Describing Brave Combo to the uninitiated is like trying to explain cheese to someone who’s never tasted it: You know they’re gonna love it, if you could just convince ’em to try it. So you do everything possible to avoid mentioning that the basic ingredient is moldy milk.
Brave Combo is like that. Any human with a pulse will love this band. Yet it’s hard to explain their music honestly without mentioning the P-word. Despite the fact that they rock to a rainbow of rhythms–bolero, bossa nova, bubblegum, cha cha, charanga, conjunto, cumbia, dirge, foxtrot, guaguanco, hora, huapango, mambo, merengue, Muzak, oberek, ondo, ranchera, rhumba, rock, salsa, samba, schottische, ska, stroll, tango, twist, two-step, waltz, and zydeco–they’ve always described themselves as a “nuclear polka” band.
For almost 25 years now, founder Carl Finch has been on a crusade to give polka the status he believes it deserves–not as a musical novelty but as just another rich vein of genuine roots music.
“If you go to a music festival, it’s not unusual to see Irish or bluegrass or Cajun or blues. But it’s still very unusual to see a polka band,” Finch says. “I hope that we elevate polka and give it validity.”
To make their favored art form worthy of respect, Brave Combo takes polka’s most danceable melodies and pumps them up with jaw-dropping musical chops. They polkacize tunes you already know (like The Doors “People Are Strange” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”), and freshen up tired tunes you think you’ve forgotten. For example, they play three different versions of “The Hokey Pokey”–“heavy hip-hop, punk swing, and death metal,” Finch says.
In other words, this is not your grandfather’s polka band. Nobody wears lederhosen. Everybody rocks.
Believe it or not, these musical missionaries have been phenomenally successful. They have five Grammy nominations–one for best children’s album, four for best polka album–and won the 1999 Grammy for their album Polkasonic. They will be featured (as themselves) in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons.
Leaving their home base in Denton, Texas, Brave Combo spends at least nine months a year touring, playing everywhere from union halls to hip clubs like New York’s Bottom Line to classy concert venues like the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. They have toured Europe and Japan.
They have appeared on popular radio shows like A Prairie Home Companion and Fresh Air, and provided theme music for the TV show Bakersfield, P.D. Finch also wrote and performed theme music for several Cartoon Network hits, including Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, BlueGender, and Fruits Basket.
Obviously, this is a band with extraordinary range. Asked how many songs they have in their repertoire, Finch is stymied. “About 700,” he guesses, “give or take 100.”
This sweep, combined with their complete comfort with their music (the two “new guys” in the group have each been with Brave Combo for a full decade) gives them the flexibility to switch to whatever groove suits the audience. They go onstage with a skeletal set list that’s really more like tradition, and then take their cue from the crowd on how to fill in the blanks.
“Through a lot of practice, we have perfected the art of reading the audience,” Finch says. “I can feel when we’re losing them in the middle of a song.”
The ever-changing musical mix may explain why some hardcore fans follow the band around the country, documenting which songs they play, in which order, what they wear (band member Jeffrey Barnes has an endless array of elaborate costumes), and even their patter between songs. These fans, known as “bucketheads,” then post the lists to an on-line discussion group.
But the band’s ability to switch gears like a sports car has also made Brave Combo a favorite “matrimonial entertainment unit.” In other words, they play a lot of weddings. David Byrne, leader of the band Talking Heads, hired Brave Combo to play his wedding. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, hired the band to play at the wedding of his best friend. It’s not uncommon for couples who are fans of the band to postpone their wedding to fit the band’s schedule. It’s also not unheard of for couples to get married just because they want an excuse to have a Brave Combo party. “It’s a lot of pressure,” Finch says.
Unlike a traditional polka band, Brave Combo features Finch playing more electric guitar than accordion. A two-man horn section–Danny O’Brien on trumpet and flugelhorn, Barnes on woodwinds–augments the rhythm section of Alan Emert on drums and Bubba Hernandez on bass.
Sunday night’s performance at the Hilton’s Rendezvous Room will mark the band’s Springfield debut. Somehow, in all their years of travel, Brave Combo has never brought their “peace through polka” message to Springfield. Let the healing begin.
Sangamon Valley Roots Revival presents Brave Combo Sunday at 8 p.m. in
the Hilton’s Rendezvous Room. Yodeling cowboy Randy Erwin opens the show. Tickets
are $8 in advance, $10 at the door, and are available at Recycled Records and
Underground City Tavern.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2003.
