Hailed as Seattle’s #1 polka band, the Smilin’ Scandinavians play a mix of Midwestern polka, Scandinavian folk, traditional country and western, Dixieland and big band swing. Led by accordionist Toby Hanson, who formed the band while at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts, the group’s name is an homage to both the “Happy Norwegian” Myron Floren and legendary polka band The Six Fat Dutchmen.
I’ve been listening to their music all morning and I love their bright, bouncy, accordion-driven sound. This is a song from their most recent album, Northwest Polka Country:
I also found a great video clip from a documentary about the Smilin’ Scandinavians. In it, Toby describes how the band got started and warns of the dangers of playing polkas in 100-degree weather:
Check out this excellent video of the late, great Gelso Pellegrini playing William Tell on the accordion. Thanks to Roberto for posting the video on YouTube!
Not everyone is lucky enough to live somewhere where polka bands play live every weekend. So for those of us outside of the Midwest/East Coast “polka belt”, sites like Polka Videos are a fantastic way to see what we’re missing. Set up by Michelle Genrich, president of the Polka America Corporation, Polka Videos includes high-quality footage of bands like the Polka Family Band, Stas Golonka and his Chicago Masters, The Music Connection, and others.
Meanwhile, over on YouTube, Thad Seaver has been posting an impressive collection of polka videos himself. Featured bands include Lenny Gomulka and Chicago Push, Dynabrass, Brave Combo, and more. Of course, these videos are no substitute for going out and supporting your local polka bands, but they sure help pass the time between shows!
I don’t know where to begin with this one — it’s a video for a Slovenian (I think) group named Skuter. The song is called “Na Pomoc” and can best be described as cheesy polka-pop, featuring accordion and synthesizer melodies over a thumping 2/4 beat. The video, though, takes a page straight out of the hip-hop video playbook — a pool party with bikini babes gyrating around fancy cars — but adds a twist in the form of… tractors. Yup, tractors.
A handful of Let’s Polka stickers to anyone who can provide a English translation of the lyrics, or just explain what the hell is going on here.
While I spent my Halloween stumbling around as a drunken Santa Claus, Anna was playing accordion at her library’s Halloween party. The video may not win any MTV awards, but I love how her co-workers really get into the chorus of “Roll Out the Barrel”…
I finally tracked down some clips of eight-year-old zydeco accordion prodigy Guyland Leday on the recent HBO special, The Music in Me: Children’s Recitals from Classical to Latin, Jazz to Zydeco. In addition to showing Guyland’s incredible talent, there are brief interviews with family members, zydeco star and friend Terrance Simien, and, best of all, some of Guyland’s young friends.
Our apologies to anyone who visited the site yesterday and was greeted by an unsightly “Fatal error” message. Long story short: our hosting company (for the second time in six months) suffered a server catastrophe which took down our site. Fortunately, we’ve learned the value of making backups, so everything should be back to normal now. Drop us a line if anything appears out of whack.
In the meantime, I’ll try to make up for lost time by posting a whole bunch of squeezebox-related goodies today. To start, here’s a clip of Anna playing accordion with the Corner Laughers during their excellent show at Brainwash last night (see photos).
The End is here. No, really. I’m talking about the book, The End — the final installment in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, released last Friday (the 13th). I’m not sure what happens, but judging from the previous twelve books, I’m pretty sure it’s dreadful, miserable, and just altogether unpleasant.
But there’s even more unfortunate news: earlier in the week, the Gothic Archies released The Tragic Treasury, an album of songs devoted to each of the 13 books in the series. The Gothic Archies are really just singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, with help from Lemony Snicket’s “spokesperson”, Daniel Handler, on accordion.
Handler has played as an “adjunct accordionist” for the Magnetic Fields on a number of occasions, including in concert and on their epic 69 Love Songs. So when Handler did his first book tour, he immediately thought of his accordion, and Merritt:
“I needed to come up with a presentation to keep as many as 100 children quiet for 45 minutes — and the accordion is very loud. I thought I could play the accordion and sing, so I asked Stephin to write something. In fact, I have the distinct memory of going to the ATM and withdrawing enough cash and paying him directly upon commission of the song.”
Legendary Tex-Mex singer/songwriter Freddy Fender died of lung cancer yesterday at the age of 69. Freddy wasn’t an accordionist, but he certainly played with a few — most notably Flaco Jimenez when they were part of the Texas Tornados. In fact, last night at the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, Flaco had the crowd observe a moment of silence in Freddy’s honor.
Born as Baldemar Huerta in San Benito, Texas, he played honky-tonks throughout the South and had some early success with a Spanish version of “Don’t Be Cruel”. It wasn’t until 1974, though, that he broke through with “Before The Next Teardrop Falls”, which topped both the country and pop charts. In 1989, Freddy joined with Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers, and Flaco Jimenez to form the Texas Tornados, who fused rock, country, and Mexican sounds with alternately serious and silly lyrics; this video for “Who Were You Thinking Of?” shows the sillier side:
If you want to explore Freddy’s music, this greatest hits collection (featuring hits like “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and “Secret Love”) is a good place to start. There’s also the Best of the Texas Tornados, which I’ve been listening to all morning. And if you’re already a longtime fan, stop by his website and pay your respects in the guestbook.
