Polka music no more

[oldbandnerd]

Today I took the family to the season opening day of Busch Gardens in Williamsburg,Va. only to find that the live polka band in "Das Festhaus" has been replaced by a "show" with dancers and canned music.
I guess eating German sasuage and drinking beer in a German beer garden isn't synonymous with listening to German polkas played by men in lederhosen anymore.

[ghmerrill]

This is depressing. I haven't been up to Busch Gardens in at least twenty years (probably more) since our kids were in their early teens. I remember the Festhaus and the peripatetic German band (a quintet of some sort, I think).

Regarding the men in lederhosen, I do recall that the tuba player was a young woman in a (of course) dirndl, and playing an F tuba.

[sloan]

A few years ago, I was in Baden-Baden during festival season. We sat outdoors at long
tables, ordered food and beer from girls dressed just like...well...you know the picture I mean. Nearby was an outdoor stage.

On the stage, a small combo was playing 1970's USA Rock 'n Roll. In English. Very loudly.

Later that same weekend, there was a dinner event for our meeting. Big ballroom, filled
with 10-person round tables. One end of the room was a stage - performing was a revival group playing 1930's German cabaret tunes (think Marlena Dietrich and Blue Angel - or, for you young'uns, think Joel Grey). At least they were singing in German. Sort of a German Preservation Hall experience.

Not a sign of a tuba or a single pair of leather shorts (the USA rock group might have been wearing long leather pants - but that doesn't really count, does it?)

I must be fair to the dinner band - perhaps I mischaracterized their music. Here's a link: you tell me.
http://www.salonorchester-weimar.de/

Sadly, we've been back to the same meeting several times, without a repeat of the musical stylings of the Salonorchester Weimar. A pity. Perhaps if they added a tuba?

[ken k]

perhaps they only have the band in the summer when the college kids are off??? that would be ashame. They used to do a great show with the Alp horns and all. ONe of my favorite attractions at the park. That and the Golden Chariot? roller coaster. The italian show was very good too.

[basspiper]

Today I took the family to the season opening day of Busch Gardens in Williamsburg,Va. only to find that the live polka band in "Das Festhaus" has been replaced by a "show" with dancers and canned music.
I guess eating German sasuage and drinking beer in a German beer garden isn't synonymous with listening to German polkas played by men in lederhosen anymore.

Apparently, neither is ballet. You must have felt like I did, taking the kids to their first (live, professional) performance of The Nutcracker last year, and getting... Muzakovsky.

Wasn't even a decent sound system.

Dave

[Dan Schultz]

I was in the Hofbrau Haus in Munich in 2005. Their 'house band' consisted of an alto sax, a trumpet, a guy playing a snare drum, and a keyboard doing the melody and bass lines. NO TUBA!

I was there with The Rhein Valley Brass polka group performing at the Mai Woche street festival in Ossnabruck. They really didn't care for our German folk music. In fact... an old lady shook her fist at us and told us to "go home"... probably thinking we were from Austria. When she discovered we were Americans she thought it was just plain funny!

[oldbandnerd]

I forgot to mention .... this so called "show" .....it's for kids based on fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. Real family entertainment while you swill steins of beer and get flatulant on bratwurst.

[Rick Denney]

There was a time when polkas were pop music. About that time, many, many Germans, Poles, Czechs, and Austrians immigrated to America and settled in places like Pennsylvania (and environs), the upper Midwest, and central Texas. At that point, the pop music they brought followed a different track than the pop music they left behind.

And because immigrants are often a bit nostalgic, they probably hold on to their pop music as a symbol of what they left behind, just as with other aspects of their culture that their former countrymen have long since abandoned.

It's no different with traditional jazz. Dixieland included a tuba routinely, but it's easy to find bands in New Orleans that don't use a tuba.

Recorded music--that's another matter.

Rick "noting no desire on the part of many beer tents to be traditional in addition to being German" Denney

[bort]

I was in the Hofbrau Haus in Munich in 2005. Their 'house band' consisted of an alto sax, a trumpet, a guy playing a snare drum, and a keyboard doing the melody and bass lines. NO TUBA!

Hey Dan, I was there in June of '05... same thing I saw. Although, on the first floor, there was a small band with a guy playing an oval rotary euphonium.

The only German festival I can remember that I've been to with a tuba player involved was in south Baltimore, for the Maryland German Society (or something). Some group I didn't know, but Scott Cameron (of the US Army Field Band) happened to be in it, and played the clarinet polka on his tuba. Needless to say, but Scott ROCKED on it!

[finnbogi]

I was in the Hofbrau Haus in Munich in 2005. Their 'house band' consisted of an alto sax, a trumpet, a guy playing a snare drum, and a keyboard doing the melody and bass lines. NO TUBA!

Hofbräuhaus is IMHO a horrible tourist trap. I much prefer the other breweries and beer gardens, where you generally find fewer tourists and more gmütlichkeit. In some places, such as Paulaner am Nockherberg or the beer garden am Chinesichen Turm, you also get proper polka music.

[Lingon]

... am Chinesichen Turm...

Hmmm, using Chinese made instruments?

[tubajoe]

Fear not, it is absolutely alive and well in NYC!

http://youtu.be/D5LoePfk8iY

http://youtu.be/3UKjQzVtFfs

http://youtu.be/9tYgOiv7g4U
(some certain rock tunes are part of the actual repertoire -- called "schlaga")


Next show, 4/1 - 3pm, Zum Schneider, NYC

(there goes my hi-art reputation...ha.)


BTW, when Gato Loco was playing in Munchen a few months ago, we stopped into the Hofbrau Haus and there was a great, very legit blasmusik quartet playing -- with an absolutely SUPERB tuba player (sadly, I didn't get his name, or I forgot it, probably had too much bier, but the guy was great!)

PROST!

[Dan Schultz]

I was in the Hofbrau Haus in Munich in 2005. Their 'house band' consisted of an alto sax, a trumpet, a guy playing a snare drum, and a keyboard doing the melody and bass lines. NO TUBA!

Hey Dan, I was there in June of '05.

Darn! Missed you by a month!

[Wu299]

I, as a not-very-proud citizen of Czech republic need to admit Im saddened by the fact that German-style polka is considered "the one".

Just wondering, how many of you had a chance to compare czech polkas with german ones and based on what are you talking about only one kind of them?

[Donn]

Just wondering, how many of you had a chance to compare czech polkas with german ones and based on what are you talking about only one kind of them?

Really I think whatever vague idea of polka music we have in the US, it's actually more Czech. Including what must be the most familiar melody, the one we know as "Roll Out The Barrel." I like Czech polka because it typically seems to have more saxophones.

[TexTuba]

I, as a not-very-proud citizen of Czech republic need to admit Im saddened by the fact that German-style polka is considered "the one".

Just wondering, how many of you had a chance to compare czech polkas with german ones and based on what are you talking about only one kind of them?

I love me some Czech polkas!

[Wu299]

Jak se mas?
Pojd do Texas where Czechs, Germans, and Polish all get along nicely with different musical styles, and where the languages are still spoken.

Mam se dobre

Are you (or your parents) from Czech republic or something?


Saxophones? Em.. not sure if joking or our culture got f...ked...
In my opinion czech polkas are more of a music than german ones, which seem to be way too precise and strict, instead of being what they really are - a people´s music, played in villages with these bands consisting of old chaps where two played trumpet "back then", tenor and baritone horns couldnt find a trumpet so they picked what was available and tuba=old helicon being in the family since who-knows-when. Somehow it works, and worked for generations.
Honestly (no I do NOT want to offend anyone, just saying my opinion), after Ive seen what melting of cultures did to this music, it makes me sick. Whoever got the idea to bring accordion into "classical" polka must have been ill.

This music is getting raped big time, at least in my country, and is rarely cared about by anyone younger than 60 years. What a shame, another part of culture literally destroyed by ignorance and prejudice ("You play THAT? No, sorry, Im not coming.").

[Dean E]

German culture on the back burner is one of the consequences of ending the cold war. There are fewer U.S. troops and families in Germany, and fewer marriages to Germans immigrating to the U.S.

In the Washington, DC, area there is only one German restaurant that I know of. At Blob's biergarten yesterday we heard a polka band with elecftric bass guitar, two accordians (one of which doubled on electric guitar), and one percussionist. They were all good musicians, and the crowd was happy, but times certainly are different.

[Donn]

Saxophones? Em.. not sure if joking or our culture got f...ked...
In my opinion czech polkas are more of a music than german ones, which seem to be way too precise and strict, instead of being what they really are - a people´s music, played in villages with these bands consisting of old chaps where two played trumpet "back then", tenor and baritone horns couldnt find a trumpet so they picked what was available and tuba=old helicon being in the family since who-knows-when. Somehow it works, and worked for generations.
Honestly (no I do NOT want to offend anyone, just saying my opinion), after Ive seen what melting of cultures did to this music, it makes me sick. Whoever got the idea to bring accordion into "classical" polka must have been ill.

This music is getting raped big time, at least in my country, and is rarely cared about by anyone younger than 60 years. What a shame, another part of culture literally destroyed by ignorance and prejudice ("You play THAT? No, sorry, Im not coming.").

Well, it's a conundrum. It's a shame to see old musical traditions die out, but of course one way or another it always happens. Eventually I think you're faced with a choice - adapt, or die. I wasn't joking, you can see it yourself on Youtube, common lineup is drums, electric bass, accordion and a saxophone or two. Not to your taste, I understand, but on the bright side, it's living music. Many European musical traditions are maintained today in a sort of museum style, including I suppose Czech polka in a few Czech brass bands, but Czech polka is among the few that survive as popular music in any meaningful sense. Too bad you don't like it!