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Post by ganews on Sept 16, 2023 16:08:00 GMT -5
Yeah that's right.
For my whole life the accordion has been the instrument of choice for the on-screen nerd. Steve Urkel and Weird Al play accordion. It's just not an instrument that gets taken seriously in the mainstream. Even the bagpipes get played at St. Patrick's Day parades and cop funerals, or maybe by a busker on a unicycle, but the accordion doesn't even get ironic appreciation. Why is this? I suggest that it's because the accordion was never part of jazz or blues that birthed most of American popular music.
You probably don't see the accordion being played in public unless the person is wearing a costume, like a mariachi or a Bavarian oompah band. But accordions are pretty awesome, actually. And it's not just played by Europeans and white midwesterners descended from Europeans - see the mariachi mentioned above, and the way Mexican accordion is all over Western Swing music.
So because it's Oktoberfest and also because I'm about to visit Acadia, this month nominate two albums that feature the accordion.
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Dellarigg
AV Clubber 
This is a public service announcement - with guitars
Posts: 7,501 
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Post by Dellarigg on Sept 17, 2023 12:11:34 GMT -5
The Pogues had a lot of accordion over their albums. I'll go with -
Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Bruce Springsteen wasn't averse to it in his earlier days, so I'll also go with -
The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle
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Post by Jimmy James on Sept 17, 2023 16:03:15 GMT -5
"A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't" - Tom Waits
Rain Dogs is a classic with prominent accordion on the title track, and is 38 years young at the end of this month, but we already covered it here a few years back. Instead I'll go for Clifton Chenier's 1975 effort Bogalusa Boogie, since we need at least some zydeco representation. If you're like me, your introduction to the genre may have been Paul Simon's Graceland, which name-drops Chenier on penultimate track "That Was Your Mother".
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Post by ganews on Sept 17, 2023 16:53:28 GMT -5
"A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't" - Tom Waits Rain Dogs is a classic with prominent accordion on the title track, and is 38 years young at the end of this month, but we already covered it here a few years back. Instead I'll go for Clifton Chenier's 1975 effort Bogalusa Boogie, since we need at least some zydeco representation. If you're like me, your introduction to the genre may have been Paul Simon's Graceland, which name-drops Chenier on penultimate track "That Was Your Mother". was literally coming here to nominate Clifton Chenier |
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Post by ganews on Sept 17, 2023 17:11:59 GMT -5
Something relatively contemporary, about ten years old - The Tejas Brothers, "Live a Little More".
"the original Tex-Mex honky-tonk band out of Ft. Worth" |
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Post by ganews on Sept 17, 2023 17:38:53 GMT -5
I'll go ahead and make my second pick, the self-titled 1990 debut supergroup album "Texas Tornadoes". It was not easy to pick one album from accordionist Flaco Jiménez who has worked with Ry Cooder, the Rolling Stones, and apparently a zillion others.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Sept 17, 2023 17:57:04 GMT -5
Not a nomination, but I’d like to mention the novel “Accordion Crimes” by E. Annie Proulx, about a haunted accordion that goes on adventures through a series of American immigrant communities, leaving behind death and ruin wherever it goes. I won’t go so far as to recommend it since I found its neverending stream of misery tiresome (there’s a chapter where a depressed Acadian lumberjack cuts off his own head with a chainsaw and it’s somehow NOT played for laughs), but it seems germane to this discussion of the many genres of music touched by the old squeezebox
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,557
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Post by repulsionist on Sept 17, 2023 21:34:30 GMT -5
An "I'm just over here in my corner kicking dustbunnies. It's GREAT!" offer
Pauline Oliveros, Accordion and Voice (1982)
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 18, 2023 0:47:10 GMT -5
I guess I'll nominate Korean punk band Crying Nut's 1999 album 서커스 매직 유량단 (Circus Magic Clowns) their first album with a dedicated accordion player.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 18, 2023 7:02:51 GMT -5
Well, I’ll go ahead and nominate the obvious band for this month.
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln (Have we done this one before?)
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Post by pantsgoblin on Sept 18, 2023 7:19:57 GMT -5
Not a nomination, but I’d like to mention the novel “Accordion Crimes” by E. Annie Proulx, about a haunted accordion that goes on adventures through a series of American immigrant communities, leaving behind death and ruin wherever it goes. I won’t go so far as to recommend it since I found its neverending stream of misery tiresome (there’s a chapter where a depressed Acadian lumberjack cuts off his own head with a chainsaw and it’s somehow NOT played for laughs), but it seems germane to this discussion of the many genres of music touched by the old squeezebox And I'll recommend another work featuring a cursed accordion: the 2009 Colombian film The Wind Journeys. Features an awesome sequence of a competition where the contestants trade insults between playing squeezebox riffs, sort of a traditionalist rap battle. |
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Post by pantsgoblin on Sept 18, 2023 7:39:16 GMT -5
Walt McClements - A Hole in the Fence (2021)
Experimental squeezeboxer who I first encountered opening for harpist Mary Lattimore. He plays on some of her records and is also a member of Weyes Blood.
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LazBro
Prolific Poster 
Posts: 10,019
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Post by LazBro on Sept 18, 2023 7:52:49 GMT -5
Ooo, I've got one.
Stolen Babies - There Be Squabbles Ahead
In my opinion the preeminent "dark cabaret" band. They have the requisite evil circus aesthetic, but they also write great songs. In their now two decades long career, they've released only two full-length albums, but I keep them on my radar and patiently hope for another.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 18, 2023 8:50:38 GMT -5
Beirut- The Flying Club Cup
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