Loose Ends

"Oh my friends it's springtime again, buds are swelling on every limb"

- from Dillon Bustin's "Gardening"

Well, another Contratopia season has come to a satisfying conclusion. The farmers among us are farming and contra dance music takes a bit of a back seat for a while. We did close the season with a bang by playing a cool wedding dance at the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul which included an expanded band for the last couple of sets.

In April, shortly after the previous post, we had the great pleasure of being joined by our friend Ken Steffenson on fiddle (on very short notice) to play both a mostly-waltz afternoon session and the evening contra dance at Tapestry after Erik called in sick with "the plague". Ken did a great job and we really had fun playing with him.

Linda Breitag finished out the season with us by playing the always-fun Earth Day contra at Carleton College and the above-mentioned wedding. We really enjoyed getting to play with Linda more often this past season, and we look forward to more gigs with her in the future.

Even though it's only June it's not too soon to begin looking ahead to next season. In September and October we have two Major Wedding Events in the Contratopia family. More on these to come. Next March, thanks to Ted Hodapp's highly organized booking efforts, we will be making another visit to our favorite DC area dance spots: Glen Echo, Glenside and Shepherdstown. Beyond that we have some openings.

So, if you are looking for a really good contra dance band next winter or spring give us a holler and we might be able to work something out.

Why Ted Flies

Why indeed? If you'd really like to know, you can stop by Tapestry on Saturday night and ask him yourself.

It was just a little over a year ago that we last had the pleasure of touring with Ted Hodapp. You can check some of the blog posts from last April to get a sense of what we were up to then. Our last dance together would have been at the Glen Echo Sunday night contra but I suspect we ended the evening by watching a couple of episodes of Shaun the Sheep at Ted's place afterwards.

In any event we're all looking forward to meeting up with Ted again on Saturday and we can promise that a good time will be had by all. We are also playing a mostly waltz dance from 3-5 in the afternoon that should be a lovely way to spend part of an almost-spring afternoon.

This will be our last outing of the season with Erik on fiddle but we will also be playing the following Friday at Carleton College in Northfield with Linda Breitag as part of their Earth Day celebration.


Finally, all of you mandolin players are invited to stop by during any of these dances and take a look at my new Pomeroy flattop mandolin. Don Paine has created a beautiful instrument at an extremely reasonable price and I'm very happy to be one of the first owners of this new model. Here's a link to short recording of me playing the new instrument: (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=40787&d=1238859035)

Hope to see you soon.

New Additions

Contratopia has added a couple of additional dances to its current season thanks to our good friend, fiddler Linda Breitag. Linda allowed a "Pat O'Loughlin and friends" gig at Tapestry last Saturday (March 21) to become a Contratopia dance by subbing for Erik Sessions (who was busy with more important matters, see below). She is also going to join us at Carleton College on April 24 as part of their Earth Day celebration and at a private function in May. We are always delighted to have Linda join us and last week's dance was an especially good one. You can ask caller Beau Farmer to confirm that if you want. He'll tell you all about it.

Another addition to the larger Contratopia world has been the publication of my new tunebook "31 Waltzes" (http://www.contratopia.com/mtopia/31waltzes.htm). I'm pleased with how the collection turned out and, if you enjoy playing waltzes, I think there are lots of tunes you might find interesting. You can check out the website if you are curious and order using Paypal, or you can email me.

The most important addition to the Contratopia family, however, is Nina Stella Sessions, Erik and Sara's new baby girl! Born earlier this month, Nina joins her sisters Meg and Mairi as future fiddlers of Contratopia Land and organic farmers in training.

Just about a year ago at this time the band was out East having a great time. Just tonight, from my hotel room here in New Harmony, Indiana, I stumbled across a Flickrstream of photos from the dance we played on April 5, 2008 in Shepherdstown, WV. Here's the link:
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/akaelainesk/sets/72157611792636112/)
Many thanks to akaelainesk for sharing these excellent photos!

Thanks to the wonder of Ted Hodapp we have just recently arranged to return to Shepherdstown during the first weekend of April next year, 2010. We always love playing in that hall and the cool people who dance there. Something to look forward to....

Finally, don't forget that we'll be reuniting with Ted on April 18th at Tapestry for what promises to be a really fun time. Hope to see you there!

Bozeman to Northfield to Minneapolis

Here are a few photos from our recent time in Bozeman. Thanks to Pat O'Loughlin for sharing his artistry (and the photos too).

The new President had to cancel at the last minute but we honored him with an inaugural ball anyway. Here's Cis Hinkle asking for a few million to support contra dancing in the new economic stimulus bill.

Below is a good shot of our new friends, Fiddlerats, heating up the hall.



Our buddy Rab took several great photos of the band in action, at the risk of his own life and limb. I'm still not sure how he managed the shot of Patrice but it's a great angle on her nimble fingers.








On Friday Erik and I will drive up to Northfield and meet Patrice and Pat for another great Winter dance. Robin Nelson will once again be our caller. We may even have some special guests show up to play a few tunes.

Saturday we will have a reunion with one of our earliest caller pals, Carol Ormand, at Tapestry. My understanding is that there may be some sword dancing and a short hambo lesson during the break that night. This should be a ton of fun and I hope that some of you can attend.

Frosted Hair

Ditto to all of John's comments. Thank you to Mary the high school oboist from Bozeman who made us sound especially good on John's waltz Last Call at Hawley-Cooke on Saturday night. Such a sweet sound! Good luck at college next year, Mary!

One highlight John neglected to mention (because he sensibly stayed back for some rest and down time) was the trip to Norris Hot Spring on Sunday afternoon for an exciting soak in the outdoors with temps near 0 degrees F. Except for the 3 minutes before and after getting in the hot water, it was a wonderfully toasty experience. No heated changing rooms or toilets made for the quickest changes ever. Whew! I'd never seen "frosted hair" like this. The freezing steam made for cool, crunchy hair. There is a small geodesic dome with a clear plastic front on it on one end of the pool. It houses live folk music at times (not while we were there) that gets piped out to the pool. How amazing is that! Even though we were jolted by the news that we forgot our towels at home, Rab magically teased some from the management. We look forward to more good times with all the great folks out there!

Back from Bozeman

What a time we had! The Wintergreen dance weekend folks were the perfect crowd for our music, even though this was our third time playing for this event. It was our first chance to work with the remarkable Cis Hinkle and I have to say that we hit it off right away. Cis is a very musical caller who exudes energy and confidence and was open to anything we wanted to try. We also got to play more than the usual number of square dances and we had several opportunities to turn Patrice loose on old-time oboe and even (God forbid!) piano.

As much fun as we had working with Cis we had nearly as much fun listening (and dancing) to Fiddlerats (for this weekend, Caroline McCaskey, Cole Ingraham & Eric Anderson). They are wonderful players and every set they played was exciting. Caroline, Cole and Eric were also very open to collaboration and some of the highlights of the weekend involved them joining with us for a few special numbers. I should also mention that Fiddlerats has an excellent CD for sale titled Contraband.

During the post-dinner concert on Saturday night Caroline and Cole came up to add percussive spice to Pat's great tune "Two Bits" (formerly know as "Pat's African Tune") and then Eric joined us for a special one-time-only take on Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba". We had two fiddles, oboe, flute, concertina, guitar on chords and piano playing the bass line. For me, the whole thing peaked late on Saturday night when I think we played one of the four or five best hours we've every played. Everything seemed to line up and it was great.

As always in Bozeman the hospitality was amazing. Oshi, Mark, all the folks on the committee, Mitchell Frey handling the sound, all the callers (there must have been at least a dozen) who came to study at Cis' feet, all the young fiddlers and musicians, the folks who came to our workshops, every single person was warm and friendly and made us feel great.

Special thanks, of course, go out to Rab, Mich, and the boys for taking us into their home again. This time even Sugar the dog was my pal. Also, a big hug to Oshi for loaning us a vehicle. This allowed Pat to take us on a death-defying journey up past Bridger Bowl on Friday morning and around to a delicious lunch in Livingston.

As always it was great to see former Decorah area resident Steve Marty and get to play a little music with him. One of the highlights of the weekend for me was jamming on my tune "Canny Crow" in the upstairs hallway of the Emerson with Steve on guitar, me on mando and the wonderful sound of two oboes. Steve's band Weatherwood has recently issued their first CD and will be a featured band at Wintergreen 2010. Their CD release party is this coming weekend at Equinox Theatre in Bozeman.

Just like last time Pat and Rab took tons of photos but I have none at this point. Hopefully we'll post a few of the better ones here in the near future. With luck we'll be invited back again someday!

Winter Flurries

It's a new year and we are gearing up for our winter flurry of music and travel. In two weeks (Jan. 17) Erik and I will drive up to Minneapolis for a full day of music: a band rehearsal, followed by a Mostly Waltz dance at Tapestry from 3-5 in the afternoon and a full-length contra at Tapestry in the evening.

This will be a kind of boot camp for the following weekend when Erik and I will drive to the MSP airport (notice a pattern here?) to meet Patrice and Pat for our flight to Bozeman. There we will spend 3 wonderful days (Jan. 23-25) playing, workshopping and jamming with our Montana friends at the Wintergreen Dance Weekend.

A month later, on Feb. 20, Erik and I will travel north again. This time to Northfield, where we will play with our musical better halves (halfs?) at the 3rd(?) annual Winter Stomp. This amounts to a short tour for the Decorah guys because we then will drive on to Minneapolis to play at Tapestry on the 21st. Hopefully Pat will lead us to a good old-time jam session that Saturday morning. Maybe we'll even get to visit the Pickin' Parlor or the Podium while we're in the Big Cities.

Since Decorah set an all-time record for December snowfall (no climate-change doubters here!) we fully expect January and February to co-operate with our travel plans and keep the roads and the airways clear for us. Hope to see you at some of these events. Stay warm.

Off to Minnesota

Tomorrow Erik and I will be heading up to join Patrice and Pat for a dance at Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis. We'll be joined once again by our pal, caller Robin Nelson. I think the last time we played at Tapestry was on March 15th, so it will be especially fun to visit one of our favorite places again.

The four of us had a reunion a few weeks ago when we played at the Northfield Armory for the annual Northfield Harvest Stomp but that seemed to come and go pretty quickly. We're slowly gearing up for our next visit to the Bozeman Wintergreen Dance Weekend in a couple of months and I think we are all really looking forward to seeing our Montana and Idaho friends in January.

On the local front, Erik and I are happy to be a part of a just-released, holiday CD project aimed at benefiting Helping Services for Northeast Iowa. It's a collection of tracks from a variety of local musicians that was put together by Benji Nichols and the folks at Inspire(d) Media and will available for sale at many local businesses.

Erik and I appear on a track that comes from a live recording of Decorah's annual Burning Bright holiday concert. Along with our good friend Beth Hoven Rotto (leader and fiddler of local legends, Foot-Notes) on piano and lap dulcimer, we play a set that begins with a waltz of mine titled "G for Gordy" and then segues into an adrenaline-fueled, near-train-wreck version of "Cold Frosty Morning." The waltz is titled for our old friend Gordy Macmasters who had passed away a few months before the concert.

(Beth, by the way, was the subject of a well-deserved feature article in the Fall 2008 issue of Fiddler Magazine.)

In the "small world" department I received a surprise phone call this week from an old music friend in Indiana, Tom Yeiser. We hadn't spoken for over 15 years (since our move to Iowa) but Tom is very active in the Bloomington, Indiana dance scene and owns and operates a recording studio (Sweet Owen Sound) that he built himself just west of town. This is Contratopia-relevant because years ago, when Erik was a youngster, Tom hosted Erik during a Pig's Eye Landing tour.

Hope to see you down the road...

October Surprise

No, none of us are running for office so there's no point in sharing skeletons from our closets or revealing our alien origins. In fact it's no surprise at all that we had a great time the other night playing the Friday night contra portion of the Minnesota Country Dance Weekend. Pat, Patrice and I were sorry that Erik couldn't join us but we had a delightful time with our buddy and fiddler extraordinaire, Linda Breitag.

Our good friend Sue Hulsether was our caller for the evening and she worked us pretty hard. The dancers clearly were having a good time and St. Paul's Sokol hall was jumping. It brought back fond memories of some of our earliest Contratopia gigs playing for the October weekends of days gone by.

A special treat came at the end of the evening when Amy and Maria from the wonderful Last Gaspe' were kind enough to join us for a couple of sets. I think we did a set with "Mason's Apron" and "Julia Delany" that was especially fun for me because I had a great seat to enjoy the twin fiddling of Linda and Maria.

We have added a few more dances for the spring to our schedule, thanks to our friends at Tapestry. It looks like we'll be playing Saturday night contras at Tapestry on Jan. 17, Feb. 21 and April 18, 2009. We will also be playing for afternoon mostly waltz sessions on Jan. 17 and April 18. [Note correction: original blogpost said April 25]

Our next dance will be at the Armory in Northfield, MN on Oct. 24 where Erik will lay down his hoe (is that a hoedown?) and rejoin the band for the annual Harvest Stomp! contra.

Hope to see you there.

The New Season

A lot of water has gone under the bridge here in Decorah since the last post. You can see some photos of Decorah's 500 year flood here, courtesy of decorahnews.com.

Despite more summer excitement than usual Contratopia's 2008-2009 season is coming together nicely. Here are the dates that we have so far:

August 26, 2008 (w/Linda Breitag on fiddle)
Contra dance as part of the Nine Nights of Music at the Minnesota History Center, St. Paul, MN (6:30-8:00 p.m., Robin Nelson calling)

Oct. 3, 2008 (w/Linda Breitag on fiddle)
Contra dance at The Minnesota Country Dance Weekend (details to follow)

October 24, 2008
Northfield Harvest Stomp! contra dance at the armory in Northfield, MN (Robin Nelson calling) (details to follow)

November 22, 2008
Contra dance (7:30-11:30) at Tapestry Folkdance Center, Minneapolis, MN

January 23-25, 2009
8th Annual Wintergreen Dance Weekend in Bozeman, Montana (w/Randy Miller's Celticladda and Cis Hinkle calling!)

February 20, 2009
Northfield Winter Stomp! contra dance at the armory in Northfield, MN (Robin Nelson calling) (details to follow)

All of these dances promise to be great fun but we are especially looking forward to our 3rd visit to beautiful Bozeman in January. The Wintergreen folks put on a wonderful weekend and the dancers there are some of the friendliest people you will ever meet. Now's the time to be making those January travel plans!

Here in Decorah the floodwaters are gone and tomorrow is the start of the annual Nordic Fest. Erik and I will doing a couple of gigs with our buddies Jim & Jody as Bear Creek Bluegrass. Thursday night we will play from 9-midnight in the courtyard of Sabor Latino and Friday we'll do a two hour set (I think from 4:00-6:00) somewhere on Water Street in one of the entertainment tents. If you are in town stop by and say hello.

Highlandville, Derby Day

On Saturday we will end our 2007-2008 season with what has become our traditional Derby Day Dance at the Highlandville schoolhouse. This gives me another chance to use Pat's beautiful photo which captures the venerable old building so well. We will be joined by the excellent caller David Kirchner and, we hope, many fine dancers from the Decorah area and beyond. Teaching at 7:30, dancing at 8:00.

Directions: From Decorah, take Locust Road (W38) about 11 miles, take a right on Big Canoe Road (A26), after about 3 miles turn left on Highlandville Rd. Go north about 2 miles to Highlandville and just after crossing the bridge over the creek turn left.

From the North, turn south off of Minn. Highway 44 onto county road 8, midway between Mabel and Spring Grove. This becomes Locust Road (W38) when you cross the state line into Iowa. Take a left on Big Canoe and follow the directions above.

Last Saturday we had lots of fun at Carleton College with Linda Breitag sitting in on fiddle. Robin Nelson called a great series of dances and the mostly college crowd kept us all energized. Since Linda doesn't know all of the original tunes we do this gave us a chance to play a few more traditional tunes than usual. Here's a list of what we played:

Angeline the Baker
Scollay's
Loaves and Fishes/Too Many Goats
Connaughtman's Rambles/The Kesh Jig
Fourth and Walnut/Steady On
Mason's Apron/Maggie in the Snow/Julia Delany
Red Wing
Benton's Dream
Morrison's/Cliffs of Moher
Motel Henri/Reel Eugene
La Bastringue

Waltzes: Mother's Day & Last Call at Hawley Cooke

Hope to see you on Saturday. If not, we'll catch you next fall.

Next Stop - Earth Day

I know that today is the real Earth Day but we will be in Northfield, MN on Saturday night to celebrate the Day at the 2nd Annual Earth Day Contra Dance held on the Carleton College campus. This should be another great time with Suzie and all the special folks who have come to the Harvest and Winter Stomps! over the last couple of years.

When is Contratopia not Contratopia? This is a riddle we've asked ourselves many times. Currently our consensus is that whenever three of us are gathered together for a dance (often with a guest fourth member, often a fiddler) and aren't calling ourselves something else then we are probably Contratopia. Clear enough?

On Saturday Pat, Patrice and I will gather with one of our favorite fiddlers, the remarkable Linda Breitag, to play in Northfield. I think I'm correct when I say that Linda was once a member of the St. Olaf Choir, so this will be a homecoming of sorts for her and a great pleasure for us. Hope you can make it.

Two Bits Tour, Day 4, pt. 2

Pat and Patrice (with the help of Patrice's generous husband-to-be, Al, and the resources of his amazing group, Five By Design) have collaborated to make 50 of Pat's photos from the tour available. While there are a few too many shots of me looking goofy (and too few shots of Pat, who was taking the photos) they are a lot of fun to see.

In the last entry the band had just finished the Sunday Waltz Time dance. This dance ends at 6:00 and the evening contra starts at 7:30 so there isn't a lot of time to go out looking for food. We solved the problem by calling in an order to a fine local Italian restaurant and having food delivered. This allowed us the chance to sit around and visit with old friends without the stress of wondering if we were going to be late getting to the gig.

The crowd at the Sunday Night Contra and Square Dance is usually a little smaller than the Friday night crowd but they sure know how to have a good time. I see that tonight, for instance, they will have the treat of dancing to the calling of our old friend Beth Molaro (source for the title of my jig "Bunch of Stuff") and the music of the legendary Rodney Miller and his Airdance Trio. I can't remember if Ted called any squares last week but I suspect that Beth will make up for any deficiency in that regard tonight.

It being the last dance of our tour we let out all the stops and had a great time with the Sunday night group. Five of the sets were tunes we hadn't played yet on the tour. By avoiding repetition we managed to sound pretty fresh even though we were a little tired. We did a better job with Pat's African Tune this time although I nearly crashed the whole dance by missing an important downbeat during the transition. All in all it was a great way to end the tour.

Here are the sets we played on Sunday night, April 5 in order:

Revelry Reel/French Sneakers/Maggie in the Rain
Manistique/Reel Eugene/Evil Diane
Timmy Clifford's/The Return Home/O'Keefe's (in D)
The Judge/Canny Crow
Whistling Britches/Riff City/Easy Club
Calliope House/Booth Shot Lincoln/It Ain't the Heat, It's the Humidity
Aly on the Plains/Hay to Market/Just 4 Guys
Black Squirrel Frisbee?/No Contest/Pat's African Tune
Mason's Apron/Maggie in the Snow/Julia Delany

Waltzes: Emma & The National Road

I thought both waltzes were especially lovely that night and Patrice played an absolutely gorgeous piano solo during National Road.

Thinking our adventures were over we headed back to Ted's for the most curious encounter of the whole tour. As we parked in front of the next door neighbor's house (who are really nice folks) they came out to greet us wondering if we knew anything about what you see below:


It seems that mysterious visitors had planted hundreds of plastic spoons in the yard. Our alibi was undeniable but a fun photo shoot ensued. Next morning, sadly, the spoons were all gone.

Finally here's a shot of us at DCA having exited the Metro and waiting for the shuttle to take us out to the Northwest terminal:


All's well that ends well. We're looking forward to our next visit sometime in the next couple of years. Hope to see you then!

Two Bits Tour, Day 4, Pt. 1

(Breakfast at Ted's, photo by Pat)

Sunday started with Ted fixing us a delicious breakfast of potato pancakes and eggs. We can't say enough how much we appreciate Ted's hospitality. More importantly we love the way he calls dances and his foot percussion really adds a strong fifth voice to the band. Plus it's great to have his excellent button box playing hambos during the breaks.

(Hambo Ted, photo by Pat)

We worked up a set list for the afternoon Glen Echo Waltz Time dance. We rarely plan ahead for contra dances but the Sunday afternoon waltz session needs a little forethought. We found time for a frisbee workout in the front yard before cramming back into the car for the windy drive to the park. This time we got to listen to Swap's (where is that little "o" diacritic?) great Du Da CD.

We were blessed with excellent sound persons at every stop on this tour but we knew that on Sunday we would get to work with Jamie Platt, one of our all time favorite guys. He had been working long shifts all weekend at the park but he made sure that we sounded great for both dances on Sunday.

(Waltz Time in action, photo by Pat)

Waltz Time is one of the favorite things we get to do. We have so many waltzes that we love to play and here we get the chance. The dancers are amazing to watch too. One of the highlights for me this time was getting to see how much fun the dancers had with Erik's rendition of the "Sakkijarven Polka" and the rare chance to get to hear Erik and Ted play two hambos. I only wish there had been time to play another 6 or 8 waltzes. Everything sounds so good in the ballroom.

Here are the tunes that I think we played on Sunday afternoon. The formula was three waltzes followed by a different kind of couples' dance.

1) Mother's Day
January Waltz (We've opened with these two almost every time we've played this dance.)
Alice's Garden
Red Wing polka

2) St. Louis Christmas
Last Call at Hawley-Cooke
Turning by Threes (first performance by the band)
Hambo no. 1

3) Favors Her Father
Ballroom Echoes
Ms. P's Waltz
Tango Argentino (We play it every time but it's a great tune.)

4) French Creek Waltz
Shaoxing Waltz
Evenings & Weekends
Unbelievable! as a swing tune

5) Aubrey and Andrew's Wedding
Smitten
Two Rivers
Hambo no. 2

6) The Highlandville Waltz
Steciak's
Spring Forward
Sakkijarven Polka

7) Bighorn River Sunset
Small Town Downtown (I think this was the final waltz.)

Two Bits Tour, Day 3

Saturday morning (not too early) Pat, Erik and I hiked up to one of my favorite music stores, The House of Musical Traditions, where we spent an hour or more making noise and enjoying the hospitality of the friendly HMT folks and their customers. Patrice had deserted us to visit with old friends and Ted enjoyed some time in his own house without a band making a racket. We then took a brief stroll along the lovely Sligo Creek on the long way back.

We regrouped and all piled back into the Tedmobile for our trip to Shepherdstown with a brief stop at the Manassas (or Bull Run) National Battlefield Park. Arriving in Shepherdstown with plenty of time for dinner we surveyed our options and ended up at Kazu Thai & Japanese Cuisine on the main drag. We won't go into details here about my deplorable taste in food. I'll simply point out that this was the first time I had ever dined in a Thai restaurant. That should tell you enough. Despite my reluctance I had a very enjoyable meal and I think the rest of the group really appreciated the fine food.

Then, of course, there was the dance. I love playing in the hall in Shepherdstown. It's intimate in all the best ways. We set up on floor level but we can still see everyone in the place most of the time. The dancers are a great mix of old and young and I can always tell that there are a few sharp musicians in the room who can probably play rings around me. We responded with some of our best playing of the tour and had a ball. This dance was particularly notable because we played what we've been calling "Pat's African Tune" for the first time in public. It was a good first try but it will get better.

The trip home took us up towards Frederick, Md. and included our first, and only, stop at a McDonald's just around midnight. This was, obviously, the opposite of our earlier dining experience but it did hit the spot. Back at the crib we enjoyed some of the antics of Shaun the Sheep and called it a morning.

Our new friend photographer Doug Plummer (see the last blog post) today sent a link to a Flickr site with some great photos of Friday night's dance at Glen Echo. I especially like the shot of Patrice and the piano. Thanks a million Doug!

Here are the tunes that we played on Sat. night in Shepherdstown, WV:

Ain't Broke/Two Days to Maine
Revelry Reel/French Sneakers/Maggie in the Rain
Nail that Catfish to a Tree/Queen's Polka/Reel St. Antoine
What Spring/Knee High in December (jig & reel)
Waitin' for Nancy/Over the Waterfall/Squirrel Hunters
The Phoenix/Sheehan's/Shenandoah Falls
Reel St. Joseph/Star of Munster/Two-Legged Stool
Black Squirrel Frisbee?/No Contest/Pat's African Tune
Old French/Badlands All Night/Sand Island
Fair Jenny/Four Potatoes/Catharsis

Waltzes: Ms. P's Waltz & Aubrey and Andrew's Wedding

Two Bits Tour, Day 2

(Friday night, Glen Echo, photo by Doug Plummer?)

We slept in on Friday morning and after breakfast we unpacked instruments and proceeded to have one of our longest (and most fun) rehearsals in years. Tunes and more tunes until mid-afternoon. Patrice, Erik, Ted and I headed off to the Metro and down to the National Gallery of Art for a short visit, while Pat stayed behind to cook up a gourmet treat for us. Walking toward Union Station, near the Capitol, I was amazed to see of couple of tour buses belonging to Decorah's own Hawkeye Stages at a red light. It's a small world indeed.

After Pat's delicious cooking we left Hodapp Manor for Glen Echo Park and the Friday Night Dance. Ted always programs great music for us in the car and this time we listened to a live recording by the fabulous Horse Flies. Very inspiring stuff.

Before the dance started we were approached by friendly and polite photographer Doug Plummer who said he'd like to take some pictures. He's working on a book of contra dance photos, among other things, and we were pleased to find ourselves the subject of his Daily Photo for April 4. In another "small world" moment we discovered that he is also doing some photo work for Decorah's own Luther College, my employer in the real world.

The dance itself was great. Over 280 of the nicest dancers on the planet in one of the finest ballrooms anywhere. We always have a great time playing at Glen Echo. After returning to Ted's we were treated to a couple of episodes of Shaun the Sheep before calling it a night.

Here are the tunes we played on Friday, pretty much in order:

La Bastringue (circle mixer)
Loaves and Fishes/Too Many Goats/Fourth & Walnut
Ross' Reel/Cornutopia/Happy Ears
Palisades/Christmas Past/Fairbanks
Sandy River Belles/Liza Jane/Rockabye Baby
Sweetbriar/What You Got There/Scandy Twist
Hogwart's Express/Colored Aristocracy/Steady On
Fenstermann's Surprise/Stumpy/Bunch of Stuff
Ain't Broke/Two Days to Maine/Squirrel Hunters
All Fall Down/Flying Home to Shelley
Waitin' for Nancy (post-dance clogging tune)

Waltzes: French Creek Waltz & Last Call at Hawley Cooke

Almost Home Away From Home

There's always another view of any band experience, although I can ditto most of what John said about our DC escapade. Not only do I look forward to playing with my favorite dance musicians, I get to pick up so many new jokes from Ted. I love seeing friends we've made from previous tours and it starts to feel like we're at home in our DC home. I wouldn't mind if Ted's couch was about a foot longer so I could stretch out for sleeping, but better me than my taller companions! Actually I sleep amazingly well out there. Maybe it's from exhaustion - or the Dramamine I used pre-emptively to counter all those curves and hills on the way to Shepherdstown, not to mention the "back ways" to Glen Echo.

The cherry blossoms totally cooperated and stayed on the trees while we were there, in spite of rain. What a thrill! And I love getting to visit my old friend, Deb Anderson in Kensington. We talked weddings since she just got married a couple years ago and I just got engaged a couple weeks ago. Deb and I are both the same age (which I won't reveal, but Al and I call ourselves Geezers in Love, so that's a hint). Check out Al's vocal group Five By Design at www.fivebydesign.com. Deb's husband Richard made the best peach pancakes!

I never tire of seeing the dancers cruising around the floor. The waltz afternoon is a particularly mesmerizing experience and I find ways of playing a tune that are inspired by watching them. Thank you to all the great dancers we experienced.

And if 284 people dancing in one area (Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo) isn't enough, try having a dance just a few feet away at the same time for some jiving swing dancers on Friday in the Bumper Car Pavillion and Cajun on Sunday night. The dance energy was off the scale! I've stored up some of it to help me ease back into everyday life at home - which includes getting those dang tax returns done. See you at the dance!

Two Bits Tour, Day 1

(Erik & Ted play a hambo during the break. Photo by Pat O'Loughlin)

Erik drove in from the farm and picked me up at 5:30. We met Patrice at the Minneapolis airport about 4 hours later and soon were settled in our luxury (not) seats for the flight to DCA. My guitar and mandolin flew first class though, thanks to a friendly Northwest employee who stowed them in an empty bin up front. Ted and Pat (who had flown out two days early) met us at the baggage claim and we started our trip to Philly.

We grabbed a tasty dinner at the Glenside Pub, home of memorable sessions in the past, and made it to the hall on time (for a change). The Glenside dance is one of our favorites and April 3 was a good night for us. It seemed like we didn't need a lot of warming up and instead went straight to full throttle. It helped that our old pal Scott Higgs was handling sound and Ted was telling some of the best jokes ever (OK, that's a lie).

A big treat for me was discovering the new Tuneadelphia! tunebook for sale at the door. This is a great collection of tunes composed by folks associated with the local SPUDS group and is beautifully printed with excellent notes and illustrations. Kudos to compiler/editor Sarah Gowan and her crew of contributors. If you are looking for new tunes you definitely should get one.

When the dance fun was done we loaded back into the Tedmobile and hit the turnpike. A long, late drive back to Takoma Park with exhausted, aging musicians (and the everyoung Erik). I think this was the drive where we listened to a CD of one of our spiritual guides, David Sedaris. Finally we made it to Ted's place and set up camp for the weekend.

Here are the tunes we played that Thursday, not necessarily in order.

Waitin for Nancy/Over the Waterfall
Loaves and Fishes/Too Many Goats/Fourth & Walnut
Bay of Fundy/Maid Behind the Bar/Mouth of the Tobique
Manistique/Reel Eugene/Evit Gabriel
Mason's Apron/Maggie in the Snow/Julia Delany
Sweetbriar/What You Got There/Scandy Twist
Two Lieutenants/Sledding at Walnut Ridge/Emory's Crossing
Palisades/Christmas Past/Fairbanks
Road to Bangor/Eager to Please/La Maison de Glace
Angeline the Baker/Scollay's/Liberation

Waltzes: Alice's Garden & Ballroom Echoes

Heading East

About this time one week from tonight we'll have just finished playing for a dance in Glenside, PA. The first of five dances that we'll play in four days in the mid-Atlantic region. A week from tomorrow we'll play the Friday Night Dance at Glen Echo, MD and the night after that we'll drive (in Ted Hodapp's luxurious chariot) over to Shepherdstown, WV for their Sat. night dance. On Sunday April 6 we'll finish our dance flurry by playing (again at Glen Echo) for both the Waltz Time folks in the afternoon and the Sunday Night Dance folks in the evening. On Monday we'll hop on a plane, weary but joyful, for Minneapolis and a return to normalcy. No doubt Ted will sleep soundly Monday night! If you are in that part of the world please come out and dance and say hello.

A big Thank You goes out to Erik's Aunt Nikki, the president of our Swedish fan club and owner/operator of Nikki's Place. Following her suggestion I have upgraded this blog a little. The main new feature is the nifty email subscription option from Feedblitz. If you don't use a feed reader but still want to know when we add entries here you can sign up through this widget and it is supposed to send you an email. Let us know if you try it and it doesn't work.

I've also added a photo under the blog title. For now it's a shot I took of our dog Suzy during a hike last year at Effigy Mounds National Monument. I've also added a photo of the band and Ted huddled around the statue of Franklin Roosevelt's dog, Fala, taken during our last visit to D.C. in November of 2006.

We are all looking forward to next week's music and dance and hope to see some of you soon!

St. Patrick's weekend at Tapestry

We had a busy day on Saturday, the official Vatican-sanctioned St. Patrick's day, at Tapestry in Minneapolis. We played both an afternoon Mostly Waltz dance and the regular evening contra dance. In between, Pat and Margie treated the band to a special dinner at their place.

The afternoon session wasn't overly crowded but the band and the dancers had a great time. We got to play a number of new waltzes (and even a new hornpipe turned schottische) and could really hear ourselves well. A very nice warmup for the much larger Waltz Time dance we'll be playing at Glen Echo in a couple of weeks.

The evening contra was nicely crowded and very high energy. Thanks to Patrice's inspiration we played more Irish tunes than usual (replacing some of our regular tunes in sets with similar traditional tunes) and really enjoyed it. We even closed the evening with a nice rendition of Planxty Irwin.

Back in February when we had a little time on Saturday afternoon Erik, Pat and I recorded a few tunes at Patrice's house while she was off earning a living. Here are a couple of mp3s from that afternoon:

We don't pretend to be an Irish traditional music band but we all love that music. This version of Sheehan's is loose but I think it has a good feeling to it.

We also played a sloppy but very fun version of Queen's Polka. It features Erik letting loose a little and shows some nice give and take between Erik and Pat. My guitar harmonization is sometimes OK and sometimes a little less than that but it doesn't stop the tune from being fun for me to listen to.

Here are some of the tunes we played at the Mostly Waltz session on Saturday afternoon. Like we do at Glen Echo we played 3 waltzes followed by a different couples' dance.

1) Mother's Day, January Waltz, Alice's Garden, Off to California (as a schottische, with my Off to Minnesota sandwiched between)
2) St. Louis Christmas, Last Call at Hawley-Cooke, The National Road, and a mystery hambo (Erik knows the names of the hambos but I don't)
3) Aubrey and Andrew's Wedding, Ballroom Echoes, Ms. P's Waltz, Riding on a Load of Hay (polka)
4) French Creek Waltz, Shaoxing Waltz, Evenings and Weekends, Tango Argentino
5) Two Rivers, Everybody Wins-Everybody Loses, The Highlandville Waltz, All of Me (swing)
6) Bighorn River Sunset, Steciak's, Bob's Angels (world premiere), another hambo?
7) Spring Forward (another world premiere), South of France (not sure if there were any more tunes after this)

At the evening dance we played some of these sets and tunes (not necessarily in this order):

Loaves and Fishes/Too Many Goats/Fifth and Walnut
Aly on the Plains/Hay to Market/Just 4 Guys
Angeline the Baker/Scollay's/Liberation
Bay of Fundy/Maid Behind the Bar/Mouth of the Tobique
Mason's Apron/Maggie in the Snow/Julia Delany
The Judge (Larry Unger) for a square dance, I think
Two Lieutenants/Sledding at Walnut Ridge/Emory's Crossing
Sweet Music/Why Ted Flies/Smash the Windows
All Fall Down/Flying Home to Shelly
another jig set that started with The Kesh Jig (a Ctopia first) and had a D modal jig in the middle and ended with Road to Lisdoonvarna

Waltzes: Favors Her Father, G for Gordy, Planxty Irwin

Big Fun in Northfield and the Twin Cities

Here's a nice video (thanks to Griff Wigley) from last Friday's dance at the Armory in Northfield. You can see that Robin Nelson is doing an amazing job of directing a lot (a blizzard? an avalanche?) of energy and the dancers are having a great time. There are even a couple of seconds of rare video of Contratopia at play at the very start. The first half of the video has us playing the classic "Ross' Reel" and the second half finds us playing one of my newer tunes called "Ain't Broke". Griff also has made available an excellent album of photos from the Winter Stomp! Thanks, Griff!

The next day was full of big city fun. Pat made sure that Erik and I were up and out of the house in time to get a good seat at the old-time jam at what I think is the Artist Blend coffee house on University near Raymond. I won't drop names but, once there, we got to play great tunes and hang out with some of the finest old-time musicians anywhere. Great music, great people. Stop by some Saturday morning and see for yourself. Thanks to everyone at the jam for making us feel at home!

A delicious lunch (well, breakfast for Erik) followed at the original Keys restaurant just around the corner. Then we rushed to Patrice's place for an afternoon of rehearsal and learning new tunes. This followed by a light but excellent supper at El Norteno on Lake St.

Saturday night was another fun dance at Tapestry. Bob provided especially fine sound for us and Steve joined us on harmonica for a couple of sets near the end. Robin was our caller for the second night in a row and she did her usual stellar job of keeping things interesting and fun. Best of all we get to return in less than three weeks for both a waltz afternoon and a contra evening.

For the record here is a list of the tune sets that I can remember us playing at one or the other dance. These aren't in order and I don't think we repeated any sets but the first group I think were Friday sets and the second group Saturday ones.

Flowers of Edinburgh (for a teaching dance on Friday, our first ever use of one of my favorite James Oswald tunes)
Mason's Apron/Maggie in the Snow/Julia Delaney
Angeline the Baker/Milk Run/Liberation
The Phoenix/Sheehan's/Shenandoah Falls
Ain't Broke/Two Days to Maine
Ross' Reel/Cornutopia/Happy Ears
Road to Bangor/Eager to Please/La Maison de Glace
Sandy River Belles/Liza Jane/Rockabye Baby
Waitin' for Nancy/Over the Waterfall
Calliope House/Booth Shot Lincoln/It Ain't the Heat, It's the Humidity


Dunn Meadow/Canny Crow
Nail that Catfish to a Tree/Queen's Polka/Reel St. Antoine
Reel St. Joseph/Star of Munster/2-Legged Stool
Palisades/Christmas Past/Fairbanks
Aly on the Plains/Hay to Market/Just 4 Guys
Soft Shoulder/Cowboy Jig/All the Rage
Hogwart's Express/Aristocracy/Steady On
Sweetbriar/What You Got There/Scandy Twist

Waltzes:
Alice's Garden (new for us)
The National Road
Dacie's House/Judy and Jim's Wedding
South of France
Aubrey and Andrew's Wedding
Last Call at Hawley-Cooke (world premiere)

One Week To Go

About this time next Friday we'll be packing up our gear after playing at the 2nd Annual Northfield Winter Stomp! That dance will be the first leg of our February Winter Dance Weekend Tour that will conclude the next night at Tapestry in Minneapolis. Hopefully this year the weather will cooperate.

Tonight, Decorah's own Scandinavian-American dance band Foot-Notes was in Northfield with their wonderful blend of fiddle, mandolin, guitar & bass and old-time schottisches, waltzes, two-steps and polkas. Tomorrow night, here in Decorah, Erik and I will play with our local Western Home String Band for a regular contra dance with Bill Deutsch doing the calling.

Hope to see you at one or more of these events!

Seems Like Old Times...

The whole gang convened at the Tapestry Folkdance Center last Saturday night for our first dance there since April 28, 2007. We had a ball. A big crowd of enthusiastic dancers, including many beginners, seemed to have an excellent time. Beau Farmer did a great job of integrating the newcomers and praising the veterans for helping them along. We had the special pleasure of being joined for two dances by the extraordinary David Edminster on tenor sax. He tore the place up on Pat O'Loughlin's slinky tune "Cement Donkey"! We'll be back at Tapestry in Feb., March and May.

We will gather next in Northfield, MN on Friday Feb. 22 for the 2nd annual Northfield Winter Stomp! from 7-10:30 at the Northfield Armory. (Click here for photos from last year's Stomp!) Robin Nelson will be calling with us that night and will also be with us at Tapestry the following night. In addition, Robin is teaching a series of contra dance lessons in Northfield starting on Friday Jan. 25. A great opportunity to learn from the best!

It occurred to me that it might be fun to try to keep a record of the tunes we play at our dances, kind of like fans keep track of setlists from the concerts of their favorite bands. Here are some of the sets that we played last Sat., not necessarily in order.

Old French/Badlands All Night/Sand Island
Revelry Reel/French Sneakers/Maggie in the Rain
Timmy Clifford's/The Return Home/O'Keefe's Slide (D major)
Aly on the Plains/Hay to Market/Just 4 Guys
Angeline the Baker/Milk Run/Liberation
Temperence Reel/Bay of Fundy/Mouth of the Tobique
Dunn Meadow/Canny Crow (with a quick "Pop Goes the Weasel" in the middle)
Cement Donkey/Moss Don't Grow (with David on sax)
Reel St. Joseph/Star of Munster/Two-Legged Stool (with David on sax)
Palisades/Christmas Past/Fairbanks

Waltzes:
St. Louis Christmas
January 12, 2008 (world premiere)
Favors Her Father

Change of Plans

There's some good news/bad news regarding our 2008 calendar. First, the Bad. It turns out that we won't be playing at Tapestry in April after all. Our apologies if you've planned your vacation around this dance and already booked your flight. These things happen.

The Good News is that we will be playing a Mostly Waltz dance at Tapestry sometime during the afternoon on March 15. This will be followed by the already scheduled contra that evening. I know that's the Ides of March but I've already consulted with the experts and the omens are good.

Hope you are enjoying your holidays.

Let Me Count the Ways...

Realizing that this week is the start of the Shopping, er "Holiday", Season I thought I'd take a minute to note some of the many ways that Contratopia's recorded music can be found. I realize that almost everybody who reads this blog probably has all three of our commercial recordings, but you never know. It could be that the spirit of giving might lead you to want to share some of our recordings in either a physical (CD in a jewel case with booklet and liner notes, etc.) or a purchased digital form with a whole slew of your friends and neighbors. What better surprise for those music and dance lovers on your list? If that is the case then here are some of the ways you can get from here to there.

1. All of the band members can supply you with CDs. Just get in touch and we can fix you up. Or send me an order form from our website. I'm not certain but I think that the Homestead Pickin' Parlor in Minneapolis might have a few CDs in the shop also. CyberYankee's Contracopia website also can supply you with both Smitten and Hands Four and the folks at Great Meadow Music can fix you up with Smitten as well.

2. Our friends at CD Baby can send you our CDs and many other excellent recordings by people we either know or admire (sometimes both). You can see our page here and you might note the special discount for ordering multiple copies of a title. While CD Baby takes a cut of the purchase price in exchange for their great service we still love to sell CDs through them because it's easier than going to the post office. Also you can use your favorite credit card to pay.

3. In the digital realm you can listen to and purchase our recordings from most of the major vendors. There are separate iTunes pages for Smitten, Ballroom Echoes and Hands Four and I should note that iTunes fans have been very good to us. You can listen to, and purchase, all of our tracks at Rhapsody.com and over 50 other online services too.

4. Of special note is the new MP3 sales option direct from CD Baby. We have priced both Smitten and Hands Four at only $9 for the complete albums and Ballroom Echoes at only $6. If MP3 is your preference then this is a great way to go.

So, until we get that next CD recorded (and your guess is as good as mine), these are some of the ways to purchase what we've managed to record so far. Hopefully we'll see many of you at some of our upcoming dances in the new year and your holiday season will be a good one.

Northfield Harvest Stomp!

Just days away from the start of our new season on Friday, October 26 from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at the Northfield Armory, 519 Division Street in downtown Northfield. Details here.

So far the weather looks promising (we don't want to make snow storms a regular part of our visits to the Armory) and our anticipation is building. Can we still play? Do we remember any tunes? Which mandolin will John bring?

Erik and I played our local dance here in Decorah last night with our Western Home String Band friends and seemed to be able to manage a few tunes OK. In fact a lot of the playing was pretty darn good. Rob, Mike, David and young Ben all did a great job of keeping the train on the track despite our best efforts to confuse them.

Hope some of you can make it to the dance on Friday. Otherwise we'll hope to see you at Tapestry during the winter, or maybe out East in April. Here's the full schedule in case you haven't memorized it yet:

2007/2008 Season: When & Where

October 26, 2007
Contra dance in Northfield, MN (details to follow)

January 12, 2008
Contra dance (7:30-11:30) at Tapestry Folkdance Center, Minneapolis, MN

February 22, 2008
Contra dance in Northfield, MN (details to follow)

February 23, 2008
Contra dance (7:30-11:30) at Tapestry Folkdance Center, Minneapolis, MN

March 15, 2008
Contra dance (7:30-11:30) at Tapestry Folkdance Center, Minneapolis, MN

April 3-6, 2008
Mid-Atlantic Tour 2008 (w/Ted Hodapp): Glenside, PA (3rd); Glen Echo, MD (4th); Shepherdstown, WV (5th);
Glen Echo, MD (6th, afternoon waltz & evening contra)

April 19, 2008
Contra dance (7:30-11:30) at Tapestry Folkdance Center, Minneapolis, MN

May 3, 2008
Contra dance at the Highlandville Schoolhouse, north of Decorah, IA

May 17, 2008
Contra dance (7:30-11:30) at Tapestry Folkdance Center, Minneapolis, MN

CD Baby Gets It Right

Our good friends at CD Baby are now in the business of selling mp3 downloads of our (and thousands of other) CDs. They have already been making our music available for download from most of the major vendors (iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster, etc.) for a few years but now they are offering full CD downloads direct from the CD Baby site.

Why buy direct from CD Baby? Let me count the ways. First, we get to set the price. So for now we are asking $9 each for Smitten and Hands Four and only $6 for Ballroom Echoes. Since CD Baby only keeps 9% of the sale price most of the money goes directly to us to pay for things like strings, instrument repair and shoes for the kids. Not for the Mercedes or shopping sprees in Paris. OK, sometimes we buy chocolate or maybe a pizza.

More important than price is the quality of what CD Baby is selling. You can go here to read the details but, basically, you will receive high-quality DRM-free mp3s, a JPG of the CD cover and a text file with info about the recording.

CD Baby is only selling complete CDs and not individual tracks so you will still need to visit our friends at iTunes, etc. if you really want to download a single set of tunes or a waltz.

By the way, we love it when our listeners buy our recordings in any format and I personally think that DRM is a bad, bad idea. You will definitely never be sued by us for enjoying our music!

YouTube-Northfield-Google Book Search Fun

Our good friends in Northfield have loaded a wonderful music slide show of photos from our Winter Stomp! dance in Northfield earlier this year. It features great photography set to our own recording of "Mason's Apron" followed by "Maggie in the Snow." If you haven't seen it yet check it out. We are actually in a couple of the photos but the focus, as it should be, is on the dancers.

In a little over a week Pat and Patrice will be half of a great band that will play at the St. Olaf College homecoming event and then Contratopia Proper will show up later in October for a Friday Harvest Stomp. Here's the announcement:

The Northfield Harvest Stomp!

Friday, October 26, 2007, 7:00 – 10:30 p.m.

A community contra dance at The Northfield Armory, 519 Division Street. Dance instruction 7:00 - 7:30 p.m. (recommended for all participants) followed by dancing to Contratopia and led by Robin Nelson. Admission: $9 adults, $6 students and youth under 18 ($20cap per family). No partner needed, and no previous dance experience necessary. Comfortable shoes and festive dance-ready attire recommended. All ages welcome, but participation in the main dance is recommended for children 10 years and older. (A dance area for younger children will be provided alongside the main dance area so that children can have fun dancing safely alongside the main dance.)

Finally, thanks to the ever-inventive folks at Google Book Search, here's a quote from:

A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen By Robert Chambers: "It is painful to hear some of the young ladies at our parties reddening with a kind of horror at being asked to join in a reel or country dance and simpering out "I can't dance reels -- they're vulgar; "

Thankfully, as the slide show above amply demonstrates, the ladies and gentlemen of today have no such concerns!

The Company We Keep

It's still a few weeks until the four of us (Pat, Patrice, Erik and me) get together for our first dance of the new season in Northfield. But when we aren't playing as Contratopia we each get to keep some pretty good company.

Down in Iowa Erik and I get to spend time with some mighty fine local musicians. In particular we play with our buddies Jim Skurdall and Jody Koenig as Bear Creek Bluegrass and with our local contra dance group the Western Home String Band.

Last Saturday we played with Western Home for a dance that was held as part of the new student orientation at Luther College. Bill Deutsch did a great job of calling this slightly chaotic event held in a nearly dark parking lot where several hundred energetic young students are mixing while eating free pizza. Campus pastor Mike Blair on guitar, professor David Ranum on English concertina (a Stagi Hayden Duet no less!) and student Ehler Orngard (of Ames' excellent Barn Owl Band) on fiddle and whistles joined Erik and me in supplying the tunes. On Saturday Sept. 15 most of us will drive out to the Highlandville schoolhouse for the first official Decorah contra dance of the season.

Tomorrow Erik and I are playing a wedding reception with Bear Creek (with Bill Musser substituting for Jody on bass) here in town. On Sept. 29 Bear Creek will be playing a barn dance for the Oneota Community Co-op, probably our last gig of our summer season.

Up in Minnesota Pat and Patrice are keeping fine company as well. I'm not sure exactly who is joining Pat in the Testostertunes (Testosterunes?) these days but it looks like they played last Sat. at the Tapestry Folkdance Center.

Pat, Patrice and our good friend, fiddler Ken Steffenson will be playing at a street dance somewhere in St. Paul on Thursday Sept. 20. And on the 29th Pat, Patrice and Ken will be joined by Ken's Danebodium bandmate Dan Leussler to play for the Harvest Festival held during Homecoming at St. Olaf College.

Going along with this theme I have posted an old home recording of a tune I titled "The Company You Keep" over on my So Many Tunes blogsite. Here's the link to the mp3 version of the tune:

The Company You Keep (mp3)

Calendar Update

Thanks to Patrice's hard work we have just arranged to play for a series of dances at the Tapestry Folkdance Center in early 2008. I have updated our official calendar at the Contratopia website but here is our upcoming season in a nutshell:

We will play two dances in Northfield, MN; one in the fall on Oct. 26 and one in late winter on February 22. We will play five dances at Tapestry, once each month January through May. We'll play what has become our annual early May dance at the Highlandville schoolhouse near Decorah and we will take to the road for another visit to the mid-Atlantic region in early April.

There has been some talk of having us play a couple of "mostly waltz" dances on Saturday afternoons at Tapestry in the spring also and we'll be sure and announce them if those arrangements come together. Otherwise this looks like a pretty full schedule to us.

Tom Gau's beautiful artwork for our first CD is something I always enjoy. Usually I only see it as I'm handing a CD to someone so I thought I'd place it here to add some class to this short entry. Thanks again, Tom, for both the original drawing and the finished CD cover.

History

I was updating the dances page on our official website last night with a few dances that we have scheduled for next season and I moved the list of last season's gigs over to our history page. This, naturally, led to reflections on music, people and places in the band's history.

I grabbed the photo above from our long-time buddy Ted Hodapp's dance page. I'm guessing this was taken sometime in the year 2000, pretty early in the band's journey. See how happy we are?!

This reminded me that Ted has been kind enough to serve up two recordings from one of our earliest concerts on his website for a long time. These come from a long ago performance at Haugen Hall here in Decorah that we played for a wonderful group of friends and neighbors. I'm not sure where the master recordings are for this concert, I'm not even sure who did the recording (maybe Jody Koenig?) but I've got a CD copy of the show.

I've created an mp3 version of our rendition of Erik's beautiful tune "Oak Woods Song" that you can download and enjoy. I really like this recording because I remember that we barely knew the tune at this point and everybody was really paying close attention to each other while we were playing it. (Of course we always pay close attention to each other, but this was really
close attention.)

Patrice was stuck playing a keyboard instead of a piano and she's lower in the mix than I would like. But, if you listen carefully, you'll hear how she reinvents the harmony to the tune each time it comes around. The chords that appear in the Contratopia Tunebook for this tune don't come close to the richness of what Patrice achieves here.

About this time of the summer I start to really miss playing regular contra dances with Pat, Patrice and Erik. I get to play quite a few wedding dance gigs with excellent musicians (like Ken, Linda, Jim, Jody, Bill, Rob etc.) but it's not the same as settling in for a three hour session with Contratopia where the dancers and the caller are simply there to dance. However, that's enough nostalgia for now.

Summer Hibernation

It occurred to me while I was playing a duo gig with Erik at the Burr Oak, IA Laura Days event this afternoon that I had neglected to bring the 2006-2007 Contratopia season to a satisfying blogospheric close.

Lest anyone in a distant part of the world (and I can see from Google Analytics that folks from all over do visit this site from time to time) wonder if the band exploded in a fit of "artistic differences" following our gig at Highlandville, let me assure you that everything is great and we're looking forward to the start of our next season in the Fall.

We do need to do a little work towards getting a few gigs nailed down but I know for sure we'll be out East in April of 2008 for a long weekend and that we'll play a dance or two for our new friends in Northfield, MN as well. Hopefully our old friends at Tapestry in Minneapolis will find room for us a few times also.

All of us have plenty of music in our lives during the summer season but we rarely get together as a quartet. Pat, Patrice and I usually play a few weddings and other private events with one or another of our favorite alter-Eriks. This summer we get to play with both Ken Steffenson and Linda Breitag at different times and I'm looking forward to having Ken join us next Thursday in Fairibault.

Patrice and Pat both stay busy, often playing with other fine musicians for dances at Tapestry. This summer they will both be on the staff at the first ever Midwestern Heart family dance week to be held the Shell Lake Art Center in Wisconsin from August 12-18. This should be a great week and I think there is still time to sign up. Speaking of camps, fiddler Sessions is off to the June Maine Fiddle Camp next week. I'm counting on these camps to give us a nice supply of new and new-old tunes for us to play with next season.

Erik and I keep busy enough here in Decorah playing for weddings and other events as well. Along with our duo gigs we get to play a few times with our buddies Jim and Jody in Bear Creek Bluegrass. Our first performance of the summer comes up a week from Thursday, June 21st, at the Sabor Latino courtyard on Water St. You can also catch Bear Creek at Sabor on the opening night of Nordic Fest and in the entertainment tents on Water St. on Friday and Saturday during the Fest.

If you run into any of us at one of these summer shows please say hello.

Two for the Show ...

Last Saturday night at Carleton was tons of fun! Frederick Park held a large crowd of energetic young dancers in thrall as he explained both the history of contra dance (and social dance in general) and where to put your feet. We got to provide the music. A highlight for me was the long square dance that Frederick called where he asked us to only play one tune, not a medley as we typically do. We had a ball giving "The Squirrel Hunters" a thorough working over. Even better, it looks like there's a good chance we'll get to play in Northfield again next Fall and in Spring 2008.

This Saturday (April 28th) we'll be reunited with our "Fifth Beatle", Ted Hodapp, at Tapestry in Minneapolis. It will be our last dance at Tapestry for this season (no more until Fall) and our first chance to give Ted a hard time since our D.C. Tour back in November. Ted has already set up another mid-Atlantic tour for us for next April but we'll have more news about that later.

All good things come to an end and Sat. May 5th (that's Derby Day back where I come from) Contratopia will close this season with what has become a traditional finale at the beautiful Highlandville Schoolhouse (see Pat O'Loughlin's photo above) just north of Decorah. Thanks to the sponsorship of the Decorah contra dance group we'll get to work again with our buddy Sue Hulsether. Even though the dance floor is small we always have a large amount of fun playing in the Schoolhouse.

If you've never made the pilgrimage to Highlandville you owe it to yourself to take a look. Dances have been held there for over 30 years now. As Bill Musser wrote in 1994:

The mixture of people that came amazed me. How could such a diverse group - from the cow barn, the classroom, the commune, and the office; the very old, very young, progressive, conservative, single, and married; believer, atheist, agnostic, meat-eater, vegetarian - all hold this singular pleasure of dancing to old-time music in common?

You can find directions for getting to the Schoolhouse from Decorah at the website of our good friends Foot-Notes who have been carrying on the tradition of dancing there for over 15 years. You can bet that we'll play Erik's lovely "Highlandville Waltz" before the evening is over.

Earth Day - Carleton College - Frederick Park

April 22 is Earth Day but we get to celebrate a day early (Saturday the 21st) with the legendary Frederick Park at Carleton College in Northfield, MN! Our last visit to Northfield was serious fun and this time (knock on wood) there shouldn't be a blizzard. The dance runs from 7:00-10:30 at Severance Hall on the Carleton campus.

I was already excited to meet Mr. Park (did I mention that he's Legendary?) but I just discovered that he now is in a band (the Burning Desire String Band) with one of my all-time favorite musicians in the world, Bob Lucas. It's been, literally, decades since I've had the luxury of soaking up some of the Lucas musical inspiration but maybe Frederick can help me recall some of those amazing days of yore.

Erik and I will also both definitely be in the audience for Lissa Schneckenburger's house concert here in Decorah on Tuesday April 24th. The show starts at 7:00 and you can reserve a place by contacting Bob Fitton at fittonro@luther.edu. We're both looking forward to what should be an excellent concert and we're expecting to hear some great new tunes.

Three to Get Ready...

A couple of Very Unusual happenings here in Ctopia Land. First, as mentioned earlier, we rarely add a gig to our schedule once we plan out our limited season of dances. But, thanks to the enthusiasm of our new friends in Northfield (and a little money), we will be returning to the banks of the Cannon River to play the Northfield Earth Day Contra Dance on Saturday April 21. The legendary Fred Park (legendary because Pat's always telling stories about him) will call the dances and risk his good reputation by associating with us. This can only be a good time. Severance Hall, Carleton College. Teaching begins at 7:00 and the dance lasts until 10:30.

The dance in Northfield creates an even more historic first for the band: dances three weeks in a row! There's no telling what will result! First Northfield, then Tapestry on April 28 and, finally, the Highlandville Schoolhouse in rural Winneshiek County on May 5. Plus we get to work with three of the finest dance callers on Planet Earth; first Fred Park, then Ted Hodapp, then Sue Hulsether. Details, including directions to Highlandville, are at our "dances and news" page.

Vernal Equinox at Tapestry

Last Saturday we had a great time playing for the regular Saturday night contra at the Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis. Erik and I drove up from Decorah, Patrice only had to come a few blocks and Pat rolled in from a week of travel and adventures in the Southwest US and Baja Mexico.

Robin Nelson called a carefully prepared and masterfully executed series of dances and the crowd was one of the largest that we've ever had the pleasure of playing for at Tapestry. The unnaturally warm weather (sure it's spring in most of the country but it's usually still winter in Minnesota in March) certainly contributed to the large turnout.

It's pretty rare for us to add a date to our schedule this late in the season but we hope to be able to announce something pretty soon. We have just a couple more dances to play before we enter the long summer hibernation.

Big news for summer, though, is that Patrice and Pat will be on the staff at the first ever Midwestern Heart family dance week to be held the Shell Lake Art Center in Wisconsin from August 12-18. Check out the website and treat your family to a great vacation with some of the finest musicians and callers in the upper midwest!