Joe Nick's All Over the Map Accordion Special on Marfa Public Radio This Saturday Night

If you can't make it to the Accordion Kings and Queens Show in Houston this Saturday night, listen to MarfaPublicRadio.org or if you're out and about in Far West Texas, KRTS-FM 93.5 at 7 pm Saturday for the latest edition of All Over The Map on the General Store, hosted by Yours Truly. This week is an All Texas Accordion special, signifying on behalf of the bellowed instrument that makes you want to dance. I'll be covering conjunto, Cajun, zydeco, rock 'n roll, Czech-German, and nuclear polka.

Tune in, turn on, and squeeze it easy.

The Big Squeeze/Accordion Kings and Queens This Saturday

Yep, accordion lovers, the National Instrument of Texas will be celebrated this Saturday evening, June 5 in Houston at the Miller Outdoor Amphitheater for FREE.
Yep, gratis, gratis, gratis. This year's 21st Annual Accordion Kings and Queens Show opens with a 100 accordion jam. That's right.

Here's the scoop from Tara Dooley in the Houston Chronicle (click on the headline to read the story in its original form)

THE BIG SQUEEZE
The 21st annual Accordion Kings and Queens Festival includes the finals of the Big Squeeze contest and performances by stars of the accordion world.
• When: 6:30-11 p.m. Saturday. An accordion jam open to the public starts at 5:30 p.m. The competition is held after the jam.
• Where: Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park Drive in Houston
CONTEST
• Who: Star performers include Albert Zamora y Talento, Leroy Thomas & the Zydeco Roadrunners, Eva Ybarra and the Texas Legacy Czech Band
• Cost: Free
• Sponsored by: Texas Folklife, an Austin-based nonprofit organization that presents and preserves Texas culture
• Information: texasfolklife.org or 512-441-9255



photo of Ruben Moreno, finalist in the Big Squeeze contest, by James Nielsen, Houston Chronicle









By TARA DOOLEY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

Accordion player Ruben Moreno is a finalist in the Big Squeeze Competition put on by Texas Folklife.

When it came to showcasing his accordion chops for the judges, Ruben Moreno decided to stick with the classics.

He picked out a zydeco favorite by the late legend Boozoo Chavis and a Creole number to perform in the fourth annual Big Squeeze competition, a Texas-wide showdown of young accordion talent.

“I hear something like that, something I know is traditional, and it just reels me in,” Moreno said.

“There is hope in keeping the tradition going on accordion,” he added.

The Houston native hopes to turn tradition into a career in music and one day play his own zydeco-infused melodies in great concert venues. Moreno, 20, takes the stage Saturday at Miller Outdoor Theatre in Houston with aspiring accordion players from Humble, Dallas and San Antonio for the finals of the competition, part of Texas Folklife's annual Accordion Kings and Queens Festival.

The winner takes home $1,000, a new accordion, a recording session at SugarHill Recording Studios in Houston and career support.

For Keyun Dickson of Humble, winning the competition would give him bragging rights as a new “accordion king.”

“They don't have to give me anything,” he joked. “I just want the name.”

The festival and competition are a showcase for young talent. But they also shine a spotlight on the accordion, which writer Joe Nick Patoski calls the “national instrument of Texas.”

“There is no single instrument, including the guitar, that covers so many musical styles as lead instrument,” said Patoski, author of books on Texas icons Willie Nelson and Selena.

The instrument has found its way into Texas roots music ranging from the countrified sounds of the Tex-Czech polkas to zydeco, conjunto and some Tejano, Patoski said.

The accordion came to this continent with European immigrants in the 19th century, though there is discussion about whether it made its way to Texas through Mexico or ports such as Galveston, Patoski said.

Once it arrived, the sound grabbed attention in Texas with Czech, German and Polish polkas re-imagined for a new world. It squeezed its way into the music of Cajun and Creole people from Louisiana and the Texas-Mexican sounds of conjunto.

“With all our cultures, we live our separate lives,” Patoski said. “Music is where we intersect. We've been stealing from one another musically since those immigrants arrived with the accordion.”

Family and tradition play an important part in Jesus Zamora's accordion playing.

The 19-year-old from San Antonio grew up around conjunto music at home and at local festivals. But he didn't take up the instrument until he was 14.

“At first I wasn't really interested in it,” said Zamora, whose family moved to Texas when he was 5. “Then I started seeing the cultural meaning of it. It comes from where I was born, Mexico, and all that.”

Zamora plays conjunto classics such as Idalia, which is one of the pieces he will perform Saturday. He also performs with his mother and father at festivals in their band, called the Zamora Family.

Dickson was introduced to the accordion by his mother and grandmother.

But for him, the music was zydeco, and he started playing it at 3 and taught himself by listening to recordings by his accordion hero, Houston player Step Rideau.

At 12, he started a band called Keyun and the Zydeco Masters that now performs regularly at jazz cafes and Cajun restaurants.

Though he loves the music, playing the accordion has other benefits for an 18-year-old.

“I like all the girls that come out to this stuff,” he said.

tara.dooley@chron.com

The San Antonio Sound - the Next Generation

Probably the most enlightening musical revelations I’ve had this spring have come from all the great new music pouring out of San Antonio – the new Krayolas’ Americano album, the new Hacienda album, and two exciting punk groups, A Girl In A Coma and Pinata Protest.
































Girl in A Coma – Jenn Alva, Phanie Diaz, and Nina Diaz – whose music was initially inspired by the Smiths and Nirvana, hit me like Latina spawn of the Runaways on first listen of their 2007 debut album Both Before I’m Gone and last year’s Trio B.C. The slash-and-burn chainsaw chords and aggressive vocals were expected, but they were delivered with enough grit, grind, occasional bilingual lyrics, and local Chicana references to qualify as a Nowhere But Sananto original. That sort of explains why filmmaker SA native Robert Rodriguez was falling over himself with his camera during SXSW filming Las Home Girls, and why GIAC’s latest 3 EP series, Adventures in Coverland, which includes cover versions of Selena’s “Si Una Vez,” Ritchie Valens’ “Come On Let’s Go,” Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” along with Beatles, Joy Division, David Bowie, and Velvet Underground send ups, wound up on Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records label. They were can have it both ways. “Si Una Vez” is particularly grabbing, capturing Selena’s passion and versatility and suggesting she might have had quite a career as a spirited punkette had she lived longer.

































On their new album Plethora for SAustex Records, the band Pinata Protest – Alvaro Del Norte, JJ Martinez, Matt Cazares and Marcus Cazares - stakes out territory as the spiritual hermanos to Girl in A Coma. They are a straight up accordion-powered conjunto but work the polka beat with such furious aggro that they come off like the Pogues, if the Pogues came from South Texas instead of Ireland. Their ‘tude is hard and fast, with pauses now and then for something a lil’ more sentimental like “Love Taco.”


































Hacienda - Abraham, Jaime, and Rene Villarreal and their cousin Dante Schwebel - really grabbed me on their first album Loud Is the Night, mainly for their lush harmonies that recalled the Beatles and the Beach Boys but in more of a contemporary context, like Fleet Foxes. This time out, on Big Red and Barbacoa they’ve emerged from their northeast San Antonio garage with a more polished sound that reflects touring and recording with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the coolest band to come out of Ohio since….well, a long, long time.

It was Auerbach who hipped the bros to Doug Sahm, the patron saint of San Antonio music whose definitive Tex Mex sound popularized by the Sir Douglas Quintet’s sixties hits “She’s About A Mover” and “Mendecino” set the standard by which all SA music has been judged ever since. Since Hacienda wasn’t familiar with Sahm, I’m guessing it’s Auerbach’s influence that’s responsible for the songs “Big Red” and “Barbacoa.”
Unfortunately, the music doesn’t match the localized lyrics, which come off as pandering. What’s more significant is the harmonizing, which comes off as more Beach Boys than Beatles this time around – “I Keep Waiting” and “Hound Dog” could have been tracks off of Summer Days (and Summer Nights). The album as a whole isn’t the revelation that their surprising debut was. But cuts like “Gotta Get Back Home” and the instrumental roller-rink groove of “Barbacoa” whet the appetite for whatever comes next from the Hacienda boys.



































The Krayolas’ Americano is their best, most Santone recording to date, and honestly, the most San Antonio-sounding pop artists since Sir Doug himself. The Saldana brothers (David and Hector), Van Baines, Joe Sarli, Barry Smith and friends work a borderlands beate infused with plenty of pop and Beatleseque influences to transcend being a regional confectin. Their past three releases have all had their moments, especially their bilingual cover of Augie Meyers’ “Little Fox” with Augie his own self pumping the Vox organ that was the Sir Douglas Quintet’s signature; the Catholic Malinche tribute “La Conquistadora,” and a disturbing slice of the Mexico drug wars “Corrido Twelve Heads In A Bag.”

Americano shows the Krayolas wearing their Sixties pop-rock sensibility proudly on “Good Little Girl (She Don’t).” But it’s when the band digs even deeper into their hometown roots with the help of the West Side Horns and Flaco Jimenez that the music gets interesting. “Exit/Salida” is a direct descendant of Sir Doug’s “Nuevo Laredo,” groove-wise. The horns provide the hooks to the title track “Americano,” the punchy brass harmonies punctuating compelling lyrics that speak to SA’s cultural duality. It’s that rare track that once you start humming it, you can’t get out of your head. Flaco throws down some serious accordeon licks for the ambitious “Wall of Accordion,” a local ref to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. But it’s Louis Bustos’ soaring sax that makes the tune cook and smoke, rendering the accordion as almost an afterthought until Flaco’s backyard riffing on the next track “Soy La Pared” brings redemption. “Fruteria (The Fruit Cup Song)” which celebrates a San Antonio slice-of-life as a puro pop confection, “Home,” an introspective slice of life about an immigrant working woman, and the dirty blues of “Piso Diez” are all Krayolas, needing no outside musical assistance to hit the mark.

Not every track on Americano works, and their latest single “1070 (I’m Your Dirty Mexican) about Arizona’s new immigration laws isn’t even on the album. But what the Krayolas, Hacienda, Pinata Protest, and A Girl In A Coma have collectively achieved bears notice: Sir Doug is dead – long live Sir Doug; these bands represent the next generation of San Antonio music makers with a musical sense of place. The spirit of Sir Doug lingers, but each group has stepped out from under his shadow to create sound that are new and completely different but still come out puro SA. In other words, that South Texas groove is stronger than ever.
Una polkita anyone?

TheKrayolas.com
Haciendaonline.net
myspace.com/pinataprotest
girlinacoma.com/giac/giac.html
blackheart.com/adventuresincoverland/