The Polka Monsters

By popular demand (well, somebody asked for it, I think it was Fred), here is a video clip of my family polka band performing at my son’s wedding recently. That’s my dad and my brother, “the enforcer”, playing saxophone, my nephews Billy and Mike playing percussion with Billy on the drums, and yours truly on the accordion. The DJ dubbed us The Polka Monsters and the name stuck.

Please be kind if you want to critique. It’s been a while since the family band has performed in public and we really didn’t have a chance to practice altogether as a group. We played four polkas and a couple slow numbers with my father singing Sentimental Journey and Jak Szybko Mijaja Chwile (How Quickly Time Passes) in Polish. Between numbers, dad also sang an impromptu version of The Polish National Anthem in Polish. That was a bit of a surprise.

Greg’s new brother-in-law Tony told me afterwards that one of his relatives wanted to request the Beer Barrel Polka when we started our set. Tony replied that we hadn’t practiced that much and didn’t have a big repertoire. His relative replied, “If they’re a polka band, they know Roll Out the Barrel.”

He was right. Our big finale polka was Roll Out The Barrel with special guest drummer my nephew Vic, the Enforcer’s son. (But then we had to play an encore, which is the video here). Afterwards, Tony’s kin came up to him and said, “See. I told ya they'd know it.”