Stop pushing the dork button

Carl Finch, our buddy from Brave Combo, takes a swipe at lamebrain media mavens who use our beloved squeezebox as a sort of lazy shorthand for "square."

"The most ill-informed, mainstream media/ad people are the only ones left on this planet who insist that polka is square," Finch told The Providence (R.I.) Journal. "This is the music you go to when you need a laugh in an ad -- everybody goes to polka; everyone goes to accordions. The only thing is, they're the only ones who think that now."

When Brave Combo was born in 1979, Finch and his cohorts purposely picked polkas and other ethnic musical styles because of the cultural beating those genres were taking in an era of coliseum rock and disco balls.

"Anything that at that time most people would label as uncool," Finch said, "we wanted to take that music and play it to skew someone's notion. To shake the foundation of a belief.... If anything, we're trying to project the idea that any attempt to be cool or hip, by anybody at any point in history, was a folly.... Our approach is, let's level the playing field and be equally irreverent to all forms, which means anything can be a joke. Because if you don't laugh at the absurdities, you're going to be Mr. Miserable all the time."

After 26 years, a dozen records and two Grammys, it looks like the happy plan worked. The band's new record, Holidays, is out now, just in time for, well, you know what.