Johnny Koenig: Press

18 year old Johnny Koenig is indeed the "New Kid In Town" having moved to Cleveland from the New York City area in 2006.
His fine accordion work is enhanced by Bob Kravos (recording engineer) on accordion fills, bass, piano, and solovox; Norm Kobal on sax; Mark Habat on drums and Frank Okicki on banjo and guitar. Special guest performers include Canada's Polka King Walter Ostanek and Joey "The Cow-Polka King" Miskulin.
Johnny began playing music at age five with the influence from his late dad John, an entertainer and promoter in the New York area for many years.

Forget about rock 'n' roll, New York City native Johnny Koenig moved to Northeast Ohio last summer to keep polka music alive. "It's still so big in the Cleveland area compared to other parts of the country, so the music brought me here," said 19-year-old Koenig, whose father John was a well-known New York-based polka musician in the '70s and '80s.

Koenig recently talked with regular Plain Dealer freelance writer John Benson, who writes the weekly LocalBeat music column for the Friday! magazine.

"Cleveland has been noted as the polka capitol of the country and it's lived up to its billing," Koenig tells Benson. "It's been great. I've met a lot of people and some talented musicians. It's just a great hobby and a great way to meet people and have a good time. You're getting paid for one of the most fun things to do."

Koenig, who recently released his debut effort, the Slovenian-based polka album "New Kid in Town," said he's looking forward to taking part in the upcoming "Connecting Generations Diversity Day" at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 25, at the Gallery West, second-floor library, Tri-C Western Campus, 11000 Pleasant Valley Road, Parma. "They thought it would be good to have a polka band trying to show my generation what the music and culture is about," said Koenig, who hinted he'll be playing polka versions of Van Morrison and Toby Keith songs for the youthful audience. You can keep up with Koenig's career at MySpace.com/johnnykoenig.

Youthful Koenig Spreads Polka Love Around Northeast Ohio
Posted by John Benson May 27, 2008 11:51AM
For well over a decade, Johnny Koenig has been rolling out the barrel as Northeast Ohio's polka ambassador to youth.

After releasing his Slovenian-based polka debut album, "New Kid in Town," last year, the North Royalton native has been busy playing in, well, surprising venues around the area.

"Things have been really going well," said Koenig, who hints a new studio CD may be out next year. "Last summer we actually produced a piece called 'Polka Madness' for Verb Ballets and did seven shows with them throughout Northeast Ohio. It broadened the crowds as far as the polka genre. We opened it to the whole fine arts crowd, and they went nuts over it.

"We were given some old Frankie Yankovic polka arrangements, and modified them to the polka dance. So while we played, the Verb Ballets had the dancers acting out the lyrics. It was good and we had great turnouts, like 400 to 700 people at these shows."

If dancers performing to polka isn't surreal enough for you, how about last summer when 9,000 deadheads attended a Grateful Dead/Jimi Hendrix tribute festival at Nelson Ledges and rocked out to late-night polka jams?

Said Koenig, "We closed for Dark Star in the quarry at 1 a.m. and the hippies just went nuts and loved it."

The crazy ride continues for Koenig who has now booked his second Beachland Ballroom show for Friday (May 30) at the popular Cleveland venue. Considering the concert site is an old Croatian hall, the setting couldn't be better for Koenig and his band - Bob Kravos, Frank Okicki, Larry Sintic, David Skrajner and Joe Shumar - to perform some of his favorite songs, such as "Alone Again" and "Koenig's Polka."

"I like to judge these shows by the crowd," Koenig said. "I know this Beachland show will be a combination of the diehard polka fans that don't want to hear nothing but the same songs they heard 50 years ago, and then there will be some people who want to hear off-the-wall new stuff.

"So I'm going to do a little bit of everything, I'm going to try to play something for everybody. Of course, it never works out like that, but I'm hoping to let everybody take something home they enjoy from the show."

While his act does '60s rock covers such as "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Mustang Sally," the one trap that Koenig said would be easy to fall into is becoming a novelty polka group that dishonors the traditional music for more contemporary pieces.

Sure hearing him play Rhiannon's "Umbrella" on the accordion would be fun, but it wouldn't last. Instead, he's more interested in maintaining the genre's integrity. Still, it's not easy trying to get 20-year-olds to get psyched over the "Beer Barrel Polka."

"My thing is of course the majority of the polka fans are my parents or even my grandparents," Koenig said. "Some of the older folks can be less open to some of the new and modern polka styles like Brave Combo and Polka Freakout. And what they're doing is incorporating the polka into like almost like a rock beat.

"So it's a really uphill battle, but we're just consistent and will persevere through it and just try to keep things going."