Mainstreet Radio’s Catherine Winter presents a profile of the band, Conga Se Menne. The group from Upper Peninsula of Michigan utilizes some bongos, steel drums, and a tropical beat. They call their music Finnish reggae. The reggae beat is surprisingly similar to the Finnish schottish and soca is not far from a polka.
Many residents in northern Minnesota are descended from Finns, who must have seen some similarities to their chilly homeland when they came to work the mines and log the forests near the shores of Lake Superior. A lot of the mining towns are poor now, surrounded by pits where no one is digging anymore. But somehow this tough ground has grown a tropical flower.
Segment includes music clips
Transcripts
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CATHERINE WINTER: The guys in Conga Se Menne used to play rock and roll at bars and wedding receptions around Michigan's Upper Peninsula. But they say they got tired of playing songs like Proud Mary. And one day, lead singer Derrell Syria got an idea.
DERRELL SYRIA: I used to play my grandfather's 78s all the time. And I got into the old marches and the Finnish schottisches. And I don't know when I realized that these two rhythms were running parallel. But I started experimenting. And I came up with the first song that I ever wrote that was like a Finnish reggae tune was "Come-a Take-a Sauna." And from that moment on, we were hooked as far as blending these two styles together.
[CONGA SE MENNE, "COME-A TAKE-A SAUNA"]
(SINGING) So come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a take a sauna with me
We get the steam go
And jump in the snow
It would be much neater if I beat you with a cedar bow
It makes the blood flow
Yeah, yeah, don't you know
CATHERINE WINTER: Saunas find their way into a lot of Conga Se Menne songs. So do hunting and fishing and other aspects of life on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or UP, the little strip of Michigan attached to Wisconsin and nearly surrounded by lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan. The UP is a remote place of beautiful forests, fishing resorts, grim little towns, and bitter winters. Percussionist Les Ross says the band decided to turn tropical partly because of the UP's weather.
LES ROSS: The past two years in a row, we've set records for the most snowfall one year on top of the other. And a few years prior to that, we set a record for the coldest winter on record. So you need to do something to keep warm. We take a lot of saunas and things like that. But that only goes so far. So music helps, especially Caribbean and Latin style stuff where the music comes from where palm trees grow.
CATHERINE WINTER: Ross says the band is also trying to keep Finnish heritage alive. They play some traditional schottisches and polkas with a little bongo in the background. Sometimes Derrell Syria's mother sits in on fiddle, and Les Ross's father, Les Ross, Sr., plays harmonica. The older Ross brought the house down at a recent gig in Ironwood, Michigan, where he stood between two plastic palm trees wearing a blue ball cap and played the "Sakkijarven Polka."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Les Ross, Sr., has spent his whole life on the UP. He says he learned to play traditional Finnish tunes when he was a little boy.
LES ROSS SR: Both my grandfathers used to bring me harmonicas. They were competing. I'll get you a better one. I'll get you a better one. So I must have been maybe four or five when I first started.
CATHERINE WINTER: Ross says he didn't get interested in reggae music until his son started playing it. But now he likes the blend of Finnish and reggae styles.
LES ROSS SR: For one thing, the Finnish schottische is a comparable beat. It's not quite as a reggae style, but it's close to it.
CATHERINE WINTER: Members of the band say they've seen older people dancing the schottische to their reggae songs. Les Ross, Jr., says it's fun to see the broad range of ages in crowds that come to see Conga Se Menne in concert halls and at festivals.
LESS ROSS, JR: We'll do some soka or calypso type styles. And some of the older folks in particular, what they'll end up doing like a polka to this type of music. But their hips are swaying a little bit more.
(SINGING) Pocket full of crawlers
Handful of leeches
Yes, I'm going fishing
It's my lucky day
Finnish reggae, that's just one of the forms of music we do. Our music has been coined as Northern Ireland rock, for example, or tropical sauna beat. So because all of it is in reggae, we borrow from some Jamaican type elements. But there are many other islands that we borrow the music from, too, including La Trinidad and Cuba. The beats and the rhythms are more tropical than anything else.
CATHERINE WINTER: Ross says the band is starting to take off. It's getting some radio play, and it's cut a couple CDs. Lately, Ross has been working on a CD of his dad's traditional harmonica playing, with some of the Conga Boys playing backup. Ross calls it alternative schottische. But for now, the Conga Boys are keeping their day jobs. One washes dishes, one teaches music, one is an electrician at a mine.
Singer Derrell Syria drives a bus. But he's still writing songs about life on the UP, about breaking down on a back road or drinking beer on a rock on Lake Superior, or trapping weasels with a guy named Eino. I'm Catherine Winter, Mainstreet Radio.
[CONGA SE MENNE, "ME AND EINO"]
(SINGING) Me and Eino been living in a shack on the highway number 7
We been trapping the weasel in the Bettegott Plains since we been the age of 11
We got a lord of the pack with the number two traps
Got the bait and the hatchet and the pliers
We got to put on the long johns, pull up the waders
A little bit of matches for the fire
I got the beaver castors
He got that old mink scent
It's not the porky we're after
It's all the good time that we spent
Here on the skid roads
From Pelkie to Kiva
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
We got to flesh up the belts and stretch them on aboard
Haul them to the big first station
Pick up a ticket for a big city bus
Go Green Bay for vacation
We gotta go to the shack and we drink a little jack
Got the turkey and the biscuits and the coffee
Put on the Marley, light up the pipe
Sharpen the ax for the chopping
I got the beaver casters
He got that old big scent
It's not the porky we're after
It's all the good times that we spent
Eating all the sweet rolls
From Pelkie to Kiva
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
I got the beaver casters
He got that old mink scent
It's not the porky we're after
It's all the good times that we spent
Here on the skid roads
From Pelkie to Kiva
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
Being in a band, living in a shack on the highway number seven
We been trapping the weasel in the Bettegott Plains since we been the age of 11
We load up the back with the number two traps
Got the bait in the hatchet and the pliers
We gotta put on the long johns, pull up the waders
A little bit of matches for the fire
I got the beaver casters
He got that old mink scent
It's not the porky after
It's all the good times that we spent
Here on the skid roads
From Pelkie to Kiva
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line
Just me and Eino down on the old trap line