Polkamania

Halls of Fame & Museums

• National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame & Museum — Euclid, Ohio. The single most important polka institution in the United States. Inducts new musicians annually. Open year-round. Free-ish.
• International Polka Association & Hall of Fame — Chicago. Inducts members from across all American polka styles. Annual convention with thousands of attendees.
• Texas Polka Music Museum — Ennis, Texas. The Texas-Czech polka epicenter. Tiny. Wonderful.
• World Polka Museum — smaller, often community-funded. Locations rotate.
• The "Weird Al" Yankovic exhibit — the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles has rotating Weird Al exhibits. Check schedule.

Festivals (Annual, Reliable, Loud)

• National Cleveland-Style Polka Festival — Cleveland, OH. Thanksgiving weekend. Since 1962. The polka's Coachella, except better organized and with more pierogi.
• Pulaski Polka Days — Pulaski, WI. July, 4 days. Free admission. 20+ bands. Bring sunscreen. Bring an aunt.
• Polkapalooza / Polka Spree by the Sea — touring lineups. Various cities.
• Frankenmuth Bavarian Festival — Frankenmuth, MI. June, every June, forever. German-American polka mecca.
• Wisconsin State Fair Polka Days — West Allis, WI. August. Largest dance floor in the state, possibly the country.
• Texas Polka Music Awards & Festival — Ennis, TX. The Texas-Czech polka summit.
• National Polka Festival — Ennis, TX. Memorial Day weekend. Distinct from the Awards Festival. Yes, two huge polka festivals in the same small town. Texas is committed.
• Polish Festival USA — Cheektowaga, NY (and others). Multiple Polish-American polka festivals across the Northeast each summer.
• SkookFest Polka Festival — Schuylkill County, PA. Pennsylvania coal-country polka tradition.
• Slovenian Sausage Festival — Cleveland, OH. Self-explanatory. Polka adjacent. Highly recommended.

Radio (On the Dial, Online, Both)

• Polka Jammer Network — the largest online polka radio station. 24/7. Free. Multiple channels for different polka styles.
• WCPN-FM — Cleveland. Weekend polka programming.
• WKTL 90.7 — Struthers, Ohio. Famous polka radio show "Polka Liners."
• The Polka Goal Show — podcast. Drew Bartos.
• Big Joe Polka Show — long-running TV show, now mostly archived on YouTube and DVD. Big Joe Siedlik. Beloved. Sadly passed in 2018.
• "Polkas" on Sirius/XM — check the current channel lineup; polka has had a dedicated channel on and off.

Record Labels (Active & Historic)

• Sunshine Records — Cleveland. Active. The premier label for Cleveland-style.
• Jay Jay Records — founded by Li'l Wally. Historic Chicago-style catalog.
• Bel-Aire Records — Eddie Blazonczyk's label. Polish-American catalog.
• Cleveland International Records — various polka releases.
• Volcano Records — Weird Al's polka medley distributor (sort of; really through his various labels over the years — Scotti Bros, Volcano, RCA).
• Texas-Czech polka labels — smaller, often artist-owned. Look for releases on Sarosy Music, TexCzech Music, etc.

Books Worth Owning

• America's Polka King: The Real Story of Frankie Yankovic and His Music by Bob Dolgan. The definitive Frankie biography.
• The Accordion in the Americas: Klezmer, Polka, Tango, Zydeco, and More! edited by Helena Simonett. Academic but readable. The Texas-Mexico-and-beyond story (and a lot more).
• Polka Happiness by Charles & Angeliki Keil. Ethnographic study of working-class Polish-American polka in Buffalo. Surprisingly tender.
• The Polka King: The Life of Polka Music's Frankie Yankovic by Robert Dolgan. Companion to the above.
• Weird Al: The Book by Nathan Rabin & "Weird Al" Yankovic. The closest thing to an Al autobiography.
• Squeezed: A Year Inside a Major League Polka Tour — we wish this book existed; in the meantime, look for blog accounts of Jimmy Sturr's tours.

Films & Documentaries

• Polka King (2017) — Jack Black plays Jan Lewan, a real Pennsylvania polka bandleader who got into mild Ponzi-scheme territory. Surprisingly heartfelt.
• Polka Time — multiple documentaries with this name. Search local PBS archives.
• UHF (1989) — Weird Al's film. Polka adjacent. Should be on your watchlist.
• In Heaven There Is No Beer? (1984) — Les Blank's documentary on Polish-American polka in Buffalo. A masterpiece.
• Weird Al's The Compleat Al (1985) and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) — the latter is parody-biographical. Daniel Radcliffe plays Al. Yes, you read that right.

Online (The Reasonably-Up-to-Date Sources)

• WeirdAl.com — the patron saint's official site. Tour dates, news, the works.
• PolkaHallOfFame.com — National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame. Event calendars, induction news.
• InternationalPolka.com — International Polka Association.
• PolkaJammerNetwork.org — the online radio station.
• BraveCombo.com — the Texas nuclear polka pioneers.
• r/polka — the small but devoted polka subreddit. Friendly. New listeners welcome.
• YouTube channels — search "polka" and prepare for a deep, joyful hole. The Big Joe Polka Show archive alone is hundreds of hours.

A Note on Out-of-Date Links

This is, by necessity, a working bibliography. Polka websites are notorious for being beautifully constructed in 1998 and never updated since. Several of the links above will return 404s, redirect to domain squatters, or open into pages with autoplay MIDI versions of "Roll Out the Barrel." We consider this part of the experience. If you find a dead link that breaks your heart, email us. (We will have to first create an email address. We'll get to it.)