Extreme Polka

FINALLY!! NEw pictures

Hey better late than never- pictures from our annual New Years Eve Bash at Zakopane Lounge in Chicago 2005 are now posted for your viewing pleasure- I had over 500 images to choose from so I only put up a few.

Hope to see a few of you at our next show:
Saturday April 9th - Lincoln Square Lanes, 10 pm
4874 N. Lincoln Ave, just north of Lawrence above the Ace Hardware store, 773 561-8191, Chicago.
C'mon and join us at our favorite bowling alley for a night of bowling, beer, and polka - it's the triumvirate of fun!  Not only that, but this is a FREE show.  That’s right, polka pals, you don’t have to pay one measly cent to come out to this special show.  And what better place to hear polka than this charming old-time bowling alley – there certainly are not too many of this type left in Chicago.  So c’mon out and have a ball and a bowl!

Smashing Dyngus Pussy Polka Pumpkins Willows

Here is great article that Timeout-Chicago magazine wrote about Dyngus day, you can read the full article here.
Thanks to Timeout for including a blurb about the Polkaholics.

"...Dyngus Day, a Polish holiday marking the end of Lent. If you thought St. Patrick's Day was nuts, polka scenesters swear you haven't seen a party until you've squirted your girlfriend with water and she's beaten you with a pussy willow (we kid you not) at a Dyngus Day show...."

"...It's true that bits of Chicago blues and jazz may have seeped into Chicago polka—but don't underestimate the influence polka's had on Chicago musicians. Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin cut his teeth in a polka band in the early '80s. He earned $50 a gig, $60 per live weekly radio show and $100 per live weekly TV show when he was in high school. "Compared to my friends who were stock boys or doing whatever, I was knocking down some pretty tall cash," he says."[Being on polka TV] was like the geriatric equivalent of American Bandstand."

Don Hedeker, a local punk scene alum who teaches statistics at University of Illinois, thought the link between polka and rock was obvious when he launched the Polkaholics in 1997. "Polka seemed like the goofiest music we could imagine, but it seemed to connect with punk," he says. He researched local legends, and his wife, Vera Gavrilovic, began publishing Polka Scene 'Zine. Li'l Wally, who is credited with slowing the manic tempo of local polka, once told Hedeker he was unable to get 1940s radio stations to play his early songs. "So he bought his own time on the radio to play his records," Hedeker says. "He's the king of DIY. He should be up there with musical legends like Muddy Waters, like Charlie Parker. Because to polka, he is of that magnitude."

It's Dyngus Day!!

Stanley's Kitchen & Tap 1970 N. Lincoln: Mon 3/28, 7:30 PM, Polkaholics.
773-642-0007.

Hey come on out on Monday to celebrate Dyngus Day with The Polkaholics- this should be a great time--and hey maybe this wil become an annual thing?

Hope to see you all there this Monday 3/28

Good things come to those who wait...

...and I waited nearly 15 years to see Slint play live.

I'd not heard of Slint until 1993- two years after they had called it quits as a band, but I was immediatly hooked. There have been several "slintabees" over the years since 1991- bands that tried to carry on the torch that Slint lit back in 1988 in Louisville, Kentucky, and for a while I wanted my old band "cased" to be the next Slint, or at least sound like them.

I think that the number of people that actually saw Slint play live when they were still a band would have filled the Metro last night- and there would have been room leftover. It's amazing that a band that only put out three albums (one of them with only two songs on it) could be so damn good and could remain so important on the music radar.
I had a great time last night watching these guys perform- it was well worth the wait. Amazing that they have sold out all of their 26 shows on this tour.

This past year has seen a lot of reunion tours and the like- The Pixies most notably. The good thing is that after this Sunday's show at The Park West Slint will once again be no more, however McMahan has kept his music going with The For Carnation while David Pajo plays with Tortoise.

This music is defiantly the Anti-Polka and I absolutely fuckign love it!

Girls Gone Wild

Picture this: 208 wild and crazy polka fans gathered together in the same place for four and a half hours of Extreme Polka fun, all moving in unison to the crazy two beat oohm-pa-pow sound of The Polkaholics®.
From my vantage point on the stage, it was as if I was watching a turbulent ocean; giant waves of arms and heads and beer bottles constantly moving, churning, rising up and down, up and down, again and again as if some giant storm was brewing and forcing them to move- forcing them to polka their troubles away.

Saturday night marked our triumphant return to our favorite place to pimp our polka in all of Chicago land--Quencher's Saloon. Sure playing a huge place like The Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, or The Vic Theatre in Chicago are cool- but I'd rather play a smaller place like Quencher's any night of the week!

After more than a year of legal wrangling and lawyers and city inspectors and payoffs and God knows what else, we were back at our favorite place in the city to play the music that we love for the people that we love- the ones who were dancing and drinking and carrying on like there was no tomorrow.

Thanks to Earl, and Lee Dancer and to everyone who came, saw, and polkaed.

Attack of the Pearl Creed Clones

Wow.
So I get an e-mail from my good friend John Cline this morning- apparently there are people out there who think my old band CASED is still the shizznit- and two cased songs have reached number one on the IAC charts.
Wow!
For those that do not know I used to play in CASED with John Cline- we went through more drummers than I can remember and after I left, CASED continued to have the revolving door of members...but the band went on until last year.
Well hey it's cool to know that something that I was a part of is still making people happy, and that we never fell into the trap of corporate rock and roll corporate music bullshit and did it all our own way and had the help of some great, dare I say "famous" people along the way.
For those of you that have heard of HUM- John and I recorded with Matt Talbott- anyway this is a rambling post today- check out this link for a great article on my old band CASED- Im still very proud of this band.

And for the record- there is NOTHING good on the radio anymore- all of that shit sounds the same. Damn it man if I hear one more ass clown Eddie Vedder clone- Im going to puke. Music today is in need or a serious overhaul- anyone can make music on a Mac today- does not mean that everyone should.

What happened to actualy learning how to fucking play an instrument and then leaning how to write a song and playing it on a stage in front of people only because you want to- not because some soul sucking record dude owns your soul??

Yeah I am in a surly mood today and you know why? Because music today sucks, or I should say the business of making music sucks.

Alright- enough bitchin. Check out some actual live musician who know how to play their instruments and will never bow down to mainstream corporate music- The Polkaholics® are playing our own crazy brand of crazy insane Extreme Polka to anyone who cares to listen to it tomorrow night at Quencher's.

It's Thursday

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Ya know, I've never in my life drank a green colored beer- so hopefully all of you can do that for me.

I'll stick to the amber colored ones.

Polkawood

We did not win a Grammy this year, but now maybe we can qualify for an Oscar or at least a Razzie award.
We have been asked to appear in a series of commercials for an insurance company, and while we are not sure which insurance company it is, the production company has told us that the ads will be "quirky like the Volkswagen ads."
So your guess is as good as ours as to what the actual insurance company is, it could be GEICO or it could be Eagle- who knows?
On Saturday we have a photo shoot for 4 hours before our Quencher's set- so stay tuned.

For you Irish folk out there- we have a special treat for you on Saturday. I know that St. Patrick's day is officially tomorrow but we will be playing a brand new song in honor of St. Pat's Day regardless.
Dandy Don has done it yet once again and the debut of "Is Ronald McDonald Irish?" will happen this Saturday- hey that alone is reason enough to come to our show!

For those that have asked: This is a benefit for Haas Park in Chicago and as such I am unable to put names on a guest list. If you want to see the show you'll have to get there early and pay yer $5. Hey the $5 is for a great cause!

I was able to listen to the rough mixes last night of what we have recorded thus far for the new album.
Even without all of the vocals, and lead guitar tracks on some songs I was still rockin' out to the music. I know I've already said this but this is going to be one hell of a great album! Of the 20 albums that I've ever recorded since I've lived in Chicago I think that this one is going to be one of the best! I honestly think it captures the wild and crazy extreme polka sound and that our fans of our live shows are going to be extremely pleased when it's released.
We get compared to Green Day quite often- and I think that this album has some of that early Green Day feel to it...it's Extreme Polka!
At this point we've recorded 14 songs but I am not positive if we will include all of them.

In other news: Sexy naked biker ckicks with huge.....ok had to throw that in so that this blog keeps coming up in people's searches for porn porn porn naked chicks hot and young...ok ok on to the business at hand.

The building where we are recording our new album at and where we rehearse has had several thousand dollars worth of equipment stolen last week. While the items taken were not ours it still pisses me off that there are assholes out there who continue to steal. The people that own the building where we rehears are two of the nicest people in the city and some dumb ass jerk ripped them off. The good news is that they know who ripped them off and the police are involved- so the equipment may not turn up but the perpetrators may be busted.

Have some free music!!

Have some free music- download some MP3's for your personal enjoyment.
Look to your right......

People are strange

This blog is a little over a year old, receives around 30 hits a day and also I receive a fair amount of polka madness related e-mails.

The thing that really amuses me is how many people stumble on to this Extreme Polka blog in their search for porn. Yes people- I can track anyone who comes to this site via your I.P addy and I also know what string anyone uses in a search engine. For example "naked" is the number one word followed by "ladies". I've even had one randy fellow who found this site by googling "naked German lederhosen" and my personal favorite "bumble bee sex", gosh I did not think that insects engaged in sex in the traditional way but apparently there are those of you out there who must find info on this topic.

I'd like to think that the people who find this site by googling "polka" or the like are surprised and amused by the new brand of Extreme Polka that is sweeping the nation- after all, I am on a mission of world power extreme polka domination, and perhaps those promiscuous prepubescent teenagers who stumble here with the hopes of seeing some titty may perhaps see a power punk extreme polka crazy beer swilling bass player and think to themselves, "Hmmm no tits but these sequins are kind of hot!"

So with that nice warming thought in mind I bid all of you a Happy Friday.