Polka Club memories

I was at the Altamont Free Festival back in the late nineteen sixties. You know, the legendary celebration held in the south end of Frackville. How did I hear about it? Well, I was sitting at the counter at Phaon’s Diner waiting for my scrapple breakfast, listening to my Toshiba transistor radio which was tuned to the WPPA Sunday morning Polka show. It was difficult to hear polka music in my native west end of the county so I had to set the radio next to the window to get clearer reception. That is when I first heard that a free concert was planned to be held in Altamont with an intoxicating line-up of the county’s best bands. Later Yak Tam Billy Urban made the same announcement on WMBT, the station that played progressive polka music.

I knew it would a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I had to go to Altamont and be part of the county’s musical history. Just think about it, the Jordan Brothers, The Other Side, Lil’ Andy, Tony Karpee, The Schuylkill Haven Belvederes’ Drum & Bugle Corp, Big Barrel Emil Simodejka, Buddy Widel Trio, The Individuals, and so many others, all on one stage...and for free. The event would go down in Schuylkill County musical mythology.
It would be three days of peace and love in “The Mountain City.”
Before I tell you of the festival, I want you all to know that while my musical taste was based in “underground” Polka music, I was open-minded to listening to other forms of music. Underground polka music is the edgy polka music that did not have a mainstream following. Traditional polka music could be heard on the Lawrence Welk Show but I preferred the raw energy heard at the Bavarian Festival in Barnesville. The best polka music was not the sappy, upbeat, happy Myron Floren-variety, but rather the type of polka that reflected the dismal lifestyle of many of our county youths. This music circled itself around both aggression and crime (as found in the lyrics of “Who Stole the Keeshka?”) and misogyny ( “She’s Too Fat Polka”- utterly offensive to Rubenesque women). As an angry white boy, it was the music that spoke to me…it was both the music that annoyed anyone over thirty and was also the music to allow me to “get jiggy with the ladies.”
While polka music was unheard of in my native Pine Grove, misogynistic lyrics were not. In fact the west end “Hoe Down” music was notorious and the subject of a Grand Jury Probe on obscenity in the record industry. That will be a story for another day.
I was attracted to this new, high-energy polka music with its pulsating 2/4 beat, and I remained an underground polka aficionado for many, many years - a regular on the polka party club scene that flourished in the clandestine, boilo-fueled houses of northern Schuylkill county. I longed for those twelve hours of non-stop musical bliss. Minersville was a Mecca for polka clubbers like myself, where the all-night DJs would play the latest Jimmy Sturr, Frankie Yankovic, Stanky and Eddie Blazonczk albums for the revelers, remixing polka tracks in and out of each other. Some of these house DJs became celebrities in their own right; Jouz Cabachi, from WPPA, is one name that comes to mind. This legendary figure turned polka turntablism into an art form by beat mixing, matching and scratching, exploring the repetition and altering rythms of polkas, obereks, mazurkas and czardashes. Yes ear-shattering clarinets, accordians, alto saxes and trumpets all blending together! What a time to be alive! Stomping on people’s feet! Frantically pushing and shoving into the swirling crowd as if it was an out of control rugby game! Full-figured factory girls in their stretch pants seductively removing their babushkas and throwing them into the crowd; all the while the energy was fed by kielbassi and pierogies, washed down with boilo, Columbia beer and Kaier’s ale.
Whoop-I, Shupp-I!

Of course, we got criticism from our elders, as there were many injuries, mainly broken toes. Soon safety codes were enforced at the clubs due to the public outcry. The Bavarian Festival was shut down and many of the clandestine clubs turned themselves into respectable parking lots that began appearing in the area in the nineteen seventies.
I will have to tell you about the Altamont Festival some other time.

Ein Sommer der Liebe 2004

Article originally printed in May 2004. I attended two Bavarian Festivals and I have fond memories.

This summer of 2004 marks the thirtieth anniversary of one of the greatest events in Schuylkill County history. Many of us will gather together to commemorate what has become known as “the summer of love.” That is when over 418,000 bedraggled fans of German food and music descended on a little known area referred to as Barnesville and entered the gates to consume tons of schnitzel and barrels of brew. Most of these participants were escaping from the Rest Haven scandal that had erupted and which destroyed what little confidence that the people had in the ruling oligarchy.
It was billed as seventeen days of “frieden und liebe” and it lived up to its name. As Mammy Trout said, “It was the best of times and the wurst of times.” The amount of food devoured that summer baffled gastroenterologists at the Good Samaritan Hospital. The staggering quantity of beer and cabbage consumed in such a short amount of time has never been surpassed to this day, despite many numerous attempts.
Word of the festival spread throughout the county and a massive traffic jam formed on Route 54. When I heard about it, I quickly shoved my lederhosen in my knapsack, grabbed my sleeping bag and hitched a ride over to Barnesville. It didn’t take long before I got a lift in a bus that was carrying the Stadkappelle Marching Band. What a trip!
Many of the people who tell you that they were at Bavarian Festival ’74 are just plain liars. I was one of the lucky ones who were there for the duration. I remember the rain, the mud, the frauleins and the strudel. You are fortunate that I have a memory like an elephant. I actually rubbed elbows with scientist Werner Von Braun, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, UN Secretary Kurt Waldheim, composer Oscar Hammerstein, and Grace Kelly in the main beer hall. I remember watching the elegant Princess of Monaco do the “chicken dance” with Secretary of State Kissinger, while Waldheim balanced a huge stack of beer cups in one hand. I also remember one long table being converted into a “slip and slide” with all of them taking turns diving down the table head first, accompanied by the song 99 Luftballoons.
The festival lasted for seventeen days and nights and the music was groovy. The Rhinelanders, The Heimtklaenge Band, and The Walter Groller Orchestra were just a few of the big names that played there. I was utterly astounded by the power, talent and magic of “The Mischief Makers” as they wandered throughout the fair grounds, captivating everyone with their dazzling oomp-pah music. This german drinking music was hard edged, boisterous, raucous, and almost religious in its fervor. Beer hall culture requires you to slam your mugs first on the table, then against other mugs. A lot of noise and a little spilled beer is the way to show your spirit. All of the while, the sweet scent of sauerkraut was everywhere. Over the loudspeaker, announcements about bad pepper cabbage could be heard. And then there were the fun-loving frauleins. I will always have fond memories of Ulrika, who became my festival soul mate, after serving me a plate of hot potato salad in the main beer hall. She remained my “old lady” for seventeen days. Thanks for the memories Ulrika!
For one brief shining moment, a dream was released across Schuylkill County. Mammy swore that it was a dawning of a new age. She is upset that many young people have no knowledge of this event. The phrase, ein sommer der liebe, has special meaning to those who attended the festival that year. To Mammy it was a gathering of the tribes. They came from all over, Hegins, Sacramento, Pine Grove, and Hecla. Everyone dressed in quaint clothing. Men were in bundhosen and vests, and the women wore colorful dirndls and blouses.
While the music heard at that festival is legendary, the debate about its historical significance still rages today. True believers still call Bavarian Festival ’74 the capstone of an era devoted to human advancement. Cynics say it was a ridiculous excess of gemütlichkeit, whatever the heck that means. Then there are those of us, me included, that say it was just one hell of a party. However no one should consume so much kraut and ale in such a short time span! The Festival, like only a handful of other historical events, has become a part of the cultural lexicon of Schuylkill County. As the Rest Haven Scandal and Sportsmen’s Complex are code words for corruption, “Bavarian Festival ’74” has become an instant adjective denoting Teutonic hedonism. Kermit Deitrick, who created the Festival, as well as its well-known logo of a pigeon perched on a tuba, described it this way, “something was tapped, a nerve, in this county. Everyone just came and ate kraut and drank beer. It was seventeen days of peace and music. It was far-out, man. It was groovy.”