Elvis turns down polka band

[johnfoyle]

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=20929

We're fresh out of polkas

By ERIC BARTELS Issue date: Fri, Oct 31, 2003
The Tribune
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The closest Those Darn Accordions will get to playing an actual Halloween song at the Portland Art Museum may be their treatment of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride."
As if multiple accordionists tackling the psychedelic-era classic isn't scary enough.
"I look for things that are keyboard-friendly," says frontman Paul Rogers. "That is a keyboard-driven song."
Fans of the band insist that life doesn't begin until you've heard the band do one of its improbable covers, say, the Who's "Baba O'Riley" or Cheap Trick's "Surrender." The museum's "Haunted Halloween Hoedown" offers an opportunity to test that theory.
"Right now I'm working on 'Radar Love,'" Rogers says. "People aren't that excited by it, but I am."
Those Darn Accordions will be joined by local swing band Retta and the Smart Fellas and magician Dave Charvet for an event that features vintage horror films, costume and dance contests, Caribbean food and a full bar.
Rogers says other artists have welcomed his group's takes on their original songs. Grand Funk Railroad drummer Donald Brewer got a chuckle when the band asked permission to transform "We're an American Band" into "We're an Accordion Band."

"The only guy that's turned me down was Elvis Costello," says Rogers, who routinely covers the song "Pump It Up" at live shows. "He wouldn't let me change the words."

Those Darn Accordions have shown remarkable staying power -- they've produced four full-length albums -- for an act that began, literally, as a running joke.
Rogers was playing in a San Francisco Bay Area alt-country band in the late '80s when a friend persuaded him to come along on a lark that involved a mob of underemployed musicians strapping on accordions and running amok.
"There'd be like 15 or 20 of us running through restaurants," he says. "We'd just barge through the front door playing 'Lady of Spain' and go out the back. They were like raids."
The goof evolved into a going concern. "As it got more and more busy, we figured somebody had to be in charge," Rogers says. "Somebody decided it was going to be me."
By the time of the band's 1999 release "Clownhead," the group had shrunk to five members. "After about three accordions playing at once you can't tell who's doing what," Rogers says. "You just can't tell the difference."
The recent addition of Carri Abrahms and Susie Davis -- the latter has toured with the likes of Prince and Melissa Etheridge -- filled the void left by the departure of original member Patty Brady.
Over the years, Those Darn Accordions shows have won over droves of curious, even skeptical, onlookers. "Half the people are being dragged there by the other half," Rogers says. And yet, "the most common comment we get is 'You guys rock.'"

[bobster]

Actually, polka and accordians can be a lot hipper than most people think....

Some old friends used to play in a really wonderful L.A. nouveau polka band called Rotondi. It was somewhat tongue in cheek, but not nearly as much as you'd expect -- sort of a theatrical piece that, if luck had been better, could have turned out something like "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

And Rotondi often toured with Denton, Texas's wonderful Brave Combo (really more of a world music band, without the usual pretentions).

When David Byrne got married to a woman from L.A., he hired Rotondi to play the L.A. wedding reception and Brave Combo for the NYC reception.

[billyboy2674]

well done elvis.