Volume 13 – #8 – August 2010

IT’S POLKATIME. Well, in a way, it’s always polkatime in Comboland, but when August turns into September every year, the real 2/4 season kicks off. Starting with the legendary (or is it infamous) West Fest on Labor Day weekend, we spread the grooviest of grooves for two solid months. Polkafests, Oktoberfests and/or polka-themed events are currently scheduled in West, Texas, Roanoke, Texas, Addison, Texas, Irving, Texas, Omaha, Nebraska, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Wausau, Wisconsin, Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana. We also plan to add local/regional events/shows in Dallas, Austin, Ft.Worth and, of course, Denton. Please check our tour dates often. Things are being added every week. As an added incentive, we will be selling our new polka CD, KIKIRIKI, at all of these shows for just $10 each. So, no excuses. Let your free spirit take over. As our friends in the Indianpolis polka band, Polka Boy, sing, “Do Something Different. Drink some beer!” It’s cool. We told them they could sing it that way.

IT’S STILL POLKATIME. In addition to all the fun listed above, we plan to live-stream some sort of polka wing-ding (maybe two) from some location before the season closes out. This will happen on Ustream and we’ll give you plenty of advance warning. No matter where you live you will be able to watch us live and call or text us and make requests. And we’ll play that request if we feel like it! If you’ve joined us before for one of these live-stream events I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the improved picture and sound. That is, if everything works as it’s supposed to. We’ll be doing some Ustream test runs immediately. Watch our site for breaking details.

CARL RETURNS TO HIS ROOTS. An unusual, shall we say potentially bizarre gig, for me, at least, will happen on October 7 at Texas Senior High School (my alma mater) in beautiful Texarkana, Texas. What was originally just an idea of a tag-on gig the day before my official high school reunion was to begin has blossomed into a full-on performance that many T-towners are now seeing as the actual beginning of the reunion. Isn’t this exciting news? Here’s the deal. I can’t attend the reunion because Brave Combo is doing a three-day Oktoberfest in St. Louis that weekend. However, Texarkana is on the way to St. Louis from Denton (BC headquarters). So, I thought we should pick up a club gig as we’re passing through my hometown and see some old friends and, figuring a few might be in town early for the reunion. Anyway, this has grown into Brave Combo, FEATURING TEXAS HIGH ALUMNI CARL FINCH!!!, headlining a benefit concert for the foundation responsible for the amazing new performing arts center, which is located on the grounds of Texas High. Come one, come all! IT’s open to the public. I think the hit movie HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL and TV show, GLEE, may be partially responsible for the focus of school funding shifting from sports to art and music. Whatever, the new state-of-the-art concert hall holds over 1000 people and Brave Combo will be gracing its stage. The colorful tickets, which prominently feature my face, have already been printed. Now all I have to worry about is what 100-200 people will look like in a big ol’ space like that.

OBITUARY OF THE MONTH. Steve (Esteban) Jordan, eternal king of the avant garde Tejano accordion, has passed away in San Antonio. He’d been ill for some time, battling liver cancer, so his death wasn’t a surprise, but the idea of him not being around is unsettling. Steve’s mind-bending music showed me the truth and what can be done with that knowledge. In the beginning, he was one of our top four or five influences and his ground-breaking innovations always made me feel like he paved the way for us. There are way too many great Steve Jordan stories I could share with you now, but, frankly, I’m worn out. My mother died two months ago and BC’s good friend, comic book giant, Harvey Pekar died one month ago. Now the “Jimi Hendrix of the accordion” has moved on. Lots of Steve’s fans and friends have amazing stories to tell and many of them have been posted here and there. I encourage you to check out the work of this remarkable, unique individual. Many YouTube videos of him throughout his career are available to see, including several from his final year, performing at a little club in San Antonio, called Salute. We (Brave Combo) were performing in San Antonio a couple of months ago and hoped to see Steve play while we were in town. The timing was perfect. I called Steve to see if he would be performing but he didn’t feel well enough that night. Sometimes I wonder if he was even suppose to be on this planet. A whole lot wasn’t exactly normal about that guy, like the Marfa Lights. However, if Steve hadn’t landed here, there’s a chance Brave Combo might not still be around. If it’s not unexplainable, it’s not worth doing. Think about that sentence for awhile. RIP, Steve, I guess. Or however you want to do it. You don’t really need anything from us mere mortals, anyway.

Okay, Boys and girls, I could go on and on, as most of you probably know or assume. I’m continuing to wrap up work on my CD with Mike Dillon, the documentary video guys are still following me around, Danny Jerabek will be returning to Denton soon to play with us and resume recording and our sweet cats and dogs continue to rule my life (Jane’s too). I had intended to break down the third decade of Brave Combo (the first 20 years have been previously covered), but I’m out of time and space this month. I will definitely continue next month. After all, our first Grammy win is coming right up (the year was 2000) and that’s worth noting. If anyone is taking notes and following our year-by-year history, I accidentally omitted a very important event because it wasn’t on any calendar. Trumpet-meister, Danny O’Brien joined Brave Combo in October of 1992, just before we played the Steirisher Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria. So, please add that. Hey, let’s take a coffee break. I’ll have tea, instead, but, you get the idea. Everyone stop everything for a few minutes. Just stop. Stop!