Northfield! Winter Stomp!

In just a few days, Friday the 19th, we will convene with Robin Nelson and all of our Northfield friends for our 4th (or is it 5th?) Winter Stomp! dance at the downtown Armory. The above slideshow (with music, "Mason's Apron" and "Maggie in the Snow", by Contratopia) gives a pretty accurate picture of what to expect. Lots of energy, lots of fun.

Here's a short video from the 2008 Stomp with the same message:



It sounds to me like we are playing "Ross' Reel" in the first half of the video and a tune of mine called "Ain't Broke" in the second half.

Hope to see you in Northfield on Friday night. It's going to be fun.

Snow Elsewhere

The members of Contratopia are no strangers to snow. Here in Decorah we have had a good foot or so of snow on the ground since early in December of this winter. We have not, however, had a significant snowfall for many weeks. We are also well equipped with snow shovels, plows, icemelt and the other necessities of winter life. It is a little unnerving to realize that we intend to be gathering in Takoma Park, MD in exactly one month when I see what is going on in the mid-Atlantic region today.

We are scheduled to play the Friday Night Dance at Glen Echo Park in four weeks but tonight's contra there has been canceled. The fate of this weekend's Sunday Waltz Time and evening contra dance is undecided. We are booked to play those dances in a month as well. Hopefully this will all be a fond memory by then and large crowds of happy dancers will flock to the park on the first weekend in March.

When we head east this time we will be bringing a new "product" with us. We now have digital download cards from CD Baby available for sale. For a modest price you will be able to purchase a wallet size card that will be printed with a code that will allow you to go to the CD Baby site and download an mp3 version of our first CD, Hands Four. It will be interesting to see how many people are interested in this way of buying our music.

Winter snows always lead to thoughts of summer. Summer, for many, is the wedding season. Contratopia rarely gets to play at a wedding as a group because of our hectic schedules and geographical challenges but all the members are active as wedding musicians from time to time. Pat and Margie O'Loughlin also serve the needs of brides and grooms with their Sandhill Photography business. They have recently launched the Sandhill Photography blog and I highly recommend subscribing to their posts.

Erik Sessions and I always play a handful of weddings every summer in Winneshiek County and we have now taken the sensible step of creating an Erik & John website (with the expert help of Karen Goodin) to hopefully simplify the process of finding us and figuring out what we can do. Give us a holler if you are planning on getting married in the Decorah area and are looking for some lovely and lively acoustic music for either the ceremony or the dinner/reception. We are also pleased to be associated with the new Welcome in Decorah website that is promoting Decorah as a great place to hold your wedding.

Apart from winter storms and summer weddings we also want to remind everyone that in two weeks, Friday, Feb. 19, Contratopia will meet in Northfield, MN to play at another wonderful Winter Stomp! contra dance, held downtown at the city armory.



We hope to see you there!

New Year, New Dates

As we bring 2009 to an end I am pleased to announce that several dates have been added to our calendar. Contratopia will be providing the music for dances at Tapestry Folkdance Center on January 9, 2010 (guided by the calling of our friend, David Kirchner), March 27 (mystery caller) and April 24 (with Robin Nelson). We will also be playing for the annual Northfield Winter Stomp! dance on Feb. 19 (again with Robin).

These new dances will combine with our March 4-7 return to Philadelphia, Glen Echo and Shepherdstown, WV to make for a fairly busy spring in Contratopia terms. I just checked our history page and April, 2008 was our last visit to our friends in the mid-Atlantic region. This may be our longest absence since the band was formed, so we're really looking forward to seeing familiar faces and halls.

If you are still unsure about what to do on New Year's Eve (48 hours from now) it's not too late to travel to the Twin Cities where Pat O'Loughlin and Friends will be playing for the dancers at the Tapestry party. Pat has a lot of talented friends so there's no telling what you might hear that night. Say hi from me if you make it to the dance.

Mid-term Review

Well, we've had a flurry of activity and now our season is going into the holiday break. We had another great time in Northfield on Oct. 23 (looking forward to returning there on Feb. 19, 2010) and a tremendous time last night at Tapestry. Beau Farmer called a great selection of dances and encouraged us to play whatever we wanted. It turns out that we had some good music in us last night and I believe we played a couple of tune sets as well as we've ever played them.

The night before last, Patrice, Pat and I were joined by wonder-fiddler Mary DuShane for a dance at a St. Paul grade school. Pat handled the calling chores (for a large crowd of excited youngsters and their sometimes reluctant parents) and Mary, Patrice and I had fun playing a variety of standard fiddle tunes. Following the gig Pat and I went out on the town briefly, first dining on some delicacies at a Lake St. White Castle and then crossing the street to hear some tunes at an Irish session in Merlin's Rest. Saturday morning we (Pat and I again) spent a couple of hours at a great old-time jam at a coffeehouse in St. Paul and then visited Hoffman Guitars. All in all a good weekend of music for me in the Twin Cities.

We are hoping to nail down some dance dates at Tapestry during the second half of our season (Jan.-April) and we have our east coast weekend dates all confirmed now. Also, Erik and I will be playing some with the Western Home String Band at our local Decorah contra dance next Sat., Nov. 21. Stop by if you're in town.

It All Comes Round Again

An eventful summer leads into another Contratopia season. We've spent a decade together as a band and we can honestly say (well, at least I can) that we are better friends than ever and we still get excited at the prospect of playing some music together.

Just a week ago we were all in the same dance hall celebrating the wedding of our beloved Patrice to the most excellent Alton Accola. Pat, Erik and I had the pleasure of playing a few tunes (with the stellar support of Sherry Ladig on keyboard) while Patrice and Al cut a rug with the wedding guests. Patrice nearly jumped in for a bit but she had a few other things on her mind.

In another month Patrice, Erik and I will be supplying the tunes for the dancers at the Midwest celebration of the wedding of our own Ted Hodapp and the legendary (because some of us had never met her until last week) Lynn Baumeister.

Pat O. will sadly be otherwise engaged that evening so the actual Contratopia machine won't get cranked up until Oct. 23rd in Northfield, MN for the annual Harvest Stomp! dance. After we kick out some jams (what's that next word?) in Northfield we will be ready for our seasonal debut in Minneapolis at the Tapestry Folkdance Center on Nov. 14.

Hopefully something fun will come up for us to do in January and February 2010 before we head back to the DC area in early March. We'll be playing in Glenside, PA on March 4 and Glen Echo on the 5th and 7th. On Saturday March 6th we'll return to Shepherdstown, WV for the third or fourth time. Finally there are rumors of a possible return to lovely Highlandville, IA in May for another Derby Day dance at the schoolhouse.

When's that new CD going to be ready you ask? Well I wouldn't start holding my breath if I were you but the topic does come up from time to time. We're all still in reasonably good physical condition and we've got two or three CDs worth of material waiting (if you count the dozens of waltzes that we've played over the last 6 or 7 years) but it's pretty hard to find the time to record stuff. Maybe someday?

In any event keep an eye out for us and come and say hello if you get the chance. You can usually find out where we'll be by checking our "dances" page on the Contratopia website. Hope to see you soon.

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