I’ll be on KSRO Morning News tomorrow morning around 8:45 talking up the 20th Cotati Accordion Festival. That’s Wednesday August 18th on KSRO 1350AM.
Listen live at: http://www.ksro.com/STW-PopUp.aspx
There will be a ticket giveaway so tune in!
Calling all squeezers and those who love our bellowed beauties.
Event: Accordion Day in San Francisco
Day: Friday June 11, 2010
Time: 11:30am
Location: Polk St. between Grove and McAllister
This is the 20th anniversary of San Francisco proclaiming the accordion as the city’s official instrument. Wow!
Tom Torriglia, who spearheaded the effort for SF to honor the accordion, has organized an event the City Hall steps. Mayor Gavin Newsom is expected to make an appearance at noon.
Go to Tom’s website for more info on how to participate.
Celebrate Accordions and the Women who play them!
Hope to see you at this free in house concert at Down Home Music in El Cerrito this Saturday afternoon from 3PM till 6PM.
Babes perfoming are Renée de la Prade, Nada Lewis, Big Lou, Salane C. Schultz, Marla Fibish, Sabra Daly and me with GDub.
Return of the Accordion Babes
Accordionist, Renée de la Prade with Culann’s Hounds just asked us to join them on Friday, January 15th at the Sleeping Lady in Fairfax. We’ll be a Mad Maggie’s “Lite” for this show. GDub (guitars), Johny Blood (tuba), Rhian (whistles & clarinet), Miguel Ashby (bass) and yours madly on squeeze.
Come early and eat — the Sleeping Lady has great food. Stay late for the show which will run from 9:30 to 1. This is a rollicking, foot stomping double bill, sure to shake off any post-holiday dreariness! Definitely worth pulling yourself off the couch and venturing into the night air 
Enjoy fantastic holiday fare and beautiful music performed by several Accordion Babes from the Accordion Babes Pin-up Calendar which just happened to be selected by the Bohemian as a must-have gift this season.
The Speisekammer Restaurant has a lovely bar with a large selection of beers including excellent German ones. Bar is open from 4-12PM. Dinner is served from 5-9PM.
Music starts at 8:30.
Johny Blood (tuba), GDub (guitars) and Mad Mags (squeeze) will play a set around 9:30.
Line up includes:
Amber Lee and the Anomalies
Salane C. Schultz
Renee de La Prade & Joan Wilson Rueter
This will be a family friendly, gemütlichkeit filled holiday evening.
We’ll have calendars on sale for those last minute gifts
SPREAD the WORD: Note our new handy “share it” button at the end of this post. You can now easily share our posts with your social networks, email to others, download and print them.
A Bellows & Babes House Concert
Saturday night – 8:00PM
All ages! General seating
Admission is $20 and includes a 2010 Accordion Babes Calendar and CD — That’s a $20 value! So it’s like getting a free concert for the price of a calendar. Or it’s a free calendar with the price of admission — a good deal no matter how you think about it. The calendar makes a great gift!
The evening’s rich and varied entertainment includes several of the
calendar’s accordion playing lovelies and their bands: Salane C. Schultz (experimental cabaret), Amber Lee Baker, (neo-folk), Tara Linda and friends (tex-mex/musette), Roxanne Oliva and Cobblestone (celtic), Mad Mags and the Mad Maggies (rowdy, danceable folk) and Renée de la Prade and Culann’s Hounds (celtic punk.) Lux Gaxiola of Circus Finelli is mistress of ceremonies.
Studo E is special venue. Nestled in rural Sebastopol, this professional recording studio and sound stage has hosted many world-class artists in its comfortable, relaxed country atmosphere. It’s a cool, local secret you’ll want to check out.
Visual artist Sean Pete of It’s Not Art will be photographing,
I’m posting this early so everyone can make plans to come.
Next week on Friday night, June 19 we join Vagabond Opera and Amber Lee and the Anomalies for a “Summer Solstice Cabaret” — a night of top-notch musical entertainment at the Mystic Theater in lovely downtown Petaluma.
If you love accordions, and who doesn’t, all three acts feature an accordionist. Yay!
Doors open 7:00PM
Show starts 8:00PM
$15
21 and over
There are dozens of good restaurants within walking distance of the theater including McNear’s right next door. Dempsey’s is the local brew pub about a block away. They are renowned for their award winning beers. If sushi is your thing, Hiro’s, located a half a block away, has an excellent menu and a large selection of fine sake.
This year’s Summer Solstice happens in the early morning on June 21st.
Thanks to everyone who made the “Skull & Magpies” party at the Accordion Apocalypse a success. It was a fine and rich musical feast. The night was clear and mild with a nearly full moon — perfect for a pirate’s party.
Shannon O’Hare of “Never Was Haul” fame created a wonder filled, nautical atmosphere with block and tackle, ship lights, skeleton, cannons and more. The revelers were fantastically garbed in periwigs, frock coats, bodices, tricornes, bandanas and stripes and skulls everywhere you looked.
Stew Murrie digitally photographed. Erin Cameron videotaped 24p with her Panasonic DVX 100. Dan Brandon ran sound and multi-track recorded to Digital Performer.
We’re eagerly awaiting the media captured so we can share it with everyone. We’ll post it for all to enjoy as soon as possible.
Skyler and Melody were gracious hosts and their tail-wagging accomplices, Ukelele and Garlic were very accommodating of the human sea dogs.
Luz sparkled as our mistress of ceremonies. Her art and humour moved the night along perfectly.
Nada Lewis and Alex opened the show with a skillfully played set of toe-tapping, traditional deck dancing tunes.
Entr’actes included Amber Lee, who sang and played beautifully, Secret Circus, whose antics razzled and dazzled and Vaughn, who performed a delightful, magical, balloon trick.
Joan Wilson Rueter as The Gunner’s Daughter dished up some fine, seafaring fare including a lively, “Drunken Sailor”. Next up was the inimitable, sea-dwelling troglodyte jugband The Hobo Gobbelins. Surprise guests Human Wine followed.
We took the stage at around 11 PM and roused the rabble with tunes from “Skull & Magpies” and other hits from our repertoire. Pirates danced, wenches sang, ghosts shimmied on the rigging, bumboo flowed.
Erstwhile Mad Maggie, JX Lovejones graced us with his clarinet playing on a couple of tunes.
Ah yes, my hearts, it was a grand evening. Happy and content we sailed away in the wee hours swearing to carouse again when next we meet such a lively band of rovers.
—
My rococco dress was made by clothing designer, Connie Walkershaw who is also the fabulous saxaphonist with Go Van Gogh.
The vintage pirate movies projected were “The Black Pirate” (1926) starring Douglas Fairbanks, filmed in two strip technicolor and “Captain Kidd” (1945) starring Charles Laughton and Captain Kidd’s Kids (1919) with Harold Lloyd.
Bumboo is a favorite pirate drink made of rum, water, sugar and nutmeg. Of course the recipe may vary.
As promised, you will see a couple small versions of me as a pin up for the Accordion Babes Calendar project but first here’s the pitch.
The Accordion Babes calendar will include 12 full-color pin-up photos of women and their accordions; previews of some of the content are available here. Not all of these are final photos, but they start to give you an idea.
A compilation CD of the calendar artists will be attached to the inside back cover of the calendar.
Participation can happen in two ways: presales and sponsorships. For shops and accordion clubs who would like to order advance copies at a wholesale rate, we are selling copies of the calendar at $10 per unit; the list price of the calendar will be $20. (There is a 6 calendar minimum for presale orders.) For businesses who are interested in having ad-space on the calendar, there is a pricing scale for sponsorships.
Please pass on this info to any potential sponsors you can think of.
For more info and inquiries: accordionpinupcalendar@gmail.com
These will make wonderful gifts.
And now for the teasers. They are tiny because they are, well, teasers
I’m hoping you’ll buy the calendar to see all the accordion goddesses at full size.
