Volume 14 – #9 – September 2011

Hey, guess what? I’m listening to polka music. All kinds. That’s a shocker, huh? I have a new radio app on my phone/mini-computer thing which allows me to key-in any country and pretty much choose the kind of music I want to hear, and Shazaam!, there’s an internet station or two from Romania playing hillbilly gypsy stuff or some Russian roots-influenced pop stations or traditional Hawaiian stations or perhaps meringue stations from The Dominican Republic. Polka from The Netherlands or Sweden or Poland, anyone? Argentinean tangos? The list goes on and on, stretching from here to the moon, like all the plastic bottles we use in a year. Man, I love moon music from the ‘60s, don’t you? That song, “Zzizz, poik, ssss” by the Green Cheese Craters really worms its way into my brain on occasion. Dick Clark set up an asteroid tour for them once. They opened for The Monkees (sans Mike Nesmith, of course) every single date, except one, when they headlined a three-band bill that also included Tom T. Hall and the Norwegian group, Mayhem. I’d heard that the Cat-Faced Cowboys from Antarctica were also supposed to play but they wound up on the wrong asteroid. That’s a really big drag, for them especially. It was a rogue asteroid, actually, and has a 200-year orbit. Poor Cat-Faced Cowboys.

THE MYSTERY CONTINUES. As hard as the above scenario is to imagine (Cat-Faced Cowboys on the wrong asteroid), I’ll tell you something else that’s just as difficult to wrap one’s brain around. Out of nowhere, Drew Carey’s talent agent called our booking agent and invited us to perform with him at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas on November 11, 12 and 13. We have no idea how this came about or what it means, but it’s typical of how things often work around here. I might be cleaning up dog vomit one minute and suddenly somebody famous, or otherwise influential, wants us to do something totally unlike cleaning up dog vomit. It almost always involves music, which is good. And, as long as we like them (and I do enjoy Drew’s humor quite a bit) and agree with the conditions, we accept. This career plan (sitting around waiting for people to call) has, thankfully, led us to a lot of interesting places, surrounded by unusual people doing bizarre things. Anyway, here’s the deal. We, Brave Combo, will be performing before Drew Carey and his IMPROV-A-GANZA crew at the massive MGM Grand Hotel and Casino on the strip of unlimited fun and broken dreams in Las Vegas, Nevada around 8 PM, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, November 11, 12 and 13 (start times are a little different each night). Tickets are on sale now. Please fly out to a show and yell and cheer really loudly when we play “Do Something Different.” I cannot even imagine how this is going to all play out. Good thing I like to hang out in the unknown so much. However, I am looking forward to finding out what Mr. Carey has in mind, exactly. Sound check is at 5 PM, Friday, the 11th. I don’t expect to know much more before then. My philosophy is always, “What the hell, we do what we do!” FYI, this will be the BC big band (Jeffrey, Carl, Danny, Little Jack, Alan and Ginny), so you know our part of the wing-ding will be fabulous, simply fabulous.

KINDRED SPIRITS. Tickled Pink is the name of a barn dance band from the U.K. We were delighted to find out that they’re devoted fans of Brave Combo and covered one of our songs on their great new album, CEILIDH. The song is “The Dutch Hornpipe,” from our Grammy-winner, LET’S KISS. Now there’s some talk about bringing them to the USA next year to do a polka blow-out with us and our buddies, Polkacide, in San Francisco. That’s a no-brainer. Maybe the BOTB (battle of the bands) should go on the road. You know, that “Dutch Hornpipe” is a curious little tune with lots of opportunity to get all psychedelic on it. I always dig playing it and drifting away from reality. It’s a schottische, which is perfect for the barn dance scene (check out the sound on youtube, stuff is easy to find). If you think polka is dead or dying you are either ill-informed, stupid or constantly looking the wrong way. And I pity you, cause you’re missing so much as your life ticks, ticks, ticks, ticks….

I wonder if the “middle class” demonstrators gathering daily in ever-growing numbers around Wall Street will inspire the same in other cities. I hope so. If they do, sensible change might actually be within our grasp. I’m also curious about why this isn’t getting much mainstream media coverage. What country is this?

Speaking of politics, I have heard from a reliable source that it will rain again in Texas as soon as our good ol’ boy governor, Rick Perry, drops out of the Presidential race. Should be any day now. Get out the umbrellas!

Brave Combo, the band that won’t take no for an answer, as Garrison Keillor once introduced us, is about to start work on yet another new long-playing something or another. It will be a recording and available in the still sorta-popular CD format, and on-line, of course from us and a bunch of other places, and probably also in the old, yet new, vinyl format, which requires special equipment, called a record player, to hear the sound. Wake up and smell the coffee! Invest in your future and buy a turntable that hooks up to your computer and start shopping for used LPs at Goodwill again. There is a lot of fantastic stuff leaning against walls, gathering dust, in every single town in this great big land of ours. A turntable is your golden key to an unlimited universe of melody and rhythm. And if you make this important step into the future it will be easier for us to justify making 33 1/3 vinyl albums, with big jackets and everything.

ATTENTION, SMART CONSUMERS! Between now and Christmas we will be selling our live Christmas CD, CHRISTMAS PRESENT, for only $5 at all live shows.

Speaking of the world of entertainment, I know it’s a giant, crowded, confusing place right now and will only become much more so, but that doesn’t mean you can’t cut through the crackle and hiss and still enjoy the kids that introduced Nuclear Polka to the world over three decades ago. We remain what we are; still not quite figuring it out, but blissfully unaware that we’re not. Stabbing in the dark is our method of choice. Please look at our itinerary often. Meditate over it. We’re smack dab in the middle of Oktoberfest-mania, playing like crazy and performance dates are added weekly, if not daily, or even hourly. So, until I see your happy faces flying by on the dance floor, don’t give up!