From the category archives:

Accordion, Instrument of the Gods

“Hey Jude” Flowchart

by Joey deVilla on October 29, 2009

The lyrics to The Beatles' "Hey Jude", in flowchart form.

…and if you were wondering: oh yes, I do own the deluxe edition of The Beatles: Rock Band:

Photo: My little red accordion, dwarfed by the box for the deluxe edition of "The Beatles: Rock Band"

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Slice of Life: Official Photos from Techdays

by Joey deVilla on September 20, 2009

For the TechDays conference’s stops in Vancouver and Toronto, Microsoft hired Vancouver-based photog extraordinaire Kris Krug to take photos of the Developer and Platform Evangelism team, which includes Yours Truly. The photos were taken during the conference, which meant that most of us were wearing the official TechDays shirts, which were colour-coded to match the conference track in which we were leading or participating. The track that I lead is Developing for the Microsoft-Based Platform, and its colour is orange. Luckily the folks who made the shirts had a pretty snappy shade of orange (the label refers to the colour as “Spark”) that I can rock.

Most of our photo shoot was on the promenade outside the Vancouver Convention Centre, looking out over the water. He just had me play tunes on the accordion while he shot photos, so they’re all pretty candid shots. Here’s one of the photos that Kris took of me.

joey_devilla_on_accordion_kk

There are more of me and the rest of the DPE team in Kris’ Flickr photoset.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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Joan from “Mad Men” on Accordion

by Joey deVilla on September 1, 2009

Everyone who knows me and watches Mad Men emailed, texted, Tweeted me to tell me about the scene from Sunday’s episode in which Joan (the curvy redheaded head of Sterling Cooper’s steno pool) played C’est Magnifique on her accordion. Yes, I saw it and enjoyed it quite a bit:

Thanks to Curtis Wilcox for pointing me to the video!

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Slice of Life: “Big Balls” at the Mesh Conference

by Joey deVilla on August 29, 2009

At the Mesh Conference held earlier this year, I was asked at the last minute to play an opening number for the big panel discussion on using social media for marketing. I decided to get cheeky and played AC/DC’s Big Balls, since having them is a quality that you need to really use social media and social networking to advantage. As I played, Kaz Ehara shot these photos:

mesh_accordion_1 mesh_accordion_2 mesh_accordion_3 mesh_accordion_4
Photos by Kaz Ehara.
Click the photos to see them on their Flickr pages.

For those of you unfamiliar with the song, here it is, synced to clips from Spongebob Squarepants:

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Slice of Life: Playing Accordion at HoHOTo

by Joey deVilla on August 23, 2009

playing_accordion_at_hohoto_aug_2009

Heather Leson, with whom I used to work at Tucows, snapped this photo of me breaking out the squeezebox at Tuesday’s HoHOTo charity event.

HoHOTo is the second edition of the HoHoTO (pronounced “Ho Ho Tee Oh”) party, which was a charity event that took place close to Christmas (hence the “Ho Ho”) and was very quickly organized after a few people had a little discussion on Twitter. No giant planning committees, no long meetings in windowless boardrooms over bad coffee and stale donuts, no big media marketing campaigns – just a group of dedicated volunteers and community leaders, a modicum of social media savvy, some fast-moving sponsors (including my employer, Microsoft Canada) and a club willing to let use their space on short notice.

Although it’s nowhere near Christmas, the event’s name has a lot of goodwill and the website already exists, so why not simply change the capitalization and pronunciation? And thus HoHOTo (pronounced “Ho HOT Oh”) came into being.

One again, it was organized largely by that chunk of the local creative class comprising both techies and marketing types. The event was a double success in raising over CAD$10,000 for the Daily Bread Food Bank and being a great evening out as well.

I saw camera flashes galore at HoHOTo, and a number of those flashes ended up as pictures on Flickr.

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The “No Accordions” Sign

July 24, 2009

I don’t normally vandalize signs, but I’d make an exception for this special case:

Stefan Arentz, a co-member of HacklabTO, sent me the photo. He says that it was put up by a Dutch cafe owner to ban accordion-playing gypsies.

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Strike Me Down, and Another Shall Rise to Take My Place

June 26, 2009

I no longer live in Accordion City’s Queen/Spadina neighbourhood and therefore don’t play there very often anymore. Luckily that doesn’t mean that they’re lacking for the accordion: there was a guy playing a fine little red number there earlier this afternoon:

Squeeze on, good sir!

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The “Make Web Not War” Accordion Video

June 3, 2009

One of the nice things about my job is that they actually ask me to incorporate the accordion into it. Yesterday, we shot this video featuring me on accordion promoting the upcoming Make Web Not War event happening next week right here in Accordion City. Think of it as another of my contributions to Accordion [...]

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It’s the 20th Anniversary of Accordion Awareness Month!

June 1, 2009

Back in 1989, Tom Torriglia – formerly of the band Those Darn Accordions and now a member of Bella Ciao – established the month of June as Accordion Awareness Month, making this June the 20th anniversary. The purpose of Accordion Awareness Month is to let the world know that the accordion’s making a comeback and [...]

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Playing the National Anthem at Tomorrow’s Toronto Roller Derby

May 29, 2009

Tomorrow at the George Bell Arena in Accordion City’s west end, I’ll be playing (and singing) Canada’s National Anthem at the start of the Toronto Roller Derby match between the Gore-Gore Rollergirls and Chicks Ahoy! I’m working on a rendition that respects the proud heritages of both Canada and roller derby.

If you’d like to [...]

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Tacos, Tequila and Accordion at the Drake Rooftop Bar

May 10, 2009

Adam Schwabe took this photo of me playing a request at the Drake Hotel’s rooftop bar early Friday evening:

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Quiero Que Me Quieras (The Most Awesome Accordion Cover Ever)

May 5, 2009

This is the most awesome accordion cover EVAR! (Hint: "Quiero Que Me Quieras" is Spanish for "I Want You to Want Me".)
And hey, happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone!

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“Garfield Minus Garfield” Features the Accordion

April 20, 2009

Today’s Garfield Minus Garfield strip – a web comic strip featuring Garfield comics with the titular character Photoshopped out – explains why the cool kids play accordion:

Thanks to Guillaume for the heads-up!

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Seattle Travel Diary: Making Friends with the Locals

February 5, 2009

For the past couple of nights, we’ve ended up at Kells Irish Pub, located right by the market in Seattle’s Post Alley. We’ve made friends with Liam, their house musician. He’s been giving me a solid education in Irish folk music and I’ve been telling him about Burning Man.
Chances are we’ll end up there tonight. [...]

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Police Shoot Accordion-Playing Student in German WWII Uniform

January 2, 2009

John Bowman just sent me a message linked to a Seattle Times story about the police shooting of a University of Washington student.
Seattle police shot and killed a University of Washington senior who was dressed in a World War II-era German uniform and who officers say was brandishing a long rifle with a bayonet [...]

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