Spoof Trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

"Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" from Aaron Paul

What made "Weird Al" weird? Modern Accordionist and Accordion Player magazines, according to the spoof trailer for biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.

It's all a joke, but I wish some savvy studio would take the idea and run.

Video: TDA Alumni at Cotati Accordion Festival

For the big ending to Saturday's 20th anniversary set at the Cotati Accordion Festival, former Those Darn Accordions members joined the current lineup for several songs.

In the first clip, Big Lou and Art Peterson sing "Hotsy Totsy Polka" and original TDA drummer Bill Schwartz sings "Low Rider."



In the second, Ron Muriera sings "It's Not Unusual" before Tom Torriglia and the rest of the TDA alumni reunite onstage for "We're An Accordion Band."

Big Lou Plays 'Chicken Dance' in Africa

Those Darn Accordions founder Big Lou, aka the Accordion Princess, plays the "Chicken Dance" with the Maru a Pula Marimba band (and Lou's husband David Golia on bass) at the Ladies Number One Opera House in Gaborone, Botswana. Weirdest instrumentation yet?

A little closer to home, Big Lou's Polka Casserole plays Schroeder's Cafe in downtown San Francisco this Friday from 6 to 9 p.m.

She'll also be joining TDA during our big reunion set at the 2009 Cotati Accordion Festival.

Outrage: Grammys Kill 'Best Polka' Category

The Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is eliminating the Grammy for best polka album.

The latest slap in the face to accordion lovers everywhere, announced Thursday, is a move to keep the Grammys "pertinent within the current musical landscape," according to the recording industry group.

"It's not that the polka world's not used to it," said Carl Finch, leader of the mighty Texas band Brave Combo, which beat out perpetual winner Jimmy Sturr for the polka Grammy twice in the last decade.

"The polka world expects it," said Finch. "It's like, 'Yeah, the man did it to us again.'"

No kidding -- this is an outrage! The academy now wants polka records to be nominated in the folk category.

This is all part of the gray-beard music industry's drawn-out death throes -- the old categorizations don't work anymore. The old ways of selling records don't work anymore. The superstar system doesn't work anymore. MTV doesn't play music, people don't buy CDs, even the giants don't reliably sell millions of units anymore.

Maybe the Academy will replace the polka category with a "best manufactured band created for a television show and marketed via a soft-drink tie-in" category. Because it's clearly not about the music anymore.

Teller Talks Magic and Science

In the current issue of Wired magazine (which is crammed with interesting stuff):

Magic and the Brain: Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion

We're fans of Penn & Teller -- great comedy, great magic, great genre-bending entertainment. (And Teller's a swell guy to talk to.)

Embroidered Drew Carey Art

You've watched our pal Drew Carey on his many shows and you've sung along with him on our Squeeze Machine album. Now you can enjoy his presence in embroidery art courtesy of artist Sarah Horton. As part of an art show consisting solely of embroidered work, she created the piece seen here, "Lucky In Love." Her site is full of art where crafts meet pop culture.

Wild Women of the Accordion

Tonight, Nov 13, at the Cafe du Nord there's a Wild Women of the Accordion show scheduled to entertain you this Mini-Friday. The show features TDA alum Big Lou and her band Polka Casserole, as well as Kugelplex, and Renee de la Prade and Friends.

Visit SFGate.com for more info, including an interview with Lou.

Cotati Accordion Fest Lineup Is Live

Here's the full lineup for the 2008 Cotati Accordion Festival.

Those Darn Accordions is not on the list, but some great and quirky squeezeboxers will perform: Dick Contino, TDA alumna Big Lou, Polka Freakout, The Great Morgani and many more.

Don't stay away on our account.

Two Shows Down and One to Go

Our Wisconsin whirlwind mini-tour is two-thirds of the way done, and the first two gigs couldn't have been more different.

The first, at the wonderful Swiss Turner Hall of Monroe, was quite quiet -- the venue calls for a low-key sound. The accordion players didn't even use amps (a return to TDA's roots, in a way). Michael played drums, of course, and I had a bass amp, but we kept the volume tamped waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down.

It made for a sort of storyteller's show -- special thanks to the guy who told the true tale about nailing a 7-10 split in Turner Hall's bowling alley. His demo, with two pins and a bowling ball, was pretty amazing. And the post-show limburger and beer in the Ratskeller was remarkable as always. Special thanks to all our friends at Turner Hall who always make us feel so welcome.

Food note: If you ever find yourself near Monroe, you really owe it to yourself to enjoy a meal in Turner Hall's Ratskeller -- the food is genuinely amazing. (Check out the menus for a taste of what you can expect in the way of Swiss delicacies -- do not miss the rösti.)

Day two of the TDA Wisconsin mini-tour found us on the giant Miller stage at Polish Fest in Milwaukee. The event is on the Summerfest grounds (although it's not nearly as maddeningly crowded as at the Big Gig). The stage is still huge, though, and the sound is truly awesome. The high volume makes for a totally different kind of show: The accordion players ran through amps (Paul reveled in his Marshall half-stack), and Michael banged his drums to his heart's content. My bass rig was taller than me.

In short, it was much more of a rock show. We'll be doing the same thing again tonight -- loud and proud at our first Milwaukee shows since 2005. Can you believe it's been that long?

If you can make it out, we'd love to see you. We start at 9 p.m. tonight and go to midnight (with a break in the middle for fireworks). Come on down and enjoy some great Polish food and piwo -- you'll get to hear a couple new and revived TDA tunes, lots of stuff from our latest CD, Squeeze Machine, plus plenty of back-catalog classics.

Accordions Anonymous Gets 'Behind the Bellows'

Nobody will ever call Those Darn Accordions the world's most-covered band, so when we see or hear somebody doing a version of one of our tunes, we're thrilled.

Witness Accordions Anonymous' cover of "Behind the Bellows." From the the YouTube description: "Accordions Anonymous, here joined by one of our founding mothers, Lorelei A. (aka Queen Accordionna), performs the Those Darns Accordions song 'Behind the Bellows' at the S.L.U.G. Queens' Ball, June 6, 2008, at Cozmic Pizza in Eugene." (I'm guessing that must Oregon.)

And here's a secret little coincidence: We recently added "Behind the Bellows" to the TDA set list. Come see us in Wisconsin this weekend (we play Monroe and Milwaukee) and you might hear it.

How to Promote Your Band on MySpace (With Accordions)

Wired.com's How-To Wiki has a cool post on How to Promote Your Band on MySpace, and I must say they've chosen an excellent band photo to illustrate "Step 1: Gather Your Promotional Materials."

Here's a hint from the instructional article: "Look and learn: Women with accordions in front, dorky dudes in the back."

A little background: The photo is a collage put together by our pal Sean "It's Not Art" Pete, who's recently started blogging on The Wall of Wheeze. The individual pix, which were shot by Wired.com photo editor (and my old college buddy) Jim Merithew, were taken for our latest record, Squeeze Machine.

Sean also created the steampunk accordion that graces the cover of Squeeze Machine (steampunk accordion T-shirts are still available).

June Is National Accordion Awareness Month

Time to party, squeezebox style. Get a quick hit of accordion facts from TDA founder Tom Torriglia on his National Accordion Awareness Month 2008 page.

'Weird Al' Goes Digital With Roland FR-7 V-Accordion

The man who made the accordion cool (or at least funny) has gone digital. Our parody-song guru and all-around pal "Weird Al" Yankovic is
enjoying his Roland FR-7 V-Accordion, which offers a variety of MIDI sounds, according to Wired.com's Listening Post.

Squeezebox Is a 'Secret Handshake'

"The accordion is a secret handshake," says Don Turner, 43, a board member for the Milwaukee Accordion Club. "If you play accordion, and someone else plays, well, you'll help one another."

That's just one of the squeezebox secrets laid out in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel profile of the club, which is keeping the accordion spirit alive in the city Those Darn Accordions is proud to call its second home.

The article tells the by-now-ragged tale of the squeezebox's fall from grace after its polka-powered heyday in the '50s.

"The misconception is that it's only good for the polka," says club president Shirl Barry. "You can play wonderful French waltzes, Argentine tangos and classical pieces."

Oh yeah, and rock and funk and swing and goofball country and heavy metal, too. Keep on squeezin' ...

Tiny Tim Remembered #2

TDA fan Michael Butler forwards this photo of he and the brilliant song stylist. As you can see, the photo was taken in July, 1993, which is about 7 years earlier than the one with Tiny and I at the Sweetwater. I wish I had a shot of Tiny when he got down on the stage and started spinning around on his back in a frenzy as we banged out an Elvis tune. It was a great moment in rock history.

Mad Maggies Return to Penngrove

The Mad Maggies play the Black Cat Bar in lovely Penngrove, California, on Friday, Jan. 25. Show starts at 10 p.m. -- nice little club, so if you're in the neighborhood, drop on by for some squeezebox-and-horn music.

And the Best Polka Album Nominees Are ...

Here are the bands competing for the Grammy for best polka album of 2007:

• Brave Combo for Polka's Revenge


• John Gora and Gorale for Bulletproof Polkas


• Bubba Hernandez and Alex Meixner for Polka Freak Out


• Walter Ostanek and His Band & Brian Sklar and the Western Senators for Dueling Polkas
  


• Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra for Come Share the Wine

We've had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Brave Combo and Bubba many times over the years, and we got to hang with Alex at this year's Cotati Accordion Festival. But we've never met the old-school guys like Jimmy Sturr and Walter Ostanek -- we just don't seem to mingle with the straight polka crowd. (Guess that's sensible enough, considering the oddball nature of our music.) Maybe someday ...

Congrats to all the nominees.

P.S. I'm intrigued by Brian Sklar and the Western Senators. Turns out the band has an alter ego called the Tex Pistols, which sounds like essentially the same group, sans accordions. The Tex Pistols say they "play the (country) classics with today's sound and energy" -- they even dress up in Nudie suits, just like the pre-outlaw greats.

P.P.S. I'm equally curious about the National Polka Festival in Ennis, Texas. And the more time we spend in Texas, the more I like that musically rich state.

Carl Finch's Polka Faves

Brave Combo leader Carl Finch runs down his top five favorite polka albums for the Houston Chronicle, then goes on to list other "essential artists" in the genre. Shockingly, Those Darn Accordions did not make the list -- but our friends in Polkacide, Polka Freakout and The Polkaholics did. Time for some kielbasa, beer and sauerkraut to celebrate!

A Visit With Clyde

Got this photo from former TDA member Patty Brady on a recent visit she made to Clyde Forsman, another TDA alum. For those of you lucky enough to have caught Clyde in action at Milwaukee Summerfest and other festivals, you know what a great showman he was. He's had a pretty rough year and I'm hoping to pay a visit this week while I'm in the Bay Area. His rendition of Hendrix's "Fire" is legendary. If anyone would like to send a note to Clyde, just post a comment here and I'll forward it to him. I know he'd love to hear from his fans!

'Santa Lost A Ho' Hits No. 1

As I write this George Strait has been bumped by yours truly and "Santa Lost A Ho" is sitting up on top in the Amazon.com Country Swing category for MP3 downloads. It's No. 273 in all MP3 downloads. I'm not sure what any of this means when it comes to buying groceries, but it's still kind of fun to see that folks are catching on to the Christmas Jug Band.