Jake Kouwe of the Chardon Polka Band says he often asks himself, “Who can I entertain today?” Beginning in about a week, he hopes the answer will be lots of folks.
The band is the focus of Polka Kings, a new series premiering at 9:30 p.m. April 11 on Reelz. (That’s Channel 275 on Time Warner Cable.) The band first made a deal for the show about a year ago, then shot the episodes from April to October 2014.
The network sums up the show as the band’s “foot-tapping quest to survive each other, achieve mainstream status and bring polka to the masses with a modern twist to the happiest music on earth.”
Since co-founding what was originally the Chardon High School Polka Band, Kouwe had made it his mission to spread polka merriment — including by translating current pop tunes into accordion-laden work. The band plays about 150 gigs a year, Kouwe said, with a sound and an attitude that he has called “odd and unique.”
But for the Reelz series, there’s a particular emphasis on odd, as the network says “the group is always finding themselves in crazy situations ranging from private parties to nursing homes, Ukrainian summer camps to the Duct Tape Festival in Avon, Ohio. One episode even features Duji, the co-host from Cleveland’s syndicated radio talk show Rover’s Morning Glory, judging a battle of the bands competition.”[
Polka is hip. A large part of Mexican pop is polka based and there is no man in the word hipper than Flaco Jimenez! 1/4th of the Texas Tornados and frequently toured with Ry Cooder. Where I first heard him.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Sue--I'll agree it's not polka music, nor those ubiquitous guys with accordions who played at 60s weddings and other parties, but hip? I just don't see it (FWIW, I like some Argentinian tango music and some Norwegian folk songs, both of use accordions quite a bit, but I don't see them as particularly hip either.
with a modern twist to the happiest music on earth.”
