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Eddie Blazonczyk, who turned from rock to polka, has died.
Blazonczyk had been a slightly-noveltyesque rock act, Eddie Bell, in the 1960s:
His love of Polish culture won out, though - perhaps wisely - and although he kept a rock tinge to his work under his given name, it was as a polka bandleader he found success.
He won a Grammy in 1986, in the now-defunct Polka category.
Eddie Blazonczyk was 70; he died in Illinois from multiple organ failure.
Remember the Grammys declaring they had no room for polka? You must do, we've been going on about it all year.
The Grammys are so far out of it, it ain't true. Polka is KING, says the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
The idea was to host a Sunday polka brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hire the cutting-edge Chardon Polka Band headed up by 20-year-old Jake Kouwe. (More on him later.) Charge a reasonable $12 a person. Get the Cleveland Style Polka Hall of Fame to co-sponsor the event. Bring in professional dance teacher Valerie Salstrom from Get Hep Swing for the slow folks and newbies. Teach them how to polka. And do the Slovenian Slide and the Polish Hop. And, of course, throw in the requisite Bloody Marys, eggs, bacon, home fries and French toast.
See what happens.
Advance sales weren't so great. Maybe 25 tickets, tops, sold in advance. OK, not such a great idea after all. Back to the drawing board. Don't get your hopes up.
But at 11 a.m. on Jan. 17, there was a line of people all the way down the street waiting to get into the polka brunch. More than 200 people turned out. More staff was called in. Extra food had to be made. The kitchen went crazy. People of all ages ate and danced. Punks, grandparents and school kids all cut the rug. The music was great. An event was born.
The one in February sold out, too. Same thing happened in March. It seems that lately in Cleveland, Polka rocks.
Hello, if you're a young person joining us through the Facebook for the first time. We're grinding the terrible, out-of-touch, decision the Grammys organisers made in dumping polka from the awards in their faces.
(A moment's pause as the young persons joining us through Facebook scramble for the exit again.)
If you need further evidence of just how huge polka is, though, look no further than The University of Oklahoma's Academy Of Contemporary Music. For who should turn up there to play a polka masterclass than Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips:
When Steven Drozd was growing up, his father led a polka band called Vernon Drozd and the Texas Brass, which recorded several songs in the late 1960s. Sitting behind a drum kit, Steven Drozd pounded away to “Juarez, Mexico,” a 1969 recording by his father the younger Drozd had on his iPod Nano.
“I remember my dad bought me a little toy drum set when I was about 5, and I tore it up in just a couple of days,” Drozd said. “But I loved it, and I think my dad saw that and thought, ‘Maybe there’s something here.’”
A dark day for Polka in Minnesota: their local Polka Queen, Bev Rambough.
She's quitting her cable polka show to build a comedy career, but she's left disappointed people behind:
"I've gone to polka events with her, and she's a rock star to all the octogenarians," said Rambough's lifelong friend Dina Rogalla. "I went to the Medina Ballroom with her once, and she was rushed -- by elderly people with walkers. They come up to her and want to touch her, pet her. They love her so much. She's got stalkers."
The Grammy academy has tried to wipe polka off the face of American popular music. But you know what? Given the choice between seeing the Grammys and attending New Braunfels Wurstfest. There's pickles, there's sausage... and, of course, there's polka:
Joyce Bohuslav and Ed Volick of the Polka Lovers Klub of America take a spin around the dance floor at Wurstfest in New Braunfels on Sunday, the final day for the annual “Salute to Sausage.”
The Sioux Falls Argus Leader discovers that it agrees with the Grammy organisers about the decline of polka at its peril. You tell 'em about the Lake Benton Polka Fest, Mrs Erickson:
We have a motor home and stayed the entire weekend, and believe me, it was difficult finding a place to sit.
We also attended the Sioux Falls fest, unfortunately, and couldn't believe how disorganized it was, with two bands playing at the same time within feet of each other separated by a cloth drape.
The dance floor was a layered paper wood, which literally became dust as you danced. I have asthma and could barely breathe.
We left after one night.
Polka bands aren't just having to cope with the cruel indifference of the Grammy committee, but there just aren't going to be as many polka bands at the Wassau Rothschild Pavilion polka nights. But it's not all bad news:
Although there are fewer bands on the roster than last year, Raczkowski said people can expect more music.
"The bands will play longer sets. The quality is there. These are all really good bands," he said.
The Grammys might want to put polka in a corner, but polka won't be sidelined. Oh no, not while there's polka fusion. Polka-Pink Floyd fusion, to be precise.
Yes, the band is called Polka Floyd. They're from Toledo. And they sound like this:
The Grammys might think there's no interest in polka, but how do they then explain the crowds who waited patiently for Musikfest Polka in Bethlehem, huh?
Out in the audience sat 50-year-old Kevin Bolash, of Grafton, N.H. The Bethlehem native has made the pilgrimage from up north every August to visit family and attend Musikfest.
"I moved to New Hampshire to seek my fortune and to ski," Bolash said. "I should have had my head examined."
During the summer he's a welder; in the winter he's a ski instructor at Mt. Sunapee. He said he comes down for opening night to hear the polka beats of the Walt Groller Orchestra.
Oh, Grammy organisers, claiming the world has turned its back on polka, how do you explain the need for the Central Wisconsin Polka Club's 36th annual festival to take larger space?
About 500 to 700 people on average come from all over the state and the Midwest to attend the festival, which starts at 6 p.m. Friday and runs through Sunday at Merrill's Smith Center.
The club moved its festival from the fairgrounds to the large room inside the Smith Center to make the event more "user-friendly," said Tim Baumann, the club's president.
In previous years, dancers would have to move from one building to another, which was especially burdensome when it rained, Baumann said.
The Grammys might have decided that polka is a doomed artform, but Dolly Kubasko of Pittston, Pa thinks otherwise:
Kubasko, of Pittston Township, has spent much of her life promoting polka music in the region. For nearly 20 years, Kubasko has produced a yearly calendar of polka dances throughout the country without fail. Also, she started her own Web site to promote live polka music to encourage people of all ages to get out and dance.
The calendar and the site have an updated list of polka performances and dances throughout the country. Kubasko keeps the calendar just because she doesn't want to see the music she loves fall by the wayside.
"I want to keep an interest in it," Kubasko said. "I want people to have a good time."
For the second year, organizer-founder Jay Davie put together the festival, but this year it's bigger and better.
"We have nine bands this year, up from four, because people like more variety," Davie says of the Friday, Saturday and Sunday event at the W. H. Lyon Fairgrounds' Expo Building.
Despite the claims of the Grammy organisers, for Americans, polka continues to be a force to be - well, if not quite reckoned with, then at least not quite ignored.
Downtown Port Clinton is preparing itself for the Perch, Peach, Pierogi, and Polka Festival in September, for example:
Port Clinton’s Perch, Peach, Pierogi and Polka Festival came as a tribute to the forefathers. The perch is to salute commercial fisherman. The peach is in tribute to farmers. The polka and pierogi are in honor to the Eastern European settlers. Without any of these people, we would not have the rich history and colorful tales to pass on to future generations. It was their hard work and belief in community that made the Port Clinton area prosper for so many years.
Proving that - despite what the Grammys might tell you - there's life in polka yet. For example: polka band The Polka Dots entertained a memorial fish fry in Rochester, Minnesota.
The event was the fourth annual Gary Vanselow Memorial Scholarship:
Gene [Gary's brother] added that Gary would be happy with the event, but probably not the menu.
"Gary loved to fish but didn't really like to eat fish," Gene Vanselow said.
Those attending the event did enjoy eating fish.
The Grammy Committee's decision to deem polka a non-music enrages commentator Ken Krall:
Many stations do provide a polka show during a little-listened-to time slot, like Sunday morning. Oddly enough, the shows always draws listeners. I've had professional types come up to me in hushed tones to say "I listen to the polka show,” as in "don't tell anybody." I felt a little like a priest in the confessional, but it still is nice to have someone say they listen.
A guy wrote me an email awhile ago saying there's no polka music on the radio in Milwaukee. Milwaukee! I really believe that if some station in that market could bust out of the cookie-cutter radio thinking you would find an audience, and they would be surprised. And radio dudes, with audience comes advertising. It might not be in the younger demo, but do the kids even have the money these days?
Flying in the face of the Grammy committee's claims that polka isn't relevant, No Rock brings you the Polka News Network, stuffed with polka-hot news.
First up, Eddie's Polka Weekend have named their Polka King and Polka Queen:
Loretta Chmura, Nanticoke, and Walt Weidman, New Jersey, were crowned 2008 Eddie’s Polka Weekend Polka Queen and King at a recent polka weekend at the Villa Roma, Callicoon, N.Y
Oh, no. Having been the standard, lazy, No Rock Grammy joke-butt for, ooh, like, ever, they've decided to drop the polka category from the awards.
Happy Louie is, well, unhappy:
"I feel that the academy's decision to remove the polka category from their competition is discriminatory against a music genre that has been part of the American culture for more than a hundred years," he said in an e-mail. "Polka music has entertained hundreds of thousands of people over this period of time in dance halls all across the country.
"It has brought an enormous amount of joy and happiness to many families and will continue to do so. To say polka music is not relevant is just incorrect."
