Joint project by Richard Tyce of Skweezebox Accordion Studios from Vancouver and Martin Hergt of Tempo Trend Music in Victoria.

Vancouver, BC, July 12, 2013: Richard Tyce spent four weeks designing and building the Nerdi I Stretch Accordion. The monster accordion measures 15-feet across and takes 5 players to play. Tyce organized volunteers to join him on June 1st, 2013 for its debut at the Hats Off Parade in Burnaby, BC, where he played the Chicken Dance and “Das Fliegerlied (The Airplane Song)” for hundreds of spectators down Hastings Street. The exhibit, last of 42, also had some dancing dirndl girls and a bicycle carriage with two additional accordion players. The stretch accordion was definitely a crowd favourite.
The approximately 12 accordions that it took construct were supplied by Martin Hergt of Tempo Trend Music of Victoria. At present, Tempo Trend is touring US and Canadian accordion festivals with monster accordion in tow. Martin will return at the end of August, in time for Tyce and his S-Bahn Band to take the accordion to the “Fall Crawl” – where it will be featured in one Oktoberfest event after the other throughout the Pacific Northwest. As Tyce puts it – “This is one accordion with ‘ten left feet’ and it takes an enormous amount of coordination, strength and skill to play, walk in unison and sing at the same time.”

The S-Bahn band has been around since 1991. This year, besides founding member Richard Tyce, 3 new players have come on board. Alexander Flock is a guitarist who has been honing his fingerstyle guitar playing. Jim Hopson is a versatile trombone soloist, tuba player, singer and Alphorn player. Bruce Henzcel is a drummer and percussionist who specializes in the marimba. He also plays viola. Tyce is front man, lead singer and accordionist. S-Bahn is named after the commuter train that connects cities in Germany, whichconnects people and brings everyone together – just like Oktoberfests do.