As The Atlantic observes, the accordion is so hot right now

Me and a new friend at the “For the Love of Breasts” fundraiser, 2003.
Click to see the accordion awesomeness at full size.

The accordion often comes in handy

“You brought the accordion!” said my friend as I entered the restaurant for a little impromptu class reunion last night.

“It often comes in handy, and you never know when you’ll need it,” I said in reply.

Not ten minutes later, one of the waitstaff approached me. “Could you play something kid-friendly for my friend’s six-year-old daughter at the table over there?” she asked. “She would be so happy if you did.”

I walked over, and she and I performed The Hokey Pokey to the great amusement of the little girl and at a number of the other diners.

“Like I said,” I quipped as I rejoined my classmates at our table, “you never know when it’ll come in handy.”

I’ve been the Accordion Guy for nearly 15 years

May 1st, 2014 will be the 15th anniversary of the day that my friend Karl Mohr and I took our accordions out on the streets of Toronto. It was an unusually warm day for that time of year, and the bright, sunny weather brought throngs of winter-weary people outside, making the perfect audience situation for our busking debut. We ended the afternoon with an invitation to play our accordions onstage at the notorious goth club, the Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar (it’s a Starbucks now), where DJ Todd said that if we could get any applause from the audience, he’d supply us with all the beer we could drink. Here’s how that turned out:

The longer version of the story is in this post from 2012: 13 Years Ago, I Became the Accordion Guy.

The Atlantic says the accordion is “so hot right now”

“Once considered glamorous and sexy, then forgotten,” reads the subtitle of The Atlantic’s article on the accordion’s resurgence, “the instrument is making a comeback.” It had a heyday in the 1960s, with Myron Floren (the accordionist in Lawrence Welk’s orchestra) and Dick “Daddy-O” Contino as the instrument’s standard-bearer in popular culture, and countless bands playing polkas at weddings across North America, and with the occasional cultural blip from “Weird Al” Yankovic and Walter Ostanek, it remained a fringe instrument for the longest time.

Hey! I have a Crucianelli accordion too!

Over the past little while, the accordion has picked up in popularity. Celebrities like Lucy Liu, Christina Hendricks, Tommy Lee and Michael Fassbender have turned out to be accordion players. Bands on the alt-rock/indie scene, from They Might Be Giants to The Arcade Fire to Mumford and Sons and Of Monsters and Men have put the accordion front and centre in some of their numbers. With Nirvana’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, bassist Krist Novoselic will likely become the first accordion player to join those hallowed ranks:

The article closes by talking about the increased demand for accordion session players at recording studios or to join bands. I may have to take advantage of this trend.

Read the article: Accordions: So Hot Right Now

Thanks to Julie Leung and Jill Nurse for pointing out the Atlantic article to me!