''Vongole Fisarmonica'' is the debut album by American
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
band
Those Darn Accordions
Those Darn Accordions, commonly abbreviated as TDA, are an American accordion band from San Francisco, California, originally formed in 1989 by Linda "Big Lou" Seekins.
Boasting several accordionists whose numbers have fluctuated over the years ...
, released in 1992 by Globe Records. The album was originally released only on
cassette tape
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
before later being made available for
digital download on
iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
and similar digital media stores.
Overview
Showcasing a seventeen-member line-up, ''Vongole Fisarmonica'' documents TDA at the peak of their early formation as a mostly instrumental mass accordion ensemble, before bandleader Paul Rogers would start restructuring the group into a tighter ten-member rock band for their subsequent album, ''
Squeeze This!
''Squeeze This!'' is the second studio album by American accordion band Those Darn Accordions, released in 1994 on Flying Fish Records. This was the only TDA album to be released on Flying Fish, as the rest of the band's discography was released by ...
''. In contrast to the rest of TDA's discography, ''Vongole Fisarmonica'' primarily consists of
cover songs, tackling TDA's typical fare of classic
polka
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas.
History
Etymology
The term ...
s and offbeat covers of
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
and
pop
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* ''Pop'' (G ...
songs. The album contains two original songs in "Lithuania" and "Chicken Boy Polka", as well as a
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
of
Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Morton Godfrey (August 31, 1903 – March 16, 1983) was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname The Old Redhead. At the peak of his success, in the early-to-mid 1950s, Godf ...
s "Too Fat Polka", re-written as "Too Smart Polka".
The title of the album is Italian for "Accordion Clams". According to member Tom Torriglia, musicians would often call mistakes "clams".
Track listing
Personnel
;Those Darn Accordions
*Tom Torriglia - accordion, lead vocals on track 5
*Linda "Big Lou" Seekins - accordion
*Suzanne Garramone - accordion
*Clyde Forsman - accordion, lead vocals on track 4
*Ron "Riff" Borelli - accordion
*Ron "The Other Ron" Muriera - accordion
*Chris Howard - accordion
*Art Peterson - accordion
*Piper Heisig - accordion
*Paul Rogers - accordion, lead vocals on tracks 6 and 10
*J. Raoul Bordy - accordion
*
Caroline Dahl - accordion
*Patty Brady - accordion
*Bill Schwartz - drums
*Maurice Cridlin - bass guitar
*Michael Lindner - accordion
*Tony Johnson - accordion
References
{{Authority control
1992 debut albums
Those Darn Accordions albums