Why I play polka music

My path to Wisconsin and what’s special about this music

Video: my second experience with bierstachel, or poking beer with a hot iron. My first experience was in New Ulm, Minnesota where I fell in love with polka music.

First, how I got to Wisconsin

I moved to Wisconsin in 2004. I was living where I grew up in Indiana and I wanted a change. I got laid off from a nonprofit job and had a chance to make a big move. New York was too expensive and Portland was too pretentious (which I would still have LOVED), but Madison was just right. Not too big. Lots of green spaces. People who thought like me. 

I was craving a return to the upper midwest. I went to graduate school in Mankato, Minnesota where I fell in love with the snow and the hygge spirit. Though I listened to a lot of jazz when I was a kid, my only exposure to polka was through Big Band and the Andrews Sisters. It was in Minnesota where I watched Bandwagon on TV (a polka dance show that’s still on the air on KEYC-TV) and experienced the excitement of a live polka band and getting a beer “poked” bierstachel style at Bockfest at Schell’s Brewery in New Ulm. My family mostly came from Wisconsin, so moving to Madison felt like a return of sorts, even though I’d only occasionally visited the state when I was a kid.

Moving to Wisconsin really made me fall in love with this beautiful state. I wasn’t outdoorsy, but I learned to enjoy tent camping in our state parks. I wasn’t much of a hiker, but I fell in love with the woods. My love of swimming in my youth came right back as I discovered the joy of a crystal clean Northwoods lake. 

There was polka everywhere.

Everywhere I went there seemed to be polka music. Wisconsin loves a festival and we have so many reasons to celebrate. Love cheese? Have a festival. Love beer? Yep, festival. Love fall? Apple festival. Cranberries? Festival. Oktoberfest festivals are so important that they spread out for more weeks than in Munich, engulfing a large part of September. 

Great Wisconsin festivals have polka bands. I would listen to these bands and the hair on my arms would stand up. The music is special because it’s the sound of another time, of the children of European immigrants, of joy, of community, of happiness. I would watch people dance and they looked like they were having so much fun. 

Polka music is happy music. But it also makes me cry. “Polka tears” is what I call the phenomenon where I watch dancers and am really moved seeing a community come together and have fun to this music. Elderly couples look like they have been dancing together for decades. Grandmas dance with their grandsons. A couple dances with their newborn in a baby carrier between them. You get to see intergenerational joy expressed through music and movement. It fills my heart, my eyes brim with tears, and I’m so glad I get to witness it.

I knew I had to do something for polka music.

Polka Tears happen because polka is at risk of dying. I get a deep sense of nostalgia when I hear it. But it’s also on shaky grounds. 

The population of polka musicians and fans are aging. Often the musicians are older. The people who know the dance steps are older. The people who know how to play tricky instruments with bellows are older. Young people aren’t as inspired to pick up an accordion as they are to learn a guitar or to make beats on a MIDI controller. You’ll find exceptions, of course. Polka bands have always been family bands and community bands. The next generation is out there. But for many years I asked myself, “how can I do my part to keep this polka joy going?” I can sing, I can read music. But playing music didn’t seem like something I had the opportunity to do. 

The answer came during the COVID crisis. I’ve always wanted to be a vinyl DJ. During the pre-vaccine COVID crisis when we were trying to stay “safer at home,” I had a lot of time on my hands to learn a new skill and entertain myself. In December 2019, I made a New Year’s resolution to learn how to engineer a radio show at WORT-FM. I wanted to be a substitute music host for the DJs I’d admired who played jazz and reggae. But COVID kept us out of the studio. 

I steered that desire into researching turntables and equipment to play my own music at home. I found a couple of Stanton STR-8s and a mixer for sale in Illinois and made space in my apartment for a vinyl setup. Like a little kid playing pretend, I started “hosting my own show” at home. Even though I regrettably purged my vinyl collection in 2018, I still had lots of records to practice with.

The answer was simple: polka. 

I spent a lot of time imagining what I’d like to do when the COVID crisis eased. I wanted to play records in a dark and cozy bar for eclectic vinyl nights. I wanted to play Northern Soul for dancers in a tiny club. I wanted to play the easy listening music I grew up with that I just KNOW would be cool in the right context. But I kept coming back to one essential question: what can I do that no one else is doing? The answer was simple: polka.

Of course, polka! I’m in WISCONSIN. Polka music has been calling me TO DO SOMETHING to keep the culture going. POLKA TEARS WERE MY SIGN. And the funny thing is that I don’t remember having too many thoughts that maybe people wouldn’t like what I was doing. The COVID crisis taught us a lot about being grateful for what we have, loving your life, and not taking things for granted. I also learned that life is short and you can’t spend a lot of time worrying about other people’s opinions of you. 

Do your thing and the people who get it will find you. 

Boy howdy did they find me. A lot happened that would be good Shotski Lodge stories for another time. But my first couple of years were a flurry of serendipitous media coverage, gig opportunities, and a chance to play polka on the radio on WVMO-FM in Monona, Wisconsin and eventually other stations across the state. Friends, family and fans are cheering me on, and it just keeps getting better.