OnDemand

Listening on your own schedule

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.

Not everybody can be in front of a radio at seven o'clock on a Monday. OnDemand collects the station's broadcasts so that shows can be heard after the fact, in whatever order suits the listener.

The practical limit is storage rather than willingness: the archive holds a rolling window of recent broadcasts rather than the station's whole history. Shows drop off the back of the window as new ones are added, so a programme worth keeping is worth listening to reasonably soon after it airs.

Everything here is for private, non-commercial listening. Rebroadcasting or retransmitting any of it requires written permission, both because the station asks for it and because the music on these broadcasts is licensed for one-time streaming, not for redistribution.

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.