By any other name....

Barn Dance Minnesota is a new venture from our own Pat O'Loughlin and his friends including, sometimes, other members of Contratopia. If we aren't all available for a particular event Pat can pick from the cream of the Twin Cities musician crop to "provide traditional live music and calling for your barn dance, square dance, contra dance, or Irish ceilidh." The Barn Dance Minnesota site can serve as a good way to see how to reach Pat and arrange for your event to be something that will be remembered as an especially good time by everyone involved.


Our geographical distance (Contratopia North: Pat and Patrice, Contratopia South: Erik and John) often makes it difficult for the four of us to play together for special events. Erik and I also have our own website aimed at answering some of the questions we frequently get about playing for local weddings and special events. If you are looking for music in the Decorah area don't hesitate to contact us.


The whole band, however, will be present at the Armory in downtown Northfield, MN  two weeks from tonight to play at another great Harvest Stomp dance. It will be our first time back together since last April (although Pat, Patrice and I reunited with our favorite alter-Erik, Linda Breitag, last week in St. Paul) and we will definitely have a great time. Hope to see you there.

Falling into the New Season

I just got around to updating our dance calendar over at the Contratopia website to include the dates we have booked so far for the upcoming 2010-2011 Season. It's true that a certain pattern has emerged in recent years, thanks to our friends at Tapestry and in Northfield, but I can assure you that this doesn't mean that we are bored with our play. It's amazing to me that we are able to manage to get together as often as we do given our various families and jobs.

One thing missing in this year's calendar is significant travel. We had to turn down a couple of really attractive offers (plus we're still trying to pay off the hotel damages from our last end-of-tour party) but I'm sure that we will be out on the road again before I turn 65.

We will probably add a date or two in the spring to the calendar as well. Hopefully we will see many of you at one or more of these dances.

If you are a tune monger, in addition to a dancer, you might be interested in the new jig I posted today over on my So Many Tunes website. I'll see if I can't get the band to give it a go sometime this season.

Huffington Post / Maria Rodale

While not exactly full Contratopia news I figure that friends of the band might find this interesting:

For the last several years Erik and I have been the nucleus of the band that plays for the barn dance on the Saturday night of the annual Seed Saver's summer gathering just outside of Decorah. Seed Saver's Exchange is a great organization doing vital work and their conference attracts people from all over the country. (I think that all friends of Contratopia should at least consider joining SSE, check them out and see what you think.)

This year's keynote speech was shared between Diane Ott Whealey and Maria Rodale. As you can read on her blog, Maria Rodale is CEO and Chairman of Rodale Inc., "the largest independent publisher left in America."

Her blog is also featured on the Huffington Post and today's Huffington Post features a story from Ms. Rodale's blog about her visit to the conference. In her blogpost you can read all about how much fun she, her husband and youngest child had at the barn dance and you can see a nice picture of me and Erik, along with our friends Bill Deutsch (caller and banjo man) and Rob Hervey (bass). The first paragraph appears at Huffington and the rest of the story (and picture) are at her own blogsite.

I promise that Erik and I won't let our international notoriety go to our heads. Contratopia is busy arranging its fall/winter/spring schedule as I write. I hope to have news to share about dates and places soon.

Minnesota Spring weekend

Time, as ever, flies. Suddenly our 2009-2010 season is days away from its ending.

Join us, if you can, on either Friday (at the Armory in Northfield, MN) or Saturday (at the Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis) for our final public dances until next fall.

If we don't get a chance to see you this weekend we will look forward to seeing you sometime during the 2010-2011 season!

Tapestry Tomorrow!

(Contratopia at Antietam)

Tomorrow night we'll have our tour homecoming dance at the Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis. We hope you can drop by and see what we have in store.

Below are a few photos from our tour out east. Thanks to Pat and Margie for the great shots!

(Glen Echo on Friday Night)

(Glen Echo on Friday from the stage)

(Ted and Lynn in conversation)

(Shepherdstown, Saturday Night)

(The Spotlight Dance)

(Pat takes a camera break)

(w/Jamie Platt, Ted & Lynn as we bid farewell to the
Spanish Ballroom after the Sunday dances.)

Glenside, Glen Echo, Shepherdstown 2010

Right about now one week ago Erik, Patrice, Ted, Lynn and I were all piled into Ted's car leaving Mt. Vernon, Virginia. We had enjoyed a short visit to the Washington farm and were headed back to Takoma Park where we would gather our instruments, meet up with Pat, and head over to Glen Echo to play at the afternoon Waltz Time dance and the evening contra.

The night before we had played for a very high energy group of dancers in historic Shepherdstown, WV, after a visit to the Antietam battlefield. I'll spare everyone the step by step description of our tour but I can honestly say that it was as much fun this time as it was the first time we played in the region over ten years ago.

This was the first tour that we were joined by Very Significant Others and, from my perspective, this made the whole thing even more fun. Of course Lynn and Margie didn't accompany us up to Glenside, or to Shepherdstown, so they were spared an episode by episode recounting of the intricate plot developments of a certain cable TV series. These tales provided us with the actual title of the 2010 Tour but, in the interest of not being sued by HBO, that title remains a band secret.

Musically we had a great time. Everyone was playing with lots of invention and energy and we enjoyed a little nostalgia by playing some of our older, tried and true sets more often than usual. We enjoyed great sound at every stop, especially at Glen Echo where the phenomenal Jamie Platt once again made us sound great, despite our constant experiments. Ted Hodapp called night after night of great dances and had the crowds enthralled with his physics jokes. He also played some first rate hambos with Erik and taught us all a great new schottische.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the dances and made them so fun for us. Special thanks to Ted and Lynn for sharing their home. Lynn even revealed to me the existence of a nearby fast food hamburger joint that Ted had neglected to mention over the years. Thanks also to the good folks at the House of Musical Traditions for all of their help. Rumor has it that we may be able to head east again in the winter/spring of 2012. We'll keep you posted.

(P.S. While there were several excellent, even professional, photographers snapping photos on this trip none of them have delivered any pictures to me so far. So the photo above is taken off of my cell phone from a week ago Friday while we were visiting the Mall.)

Touring into Spring

(Park Sparrows, D.C., photo by Cene Ketcham)

In about a week we will all be converging on Ted and Lynn's place in Takoma Park for our first visit to the D.C. area in nearly 2 years. We have been making these trips, responding to the siren call of the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park, for nearly a decade. This has prompted a little nostalgia on my part.

In November-December, 2000 Contratopia took a chance and recorded our Hands Four CD with the expert assistance of Matthew Zimmerman at his Wild Sound studio in Minneapolis. Most readers of this blog probably have a copy of this CD somewhere in their collection. However, before we recorded that CD we recorded a trial version of some of our tunes at our friend Jody Koenig's basement studio in Decorah. I think this was probably sometime in the summer of 2000, although I'm not sure exactly when. I seem to remember it was a Saturday afternoon and maybe we were playing a dance that night.

Anyway, I recently came across a CD of the mixes from that demo session and I have permission from the band to share them here. To my ears they sound like we had a lot of energy that day and I think that Jody did a great job of capturing that. One negative aspect is that Patrice had to use her electric keyboard instead of a real piano. So while her playing is great, as usual, her sound isn't quite what any of us would prefer. You can compare a couple of these versions to the ones that appear on Hands Four and see what I mean.

So here are the tracks we recorded that day at Jody's:

1. Revelry Reel / French Sneakers / Maggie in the Rain (mp3)
2. The National Road (mp3)
3. Sandy River Belles / Liza Jane (mp3)
4. Sweet Music / Christmas Past / Fairbanks (mp3)

I'll also post these on our Contratopia free downloads page for future reference.

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A week from tomorrow we'll be playing the Thursday Night Contra in Glenside, PA; one of our favorite places to play. The last time we visited there I was very excited to buy a copy of the SPUDS tunebook, Tuneadelphia. It's a great book full of good tunes and I highly recommend it.

I remember having a nice chat with Sarah Gowan, the editor, and she suggested that some of our Contratopia tunes might have been an influence on some of her own compositions. So I thought it would be fun if we would learn a Gowan tune and play it next week.

Last Friday at the great Winter Stomp in Northfield we tried out a new set that begins with Sarah's tune "Nancy in a Shirttail" followed by a recent tune of mine called "Lawn Chair Night" and closing with an old favorite of Erik's, "Splinters on the Bannister." Erik's tune had fallen off of our setlist so this is a great way to bring it back. If you are at the dance in Philly next week be on the lookout for this new set.

We hope to see many of you in Glenside (March 4), Shepherdstown (March 6th) or at Glen Echo on either Friday night (5th) or Sunday afternoon and/or evening (7th). It's our only big trip this season so we are really looking forward to getting to play several nights in a row. Hope to see you there.

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When I posted this entry late last night I had no idea that Philadelphia was going to see another 8-12 inches of snow today. I see that this week's dance has been canceled. I fully expect that spring will be in bloom next Thursday when we arrive and that folks will be ready to dance.

(Just to put the weather in some perspective, it was 5 below zero here last night and we have had a foot or more of snow on the ground since mid-December.)

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...