Moving On and Growing Up

I moved in with my girlfriend yesterday. This is a historic moment for me because it shows that no one is too old to grow up. It wasn’t as traumatic to me as it was joyous for her. She’s really excited about it. I guess this is evidence of the difference between men and women. To me, the living together situation has been going on for months now. I’ve pretty much given up my place. I have only spent one night a week there for the last 9 months.

I can see how she would see this as a true commitment. I don’t have any place to go but “OUR” place. I will be there all the time. Maybe I’m too easy going or maybe I’m just too stupid to realize what I’ve done. Only time will tell.

However, this does mean that I will have to give up the groupies of Guy Pulaski and the Roaming Nomads. The score of polish women following the band has grown over the years and let me tell you, there’s nothing like potato vodka in one hand and a pierogi in the other while dancing with one of our many fans during an Edeck drum solo or Cazek mind bending clarinet solo. Yes folks, that’s all gone now. I’ve turned in my bachelorhood to settle down and try on the suite of domesticity.

Only time will tell if the suite fits. If feels pretty good now so I think I’ll be alright.

Pavel

Roadies

This is the reason why we start one time, our equipment is top notch and why our potato pancakes are exactly the right temperature. The guys are the best. We had a variety of roadies that could be a character list for a Stephen King book.

 

In the beginning, we, like most bands did our own work. Lugging the gear out of the Nomads, setting up trusses, tuning the instruments and cutting our own meat. Then we hired our first three guys when things got too hectic. We got a guy named Jerzy Gwaiback and then a month later we got another guy and his brother, confusingly his name was also Jerzy Gwaiback and his brother was also Jerzy Gwaiback…what are the odds. To say the least it was confusing. The first and the brothers were not related. We started calling them No. 1, No.2 and No.3. They were electrical whizzes and duct tape geniuses. I once broke a clarinet in a Pete Townsend Tribute then realized it was the first song of the night and Jerzy…uh, No 2 taped the entire thing together and it played like new.

 

After a couple a months and the demand started growing, we decided to add again. We needed a guy that could cook and get us off our addiction to fast food, yes; we had hundreds of dollars on account at the “house of pierogi”. We hired Wally Kowazlazzickinszyzlonski, or Duke for short. He reminded me of mom, except for shorter arm pit hair and he only weighed 280. He could cook. He would make kielbasa and chug them up to us on stage. They were so good we would sometimes take 6 to 7 breaks to eat more. Edeck would use them to drum as he mistook them for his sticks, at least he could eat as we played.

 

Not to say that all the roadies were pleasant or to say the least, normal…for example Tadek Zrpznkzrddzski. Talk about a nut, He would drink a half a bottle of grain alcohol and think the Gestapo was still after him. I guess he never gave up fighting in the Polish resistance. He would swing on the rafters instead of running the lights and fall into the crowd. Well after a while the regular fans would chant for his name and wait for his fall. It usually came and hour before the show even started. It was usually fine at bigger places but at the Baby Doll, it was just funny. The ceiling was only 10 feet so he would hang down and as he let go, he would fall right on his head. He would just get up, wipe the blood off and start dancing.

 

Yep, roadies are how we would get our entertainment but they are a big help. Especially with the massive sound system we use and laser show not to mention the sausage catapult machine, JP2 T-shirt gun and the 50 foot Nomad limo that would roll on stage for our stage entrance. Nothing would get done if not for them.

 

Peas…Cazek

In The Beginning

 When we first started Guy Pulaski it was quite an adventure. The first show we ever

played was at a carnival near a Russian army base. We were the first band to take the stage that day. The carnival was packed, but no one was listening to us when we started to play. After about the third song, we had about 400 people gathering in front of the stage starting to dance. Then out of nowhere, what some people called a mosh pit started.

Cazek later called it “The Polka Pit”. When we started to play “Beer Makes Me Pee Polka”, all hell broke loose. There was blood and spit flying everywhere in the Polka Pit of Death. Old ladies were using babushkas as turnakits to stop people from bleeding to death. When the police finally came, 20 people dead and 47 people were injured. 3 people were hit by lightning on the towers despite our calls of “get off the towers, people, stay off the towers!”

 

The owner of the carnival had to pay off the KGB so he wouldn’t go to jail. He had no money to pay us, so he said we could have any sausages left in the kitchen. I was so angry I yelled “I can’t pay my rent with sausages”! But I was wrong. My landlord, Stan Faceoff,

gladly took 10 and a half pounds of sausages and later invited me over to play “Hide the Sausage”.

 

Then at another show, we opened for an all Chinese girl rock band named “Miso Crazy”. The owner could only pay us with a couple cases of beer. We finished the beer before

the end of the night, and the next morning, we woke up in the alley naked with our instruments spread all over the place. Cazek had his junk stuck in his clarinet. Some people describe his playing like he’s making love to his instrument, so, maybe he wanted to try it out for himself or maybe he just got cold.

 

Then there was a time we played at a sexual awareness concert and the promoter had us play wearing just neon condoms. That’s where I find out I was allergic to the color yellow. I had a rash for two months.

 

That’s a few stories that I remember. I’m sure the other guys have their own stories to tell.

 

Edeck

Lesson Learned

I got back in town after our long creative session in the castle. A friend is also in town this week which means I’m out doing things I don’t usually do because I live here year –round. Here, by the way, is Boulder Colorado. The things I’m doing are exploring the mountains, drinking during the week and generally being an idiot. OK the last part I can’t help, I’m pretty much an idiot all the time. It’s not like the early days of Guy Pulaski and The Roaming Nomads (GPATRN) when I was young and on the road without a care in the world; the women, the drugs and the alcohol where always around in those early days. Sometimes we would sell out the VFW hall two nights in a row. Who can take that kind of none stop? It was a dizzying experience.

Today the band members are much more sedate in their afterhour’s activities. It’s hard to believe that we have settled down, some with kids and some with girl friends. Don’t get me wrong, when we’re out on the road, life still gets pretty crazy but we’re much more conscience of what we’re doing and much more dedicated to the quality of the show we’re putting on. So this week while it has been good and brings back a lot of memories from the past, it has been a little hard on me.

Monday my friend and I were at the Catacombs in Boulder. This place is known for letting local’s play. They often have obscure bands that turn out to be pretty good. We were down there for about two hours when I decided to play a few songs for the crowd. Maybe I was too drunk to realize what I was doing, or maybe I’m just that good, either way, I know now that I should stick to the big venues with security.

The previous act just packed up their stuff so the stage was empty. I happen to have an electric accordion in the trunk of my care with a small marshal amp. I talked to the owner, who did his best to act like he didn’t know who I was, into letting me play. I quickly set up my equipment and started to jam. Before you know it, it’s midnight, I’m drunker than I have been in years, the crowd is out of control and the police are escorting me past them. I still don’t know why the handcuffed me but they insisted. The crowd was crazy. They were yelling Boring, a hit of ours from the early eighties and Boo Boo, another great hit from the early 90’s. They were throwing beer everywhere, cheering me, jumping up and down, and tearing at my clothes. It was like the early days. One guy actually gave me a black eye he was so excited. He accidentally hit me in the face several times trying to snatch the Polish flag medallion hanging from my neck. Luckily for me, he never got it. I forgot how fun it was to play a small venue like that.

The police had to hold me overnight to be sure the crowd outside dissipated enough for me to leave. The police told me that manager asked that I never come back. Obviously, the fans were out of control and he can’t take the risk of me coming in there again. Really, would Bono form U2 get the same reaction? Probably, but you would never see the police go out of their way for him like they did for me.

It was 4:00 am when I signed for my stuff and called my friend to ensure him that the coast was clear and he could come get me. I gave the cops a $300 tip for taking care of me. Now the night is nothing but a memory. Maybe next year instead of playing an impromptu gig at the catacombs, I’ll see if I can get the band to play the Mile High Music Festival.

Pavel

Rock Opera

Guy Pulaski and the Roaming Nomads is single handily going to bring back the rock opera. That’s right, you thought you would never enjoy the graces of the Who’s “Tommy”, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, or my favorite tear jerker Ciara’s “The Crunk Opera”.  Wait till you hear our life all put into a 7 to 8 hour opera with quintessential guitar leads, hammering drum rolls, blistering clarinet riffs and massive cowbell explosions. (we have no responsibility for broken ear drums)

 

To write it, we planned this trip for some time. We took a queue from Zeppelin and we are locked in this Castle in northern Dubuque and it’s actually nice. Big windows, nice seats and all the burgers you want for 59 cents each. Personally I thought most castles are dark and dingy this one is so……white.

 

The concept will be a secret till the album is released but I think it will be one of our best pieces. With all the events, both good and bad, on the Guy Pulaski and Roaming Nomad road of life, you can expect this to be a colossal masterpiece. From the Cannery Wars, to the rough street of Weilepole to the infamous Baby Doll fire of 1975 (who knew pierogi were explosive), you’ll be riveted to what happens next.

 

Personally I am commissioning NorthWind Guitars to produce a custom guitar with an electro-magnetic pick up system that has melted one amp and sent three engineers to get Rogaine for massive hair loss. Edeck has made a drum set with Kevlar skins and using a bass pedal that uses .22 shells to add a bit of boost. Pavel shows his music diversity with an acoustic 18 string guitar, to electric banjo to a turbo charged accordion. We have even hired a 584 piece orchestra to add some fill from the slow, ballad-like sections to a heart stopping back drop for the leads, drum solos and group jams.

 

Dudes and Dude-etes, wait till you feast your soul and senses with the life of Guy Pulaski and the Roaming Nomads. And bring a big doggie bad, you’ll need it.

 

Peece, Cazek

Words

A lot of reporters ask us, “What is the hardest part of creating songs?” I never know how to answer that until today. I am in the middle of a song about my Aunt Stephanie who stole the secret sausage recipe and took off.

I must have written the middle verse a dozen times and it didn’t sound right. I had several lines that the WORDS didn’t gel. It’s the words. A little statement could be made into nothing by using mild words or changed into an entire story with ONE key word. See for yourself as the song lies out:

“As the police came she left for Albuquerque”

‘As the police came she took off to Albuquerque”

“As the police came she departed to Albuquerque”

“As the police came she fled to Albuquerque”

See what I mean????? Just the word “fled” tells a whole story by itself. It implies desperation, intrigue, danger, missing meals, and a host of other James Bond like story lines. Wow, I am amazed I even got through that one.

So when you say something, choose your words wisely as one word could say the whole meaning in one moment, or make you a boring slug….Oh man, I just noticed that Albuquerque has two “q’s” in it, how many words can claim that??

It’s endless!

Piece…Cazek

Demands

Well, I am sitting here writing my rider for our next gig. I’ll be honest, I don’t like the trivial demands that more famous bands like Pearl jam, Aerosmith, Florence Henderson, and Blind Melon request, but we almost have to, just to keep up. For example, I’m eating my usual lunch of frozen grapes with sour cream and who’s going to complain when I need it for a session or performance. I guess I will have the typical M&M’s with the brown ones removed or the generic Perrier water with half the bubbles colored red or silly things like that just to be “band like”

We have to make it seem like were eccentric or people will think were not superstars. I do need my food delivered by Remote Control truck because I can’t have people touch my food but that’s not weird. I also like to make my own snickers bars so I get all the ingredients separate, but who doesn’t. I also have to have chairs that look like big hands, it gives me that ‘taken care of’ feeling.

Now I recall with my band mates times when we had to travel from fair to circus to late night bar and our only rider was to have a 6 foot sub with the olives lined up from smallest to largest. Times were hard and most places just told us to shut up a play so we would park the matching Dudecks and jam.

I going to get this finished now. I have the bananas’ that are peeled by a monkey and the Jell-O full of spaghetti O’s but I cant remember how many n’s there are in ‘minnows’, see you at the show and listen for our new song ‘Greg Brady’s car’…sure to be a classic.

Peace…Cazek

Excuse Our Dust

We are working feverishly getting the site together behind the scenes.  Getting the band members together is more difficult than you would think. With everyone living so far apart, and the many, many appointments, obligations, charity works, and personal appearances they have scheduled when not recording or touring, face to face meetings are difficult.

In the mean time we, the band members, will post some day to day absurdities that life throws at us. For example, I, Pavel, live in Boulder Colorado. I went to the dentist today. While reading the waiting rooms a young man comes to me with tray in hand asking me if I would like a vegetable leaf wrap snack. Does this kid know where he’s at? Why would I want to eat something right before I go see dentist. I don’t’ need a dentist pulling out half chewed lettuce leaves from between my teeth.

You know this kid is employed by the dentist, so that the begs the question, what are they thinking?

Looking for Work

I went to the Boulder Fireworks show on the 4th to check it out for a possible gig next year. Before the fireworks, they have some acts play to jazz up the crowd. I got there knowing the gates opened at 7:30 and figuring fireworks would start at 9:00 or so. I was wrong.

The first act was a duo of singer song writers from the Department of Parks and Recreation. Their songs were childish. It was hard to sit through. All I think was Guy Pulaski and the Roaming Nomads would have these people on their feet jumping around but instead they have to sit here and be bored.

In the middle of the act I noticed that these kids were throwing paper airplanes down the stands. I looked around and all of the kids in the stands were throwing paper airplanes. I guess it just one of those things kids do.

The duo finally finished their act with a poor rendition of Rocky Mountain High Colorado by John Denver, God rest his soul. The next act was a skip rope team. (They have such things?) The skip rope team was a group of kids that looked like they were in the age range of 6 to 16. They were nervous. While they did some cool tricks they were catching the rope a lot. It was okay but not comparable to some of the lead accordion work one would find in GPATRN. Who could compare skipping rope to an electric accordion solo starting with multiple negative C chord waves bleeding into Lead Zeppelin like cries of pain winding through a valley of reverb and intermittent wa-wa bar effect all being fed to 11 marshal amps? Exactly, no one, that who.

The next act should be arrested. It was the American Pro Volleyball (APV) cheer leaders singing the worst rendition of Good Vibration ever put together. The mistake was they tried to make the song their own without knowing who they were. Instead of just jazzing up the song a little they stripped it of all dignity and beat it until is screamed uncle. I thought we stopped torturing people? These girls made Good Vibrations a Mira Carrie-like piece of formulated dance-O’matic crap. They changed the beat, pumped up the base to were the music was useless and tried to hide every mistake behind tight outfits and dance moves so old I had nightmares of the disco days of the 70’s that night. I can honestly say this was first time I suffered through that song.

The next act, yes folks, the acts just kept coming, was the Shakespeare Festival’s actors doing covers of Arlo Guthrie. At best they were passable. However, the person doing the sound was either drunk or sleeping. Please tell me it was something to that effect because anyone with earshot knew something was going terribly wrong with the sound.

The next act was the duo from the park’s department. They performed sing-along for the kids. They are much better when they stick to the kid’s music. Their second time around wasn’t as bad as the fist but it was still painful.

After the duo’s second act the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra took the stage. At this point I had more two hours invested into this project and figured this was enough. I got up and left. It was 9:40 pm. I got to my car and started home. I heard the fireworks start around 10:00 PM. I pulled over in a parking lot to watch. They were unimpressive and over by 10:17 pm. Yep, I waited more than two hours suffering through horrible act after horrible act to see less than 20 minutes of fireworks. I have friends who put on bigger shows than that.

Anyway, I mailed a copy of our album, Combat Accordion Rock Polkas – Live at the Baby Doll Polka Club, with contact information to the Boulder Events director. I thought they would want to hear what we sound like live. I should be hearing back anytime now. The plan is to be the only act for next year’s 4th of July festivities. Why not have one good act instead of a lot of bad acts?

Welcome One and All

Finally the most controversial band in the country has a place for it’s members to document their life and their ideas on a daily basis. We promise not to reveal the antics of out roadies, groupies, or hysterical fans. This is not that kind of site. We would rather share the everyday life of everyday people who happen to be in the most radical Polka Rock band in history. Look for clues to our secret concerts and all night parties in the writings of this blog. The members will be happy to answer questions from fans and those very, very few people who find our music not up to their tastes.

As the site grows, categories will be added, picture will be posted, the layout will change and life on the planet in general will be come much better. I look forward to interacting with all our fans and the new people that will become our friends.