the accordion - classic or dud?

In the wrong hands they can be dorky.

In the right hands they can amaze.

Mostly great because they look neat.

All the buttons and shiny pieces inspire wonderment.

Accordians on soudntracks...
Top 100 ACCORDION tracks
Which is cooler: banjo or accordian?

Seriously, upon its invention, it allowed keyboard players to play in places that pianos couldn't go. Since then, it's been responsible for no fewer but also no more wretched pieces of music than the distorted electric guitar. And I just saw CJ Chenier this weekend. Classic.

"Suffer, Motherfuckers. This is Tango." - Astor Piazzolla

Lucy Liu plays the accordion!

weighs a tonne

I just bought an accordion at the flea market. The dude I bought it from claims it was played at the Opry, back in the day. While I don't know if I believe his story of provenance, it does has the inititals "TEF" in RHINESTONES on it.

I love the accordion and the bandoneon. More so year by year. I borrowed one for a while a few years ago, but it was a kid's accordion, so I felt like I should get a real thing and learn to play that. Of course, that never panned out.
Anyways, I had no instructions and not quite enough patience, so I just ended up playing faux-Univers Zero doomsday crap.

What's wrong with polka? The Andre Popp record I have is fantastic!

I too love the accordion and stumbled upon one, and the fellow sold it to me for $40! And everything works!

I wish I were still in Buffalo, where I could get a little old man with suspenders to teach me for $10/hour. I don't know if I'll be that lucky here. When I try to play now, it's just me flailing around, yelling, "Look! I'm playing the ACCORDION!"

Also, polka rules. "Polka Party" with Frankie Yankovic and Friends is an awesome record.

I hate them personally but the accordion is one of the most important instruments in musical history in the sense that they were

1. mass-produced
2. did not need tuning
3. loud

Thus they rendered a lot a instruments previously used in folk music/ social gatherings pretty much redundant

I find that very interesting and insightful. It ties in with what I was going to write when I clicked into this thread. Somewhat embarrassing maybe, but my mom used to play the accordion (and was actually pretty good!) and occasionally when their atheist/commie friends used to come over, we would all sing songs from the Elektra catalog and the Theodore Bikel songbook (loads of great international folk songs in there) and have one whale of a good time. I was very young and life was very uncomplicated then.

I am having a hard time thinking of an instrument that I don't view as CLASSIC!

There was some accordion double-CD or small box set that came out a few years back (possibly on Wergo) that had terrific liner notes discussing accordion's importance as an instrument in early recorded music, how it displaced a lot of other instruments and swept the world.

This was it:

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/graphics/globalac.jpg

I have to admit I enjoyed the liner notes more than the actual recordings.

I'd like to hear it with some distrotion and echo and slowed down a good bit.

ha! distrotion is like fuzzy metal, and not all tubey.

This guy can play the accordion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVbuIZ-5-8o

PS: I love the accordion!

"I have to admit I enjoyed the liner notes more than the actual recordings."

i find the history fascinating. and baffling. it literally went around the world. it's such a ubiquitous instrument.

In rock/pop related music, the accordion has often been used in a great way.

However, we have some absolutely awful music forms here in Northern Europe that have caused a lot of people to hate the accordion.

Yes, but Stian Carstensen makes us all love it. Well, I guess you don't like Farmers Market much, but his appearances on "Hitskolen" are a lot of fun.

Viva Finland!

http://www.backstage089.de/presse_files/24/KORPIKLAANI_PR.jpg

OK SO THAT LOOKS AWESOME SCOTT.

I'll recommend this as a general frenzy of accordianness.

And this as some of the coolest weirdo accordian ever: KIMMO POHJONEN

I love love love the accordian, and own one that I am totally incapable of playing outside of bleating weirdness.

oh man you have to hear korpiklaani! they rule.

OK, so Scott is right, and is now my official musical spirit animal for today. THX!

someone mentioned pere ubu upthread, and they are correct, john kirkpatrick rocks the squeezebox, tho mostly in a brit-folk context

Classic, for They Might Be Giants, who use one to fun effect a lot (eg "Mr Me")

Let's not forget Lars Hollmer, the ol' Samla Mammas Manna fellow. He has a lot of very nice solo albums (though not at all as mad as the SMM stuff) He's probably got the most gentle weirdness I can think of. Very lovely melodies that seem so unassuming, until you notice what's going on harmonically and rhythmically.
And, of course, he's in the brilliant Accordion Tribe with Guy Klucevsek, Maria Kalaniemi, Bratko Bibic, and Otto Lechner. I think I need to hear all those people's solo material. Klucevsek's is really something.

I also really like the accordion-use in Doina Klezmer's "Sorja Tanz". I love the violin & accordion tradeoffs. Great jazzy klezmer throughout (ah, here there be samples. There's a second album!? I need!)

I'd like to see more accordion in metal, but I don't really like the folky metal bands much. I guess it's hard to work on well into brutal death metal though, which is the only type of metal I really have much patience for anymore. Then again, Farmers Market did an old standard almost as a grindcore song once, and that worked quite well, with the accordion playing the lead melody.

I love the way accordion is used in Arabic music, although it doesn't tend to dominate the proceedings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl0g6dXIsqQ

(I've said it before about accordions in Arabic music, but now there's youtube for an instant example!)

classic (sometimes)

Cajun and zydeco music is not just for old people

Young people are way overrated.

Young people turn me on!

Well, I guess you don't like Farmers Market much, but his appearances on "Hitskolen" are a lot of fun.

They were funny, but Wolfgang Plagge's comments made considerably more sense. :)

just in case people are curious about Korpiklaani:

happy little boozer:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JFBYIT4fvcY

beer beer:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XOKbhQbvpPA

hunting song:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FrGwGyrfmCI

wooden pints:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IGIc4jJQn1k

i like korpiklaani more for the oi! + pogues kinda insanity than the metal elements. though i think they are good at the more metallic stuff too. might also appeal to andrew wk fans! there must be some of those left.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/10/13/arts/13MARC.650.jpg

[by christian marclay]

Here's a video of Farmers Market performing their silly medley "Tails of the unexpected".
Perhaps not the best example of Carstensen's accordion skills, but it's a laugh.

This is the day, by The The

accordion with cimbalom is a killer combination

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQwYq4oKIDQ&feature=related

this shows off lincan playing the cimbalom rather more than mexicanu on the accordion, theres plenty more marian mexicanu on youtube with other cimbalom players too

Someone from the Library of Congress just sent me a pdf for a Thursday July 12 noon to 1 pm free event some of you might be interested in, if you can make it to the Library of Congress in Washington DC at that time.

The event is called "Squeeze This: A Cultural History of the Accordion in America." That is also the name of the new book by NYC based Marion Jacobson, an ethnomusicologist, accordionist, author and educator, who will be doing the presentation and signing books. The talk takes place at the Library of Congress Madison Building's Pickford Theatre on the third floor, 101 Independence Avenue SE. For further information, call 202-707-1743

http://www.theindependent.com/news/local/update-accordion-causes-school-evacuation/article_cee9b86c-c53e-11e5-87fd-d717b29f3217.html?mode=jqm

A suspicious package that resulted in the evacuation of approximately 900 students and staff members from Walnut Middle School Wednesday afternoon turned out to be an accordion inside a box.

Capt. Robert Falldorf of the Grand Island Police Department said a staff member spotted the box in the band room, but could not recall seeing it there before. The staff member did not think the box looked like it held any kind of band instrument.

http://youtu.be/8Gr7JCKyZc4?t=55s

see now that video led me to this and wowee zowee what a performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG4-1I4QgvI

dig that funky drummer and those extended organ breaks...

https://youtu.be/C3daPnPl1HM

https://youtu.be/GSutIu8tc9w

Sorry, that didn't work...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3daPnPl1HM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSutIu8tc9w

Looks like the same accordionist, too, scott. A lot of of Egyptian music from that era had kind of trippy instrumental passages of this sort.

If I wanted to learn to play an accordion, should I learn to play piano first, or can I jump straight into learning the ol' squeeze box?