Roll Out the Psychedelic Polka! By Mike Marino Frank Gutch and myself are collaboratijng on numerous projects. One is our love of polka! Frank is former drummer for a well known polka band from the polka capital in Oregon. I played tuba for the same band The Polka Jedi in Eugene, Oregon. We are putting the old band together after some of the members dry out, complete therapy and some will be paroled soon for musical crimes against humanity....also we are doing a kickstarter campaign to re-issue some former hits on vinyl...to be called Black Vinyl Polka - Get That Needle in the Groove and Out of Your Arm. So grab a brat and a beer and dance the Danzig Waltz and get ready for some Stompin at the Savoy Brown! The Woodstock Music Festival was one of those real counter culture wavy gravy experiences of rock and roll king biscuits held in an open field and not in the court of the crimson king...but, it was not the complete musical experience that it could have been...or should have been! John Sebastian pleading with you to pick up the trash like a lovin spoonful sanitation engineer....Arlo stoned trying to describe the New York Thruway and brown acid flowing freely...dont eat the brown acid! Comic moments of stoned musicians trying to be philosophical by schlepping hamburgers and telling us to love our brothers and sisters, mud and all. It was not complete. It never had a polka band perform in its long list of performers. Imagine Crosby, Still, Nash and Stosh breaking into a rousing chorus of My Dahlink Sveet Judy Blue Eyes Polka or Jimi Hendrix asking in electro wah wah if you were Polka Experienced! Hark! There is such a thing as Psychedelic Polka...to hear it, simply injest enough oomp pah pah acid in Toledo or Milwaukee, the undisputed Haight and Ashbury of Polka Music according to the Accordian Apocalypse...now! Or put on that old vinyl copy of Sgt. Polkas Lonely Bratwurst Band. You can go underground in the netherworld of the subterranean homesick polka blues with a bootleg copy of Left Over Salmons 420 Polka Like rock and roll, the roots of polka are obscure and draped in the fabric of myth. Basically it is a form of Central European dance whos seed was planted deep in the soil of Bohemia in the 1800s and spread from there through out many European cultures and eventually found a grass roots home here in North America when German, Polish and Czechs and others migrated to the new world bringing with them their culture, language and dance...not to mention their skill as master brewers of beer and makers of sausage...you cannot have polka without a beer and a brat! It just aint..well...American! The dance is most associated with Poland, however, best interpretations have the name polka itself deriving from the Czech polka which supposedly means Polish woman ..or so they say...not being Czech or a Polish Woman I am not in any position to deny or confirm the translation or story. All I know is that you should never, ever bounce a Czech! The first polka actually written as a polka is thought to have begun around the 1830s with a dance performed by a young woman named Amma Slezakova in Bohemia. Certainly she was not a stripper by trade but a Burlesque Polka would have been all the rage...imagine what she would have done with a good sized bratwurst on stage shaking her tassles afixed to one hell of a large Bohemian bust! The polka dance became all the rage in Prague, and by the time it made its way to Paris in the 1840s, polkamania was unleashed and it spread wider than a hookers legs to England and eventually to America by 1844 where it was eventually modified from a somewhat dignified ballroom type dance to a lively two-step and pseudo-ragtime-dance number! It was hot, hot, hot, and found increased popularity immediately following WWII when many refugees flooded America, bringing their love of this cultural dance phenom with them. Today Polkas are promoted with the fervor of a Cajun accodian on steroids with numerous polka fests throughout the county including my old radio region of Alpena, Michigan and its outlying community Posen, Michigan...a sleepy Polish Ag Community fo 300 potato farmers...the annual polka fest draws over 40,000 participants and revelers from around the world to fill the rooms of three surrounding counties...two polka tents crank it out for the three day period, beer tents overflow, and yes, I was grand marshall during the parade in 1985 and had the pleasure of riding with the Polka Queen! Yes, she did have a nice set of potatoes on her too! There are polka museums on Texas and Toledo and Milwaukee...The US Polka Association in Cleveland, and the International Polka Association in Chicago! There are polka radio and tv shows...grammy awards for polka artists...beer named after polka songs..and I am sure somewhere in radio history there were radio station payoffs of the magnitude of Polka Payola! Eventually the Grammys eliminated the Polka Category for awards for the reason given of ensuring the the awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape! So we ahve rap...and Canadian independent artists...and world music..whatever the hell that is...but no Polkas? The greats are rolling over in thier vinyl grooves...Frankie Yankovic...Walter Ostenek...the Toledo Kid...Kyle Redman...a veritable whos who of polkadom! So when you want a beer and brat fix...put on the Beer Barrel Polka...or the 420 Polka and light up a polka bowl of weed...and roll one up...while you roll out the barrel! As for me....keep the bratwurst...Ill wait for a giant pair of Bohemian breasts to get me in the mood to roll out my barrel!
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 21:56:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015