March 29, 2018 | UHCL Staff
For anyone who’s never attended a Brave Combo performance, keyboard player and founding member Carl Finch said his advice is to simply expect the unexpected. The two-time Grammy award-winning, Denton, Texas-based quintet will bring their combination polka, blues, zydeco, cha-cha and cumbia dance music to the Bayou Theater at University of Houston-Clear Lake on Friday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m.
“I say to expect the unexpected because the whole point of the band is to showcase music that’s been ignored by the mainstream,” Finch said. “Mainstream culture has never paid much attention to a lot of these genres of music, but through some mystical steps, I got into them, including one of the most maligned categories of music – the polka.”
Polka music is at the cornerstone of Brave Combo’s repertoire, and Finch said there’s a good reason for that. “After I discovered polka music, I couldn’t understand why it got such a bad reputation. Polka has always operated as the kicked dog of music. But to me, the more I listened to it, the better it was. I could see from a PR angle, how it had suffered because it was not presented as ‘cool,’ so we used it as a reaction against the mainstream,” he said. “We’re on the periphery of punk. We are so out of the ordinary that our band grew from that philosophy. We take music deliberately ignored and force it on the mainstream.”
Growing up in Texarkana, Texas, Finch said he didn’t have much opportunity to learn about polka music, but stumbled on some polka records in the 1970s. “I was attracted to the kitschy record jackets, then began listening to it more deeply. That led me to Tejano, conjunto, norteno. All are polka-based music introduced to Mexico by European immigrants,” he said. “We try to have a brand new interpretation of whatever music that comes from wherever, and Brave Combo’s music is the product of about 40 years of music education.”
Finch said he’s had so many musical influences, he often feels the weight of them all in interpreting his music. “I process sound quickly, and I can figure out references really fast,” he said. “It’s extremely interesting to me.”
His interest in polka has paid off. Brave Combo won a Grammy in 1999 in the Best Polka Album category for their album “Polkasonic,” and again in 2004 for their album, “Let’s Kiss.”
Brave Combo’s sound may highlight the music which has gone largely unacknowledged in the mainstream, but there are still some notable names who have been Brave Combo fans for decades. “About 10 years ago, we were animated in an episode of ‘The Simpsons,’ and Matt Groening, who’s the show’s creator, has been a fan of ours before we even knew about ‘The Simpsons,’” Finch said. “We played ‘The Simpsons’ 200th anniversary party at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. And our version of ‘O, Holy Night’ is being used in a TV show called ‘Hap and Leonard,’ airing on Sundance TV, and we were amazed to find out that Bob Dylan covered our version of ‘Must Be Santa.’”
His band’s concept had enormous energy, Finch said. “Once it came out, it took off. We’re really more of a concept than a band. We knew we had something that was not happening out on the music scene. We took music no band would ever take into a rock club. We are the band that always got in through the back door--and we've figured out ways to get people to listen."
To purchase tickets to Brave Combo, visit www.uhcl.edu/bayou-theater/events-tickets
