National Polka Music Month on January, 2025: should immigrants adapt to American customs?

January, 2025 is National Polka Music Month 2025. National Polka Month Brings Out Traditional Dance and Music ... National Polka Month Brings

should immigrants adapt to American customs?

Americans should know that the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so no they should not drop their religion.

They do, of course, learn English, but it is amazing that Europeans have been here for hundreds of years and they have never learned Cherokee. If all immigrants had adapted to American customs, we would all be speaking Native American languages now instead of English.

There is no reason for immigrants to drop their customs. German Americans still celebrate their Octoberfest, even if their ancestors immigrated over 100 years ago, and October is German-American Heritage month. The French have Mardi Gras. The Irish celebrate St. Patrick's Day. The Irish in Philadelphia have The Mummers Parade. March is Greek American Heritage Month and Irish American Heritage Month. April 6th is the Scottish-American National Tartan Day. April 8th is Passover. So there is no reason to start expecting immigrants to forget where they came from when they enter the US.

Edit: The German people whose ancestors immigrated in the 1870s to the area where I grew up still call themselves Volga Germans, because their German ancestors came to America from the area along the Volga River in Russia. They still remember that they were Germans who immigrated to Russia during the rein of Catherine the Great. They still remember their dances, foods, and language, but they also learned English. I love to sample their bierocks, listen to their accordian music, and watch them polka during their Octoberfest. Their is nothing wrong with remembering your history.

Cost of booking a band for a gig? (small-mid size)?

Cost of booking a band for a gig? (small-mid size)?

I have been in the music buiness for like 50 years. It depends on what you want.

Unless you are a national act, rule one is Never Quit your day job! You don't want to find yourelf with no gas money to get to a gig. At one time just before I got drafted I was playing out 6 night a week with 3 different bands (was gald for the rest I got in basic training) but I worked evey day anyway. (and still do!)

Here is the averages by Genre in the Cleveland Area, though..

All orginal death metal...You gonna' need a day job to pay the owners, if they let you in at all.

.

"Classic Rock" When you can get a gig because there are like 40 bands for every job, between $50 and $100 per head. Some times a little more but thats about average.

Top 40 if you have the lights and smoke machines $75 to$150 or a little more per band member. As the number of band members in the band goes up the per member rate goes down. I know a really great band that has 3 girl singers, 2-Gits, Keys, Sax and a horn, bass and a drummer and they go home with as little as $35 each. . I play

with a very average power trio and we do not take less a hun and sometimes twice that each for any job. (Go figure)

Oldies/ Surf. Not many jobs but not many bands either.. $100 and up per person. (I've gotten up to $250 a night but don't get used to it because it dosn't happen very often.

Jazz Standards and Weding Bands. Now you gettin in da money, baby. $150 and up depending if you can stand playing the chicken dance. I'm in a 5 piece Jazz combo and we go out at $1000 for a 4 hour show, Wedding bands are over twice that and up. Wedding bands do OK but work for the jazz band is hard to come by around here.

Fusion. Between the Jazz band and the top 40 . II'm in one of those too and we play out 4 to 6 nights a month. I'm Grossing between 8 hun and a thousand a month on the average with them.

Polka bands. The sky is the limit here. Never less then $200 each and there are more jobs then good bands around here. My old pal Eddie Rodic hasn't spent a new years eve at home since he got out of the Army and he si booked over 2 years out. His 5 piece has to go out for over 2 large, and that is if you know him. They make the real money! (Wish I stuck with the Accordion!)

So there is is. From the pay to play all the way up to a grand each and more a night.

Now if we can just get a law passed against using a DJ!

Who was Queen Liliuokalain?

Who was Queen Liliuokalain?

Liliuokalani was the last monarch of Hawaii.

Her story is quite interesting;I first learned about the Queen at the Iolani Palace.Here is the website and info about Liliuokalani:

"The Succession

Kalakaua was succeeded by his sister, Lili`uokalani, who was proclaimed queen on January 29, 1891. Her experience as Princess Regent during King Kalakaua's nine month journey around the world in 1881 and visit to the United States in 1890 had prepared her for her new role as Queen of Hawai`i.

The Children's Ball

During the reign of Queen Lili‘uokalani, a very special event was held at ‘Iolani Palace on the evening of February 22, 1892. It was a fancy dress ball, but one just for children. Shortly before eight o’clock, carriages entered the Palace grounds conveying the Queen’s tiny guests and their mothers to the front entrance. After assembling in the Grand Hall, the children marched into the Throne Room two by two according to height. They presented themselves to the Queen with a low bow or curtsy. The children appeared in a variety of costumes, including Bo Peep, Lord Fauntleroy, Red Riding Hood, George Washington, a Bavarian peasant girl, a Japanese nobleman, and a butterfly.

After presentations were made, the children participated in such dances as the waltz, schottische, polka, minuet and Virginia reel. As one newspaper reported the following day: “Never surely have any Honolulu children passed prouder hours than those which were danced away in youthful ecstacy (sic)before Hawaii’s Queen last night.”

The Queen's Music

Queen Lili`uokalani was a talented musician and accomplished composer. She wrote approximately 165 songs, including Ke Aloha O Ka Haku -- The Queen's Prayer, which was written during her imprisonment. Her best known composition was the the immensely popular and lasting favorite Aloha `Oe.

The Overthrow

Queen Lili`uokalani was determined to strengthen the political power of the Hawaiian monarchy and to limit suffrage to subjects of the kingdom.

Her attempt to promulgate a new constitution galvanized opposition forces into the Committee of Safety, which was composed of Hawai`i-born citizens of American parents, naturalized citizens and foreign nationals, many of whom were businessmen,sugar plantation owners, and businessmen. This group, with the support of the American Minister to Hawai`i, orchestrated the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and the establishment of a provisional government.

On January 17, 1893, Queen Lili`uokalani yielded her authority:

. . . Now to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

- Queen Lili`uokalani to Sanford B. Dole, Jan 17, 1893

The Imprisonment

In 1895, an abortive attempt by Hawaiian royalists to restore Queen Lili`uokalani to power resulted in the queen's arrest. She was forced to sign a document of abdication that relinquished all her future claims to the throne. Following this, she endured a humiliating public trial before a military tribunal in her former throne room.

Convicted of having knowledge of a royalist plot, Lili`uokalani was fined $5000 and sentenced to five years in prison at hard labor. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in an upstairs bedroom of `Iolani Palace.

During her imprisonment, the queen was denied any visitors other than one lady in waiting. She began each day with her daily devotions followed by reading, quilting, crochet-work, or music composition.

After her release from `Iolani Palace, the Queen remained under house arrest for five months at her private home, Washington Place. For another eight months she was forbidden to leave O`ahu before all restrictions were lifted.

The Apology of The United States Government

In 1993, 100 years after the overthrow, President Clinton sighed a Congressional resolution (Public Law 103-150) in which the United States government formally apologized to the Native Hawaiian people.

Recent Articles on Lili`uokalani & on the Overthrow

Honolulu Star-Bulletin:The Overthrow, for a closer look at the events leading up to the overthrow.

Honolulu Advertiser: "Monarchy to Annexation:

Queen Lili`uokalani" - from the "150 Years of Hawai'i's History" Sesquicentenial Edition."

Holidays also on this date Wednesday, January 1, 2025...