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

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.

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

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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!

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:

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:

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.

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.

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!

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 Awareness Month:

MAKE WEB NOT WAR – VIDEO FOUR – TORONTO from The Biz Media on Vimeo.

There’s only one mistake in the video – “accordion” is misspelled. If you’d like the follow me on Twitter, the correct ID is AccordionGuy, not AccordianGuy.

For more details about Make Web Not War, see:

• The Make Web Not War site
• Canadian Developer Connection
• Global Nerdy (my personal tech blog)
• David Crow’s blog

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 invite people to understand the true musical (and in my case, life-changing) potential of my favourite instrument. In honour of this very special month, I’ll be posting stories about accordion as well as other accordion-related news, as well as doing some performances all over town (the Roller Derby was just the beginning).

I’m not the only one doing something special for Accordion Awareness Month. The fine folks at the all-things-accordion blog Let’s Polka are challenging accordion players and enthusiasts to take the Accordion Awareness Month pledge. They’re asking you to do something to promote The Instrument of the Gods:

This year, we want you — our humble, accordion-loving readers — to help promote the virtues of our favorite instrument. Sit on your porch and play some tunes for your neighbors, attend a show on our accordion event calendar, fill up your coworker’s iPod with Flaco Jimenez songs when he isn’t looking, tell all your friends about Let’s Polka… the possibilities are limitless. Me, I’m going to sit on my balcony every night, directly above a pizzeria, and serenade patrons.

To encourage you, we’re giving away over $100 worth of accordion-related goodies to readers who pledge to promote the accordion this month. To make your pledge, write a comment on this post and tell us how you plan to celebrate Accordion Awareness Month — doesn’t matter if it’s something small (making a YouTube video) or big (writing an accordion concerto). One lucky, randomly-chosen pledger will receive a prize package packed with accordion CDs, books, and more. (Prize details coming soon!)

Happy Accordion Awareness Month! Let the squeezing begin!

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 hear my rockin’ accordion rendition of O Canada and enjoy some roller derby (the motto is “Real Women. Real Hits. Real Heart.”), it’s all happening at the George Bell Arena (215 Ryding Avenue, in the “Junction” neighbourhood). Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door and kids under 7 get in free. The doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the game starts at 7:30, which is when I figure I’ll be playing.

For those of you who can’t remember or don’t know the words to our anthem, here they are:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love
In all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts
We see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land
Glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

I’ll post my chord arrangements later.

And, as further enticement, here are the Gore-Gore Rollergirls:

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

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!

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!

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. If you’re in the area, drop me a line, or drop by!

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 early Thursday in his University District apartment.

The student, identified by friends as Miles Allen Murphy, was well-known on campus as a smart, eccentric history buff who loved to participate in WWII re-enactments and would even show up to class, at times, dressed in a historic uniform.

…

Murphy was killed about 2 a.m. Thursday when police responded to neighbors’ complaints that several men were shooting vintage, military-style rifles and shotguns into a dark alley near the 5200 block of 17th Avenue Northeast, police spokesman Jeff Kappel said.

When police were called, Kappel said, neighbors pointed out an apartment in a large white house. When police knocked on the door, one of the suspects opened the door brandishing a long rifle with a large bayonet attached.

Uniformed police officers warned the man several times to drop his weapon. He didn’t, Kappel said, and he pointed it at one of the officers. Two officers shot him several times. He died at a hospital Thursday morning, Kappel said.

Yow. The moral of the story is that if you’re dressed in a Nazi uniform and carrying a rifle, people will assume that you’re up to no good.

The story includes quotes from friends who describe him as a history buff and not a neo-Nazi. Also of note is the third paragraph of the story – people who know me will experience a sense of deja vu:

Friends said Murphy, 22, would entertain at parties by playing everything from old German folk songs to Britney Spears tunes on his accordion.

Before November 3rd passes, I must make it known, that today, November 3rd, 2008, is the tenth anniversary of the release of Britney Spears’ single Baby One More Time. I wonder if Ms. Spears wishes she could take a time machine back to those more innocent days and re-do some of her life choices.

Here’s the video for the original:

Click the picture to see the video.

Here’s the version by Travis:

…and here I am, performing it at Hemingway’s at Jay Schneider’s birthday party: