Live Remotes

Broadcasting from festivals, halls and club dates

Polka radio lives or dies on the person behind the microphone. A playlist alone will not carry three hours; what carries it is somebody who knows which band recorded which arrangement, who remembers the hall it was cut in, and who can tell you why a particular version of a standard is the one worth hearing. Every show on this schedule is built that way — put together by hand, week after week, by people who have spent decades inside this music.

The most valuable thing a small station can do is leave the studio. A live remote — a broadcast run from a festival tent, a hall, or a club date rather than from a desk — captures something a studio show cannot: the room, the crowd, the band adjusting to both.

Remotes are announced ahead of time on the live shows and on the programming grid, because they displace the regular schedule for the duration. That is a deliberate trade. A pre-recorded hour can be heard any week; a band playing a particular hall on a particular night happens once.

Typical remotes cover the summer festival season, anniversary dances at long-running clubs, and benefit events for musicians and their families. Where the recording quality allows, the broadcast is added to the archive so listeners who could not be there can hear the set afterwards.

About the Music

Polka in North America is not one style but several, and the differences matter to the people who play it. The Chicago-honky sound leans on trumpets and a driving push beat; the Eastern style favours a fuller horn section and a smoother swing; the Cleveland-Slovenian tradition puts the button box at the centre and takes the tempo down a notch. Add the Polish-language repertoire, the crossover bands, and the younger groups mixing rock and jazz phrasing into a two-step, and a well-built show has more range than most listeners expect on the first hour.

Times shown are Eastern. Shows are pre-recorded unless a live broadcast is announced, and the schedule can move at short notice when a host is broadcasting from a festival or a hall. If a show you are following is not where you expect it, check the programming grid, which is kept as current as we can keep it.