Grammy.com. It starts at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern today and, while there are a lot of awards to get through, things move pretty fast.

Set your Tivos, ‘Weird’ Al is making a cameo appearance on The Simpsons this Sunday night (8/7c), January 27th, 2008. This will be his second appearance on the show, putting him in an elite club of multi-time guests such as Stephen Hawking and Thomas Pynchon! For more information (warning: spoilers!) check out Al’s Myspace blog.

I like to think of The Big Joe Polka Show as polka’s answer to American Bandstand. Just replace the TV studio with a large plywood dance floor in an Elk’s Lodge, the awkward teens with polka dancing seniors, and Dick Clark with the charming “Big Joe” Siedlik and his loud, accordion-patterned vests.

For more than 25 years, Big Joe was a polka radio king, spinning a popular mix of Polish, Czech and German polka records for listeners in the Midwest. After retiring from radio, he moved to television and now showcases live polka bands and dancers on his program which airs nationwide on RFD-TV, “Rural America’s Most Important Network.”

Later this month, Big Joe will film a series of shows at the RFD-TV Theater in Branson, Missouri. It’s a big deal for the bands chosen to perform and they’re coming from all over the country — the Polka Chips from Alaska, Smilin’ Scandinavians from Washington, Phocus from Buffalo, and many more.

One of polka’s biggest promoters, Big Joe likes to say that “polka tots make polka teens, and polka teens make adult human beings.” This clip is proof of that, as Big Joe welcomes (and teases) the younger members of Colorado’s Polka Nuts:

They shared a last name and a love of the accordion but, contrary to popular belief, polka king Frankie Yankovic and parody king Weird Al Yankovic weren’t actually related. In 1986, though, the two joined forces for this hilarious segment during the half-hour special Weird Al’s Guide to the Grammys. In it, Weird Al conducts a brief interview with Frankie (who was up for the first-ever Best Polka Album award that year) and then the two perform a polka medley of Record of the Year nominees including “Born in the USA” and “We Are The World”.

Like American Idol, the annual Eurovision Song Contest is one of my favorite musical guilty pleasures. Ridiculously cheesy songs delivered with over-the-top drama, usually in a language I can’t understand… what’s not to like?

I wrote about Israel’s controversial entry, “Push the Button”, last month but today I came across some lighter fare. “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” is the Ukraine’s entry — a high-energy dance number (with accordion, of course) sung by a cross-dressing guy who calls himself Verka Serduchka. He reminded me of San Francisco’s accordion-playing drag queen, Kielbasia, but if she had stayed in the old country and become a pop diva.

As America settles into another season of Ryan Secrest and Simon Cowell catfights (aka American Idol), Europe gears up for its annual continent-wide song competition, Eurovision. Each country votes on a song to represent them at the Eurovision finals, then viewers across Europe vote on a winner from that pool of entries. This year’s entries have their work cut out for them — it’ll be hard to top last year’s winners, Finnish heavy-metal rockers Lordi.

This year, there’s controversy brewing around Israel’s chosen Eurovision entry: a song called “Push the Button” by the band Teapacks. Eurovision organizers have threatened to ban the entry due to its “inappropriate” political message. The song warns of the dangers of nuclear war and seems to be a thinly-veiled jab at the nuclear ambitions or Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One verse goes: “There are some crazy leaders they hide and try to fool us / With demonic, technologic willingness to harm / They’re going to push the button.”

Musically, the catchy song jumps back and forth between folk, hard rock, and even hip-hop, with the lead singer singing in English, French, and Hebrew. In the video, there’s even a (somewhat lazy) accordion player smoking a pipe:

He may not have the name recognition of Myron Floren or Dick Contino, but few accordionists (past or present) could match the talents of Johnny Pecon. Pecon joined fellow Cleveland native Frankie Yankovic’s band in 1947; Yankovic played melodies on his piano accordion while Pecon harmonized on his chromatic. Pecon even introduced Yankovic to the song that would become his biggest hit: “Just Because”.

After a couple years of recording and touring with Yankovic, Pecon left and began a successful partnership with another excellent Cleveland accordionist, Lou Trebar. To this day, the Pecon-Trebar Orchestra is considered one of the greatest Cleveland-style polka bands of all-time.

Here’s a rare TV clip from 1958 of the Johnny Pecon Orchestra playing “Marybelle Polka”:

If you’ve been watching prime-time TV on NBC lately, you’ve seen their barrage of commercials for a new show called The Black Donnellys. The show follows four Irish-American brothers living in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and depicts their transformation from boys to mobsters. Now a show about rowdy Irish-American guys has to have some accordion in it, right?

As it turns out… it does! The pilot episode, airing next Monday at 10pm (after Heroes), features a tune by eclectic Bay Area band The Mad Maggies. Keep your ears open about seven minutes into the show as “Sleepy Maggie”, a Mad Maggiefied version of a traditional reel, plays over a slow-motion fight scene. You can hear more on their excellent new album, Magdalena’s Revenge. And don’t forget to set your Tivo!

The Mad Maggies: Sleepy Maggie (MP3 download)

The ad wizards at Oscar Meyer recently held a nationwide contest to find a new voice for their “I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener…” jingle. After sifting through thousands of entries and public voting on twenty finalists, they finally have five winners — one of whom is eight-year-old zydeco accordion prodigy, Guyland Leday. We should see a TV commercial with Guyland and his accordion sometime later this year. In the meantime, you can watch Guyland’s winning performance on the Oscar Meyer website.