Those Darn Accordions

The concept behind Those Darn Accordions was initially conceived by keyboardist and accordionist Linda "Big Lou" Seekins in early 1989.[1] Seekins, who was active in several Bay Area bands including the polka punk band Polkacide, was called up by the owner of San Francisco's Paradise Lounge and offered an open performance slot if she could put together a band in time.[2] As a joke, she contacted every accordionist she knew in an attempt to assemble an all-accordion band, ultimately recruiting thirteen accordionists to play the show, where they sight read "Beatles songs and polkas" before a packed house.[3][4][5] Despite the disorganized and under-rehearsed nature of the band, the audience response was tremendous: "everyone liked us so much that they wanted an encore, and we'd already played everything we knew", Seekins recalled, "so we just had to play a song over again".[6] Almost immediately, what was originally intended to be a one-time gag started developing into plans to become an ongoing project.[2]

Shortly after their first few performances, member Tom Torriglia thought up the idea of carrying out a series of publicity stunts to help draw some attention to the band. Every few weeks the members began engaging in what were called "accordionista raids", where a mass group of accordionists – sometimes upwards of twenty or more[6] – would run around town and barge uninvited into random restaurants, start playing accordion standards like "Lady of Spain" and "Beer Barrel Polka", announce the location of their next show and then quickly disperse "before the maître d' has time to throw us out".[4][7][8] These raids effectively turned the group into local celebrities, and soon the band were not only receiving press coverage from the likes of the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, The New York Times and People magazine, but began receiving paid offers from the restaurants they had invaded to come back and play for their customers, once even being hired by Apple Inc. to interrupt one of their company meetings.[4][7][8] It was during these raids that the band coined the name "Those Darn Accordions", and through their frequently changing line-ups eventually enlisted keyboardist and singer Paul Rogers as a member.[3][9]

In 1990, TDA were invited to perform at an accordion festival in Castelfidardo, Italy. To help raise money for travel expenses, the band gathered at Washington Square park and played "Lady of Spain" for roughly ten hours straight, accepting tips and donations to keep them from playing ("For a $2,000 donation, we won't play for an hour!", Torriglia advertised).[7] Successfully accruing their goal of $20,000, TDA traveled to Italy, where they discovered that instead of playing a music festival, they had inadvertently entered a serious accordion competition.[3][10] Despite competing in the "pop" category, Rogers recalled that judges didn't respond well to the group's opening rendition of "Stairway to Heaven" and, due to a technicality, TDA ultimately placed fourth out of only two bands. Nevertheless, the audience reaction to TDA was overwhelmingly positive; the band even appeared on the front page of a local newspaper and were invited on the spot to perform at the International Accordion Festival in Vilnius, Lithuania, which they later did in 1992.[2][3][10]

TDA independently released their debut album Vongole Fisarmonica on cassette tape in 1992, featuring a seventeen-member line-up and largely consisting of cover songs including everything from "Beer Barrel Polka" and "Duck Dance" to "Stairway to Heaven" and "It's Not Unusual". Though the tape helped solidify the band's growing local fanbase, it did little to help them achieve the same kind of press attention as their accordionista raids. By this time, Rogers was taking a more prominent role in TDA as a singer-songwriter and had been elected as the group's de facto leader – according to him, "nobody else wanted to do it".[3] Dissatisfied with their unkempt look and sound ("Everyone had to have sheet music on stands and the music would keep falling off...it was just not a band"[4]), Rogers began restructuring TDA into a tighter rock band, placing a stronger emphasis on writing and performing original material. This major shift in direction, as well as Rogers' strict adherence to regular rehearsal sessions, would inevitably contribute to the departure of several members, whittling the band down to a more manageable unit of around eight to ten musicians.[3][11]

A promotional picture of Those Darn Accordions, circa 1996.

In addition to tightening up their musicianship, TDA had also redefined their visual style into a uniquely offbeat and bizarre combination of retro and kitsch sensibilities, appropriating such attire as shiny lamé jackets, fishnet stockings, beehive hairdos, cat eye glasses and even a cowboy outfit, an aesthetic the Chicago Tribune described as looking like "The B-52s meet the Village People".[10] Drawing upon their knack for self-promotion, TDA took quickly to merchandising, producing accordion-themed t-shirts bearing slogans like "Accordions Don't Play 'Lady of Spain' – People Do!" and bumper stickers reading "Pro-Accordion And I Vote!", which even won the San Francisco Bay Guardian award for "Bumper Sticker of the Year" in 1997.[10][12] Perhaps the most peculiar element of TDA's sound and style, however, was member Clyde Forsman, a heavily tattooed senior who had joined the band's original line-up at the age of 74.[9][13] Along with featuring prominently on their album covers and press photos, Forsman sang lead on several TDA songs, and soon became one of the main attractions of the band's concerts when he would sing The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Fire" and Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?", occasionally shirtless and always delivered in a deadpan monotone.[1] Forsman performed and recorded with the group until 2000, and died on June 5, 2009, at the age of 94.[14]

In 1994, TDA performed at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, where they were offered a record deal by the Chicago-based independent label Flying Fish Records.[5][9] Their sole album with Flying Fish, Squeeze This!, was a marked step forward from their debut, serving as a showcase for the band's new rock and pop-oriented original songs while still retaining their trademark flair for polkas and quirky covers. Already a popular live draw for their oddball concept and energetic stage shows, the resulting press from publications including The Los Angeles Times and Entertainment Weekly giving Squeeze This! positive reviews generated enough buzz about the band to help them carry out larger-scale tours in clubs and festivals across the United States and Europe for most of the decade.[15][16]

With the release of No Strings Attached in 1996, TDA experienced the peak of their pseudo-mainstream notoriety as they toured much of the United States and began making occasional appearances on national television, most notably performing on The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show in 1996,[17] Oddville, MTV in 1997,[18] the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon in 1998,[19] Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular in 1999[20] and Donny & Marie in 2000, in addition to numerous appearances on various local network affiliates.[21] TDA's most prominent television exposure came in 1998, when the band appeared on that year's American Music Awards broadcast on ABC, performing an instrumental medley – arranged by Rogers – of former "Song of the Year" winners with accordionists Dick Contino, "Weird Al" Yankovic and event host Drew Carey.[11] Carey, an admitted fan of TDA, specifically requested that TDA be involved with the segment after hearing their version of the "Perry Mason Theme" on Rhino Records' Legends of Accordion compilation.[22] Carey would maintain friendly relations with the band afterwards, hiring them again to play the wrap parties for the fourth season of The Drew Carey Show in 1998 and the TV film Geppetto in 1999.[21]

Following the release of TDA's fourth album Clownhead in August 1999, founder Seekins parted ways with the group to focus full-time on another accordion-based band she had formed, Big Lou's Polka Casserole, who released their debut album a month prior to Clownhead. In a 2006 interview, Seekins reflected on her decision to leave the band, feeling at odds with the more rock-oriented direction TDA was heading: "[T]hey wanted to be a groovy rock band, touring all the time, and playing rock clubs. And I liked the festivals we had been playing. [T]hey didn't want to play polkas anymore...So I recorded the polka album and it was just so much fun and I felt that it sounded more like music I wanted to play".[6] TDA carried on, spending the rest of 1999 and 2000 touring across the United States.

By 2001, TDA was operating with the smallest line-up of their career, consisting of a five-piece of accordionists Rogers, Patty Brady and Suzanne Garramone, bassist Lewis Wallace and drummer Bill Schwartz, all of whom had been with the band since Vongole Fisarmonica. That year, the quintet recorded a six-track EP entitled Amped, featuring a noticeably heavier and distorted rock sound than their previous albums. After carrying out their "Extreme Squeezeboxing Tour" into 2002, Brady would leave TDA the following year to move to Hawaii, being succeeded by accordionists Susie Davis and Carri Abrahms.[23] Addressing the line-up changes, Rogers remarked San Antonio Express-News that "I've found four accordions is the right amount to re-create parts for songs"..."[a]fter about three accordions playing at once you can't tell who's doing what".[23][24]

A recent photo of Those Darn Accordions performing in Champaign, Illinois.

Lawnball, TDA's fifth studio album, was released in July 2004, finding the band mostly returning to the pop and polka influences of their previous albums in place of the harder-edged rock of Amped, which still remained present on a pair of covers of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"/"Black Dog" and The Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein". After a few more years of sporadic touring and the departure of drummer Schwartz, TDA released Squeeze Machine in 2007, mixing elements of country, cabaret and New Orleans styles into the band's pop/rock influences, as well as featuring the "Glass of Beer Polka", a comic duet with Drew Carey.

TDA celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2009 and carried out a tour dubbed "20 Years, 20 Cities", taking them throughout California, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois.[25] For the band's concert in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, TDA hosted an "Accordion Blowout" where they extended free admission to anyone bringing an accordion, leading a crowd of accordionists in a rendition of the "Beer Barrel Polka". The final stop of the tour was at the Cafe Du Nord nightclub in San Francisco, where former original members Big Lou and Tom Torriglia joined the band to perform a set of old favorites.[26] To help promote the show, both current and past members of TDA reunited to carry out a series of "accordionista raids" on restaurants in North Beach.[5]

In 2012, Rogers launched a successful crowdfunding campaign on RocketHub to help finance a Northwest tour for The Darn, a "power trio" treatment of his music featuring TDA bassist Lewis Wallace and Ian Luke, drummer for folk punk band The Mad Maggies, who accompanied The Darn on their tour. Rogers said The Darn was a chance to do something different with his songs, stripping them "down to their basics while allowing him to stretch out on the solos and bring a rawer edge to the sound".[27]

As of 2014, Those Darn Accordions continue to sporadically play shows across the Pacific Northwest and occasional music festivals in the Midwest, though the band has made no indication of any future plans to return to recording or extensive touring.