The San Francisco Chronicle puts Skyler Fell & The Accordion Apocalypse on the front page and Datebook on Tuesday August 10th, 2010: Skyler Fell -Keeper of Accordion Flame, article by Julian Guthrie
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2010%2F08%2F10%2FDDBA1EJ09P.DTL

Skyler Fell is making accordion history...KQED Public Radio
88.5 on The California Report airing this Friday 6/18 at 4:30 &
6:30pm. Tune in for an exclusive interview with Skyler Fell and her accordion
repair guru, put together by Julie Bruce & Marie Abe.
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201006181630/d

The City of San Francisco Ushers in An Accordion Apocalypse
by Heather Mack & Perry Shirley
http://musezu.com/accordion-apocalypse.html

The Golden Gate XPress Video & Article Nov 2009:
Smells Like Accordion Spirit Multimedia Video:
http://xpress.sfsu.edu/specials/2009f/ACCORDIAN/soundslides01/

Let's Polka Interview's Skyler Fell of The Accordion Apocalypse....

The Examiner Puts The Accordion Apocalypse on The Front Page, Bringing The Accordion to a New Generation....

San Francisco Chronicle, August 2010: Skyler Fell sees accordion scene renaissance, article by Julian Guthrie
http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgif=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2010%2F08%2F10%2FDDBA1EJ09P.DTL
The first unexpected is the shop itself. Situated on an industrial corner in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, in a nondescript warehouse, is a room filled with intricate vintage accordions, many of them Italian, and several dating to the late 1800s.

The next surprise is the accordionist who owns the business (Accordion Apocalypse), teaches the music, and fixes and plays the instruments.

With her tattoos and piercings and Burning Man style, 29-year-old Skyler Fell doesn't exactly fit the folksy and tuxedoed accordionist stereotype.

But Fell, who plays in a seven-member band called The Hobo Gobbelins, has worked her way up from apprentice to teacher and is bringing a new face to the accordion's Old World charm.

"When I play the accordion in a place like North Beach, I literally have people jumping out of their cars," said Fell. "People will tell me, 'My great- grandfather played it!' and they'll start dancing in the street."

Fell, who holds weekend workshops that draw adults and kids alike, sees a renaissance in San Francisco's accordion scene. It's the official instrument of San Francisco, and "it's become much more of an avant-garde instrument. Now, you have a lot of artistic parents introducing their kids to the accordion."

For Fell, the appeal was part familial, part pure fun. Her great-grandfather played the clarinet and did horseback riding tricks in the circus. Her father was a coal miner and adventurer who backpacked across Africa and lived on sailboats, and the women in her family are a mix of librarians and activists.

"I think I was drawn to the accordion because of the carnival sound," said Fell. "And, I love parades, and it seemed like a great instrument to be in parades with and to use for rabble-rousing a crowd."

She also is enamored with the instrument's history in San Francisco and showed off a cherished copy of "The Golden Age of the Accordion." The first part of the book looks at the immigrants who started and operated accordion shops, including Colombo & Sons, Standard, and Guerrini in San Francisco, and at the schools of music that thrived in the 1920s and '30s, notably Theodore Pezzolo's school of music at 1666 Union St., where the front of the building was made to look like accordion keys.

"I started apprenticing when I was 18 with Boaz Rubin in Oakland, and did a lot of waxing reeds into place," said Fell, who earlier had trained as a welder. "I stayed with him for two years, learning the trade and working with all kinds of accordions. After two years, Boaz went to Virginia, I stayed around, and I moved to San Francisco and started working with my next mentor."

That was an older gentleman named Vince Cirelli, a master builder and repairman she met at the San Francisco Accordion Club and began studying with four times a week.

"We are creating almost a passing of the torch," said Fell of her 89-year-old mentor.

Fell opened her own shop in 2005 and will move to a bigger space South of Market in coming months. Surveying her vintage accordion collection behind glass, Fell said she deals mainly in used Italian accordions.

"The craftsmanship in Italian accordions is really good, really different," she sighed. "The pieces were made to last. They're made out of solid walnut, not the plastic you see in accordions today."

Fell, who continues to meet with Cirelli once or twice a week, is herself mentoring 19-year-old Ariel McGurty, who spends much of her time in the shop working on the bellows, the part of the accordion that produces the sound.

"Skyler has really opened my eyes to this instrument," said McGurty. "I just think it's so beautiful and intricate."

Fell smiled. Her hope is to bring a "new enthusiasm and vibrant feel to the accordion, to kind of give it a new face."

"I'm so grateful for the knowledge that has been passed to me," she said. "I have the utmost respect for my heroes who have kept the accordion alive."

Picking up her own accordion to play a tune she wrote called "Razorback Snaggle Claw," a circus-inspired song about road kill, she said, "I look forward to carrying the torch."

20th accordion festival: The Cotati Accordion Festival in Sonoma County, celebrating its 20th anniversary, will take place Aug. 21 and 22. For information, go to www.cotatifest.com. San Francisco accordionist and teacher Skyler Fell will have a booth at the festival and will perform a circus cabaret show at 2 p.m. both days.

E-mail Julian Guthrie at jguthrie@sfchronicle.com.
(C) San Francisco Chronicle 2010

Rav Reviews Online:
http://kevinroddy.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/11/25/3285171.html
http://www.timkerr.net/home.htm
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=9301

The City of San Francisco Ushers in An Accordion Apocalypse
by Heather Mack & Perry Shirley
http://musezu.com/accordion-apocalypse.html
In the far Southeast corner of San Francisco, tucked among ancient train tracks and imposing warehouses, a little piece of musical heaven is making a name for itself. It’s called the Accordion Apocalypse, and it’s a true place of revelation for the charming albeit cumbersome instrument. Open since 2006, the blossoming repair shop, showroom, lesson center and antique museum is the only of its kind in the SF Bay Area, and is here to accommodate the recent surge in the instrument’s popularity.
Long viewed as the ironic novelty sidekick of Weird Al Yankovic or Steve Urkle, the ever-growing underground circus punk music scene has propelled the accordion to a level of proliferation that proves there is nothing nerdy about it.

Skyler Fell, proud member of San Francisco's accordion scene.

Even the city of the San Francisco knows it. On April 26 1990, the Board of Supervisor voted 6 to 4 in favor of designating the accordion the city’s Official Instrument. You read that right. It may be that after the rattling Loma Prieta earthquake the previous year, the city needed a spirit lift from the rousing squeezebox.

Heading the today’s bellows-driven, free-reed revolution is entrepreneur and accordion punk princess Skyler Fell. An avid accordion player since 2002, Fell is leading the new generation of enthusiasts by running her modest Bayview shop, promoting events like the Cotati and San Francisco Accordion Festivals, all while playing in an Oakland punk/bluegrass band The Hobo Gobbelins and assorted trios and circus troupes.

On Tuesday Feb 16, the Gobbelins capped off the East Bay’s Mardi Gras celebration with a show at 8PM at the Stork Club at 2330 Telegraph Ave in Oakland.

“This is a hyper-niche market I’m working in,” says the resplendently bohemian Fell, 27, who was born in England to Ukrainian parents. “In the past two years, this has really taken off. Now the challenge is to bridge the gap between the two groups: the older generation playing traditional folk tunes, and the younger generation that’s going to Burning Man and playing at pirate punk parties.”
“The accordion is a folk instrument,” she says. “A lot of people hear it and think of family and community, but also bohemian spirit and something playful.”
The most popular mainstream accordion is heard in Latin music, with polka and gypsy tunes following, but waltzes and jigs from the Czech Republic to France are also a big in the accordion’s catalogue, along with burgeoning punk. To hear and see the accordion is somewhat overwhelming, as it produces an in-your-face barrage of sound and is also awkward and heavy to handle. Not surprisingly, Fell notes the instrument seems to “call out” to very unique people.
“I don’t want to call these people weird,” she says with a grin. “But the accordion attracts a, uh, special group of people.”
JoMarie Pitino, 25, is a San Francisco chef and aspiring accordionist who can attest to that.
“It’s just such a nerdy and hilarious instrument,” she says, “But it sounds amazing, and I think it would be so cool to play.”
As it spans musical genres and demographics, the accordion also has an expansive range in quality. Models and varietals from multiple countries are all viable options to play. Fell offers the full spectrum of accordions in her shop–most of which are on consignment–and sells about three instruments per week. The best come from Italy and Germany and can fetch upwards to $7,000. Generally, she sells the models that cost around $1,000 and on the lower end, there are always the cheap, Chinese-manufactured concertina sqeezeboxes for around $300.
This isn’t San Francisco’s first flirtation with the polyphonic windbag. Originating in Germany and widely manufactured throughout Europe, the accordion was introduced to the west coast alongside surging immigration at the turn of the century. The first American piano accordion was built in 1907 in North Beach by the Guerrini Accordion Company, and the wide appeal of the instrument enabled it to transcend genres and gain popularity up until the late 1950s.
“The accordion is a very cross-cultural instrument,” Fell explains. “We had people looking for a meaningful way to connect, and that could be achieved with this very unique instrument.”
Aptly, Fell has come into her own by the help of some of the Bay’s oldest and most respected squeezebox pros. Trained by master craftsman and builders Vince Cirelli and Boaz Rudin, Fell became addicted to the accordion after seeing an-all girl circus punk show in Berkeley in her early 20s. Inspired and enthralled, she knew she entering a love affair.
“I decided to dedicate my life to it,” she says. “I went to Boaz Accordions in Berkeley and worked out an apprenticeship so I could learn how to repair, tune and rebuild while I was learning how to play. Now, several years later, I’ve built this shop from the ground up, and I feel like this is my dream playhouse.”
A performer since a young age, Fell found her place in the growing circus punk movement when she spent time living in Amsterdam, shortly after taking up the accordion. There, she honed her playing skills while also learning juggling, unicycling and jump roping. Back in the Bay Area, she found a broken accordion in San Francisco which she promptly took to Boaz and negotiated a work-study program until the shop closed in 2005. Soon, she had the skills and the demand to negate opening the Accordion Apocalypse, first located in an Oakland farmhouse.
Now, in between repairs, rebuilds and performances, Fell works with mentor, 87-year-old Cirelli, several days a week.
“Vince and I truly represent the connection between the two groups of accordion players,” says Fell of their 60-year age difference. The two were featured onstage the world famous Cotati Accordion Festival last year, symbolizing the passing of the torch between the two generations.
During the Golden Age of the Accordion, the city boasted a high of eight accordion factories. Much like the Treasure Island Music Festival and Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival today, events put on by the Accordion Players Association once garnered tens of thousands of attendees. Polka and Balkan waltzes became a livingroom fixture via the Lawrence Welk and Horace Heidt shows.
Although the Rock-and-Roll phenomena of the late 1950s once pushed the accordion to the edge of kitschy obscurity, its fixture in today’s music is a bellowing contradiction. Mainstream bands such as The Pogues and The Decemberists have showcased the inherently offbeat instrument for years, and the rise of underground projects like Those Darn Accordions! and Fell’s own group, The Hobo Gobbelins warrants a devoted accordioness such as herself.
“We’ve come a long way since the Lawrence Welk show,” says Fell “Those shows from the ‘50s and ‘60s may have made Balkan waltzes and Polka living room staples for awhile, but this is different. I believe we are on the edge of an accordion revolution.”
And along with the need for an ever-expanding esoteric vocabulary and energy to keep up with the artistic movement, the accordion requires a lot of work.
The shop is a one-stop-shop for the instrument. Located in a cavernous Bayview District warehouse, the space is well worth the long bus commute just to see it. A wrought-iron door opens to a dimly lit but eclectically decorated hallway that feels like backstage at a vaudeville show. A metal artist since her teens, Fell has utilized every opportunity in the room for art and expression. Accordingly, Fell herself is equally adorned. Petite and pretty with alternately shorn and dreadlocked brown hair, she favors dramatic earrings and layered necklaces along with theatrical, gypsy-like garb.
Cutting to the cheerful yellow and red-walled show room and lesson spot, the professionalism sets in. Full but not cluttered, the place is stocked with books of sheet music from all over the world and replete with accordions for sale alongside a beautiful collection of antique instruments.
A high-backed wooden chair dubbed the “Accordion Throne” sits in the middle of it all. This is where Fell sits her pupils.
“I want all of my students to feel special, like the are the king of the accordion, even if they are just starting,” says Fell, who typically takes on three to five students at a time. “The accordion brings people from all walks of life. I’ve taught guys from Brazil, old Serbian ladies, circus punks and hipsters. Right now, I’m seeing a lot of kids in their 20s and 30s.”
And although the instruments sports up to 120 bass keys that must be mastered while also controlling the flow of the bellows and manipulating the dozen or so buttons on the opposite end, Fell insists it’s not that difficult.
“Yeah, it’s like juggling three things at once,” she says, “But I don’t believe that it’s ever too late to learn the accordion.”
Asked to play a relatively basic song, Fell blasts into a pirate’s shanty jig that sounds mind-bendingly complex.
“Really, it’s not that hard,” she insists. “It has such a full sound. There’s a lot to be done with simplicity when you’re working with such a complicated instrument.”
Accordions are known as free reed instruments, along with harmonicas, harmoniums and reed organs. Unlike a clarinet or saxophone, air is blown through a freely vibrating rather than fixed reed. Fell’s most common work is repairing or re-waxing broken reeds, which don’t take more than a few hours or days, but her true passion is custom antique rebuilds, which can take up to 40 hours and cost up to $3,000.
In workroom adjacent to the showroom, Fell explains the more labor intensive part of her job. Just by looking at an accordion from the outside, the complexity of the instrument is clear. Take it apart, and a labyrinthine selection of reeds, buttons and keys warrants the need for highly skilled Fell. An arsenal of surgical-looking iron hand tools (most of which she made herself) aids her through most of her projects, which are usually detail-oriented and time-consuming. She uses power tools for some of her larger tasks, but working on the instruments generally requires deft handwork with her self-constructed tools.
“A lot of people bring in the accordion from Grandma’s closet, which is going to be big, old and in need of serious repair,” says Fell, who plays on an ornate 1927 Italian model with inlaid wood and mother-of-pearl embellishments. “But it’s not impossible. It may be costly, but it’s worth it.”
Fell does almost all of the work herself but also gets help from fellow accordion players and her partner of six years, Melody, who is also a member of the Hobo Gobbelins.
Melody working on installing a microphone inside for handmade washtub bass.
“I had to do something besides sit around and make a mess,” says dreadlocked Melody, busy winding a piece of sinewy catgut around a wooden pole in order to fashion her gutbucket, a homemade bass instrument that utilizes an aluminum washtub. (If that sounds confusing, seeing it in person was only marginally more explanatory)
Fell, Melody and their two dogs Garlic Ginger Fox and Lulu Ukelele enjoy relative piece and quiet most of the time, but they aren’t afraid to get rowdy and house giant punk parties in the garage of the warehouse.
“We have big gatherings about once a month, right here, with all kinds of musicians and performers,” says Fell. “People want to get together and do this. All we have to do is pull out the tour bus.”
The tour bus is a 40-foot, fire-engine red Bluebird school bus, which runs on biodiesel and hosts a bathroom, bedroom and fully functional kitchen. Jam packed and a little grungy, snippets of Fell’s interests have staked their claim amongst the homemade shelves: a deck of tarot cards peeks out from boxes of tea and oatmeal, a miscellaneous dreadlock is woven through some plastic netting. The tattered Mac G4 and GPS device on the dash is the only sign of the times in the vehicle that escorts Fell and the rest of the Gobblins around as they branch out and build their off-the-cuff web of artists.
And the pool for exuberant and underground performers is full. Garry Williams, owner of the SF Drum Center in the Castro District which specializes in custom rebuilds, sales and lessons, says he’s seen a upswing in people performing and playing.
“These people are alive,” says Williams outside a recent warehouse party that featured over-the-top musical acts and firedancing. “This circus slash zombie punk movement is on, people want to be creative right now.”
When she’s not repairing or teaching, Fell is performing at various venues such as Slim’s, DNA Lounge, High Sierra Music Festival, Burning Man and other organized events as well as street fairs and farmer’s markets. Networking and generally “spreading the gospel of accordion” is also a big part of her work, and she’s currently gearing up for the world-famous Cotati Festival, the largest assemblage of accordion enthusiasts in the country, and putting together San Francisco’s 1st Annual “Accordion Carnival” in 2010. She’s also gathering resources for the SF Accordion Festival and playing a few shows per month, all while preparing for her Northwest Tour.
Show and tell stops at the bus, where Fell retreats to change for a gig in Oakland. Emerging in full zombie makeup, white and black striped tights and platform boots, she exudes counter-culture charm and palpable nonconformity.
“This instrument really embodies what I am trying to accomplish,” she says. “The playfulness, the range, the connectedness.. and it’s come so far.”
Skyler Fell and The Hobo Gobbelins played Feb 16 at 8 PM at the Stork Club at 2330 Telegraph Ave in Oakland. To future shows, go to http://www.myspace.com/hobogobbelins
Visit the The Accordion Apocalypse Repair Shop at 2626 Jennings Street in the Bayview district of San Francisco. Website: www.accordionapocalypse.com


Return of The Bellows Article from The Golden Gate Xpress, Nov2009:
Aaron Seeman still smells like propane. Right now, he is reclining in a Union Square Starbucks, but thirty minutes ago, he lit his head on fire.
"It's been a while since I played on the streets," he says, strapping on his accordion in front of the cable car turnaround on Powell Street in San Francisco. At his feet is a gym bag stuffed with three Donald Duck hats, the kind with the squeaky rubber bills you can get at Disneyland. One of them is hooked up to a propane tank.
He needs a lighter to get things started, so he approaches two tough-looking city kids hanging out next to the glow of a storefront window display. "Hey, do you guys have a lighter?" he asks. They nod, and one of them digs into his pocket. He bows down a little and has them light the bulky wick protruding from the top of the hat.

Whoosh.

"Oh SHIT!" they yelp, and scramble out of the way as the hat shoots out a vertical flame. Unfazed, Seeman stands upright, turns around, and begins wailing away on his instrument as passersby snap camera phone photos.
After years of being maligned as an ugly and undesirable instrument, the accordion is creeping back into modern music, albeit in some very weird ways. It is hard to say where and when the accordion started to gather steam after many years of languishing in Lawrence Welk's shadow. An educated guess might link it to the much-heralded, but ultimately ephemeral 'gypsy punk' movement of 2007, or to folky indie acts like The Decemberists coming up from the underground. Whatever the scene's origins, the accordion is shifting from a harbinger of celibacy to a fringe fetish.
The cult appeal of the instrument was on display at the San Francisco stop of the Monsters of Accordion tour this year. At the end of August, aficionados and intrigued locals alike packed the house at Slim's to marvel at the all-accordion lineup.
Spearheaded by Jason Webley, Seattle's patron saint of accordion madness and veritable godfather of the new scene, Monsters of Accordion is a tour that has showcased the new wave of performers for the last three years. This year, there was Eric Stern, a mustachioed gentleman from Portland, and Geoff Berner, whose most popular number has a chorus that the audience delightedly sings along to: "Oh the dead, dead children were worth it..." Seeman makes a brief appearance as his alter-ego, Duckmandu, and Stevhen Iancu dims the lights for his set, skulking around the stage in near darkness. The big finish is Webley himself, who whips his fans into a frenzy. His performance, as usual, is so intense that he loses his hat within the first few songs, and he and his audience sweat profusely. He howls his way through his set and claws at his instrument, stomping around and instructing his onlookers in complicated call-and-response rituals.
There is something vaguely punk rock about the whole thing. There is an intensity to the entire night, an element of surprise-attack, and the feeling that the accordion is a weapon; a defense. It feels safe inside Slim's, insulated from an outside world that might judge.
"I don't know any punk bands that are using accordions, but something about the energy of the music and the do it yourself approach to the whole music business was always very appealing to me," says Webley later. 'Energy' is one word for Webley's performance ethic. Berner's instrument is propped up behind him on a table in the dressing room. "I recently told him I go through about one accordion a year because I end up ripping the bellows apart. Ever since then, he's seemed genuinely nervous any time I've touched his accordion."
Much of the growing scene seems to have stemmed from the early days of punk, and if the movement can be given a name at all, it is most commonly referred to as 'punk rock accordion'. Seeman is an accordion teacher by trade, and performs under the name Duckmandu by choice. "I get more gigs these days as a bad accordion player than a trained pianist," he says with a smirk. He is most famous for translating the classic Dead Kennedys album Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables entirely into accordion music. "It's such a musically singular piece of work," he rhapsodizes at a corner table in the Union Square Starbucks, his accordion and bag of hats by his side. "I was attracted to the challenge. I wanted to do something of musical value that no one else was doing." Though he holds a master's in music and is a classically-trained pianist, his Dead Kennedys project has ended up defining him. "The response was overwhelming," he says, suppressing a sigh. "It's kind of what I'm known for now."
"I guess I'm really just capitalizing on the 'astonishing' aspect of it," he says. "It's still an exotic instrument here in America, especially on the West Coast. I think the reaction I get is unique to where we are in the world."
Locally, Skyler Fell carries the banner for the Bay Area accordion scene, as small as it is. Out of a warehouse in Bayview come the sounds of three untrained accordion players on a Saturday afternoon, driving the dogs in the building crazy.
Her repair shop and store, Accordion Apocalypse, has emerged as the hub of the new accordion culture in the Bay Area. "It's been described as an accordion oasis," she says, skipping into the showroom in her chunky boots. "I've kind of become the biggest proponent of the accordion around here. I feel it's my duty to provide accordions to people, and fix 'em when they get broken." The presence of her shop is announced only by an ornate gate, decorated by Fell herself, on the side of a slate-gray building. The surrounding neighborhood is warehouses and loading docks and old train tracks to nowhere. Other than on game days at nearby Candlestick Park, it is completely and totally deserted.
After seeing an accordion-centric punk band at famed music club 924 Gilman in her youth, she fell in with Vince Cirelli, an old-world accordion builder formerly of Colombo and Sons, one of eight accordion shops that once operated in San Francisco. Because of the mix of cultures moving in to the city in the early twentieth century, San Francisco was once the accordion epicenter of America. To this day, the accordion is San Francisco's official instrument.
"A lot of the older generations of players are very old now, and getting ill, even dying," says Fell. "A lot of the old folk songs are fading away, and unfortunately, dying with them. There's been this big push lately to get young people to pick up the instrument and start playing."
People of all kinds are picking it up again, but in ways the older generation could have never predicted. On a Saturday night, Fell is scurrying around her shop, looking for more chairs. As an unusual amount of cars pull up outside the gate and more people filter in, Seeman is preparing to teach ten accordionists of varying skill "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
It is a good cross-section of people at his "Grunge Workshop" -- about ten of them; a big commitment for a Saturday evening. "This is great," says a friend of the shop, who has dropped by for a visit with her dog. "What a huge turnout."
There are friends, studious folks, and single women seated in the showroom waiting for Seeman to get things going. There is a mother and her pre-teen son in the corner warming up with a duet they have no doubt rehearsed before. Someone taps out the famous introduction to Europe's "The Final Countdown" as a lark. A laugh rises from the crowd.
"Here, let me just play it through once," Seeman says. He acts like he has never played the song before, but he quickly drops into a trancelike state, playing it note for note, his tattooed hands flying up and down the keyboard. It does not quite sound like the version modern-rock radio is used to, but it begins to make more sense as the lyrics sync up.
For all of the silliness and the theatrics that cloud his career, Seeman is a skilled player and instructor. He is wearing one of his Donald Duck hats for the duration of the evening, but after a while it becomes the last thing you notice about him. He is approachable and articulate, and has managed to break the song down into more parts than Kurt Cobain may have ever been aware of, assigning movements to each attendee based on their proficiency.
There is little to no introduction to the final result. "One, two, three, four..." Seeman counts off, and suddenly it just sounds right. Everyone pipes up at once, and it sounds like you would expect it to. It is heavy, and whiny, and a little clumsy, but that is the sound of San Francisco ferociously taking back its official instrument, and that is what the new accordion sounds like: unapologetically weird. [X]
-Jody Amable, The Golden Gate XPress

The Examiner- Accordion Apocalypse....bringing The Accordion to a new generation!
SAN FRANCISCO - "Skyler Fell is a 25-year-old entrepreneur with a mission: to ride the crest of a new wave of popularity for the accordion, a classic musical instrument with a growing following in the underground music scene....."
-Kate Williamson, The Examiner
She runs Accordion Apocalypse, the only accordion-centric shop for �San Francisco�s official instrument,� offering beginner lessons, rebuilt used accordions, repairs, parts and sheet music out of a Hunter�s Point warehouse space. She also leads the Accordion Apocalypse Circus Sideshow, a band that performs for clubs and events. Listening to her speak, it�s clear that she has a passion for an instrument with a fan base that spans from aging Italian masters to a new generation of punk musicians.
She�s part of the latter, with a flashy style she compares to the unique decoration of old hand-built instruments. Both deserve �a chance to shine,� she said.
�It�s really a rich history, and I feel blessed to be carrying the new torch,� she said. �I really like these older accordions. They�re from the 1940s. Each accordion has so much chutzpah, charm and personality.�
She began playing the accordion four years ago, after meeting an accordionist at an all-woman circus band. She went on to live with the musician in Europe. When she returned, she moved into a warehouse that had an accordion lying around. To her, it was fate.
She brought the instrument to the now-shuttered Boaz Accordions in Berkeley, and worked out a payment plan to repair it that turned into an apprenticeship. The company taught her bellows repair, leather refreshing and how to use a jewelry lathe, creating perfect concertina brass buttons measured to one-thousandth of an inch.
Though no one in her family plays the instrument, she feels it ties her to her Ukrainian roots and the long tradition of Klezmer music.
When Boaz closed, Fell ended up with many of its parts and tools. She opened her first shop in an Oakland garage. Her new shop at 2626 Jennings St., San Francisco, opened in January, is an improvement because it has a true showroom with a separate workshop. She also employs professional tuner Ray Landsberg.
�He�s been tuning longer than I�ve been alive,� she said. �I make it a point to spend time with our accordion elders.�
This weekend, she�ll be working with one such elder, Brisbane resident Vince Cirelli of Cirelli Accordion Service, at the 16th Annual Cotati Accordion Festival, www.cotatifest.com.
She faces some business challenges. She�s still learning to read sheet music, and supplements her business performing other jobs, including teaching welding at The Crucible art space in Oakland. Her typical client is a beginning player looking for an instrument or someone looking to rebuild an older accordion, she said. The latter takes 10 hours to 20 hours minimum at $60 an hour. Accordions cost between $13 for a children�s accordion and $700 for a classic older model.
Title: Owner, The Accordion Apocalypse Repair Shop
New project: Apocalyptically enhance 5 mini button box accordions to donate to the Cotati Accordion Festival for Door Prizes
Essential Web site: www.accordionapocalypse.com
Best perk: I have a perfect niche, the ONLY accordion repair shop in San Francisco, where the accordion is the �official� instrument.
First job: Artists� assistant in a machine shop.
Career objective: To inspire the entertainment world through promoting the accordion: having an accordion-based circus sideshow, traveling accordion shop and female-owned repair shop based in San Francisco.

Personal
Details: 25 years old, 5�1� tall, I practice both standing on my head and playing accordion every day. I am interested in DIY (do-it-yourself) projects, including alternative fuel vehicles, repairing broken things, post-apocalyptic recycled metal art.
Hometown: Berkeley
Sports/hobbies: Accordion, circus arts such as acro-balance and fire juggling, welded sculpture.
Transportation: My blue vintage Schwinn 10-speed bicycle, 40 foot SVO Bluebird CAT 3208 school bus
Computer: Mac G4 X OS powerbook
Motivation: Love, food, music and to live these dreams!
Vacation spot: Burning Man at Black Rock City, Nev., and Autonomous Mutant Festival on the West Coast.
Favorite clothier: My friends that do �re-made� clothes -- designer Trinity Cross and Lucy Fur (demonseed designs)
Reading: Accordion Crimes, San Francisco Not Long After, �How to� manuals, Chaos Theory
Worst fear: Ear wigs and wild pigs
Favorite restaurant: Cafe Gratitude
Gadgets: The Peterson Auto Strobe 490 tuner, and I machine many of my own tools specific to accordion repairs.
Original aspiration: To work with my hands doing a skilled craft that would still be useful and needed after the Apocalypse.
Last project: Making a bass button stand, for rebuilding Accordions Bass Machine
Education: Apprenticeship with the former �Boaz Accordions,� trained in several industrial arts shops including The Crucible in West Oakland.
Last conference: The 16th Annual San Francisco Accordion Festival at the cannery near Fisherman�s Wharf
-- written by Kate Williamson, The Examiner

Let's Polka Interviews Skyler Fell:
Today, we're talking to Skyler Fell, owner of the Accordion Apocalypse Repair Shop in San Francisco. A professionally trained accordion repairwoman, Skyler offers repairs, sales, lessons, and advice out of her humble shop in SF. Accordion Apocalypse has become a Bay Area accordion hub, hosting jams and shows by touring bands and wild circuses. Skyler also plays in a couple bands herself: the Hobo Gobbelins and the Accordion Apocalypse Circus Sideshow.
Let'sPolka: Skyler when and why did you start playing the accordion?
Skyler: I started playing accordion when I was around 20 years old, after walking into Boaz Accordions in Berkeley. Feeling inspired by live circus bands featuring fierce and independent women with a hardcore edge in Europe and the Bay Area, I decided to have a go at the accordion. What has happened since has been a truly magical and eye-opening journey......

You�ve studied accordion repair with a couple of masters � Boaz Rubin of the former Boaz Accordions in Berkeley and Vince Cirelli of Cirelli Accordion Service in SF. What�s the most important thing you�ve learned in working with them?

Vince Cirelli and Boaz Rubin have both inspired me with an undying love for the accordion in all of its most complex beauty, as well as counseling me on the step-by-step procedures of well trusted traditional accordion repair techniques learned from past generations of great accordion masters. Now to be kept alive with the accordionistas of the future!
What�s the weirdest repair/modification someone has asked you to do?

Last week I modified a bass switch system on an Excelsior to have a switch setting that plays only low bass single notes. The accordion sounds great� it really growls!
What are your top tips for keeping an accordion in good shape?

Reduce damage and extend the life of your main squeeze with these simple tips!

* HOT environments will melt the wax that holds your reeds in place. Be careful not to leave your accordion in a hot vehicle trunk for hours or in direct sunlight. COLD, and DAMP environments create condensation that rusts reeds, ruins tuning, and rots bellows. Some taxing places for accordions include attics, basements, storage lockers, garages, vehicles, sheds, and outside for long periods of time. Play your accordion!
* TUNING and service cleaning is a good idea every 3 to 5 years for frequently played accordions in good condition.
* OLD BROKEN STRAPS could be the downfall of your beloved accordion. Make sure your straps are in good condition � especially around the strap brackets � and always carry the accordion by the body or in a padded carrying case.
What advice do you have for someone just starting to play the accordion?
Get ready to have some fun! Check out some accordion bands, get yourself a student instrument, some lessons and go. And check out my website � www.accordionapocalypse.com � for accordion events, sales, and repairs in the Bay Area.
Thanks to Chris and Anna of Let's Polka. Check it out online at:
http://www.letspolka.com/2008/05/five-questions-skyler-fell/