Canada’s Coolest Band Plays the World’s Coolest Instrument

View Comments

• My friend played me a few Arcade Fire songs the other day. Really good stuff. I didn't notice any accordion though, I guess I'll have to pay attention next time.

• Hey! That's a Hohner Carena III! Neat-o. That's a fun one to play... the action on the keys is pretty good on all the switches except for basoon, which can be a little breathy in the lower registers (or maybe it's just mine...). Sorry, geek rant. 8) Do you know if she plays left hand side as well, or if she just treats it like a huggable keyboard?

  Cheers.

• You never have to apologize for a geek rant on this blog, especially when it's about accordions!

  When amplifying an accordion with a microphone rather than pickups, the tendency is to treat the accordion as a huggable keyboard. The reasons are:

  • In a rock band context (and especially in one with electric guitars), you don't need the chord buttons as much.
  • Relative to the mic, the piano keyboard side is a relatively stationary sound source. However, the button side is a moving sound source, and compensating for that is a sound guy's nightmare, especially in a live situation
  • In addition to the moving sound source problem, a mic on the button side would also get in the way of the performer (espeically one who sings, as you're imprisoning him/her behind three microphones) and picks up the lion's share of the mechanical noise produced by an accordion.

• Oh, good. But just the same, I won't subject you to the "Alas poor Radioshack" rant. (To geek-- or not to geek-- that is the question...)

  Oh, yes, I've tried playing both sides into a single stationary pick up before, it's not fun, especially when you're playing something with freebase where the individual sides sound awful on their own, and the person on the other end of the phone can only hear one of them. (poor mom.) There are ways around that problem though.

  You can actually get accordions that come pre-miced in the lefthand side. I know a lot of people with Titanos that have that setup. I think it comes as an after-market kit as well.

  Then again, when I have to mic mine I have a nice, cheap, lightweight microphone that I suspend over the left hand side, which can move with the bellows. It works quite well, and although it doesn't pick up all the notes quite as evenly as an interior mic does, the sound ia a lot crisper. The nice thing about the Hohner Carena is that the keys are quite quiet, relative to a lot of other ones. (You can hear a lot of key noises on some songs on Moxy Fruvous' Bargainville, it bothers me a little, although not as much as not having the accordion at all would.)

  But all the same, good on Ms. Chassagne for having the guts to bring an accordion to a rock concert, and play it so enthusiastically.

  Polka is dead.

• I'm not sure polka's dead in the American heartland if Big Joe's Polka Hour and his travelling polka series are any indication. I wrote about Big Joe in this entry.

  Personally, I'd love to hear your "Alas, Poor Radio Shack" rant -- mail it to me and I'll post it as an article!