This blog has become a true testament of my own personal growth. When I first started the Polka Hole back in 2011, I couldn't be bothered to upload an album within a consecutive month. This was back when I had all the free time in the world. I worked evenings at an "adult store" in DeKalb, IL. I would literally sit in a chair and read books for eight hours. Sometimes the monotony would be broken up by helping the customers who would stumble in from the neighboring bars (after building up enough drunk courage) to meander in our shop at 11:30 at night. I didn't have to take my work home with me, and prepping for the next day was as simple as vacuuming the floors and dusting the DVD shelves. So now that I'm exponentially more busy than I was in my 20's, why has my demeanor changed to allow me to keep a consistent Polka-Schedule?
As a much older young-adult (I'm still a young adult right?) my priorities have shifted. In the world of social media and instant gratification, I can attest that 24-year-old me was probably discouraged that this blog didn't take off into the stratosphere of Blogspot fame. I'm not exactly sure what I expected though. Websites like this started to fade into obscurity in the early 2010's, and a blog solely dedicated to a style of music that no one listened to obviously wasn't going to be popular. What was the purpose of this blog? Was I doing this for me? Or was I doing this to cultivate other's perspectives of me?
Travis Shettel of Piebald did an interview back in 2014 where he talked about his new band and the projects he had been working on since Piebald broke up. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something along the lines of "I'm finally able to record the music I want to record." I'd think about this quote over the following years, but it never really sunk in until recently. You reach a point in your life where you realize "Hey, only a handful of people care about this project I'm working on, but it makes me really happy, and I will continue doing it for those seldom few."
This new ritual of waking up on a Saturday morning to drink coffee and rip old polka records to an MP3 format has become something I truly love because I enjoy it. If others grow fond of Polka Hole then that itself is a bonus. Compare this to ten years ago where it was a chore to drag my hungover ass out of bed to get anything done, let alone write up an entire blog about polka music, hoping and pining for other's approval of what I was doing. Maybe I was depressed a lot earlier than I realized. Hindsight is a bastard.
Which brings me to a track I'd like to talk about from today's featured album from The New Brass, Rolls Out The Barrel. As soon as I saw the title Strawberries and Raspberries Polka I knew I'd fall in love. Let us ponder the following lyrics. "It brought new life to me/some joy and gratitude/I shared my joy with friends/and changed my attitude." Now, in this song, the singer is talking about "wine." However, what if we decipher "wine" as a metaphor? What if "wine" represents the feeling you get when you realize that life is truly valuable, and you can't spend too much time trying to impress people you barely even know? Life is making valuable moments that you yourself cherish.
Although I'd still like to think of myself as a "young adult," I'm far too old to worry about how far-reaching my art will become.
"There are friends gathered round that often I do thank."
DOWNLOAD HERE:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/gk25blaf23eauuo/The_New_Brass_-_Rolls_Out_the_Barrel_MP3s.zip/file
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