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!

Blizzard Walk

What a snowy adventure this weekend! While the trip to Northfield was pretty good (and the dance extraordinary, thanks to Suzie and crew), the short trip I had to Tapestry was quite snowy and moreso on the way home. My car managed to plow through the alley, only getting hungup temporarily. Planning to get to my church gig on Sunday morning, I dutifully snowblowed my garage pad at midnight.

This morning I plunged in fits for about 20 feet into my unplowed alley - stopping to shovel myself out about 6 times. It was so deep I started to "plow" with my bumper (and the car door as I left it open so I could hear when the tires began to spin). If I could only get out the alley, I'd be ok. I finally threw in the towel (or shovel as the case may be) and called another piano player who was going to attempt it. It is now 11 am and my very kind neighbor took the 2nd shift of using my snowblower to clear the car pad we share, but alas we've run out of gas. Bless his heart - he's shoveling the front walk! With more snow expected (already have about 10") I suspect I'll have yet another opportunity to play in the snow! How I wish I'd had time to buy some more yarn to work on a new knitting project!

But last night's dance - a number of stalwart (read "crazy") people braved the storm to come dance. Pat was able to snag our good fiddler friend Ken Steffenson and newly found harmonica player Steve Watney to conjure up a nice spicey band for the evening. Robin Nelson called and when she turned to us for a name, Blizzard Walk just seemed to pop out. Thank you to Ken and Steve for bailing us out and providing a great night of dancing! Now, I've heard March is the snowiest month and am crossing my fingers that instead March 24 at Tapestry brings us a nice balmy spring day for our next dance there.

Winter Stomp Indeed!

Big Fun in Northfield last night at the Northfield Winter Stomp!

Well over 200 highly motivated folks showed up last night at the Northfield Armory to dance and socialize and drive the cold winter away. Take a look at these photos (courtesy of Mark Heimat) to see what you missed. Or, if you were there, you can play "Where's Waldo" looking for you and your friends.

Special thanks to Suzie and her extraordinary crew, the folks at the Armory for all their help and the hardy souls who drove down from the Twin Cities to add their experience to the wintry mix. The band and caller Robin Nelson had a great time and rumor has it that we may get to do it again someday.

It's February in the upper midwest and sooner or later you have to pay the piper. Threats of terrible weather nearly prevented Erik and me from making the trip to Northfield. But a certain person's store of good karma held off the truly bad stuff until today. This led the Iowa half of the band to make the difficult decision to renege on our commitment to play at the most excellent and revered Tapestry Folkdance Center for tonight's contra and race home (well, at around 40 mph) this morning ahead of the storm. We promise to make it up to Pat, Patrice and the good people at Tapestry somehow.

The Deep Freeze Tour

It's less than a week now before our Northfield-Minneapolis mid-winter tour. It's rare for us to play two nights in a row without having to fly someplace to do it so we're all definitely looking forward to next weekend.

Friday night we have the honor playing for the Northfield Winter Stomp! at the Northfield Armory. The idea is to create some enthusiasm for contra dancing in a town with a large potential dance population and, ideally, to get a regular dance going. Our good friend and partner-in-crime Robin Nelson will be teaching and calling the dances and we're confident that everyone who comes will have a good time. We hope this will be only the first of many dances in the Cannon River Valley and that we'll have the chance to return many times.

I expect that Erik and I will return to Minneapolis with Patrice and Pat after the dance and that someone will offer us shelter for the night. On Saturday we'll have the chance to hang out in the Big City. I'm hoping to talk Pat into taking us to one of the Saturday morning jam sessions in the area. I know Erik said something about visiting some fiddle shops and I'm always interested in stopping by the Homestead Pickin' Parlor to see what's new.

Saturday night we have a special dinner invitation (plus there's a White Castle in Pat's neighborhood!) and then we get to play more dances with Robin, this time at the Tapestry Folkdance Center. It's hard to imagine a more fun weekend. We hope you can make it to one or both of these dances. You can keep score and see if we play any of the same tunes both nights.

Wintergreen 1

Just about this time a week ago we were getting ready to wrap up the Wintergreen Dance Weekend in Bozeman. About as much fun as this band has ever had and an all-around great event. The real world (which also is a lot of fun but has a large "work" component) has been pretty all-consuming since our return on Monday.

The Bozeman folks were Great; all the organizers, dancers, scholarship workers and super-gracious hosts. Rab and family (even Sugar the dog who Pat managed to turn against me early on) deserve special mention. Kindness, patience, great food (especially considering my limitations), transportation, a fine room for an all too rare rehearsal and more! All the folks from the Bozeman Folklore Society conspired to make our lives easy. Oshi and Rab and Lynn (and the rest of the committee) made sure that everything was just right for us and Mitchell Frey did a great job keeping the sound together.

Oshi and Mark hosted a wonderful dinner and music party on Sunday night where we got to be part of a really fine session with Kathy, Vickie and Pat from Out of the Wood along with Oshi and her daughter (many names escape me these days) and the fine pianist Eric (does he really work for Google?) Anderson.

Seth Tepfer was a blast to work with during the whole weekend. He called great dances and the Wintergreen folks clearly enjoyed everything he did. He even had a dance that required us to become the Contratopia Blues Band for ten minutes or so! Out of the Wood was most excellent in the role of "other band" and I really enjoyed their playing. Plus they have the secret weapon of Pat and his funny songs. (You've got to hear "Chipmunk with a Death Wish.")

I also enjoyed getting to hang out some with former Decorah-area resident and fine guitarist/mandolinist Steve Marty. Steve moved out to Bozeman just about the time I moved into Iowa and we have many music friends in common here in Winneshiek county.

Where are all the photos? Well, I know that Pat O'Loughlin and Rab Cummings filled a 2GB SD card full of photos and then they dumped them onto Rab's computer and took some more. I'm fully expecting to have a bunch of photos to link to in the near future.

A Flurry of Activity

Patrice is the punster in the band but I couldn't resist. I guess I could have titled this post "Calm Before the Storm" but that would have been just as bad. The real message is that we're getting geared up for some action.

Saturday we'll be playing a contra dance at Tapestry in Minneapolis. Beau Farmer will call the dance and try to keep us in line. A few days later, on Thursday the 25th, Erik and I will drive back up to meet Pat and Patrice at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport for our flight out to Bozeman and the Wintergreen Dance Weekend. This was a major fun time when we were there in 2003 (was it really that long ago?) and I know it's going to be excellent this time too.

On the home front I've recently set up a new blog I'm calling So Many Tunes. It contains free home-recorded mp3s and sheet music of some of my tunes. Take a look and see what you think. I'll try and add a new tune or two every week or so.

Hope to see you at one of these upcoming dances!

Surviving Christmas as a Church Music Director

I am among the general living public again. Among the highlights of Christmas:

-Stomach flu causing me to miss 3 rehearsals on the Tuesday before Xmas
-Piano player for Sunday morning Mass forgot to show up (usually wonderfully dependable and talented - she was mortified)
-Star soprano with laryngitis for Xmas Eve
-Worship programs with pages all out of order
-4th grader in the Children's Choir fainting during Mass requiring EMT's with a backboard to join us about 3/4 through 5 pm Xmas Eve Mass (one of them did say "Nice music")
-Singing of Gesu Bambino prepared with replacement of aforesaid soprano pre-empted by overly eager lector greeting the congregation before Mass.

Merry Christmas indeed! Actually there were plenty of good spots, too, but I was pretty exhausted after the final Joy to the World! I hope you all have a wonderful 2007!

It's Nice Up North

Just a few weeks now until we fly into Bozeman for the 2007 Wintergreen Dance Weekend. The Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture is a great site for music and dance and we fully expect to have even more fun than we did in 2003 on our first visit. Seth Tepfer from Atlanta will be calling and we're looking forward to meeting and hearing the folks in Out of the Wood as well. Hopefully we'll get to share some tunes over the course of the weekend with them and some of the other excellent players in the Bozeman area.

It's not too late to catch our own Pat O'Loughlin playing with an All Star band at Tapestry on New Year's Eve. We've all played at this event, together and in various groupings, over the years and it's always a very good way to start the new year.

Contratopia is very pleased to announce that we've added a dance to our calendar for this winter. We'll be playing in lovely Northfield, MN on friday evening, Feb. 23 with our good friend Robin Nelson calling. This will be our first-ever public dance in Northfield and we're expecting it to be really fun. We'll have more details later.

Have a Happy New Year's Eve and remember, if you drink (even a little) let somebody else drive.

Holiday Festivities

'Tis the season and there's music aplenty.

Patrice is busy, I'm sure, helping to prepare music for the Winter Festival of St. Thomas Beckett church in Eagan, MN. This occurs tomorrow (Sunday) at 4:00 p.m. and is bound to be a memorable event.

I'm confident that Pat O'Loughlin is putting in long hours learning new tunes (maybe even writing some new tunes?) in preparation for the New Year's Eve dance party at Tapestry with a stellar band that includes Becka Schafer, David Kirchner, and David Edminster.

Erik and I are occupied this weekend (last night and this afternoon) with the 10th annual Burning Bright holiday season concert here in Decorah. Along with accompanying a variety of songs we are priviliged to have a little spot of our own in the program. We're being joined this year by our friend Beth Hoven Rotto from Decorah's own Foot-Notes.

While known primarily as a fiddler, Beth is playing piano with us on a newly composed waltz written in honor of our friend Gordy MacMasters (master musical saw and chromatic harmonica player) who passed away this year titled "G for Gordy". She is then joining us on lap dulcimer while Erik and I play an uptempo "Cold Frosty Morning" on fiddle and mandolin.

While Contratopia doesn't get to play together for another month or so (Jan. 20th at Tapestry) we're all looking forward to the new year and, especially, our upcoming visit to Bozeman. Hope to see you there.

Mandotopia

Mandotopia is a site I've created to bring together a bunch of different mandolin-related projects that I've created over the last few years. It includes links to pages with free sheet music which, while arranged for mandolin, is playable by most treble clef instruments. There are also a few home recordings of me playing some of the music.

There are complete collections of 18th century music composed for "guittar" (a wire-strung fretted instrument most often referred to these days as the English Guitar, although several scholars prefer different terms) including two sets of divertimenti by the wonderful Scottish composer James Oswald. You can also find several pieces by J.S. Bach and G.P. Telemann arranged for mandolins, sometimes with guitar.

You can view, and copy, quite a few of my own pieces as well. My set of Deer Tracks for solo mandolin features both the sheet music and home recordings of the pieces. If you are a mandolin orchestra member you might be interested in my compositions in that genre. My goal here is to corner the market on recently-composed free music for mandolin orchestra so I intend to add more pieces over time. In fact there are several categories waiting for me to add content. I'll get around to this someday.

Finally I've included links to a few articles that I've written that have been published in the Mandolin Journal, the newsletter of the Classical Mandolin Society of America.

Feel free to play and listen to this music and share it with your friends. The old music is in the public domain and I'm making my stuff available using a Creative Commons license. This basically means that any non-commercial use is OK with me. Just drop me a line if you have something commercial in mind.

The photo is a shot of my recenty acquired Pomeroy mandolin. It was brand new when it's creator, Don Paine, took the picture. It's a fabulous instrument and I strongly encourage anyone in the market for a new mandolin (at a very reasonable price for a handmade instrument) to check out the Pomeroy website and contact Don.

Live from the Spanish Ballroom

Contratopia loves to play couples' dances, especially waltzes. We felt particularly honored the first time that the Waltz Time organization invited us to play for the Sunday afternoon dance at Glen Echo and even more honored when they invited us back. To see all those couples twirling around the beautiful Spanish Ballroom is always inspiring. Our waltz CD, Ballroom Echoes, takes its title from a tune I wrote that tries to capture some of that feeling.

Last Sunday was our third (or fourth) time playing for the Sunday afternoon dance and master sound man Jamie Platt (http://www.dancingplanetproductions.com/sound.htm) was kind enough to record the band and give us a copy. Here are links to two of the tunes from that dance.

First is a recently composed waltz, "Aubrey & Andrew's Wedding", that the band has only performed two or three times. This is live and unedited so there might be the occasional mistake but the feeling is good and the dancers were definitely with us on this one.

The pattern for the Sunday afternoon dance is three waltzes followed by some other kind of couples' dance. We only know one tango and we always play it at this dance. Here's a warts and all version of the "Tango Argentino" by Arthur Green with Patrice laying down a solid groove on piano and Pat adding just the right percussive spice.

Feel free to download these mp3s (I hope they're not too big) and share them with friends. Consider the recordings to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Meaning they can be used freely for non-commercial purposes but you should ask us for permission for commercial use.

Let us know if you enjoy these tunes. I'm hoping at a future date we can add some of the contra dance tunes that Jamie recorded for us last weekend also.

Glen Echo Friday Tailgate

There's a fine tradition where a small group of dancers get together after the Friday Night Dance at Glen Echo for a little tailgate party, just down the hill from the lovely Spanish Ballroom. Even in November it's not too cold to hang out for a while and talk music, share home improvement stories and/or jokes. (Like the one about the turkish wedding band drummer who goes off to study jazz in New York.)

Contratopia has been able to attend a couple of these events and last Friday night we had a really nice time. I met two "persons of interest" there:

Robert Cox is the creator of a fine series of podcasts that feature contra dance music. Here's the link: http://www.contracast.com/

These are half hour collections of excellent music from a wide variety of fine musicians along with some tasteful announcing. Robert was kind enough to feature one of our tracks on his soundcast from 10/20/2006. It's nice to be able to just click on one of these shows and hear some good music, carefully chosen and presented with full credits and links to where you can go to purchase the recordings.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Orrin Star, a master of mandolin and guitar who's especially well-known in the bluegrass world. The tailgate meeting led to Orrin sitting in with us for a dance during the Sunday night contra where I had the benefit of a close-up lesson watching him play my Rigel mando on a medley of "Nail That Catfish to a Tree" and "St. Anne's Reel". His right hand precision and economy of motion gave me plenty to work on for months to come.

I saw today at the Mandolin Cafe that Orrin has announced a series of mandolin workshops from November through February 2007. I'd strongly recommend any mandolin players in the DC region, no matter what style you play, to consider attending these workshops. I know if I lived in the area I'd be signing up.

(Thanks to Pat for the photo of the band+Ted with Fala, FDR's dog.)

DC Pictures and others

If you want to see a few more pictures (more to come later), go to http://fivebydesign.smugmug.com/gallery/2147815/. This is the nifty gallery in the corner of a larger gallery of the vocal quintet, Five by Design, which my close and personal friend Al is associated with. Check out their website www.fivebydesign.com to meet one of the finest performing groups doing swing and big band music.

While you're wasting your precious time on this nonsense, why not see more pictures of the group taken last January at Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis, MN. http://fivebydesign.smugmug.com/gallery/1232366

Glen Echo - Purcellville (Bluemont)

Just returned from the Patch Weekend (briarpatch?, pumpkin patch?), a saturday night Bluemont dance (in Purcellville, VA) punctuated by a series of dances at Glen Echo Park. Much music, merriment and spirited dancing with our good pal Ted Hodapp calling and playing button box with us on the hambos.

Too many highlights to list them all in this short missive but we had some memorable moments. The friday night tailgate party, the late saturday diner with the awesome waitress and the sunday night sandwhich shop fiasco will all be remembered for years to come.

Special thanks to Jamie Pratt for his great work with the sound at all three Glen Echo dances and to Peter in Purcellville for working with us in a slighty scrunched environment. Jamie recorded a bunch of stuff and I'm hoping we can share some of that later on.

Can't wait for the next time. The Spanish Ballroom never disappoints.

(Thanks to Ted for the photos too.)