"WALLY" POLKA-ROCK OPERA
ON HIS BIRTHDAY EVE

Chicago (PMN)—On Saturday July 31, the eve of Li’l Wally's birthday, The Polkaholics will perform their polka-rock opera "Wally!" in its entirety at Quenchers, 2401 N. Western Ave., Chicago, Ill. As an added treat, the Johnny Thunders tribute band "DTKLAMF, "which includes Dandy Don of The Polkaholics and the three Chrises (Chris Jern, Chris Linster, and Chris Russell) will open up the show with a rousing set of Johnny Thunders songs, whose birth date is July 15, an appropriate late tribute to the late-great guitar icon.

This extraordinary fusing of Li’l Wally and Johnny Thunders is exactly what The Polkaholics are all about, and for one night the music of these two musical legends will collide head on. Admission is $5.00 and festivities will begin at 9:00 p.m.

Released as a CD in 2009, "Wally!" tells the story of Li’l Wally’s rise to Chicago polka glory and Florida sunset in polka-rock opera form, with storied-songs like "Son of a Gun Polka," "Division Street," "Sea and Sand Polka," "King of Happiness," and more.

From a boy singing with polka bands at Caldwell Woods to being featured on the Lawrence Welk show and playing for the Pope at the Vatican, Li’l Wally was the Horatio Alger of polka and "Wally!" immortalizes his amazing journey.

Dandy Don (Hedeker), the founder of The Polkaholics, has a connection to both of his heroes, Li’l Wally and Johnny Thunders. It was on August 1, 1980, on Li’l Wally’s 50th birthday, that Johnny Thunders played Don’s Dan Armstrong lucite guitar at a Gang Wars show at Tuts, which was located on the southeast corner of Belmont and Sheffield Aves in Chicago. Gang Wars was a short-lived supergroup that featured Johnny Thunders and Wayne Kramer.

Then, in 1999, Don Hedeker brought Li’l Wally back from his semi-retirement in Florida to play a show with The Polkaholics at Zakopane Lounge on the old "Polish Broadway," Division Street between Ashland and Western Aves., Chicago, which is where Li’l Wally made his fame in the 1940s and 1950s.