From the category archives:

Accordion, Instrument of the Gods

Saturday Morning on GO!

by Joey deVilla on November 20, 2009

accordion guy cbc

If you listen on CBC Radio One on Saturdays you’re in for a surprise: Yours Truly will be appearing on the Brent Bambury’s show Go! tomorrow. There’ll be musical merriment of all sorts. Go! broadcasts live at 10:30 a.m. Eastern, 11:00 in Newfoundland.

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Rodney Buike took this photo of me on Tuesday evening. I look as if I should be backing up Tom Waits or playing in a cojunto band:

playing accordion in calgary

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“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

August 29, 2009
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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 [...]

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Slice of Life: Playing Accordion at HoHOTo

August 23, 2009
Thumbnail image for Slice of Life: Playing Accordion at HoHOTo

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 [...]

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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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