Tapestry, Feb. 11 - Free Dance in Memory of Jan Greenfield

(Photo courtesy of Trish Finn)

Contratopia is honored to be playing this Saturday night for a special event at Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis. A generous donor has funded a free dance in memory of Jan Greenfield, a beloved member of the Tapestry dance community.

Jan was also a big fan of Contratopia so we are glad that can be a part of this event. Come for the whole night of dancing or just stop by for a dance or two. It's free!

This will be our first dance of 2017 and will serve as a bit of preparation for our upcoming Mid-Atlantic tour in March. It's been almost two years since we have played at Glen Echo for a contra dance and at least three since we have played for the Sunday afternoon Waltz Time. So we are looking forward to that trip.

If you are reading this on Thursday, Feb. 9 there is still time to go see Pat O'Loughlin and his brother John give a Kingston Trio tribute concert tomorrow night (the 10th) at Maggie's Farm in St. Louis Park. It's a guaranteed good time. Then stop by the free dance on Saturday to tell Pat how much you loved the show.

A Contratopia Cornucopia - This Week Only

Please join us at the Cellar in the Old Armory building in Decorah at 7:00 on Friday, Oct. 28 for A Contratopia Cornucopia, a unique combination of music and food. We will provide seasonal, organic, acoustic, mostly homegrown tunes and master chef Justin Scardina will serve up small plates of tasty dishes with a harvest theme. The Water Street Music Series is presenting this event and you can purchase advance tickets through the WSMS website.

The band is having fun designing our musical menu and we will feature some new combinations of familiar and exotic fare. This concert with food will give Contratopia a chance to mix up some of our basic ingredients to create some new flavors. We hope you will consider joining us.

We played for two dances this past weekend: Friday in Northfield, Saturday at Tapestry in Minneapolis. Both dances were tremendous fun and served as a great kickoff to our new season. Unfortunately it will be a few weeks before we get to play another dance, but it's always wonderful to wind Contratopia up again and start it spinning down the road. We hope we'll see many of you along the way in this our 17th season as a band.

Season 17 (2016-2017) Almost Here

The photo above shows the four of us, I believe, on the front porch of the house that Erik and Sara were renting outside of Decorah somewhere around the turn of the century. I think we were rehearsing that day to prepare for recording our first CD, Hands Four.

Many years later we are set to commence our 17th (although I could be off by a year or two) Fall to Spring season as Contratopia. We have a flurry of activity this month and we will be returning to the east coast in March. In between I am sure we will play a few more dances here in our home region.

Things will kick off (this should be the only football analogy) on Friday Oct. 21 with another great Harvest Stomp contra in Northfield, MN. This dance will be held at the Northfield Ballroom; the town Armory, our former site, is no longer available.

The following night, Oct. 22, we will play once again at the Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis. We have played at Tapestry many times over the years and we think of it as our group home.

On Friday Oct. 28 Patrice and Pat will travel to Decorah to join John and Erik in presenting A Contratopia Cornucopia: A Harvest of Local Food and Music, along with chef extraordinaire Justin Scardina. This will be the first event of the new season for Decorah's Water Street Music Series and will be a combination of a concert and a feast of delicious culinary creations. (Tickets are available now but seating is limited, so don't delay if you are interested.)

Looking ahead to March 2017 we are excited to be returning to the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park for contra dances on both Friday March 17 and Sunday March 19. On Saturday the 18th we will make our first visit to the contra dance in Annapolis, MD. We are also hopeful that we will once again be playing for the Sunday Waltz Time dance at Glen Echo on the afternoon of March 19.

I'm sure that we will schedule some more dances as we go along, but that's it for now. We hope you can join us for some of the fun!

Mother's Day (live from 2003)

Here's a lovely photo by Pat O'Loughlin of the iconic Highlandville Schoolhouse where we would have been playing a dance a few years ago on Derby Day (that's the first Saturday in May to you non-Louisville area folks).

I mention this today (Mother's Day 2016) because I thought it would be fun to share a live recording of the band playing our waltz "Mother's Day" back in April of 2003 at Camp Sertoma, NC during the Spring Dance Romance weekend.

The recording comes from a Sunday morning waltz session, it might be the first tune of the day. There's the occasional mistake but in general I think it sounds pretty good. Hope you enjoy the music!

https://soundcloud.com/jgoodin/mothers-day-contratopia-live-in-2003

Loon to Earth Day

Here's a fine photo of Erik Sessions as we played for part of the Friday night dance at the 2016 Call of the Loon Dance Weekend. Thanks to Trish Finn (ContraGypsy FotograFinn on Facebook) for this and several other fine shots of the band. Sharing the weekend with Wild Asparagus was great fun for us and very inspiring. Such nice folks and brilliant musicians!

In addition to getting to watch Wild Asparagus work, Erik, Patrice and John all managed to drive up to the Cedar Cultural Center on Friday to hear the last 40 minutes of Vasen's set on Friday. Also super inspiring. Thanks to Pat (who does photography at the Cedar) for helping us get in the door on short notice.

This coming Friday (April 20) we will be playing for a special Earth Dance at Carleton College in Northfield with guest fiddler Linda Breitag. Robin Nelson will once again call the dances. Teaching starts at 7:00 and the dance will be in the Cowling gymnasium on campus. We've done this before and it's always lots of fun.

We will have one final dance of the season, on June 11 at Tapestry, with Tim Reese fiddling, before we take our summer hiatus. Hope to see you at one of these events!

Northern Aire Coming Your Way

If you are in the D.C. area this week you have the opportunity to dance to the sounds of our own Pat O'Loughlin, sometimes Contratopian Tim Reese, and Bob Walser, who are touring as Northern Aire with caller Ted Hodapp.

It's probably a little late to catch them tonight in Baltimore but you can certainly hear them at Glen Echo on Friday and Sunday night. They will also be playing for the Richmond contra dance on Saturday night. The band sounds great and, if you're lucky, Ted may share a few of the new jokes he tried out last Saturday night at Tapestry in Minneapolis.

Speaking of Tapestry, Contratopia had a super good time there last weekend and the crowd was great. We also had a fine rehearsal on Saturday morning at Patrice's house and had the chance to try a few new things that night. Everyone at Tapestry seemed pretty excited about the upcoming Call of the Loon weekend with Contratopia and Wild Asparagus. Even though the dance weekend is booked to capacity I believe that they are taking names for a waiting list in case there are cancellations.

Bad News, Good News

Bad News first: we are sorry to announce that we will not be playing in Northfield on Feb. 19 because the Winter Stomp dance will not be taking place. There are perfectly good, although private, reasons for this but we hope to schedule another dance in Northfield soon.

Good News:

• Even though we won't be playing in Northfield on the 19th we will still be playing at Tapestry on Saturday Feb. 20.
• While we love all of the callers that we are privileged to work with at Tapestry we are excited to learn that we will be working with our old buddy Ted Hodapp on the 20th! 
• This will be our first time working with Ted since last winter on our short mid-Atlantic tour and our first time working with Ted at Tapestry since Feb. of 2013. So look out!
• Even though Contratopia won't be touring out East this winter, Pat's "other" band Northern Aire (featuring Bob Walser and Tim Reese) are bringing the Upper Midwest Sound out to Glen Echo and the mid-Atlantic area at the end of February. 
• We are really only a few weeks away from the Call of the Loon weekend at Tapestry in April. As you can imagine we are honored to be sharing the weekend with the great Wild Asparagus band. In addition, Pat and Northern Aire will also be featured on the Sunday of the weekend. 
• Registration for Call of the Loon has closed but I believe you can still sign up to be put on a waiting list. Hope to see you there.

Tapestry, December 12, 2015

We're just a couple of days away from the final Contratopia dance of 2015. We (featuring Erik Sessions on fiddle) will reconvene at Tapestry Folkdance Center on Saturday night for one more dance before winter arrives. Robin Nelson will be calling the dances and we'll do our best to make things fun for all.

Our Riff City CD cover is just another reminder that Contratopia CDs make great holiday gifts. We will also be offering a free copy of our Ballroom Echoes waltz CD for every copy of Riff City that is purchased at the dance on Saturday. What a deal!

We hope to see you there.

Tapestry, Nov. 21, 2015

Come on out to Tapestry on Saturday night and join us for a fun dance with David Kirchner calling and the great Tim Reese joining us on fiddle. With Tim in the mix we are sure to play a number of old Contratopia favorites along with some tunes that Tim will bring to the party.

The Riff City cover shot is a reminder that we still have a few of these CDs available for your holiday shopping. We will have plenty at the dance but you can also order the physical CD from CD Baby and you can purchase downloads from all of the usual suspects; iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc.

There is a lot of discussion these days in the musician community about the pros and cons of making recordings in the emerging "music business." Even the biggest names (with notable exceptions) only sell a fraction of the CDs that they used to sell. And downloads are shrinking too.

Fanfare Magazine (a great record review source) recently quoted an "executive at a top label" who reportedly said that the average number of sales for a classical CD in the U.S. is between 100 and 150 physical copies. It's not rocket science to calculate that this number of sales doesn't cover the cost of recording, or even manufacturing.

What's a band like Contratopia to make of this? We knew when we decided to record Riff City (after a 10 year break) that we wouldn't sell more than a few hundred copies. We were pretty careful with our expenses but we did use a first-rate studio (Wild Sound in Minneapolis) with great microphones and a great vibe. We all agree that it was worth the cost.

However, we would like to sell enough copies to break even, hence this long-winded sales pitch. We are still (as they love to say on public radio) short of our fund-raising goal. So, if you have enjoyed our music in the past and are trying to think of just the right present for that certain someone we have just the recording for you!

We hope to see you on Saturday night. If you can't make it this week there will another chance to dance with us on December 12. Erik Sessions will be fiddling that night and, yes, we will still have a few CDs for sale.

Harvest Stomp! 2015 in Northfield

Come join us in Northfield for another great dance at the Armory downtown on Friday night. This will be our first chance to play a dance together in several months so it's sure to be high energy music.

Hope to see you there!

Video no. 1 from concert at ArtHaus

Contratopia from Behind The Mic™ on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Al at Behind the Mic for filming, editing and uploading this fun video to his Vimeo account! This is the opening set of tunes from our ArtHaus concert on August 21: Loaves and Fishes/Too Many Goat/Fourth and Walnut. We don't often get to play together during the summer months so you can see that we were enjoying ourselves. We are hoping to see more footage from this concert over time.

Patrice needed to leave early the morning after the concert but Pat stayed around and joined Erik and me for a fun hour and a half at the Winneshiek Farmer's Market. We were fortunate to have nearly perfect weather for both events and we all had a great time.

Special thanks also to our friends at the Palisades Inn for sponsoring our concert appearance by providing lodging for our out of town band members and video crew!

Hope you enjoy the video. Thanks again to Al.

Contratopia Concert in the ArtHaus Courtyard on Friday August 21

Come on out and hear the band next Friday in the lovely courtyard next to ArtHaus on Water Street in Decorah. We plan to play two 40-45 minute sets and we will include a performance of our entire first CD, Hands Four, as part of the show. We will probably play the imaginary "first side" (tracks 1-6) of Hands Four just before the break and then open the second half with "side two" (tracks 7-11). We will play a few other tunes, including some from our current Riff City release, before and after the Hands Four recreation.

We've never done this before and we will have to brush up on a couple of arrangements before the show but I think it will all be a lot of fun. Check the ArtHaus site, linked above, for more details. Please tell your friends and, if you can, drop by and enjoy the music.

(Thanks again to Tom Gau for the use of his beautiful Hands Four cover art!)

Derby Day in Decorah with Contratopia!

Kind of last minute but, just in case you are in the Decorah area and have missed the massive publicity campaign, we will be playing a concert followed by a dance tonight at the Elks club in downtown Decorah. Ted Hodapp will be flying in to call the dance and add his feet to our percussion mix.

Concert is at 7:00 and the dance should start by 8:00. We will bring more than enough copies of our new Riff City CD to meet the demand. It's a beautiful day today, tonight should be a very good time!

Riff City On the Road

Here's a video of Contratopia playing the dance length version of the title track of our new CD at Glen Echo Park on Feb. 27, 2015. Expertly shot by Julia Fischer as part of Kevin Mabon's ongoing contra dance documentation project it captures the band (and the mighty Ted Hodapp as caller and foot percussionist) in fine fettle.

We apparently set something of a length record, outlasting the camera battery and forcing Kevin to perform a little surgery near the end. The operation was a success and you have to be paying pretty close attention a little after the 13 minute mark to notice anything. These videos are a great service and we thank Kevin and Julia (filming in Kevin's absence) for their gifts.

Our whole tour was great fun even though our Sunday night Glen Echo dance was cancelled when the Park closed at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon due to treacherous icy roads and walkways.

There were many highlights:

• A surprise visit in Philadelphia from our old friend Chris Aschman who joined us on trumpet for a few sets and had us all playing at a higher level
• Our return visit to Richmond (last there, we think, in 2001) to play for a great crowd of dancers
• Meeting up with Anders Fongen, who travelled from Oslo to dance to the band
• As always, the giant Glen Echo dance on Friday
• The Incomparable Hospitality of Ted and Lynn
• A pilgrimage to the Krispy Kreme store in Fredricksburg
• Finally, a fun visit to the House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park to try out some instruments (Erik nearly bought the Vega mandolin in the video below and the fiddle did come home with us)

Mt. Airy (Philadelphia), Glen Echo, Richmond, Glen Echo Reprise - This Week!

Check out our Dances page (http://www.contratopia.com/Cdances.htm) for more details about this weekend's mid-Atlantic dance tour. We'll be heading out to Takoma Park, our base of operations for this mission, over the next couple of days. There we will meet up with Master Caller Ted Hodapp and the ever tolerant Lynn. We intend to have a great time playing for dancers in the Philadelphia, D.C. and Richmond areas and we hope to inspire a few folks to invest in our new Riff City CD as well.

This has been a highlight of the Contratopia Season for many years and we are definitely up for it again this winter. I even bought some of those gloves with the fingertips cut off in case it's chilly at Glen Echo. (I know that's hard to believe but it has happened once or twice in the past.)

We hope to see lots of familiar faces and some new ones as well.

Winter Stomp only days away!

After a little uncertainty we can now say that this year's Northfield Winter Stomp will occur next Friday, Feb. 20th, 2015, at the Northfield Armory, in the middle of historic downtown Northfield. There will be a dance lesson at 7:00 and the dance will begin at 7:30. We will once again be joined by wonderful caller Robin Nelson and you can bet that we will have a great time.

Tonight, Valentine's Night 2015, Pat O'Loughlin and John Goodin will be joined by fiddler extraordinaire Tom Schaefer and legendary Irish guitarist Daithi Sproule, with Robin Nelson in the driver's seat as caller once again.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 15th, Erik Sessions and John Goodin will play at a Family Dance from 2:00-3:30 at the Decorah Congregational Church on Broadway in Decorah. Erik and John will be part of the Western Home String Band for this dance called by Bill Deutsch. Bring the kids!

The video above is snatched from the Tapestry website and is both fun to watch and musically interesting, if you are a member or long-time friend of Contratopia. It catches the band near the end of a long contra, expertly called by Beau Farmer, when the band is pretty relaxed. We are taking some liberties with Daniel Steinberg's great tune "Rock-a-bye Baby" and having a good time. You'll have to take my word that we can actually play the tune properly but this video probably starts around the 6th or 8th time through the piece and, at this point, we are just having a nice, albeit noisy, friendly musical conversation. Many thanks to our mystery videographer for this candid look at what often happens when we play at Tapestry!

Minneapolis Weekend Almost Here

Time is flying and I just realized that I hadn't posted a notice of our unofficial Contratopia Minneapolis Weekend here on the blog yet. It's Thursday evening, Jan. 15, 2015, as I write and on Saturday the 17th Erik and I will drive up to Minneapolis for a flurry of Contratopia activity.

Luckily there are no flurries in the forecast and our visit is coinciding with a small January thaw, following on last week's bitter arctic weather. A perfect excuse to come out dancing.

So, if you can, join us at Tapestry Folkdance Center on Saturday for an afternoon Waltz Time event and an evening contra dance. Check the Tapestry calendar for exact times. The excellent David Kirchner will be our caller on Saturday night.

On Sunday we will present a rare concert performance at the home of Robin and Eric Nelson. See the announcement above for details. We are very nearly sold out at this point so if you are interested please contact Pat at the email address in the flyer soon.

We will, of course, have plenty of copies of Riff City available at all of these events and would love to help you adopt a copy or two for your collection.

We would love to see you sometime this weekend. Please come by and say hello.

Schedule Correction for March 1

We're sorry to announce a change in plans for our upcoming Philadelphia, Glen Echo, Richmond weekend at the end of February. We learned a few days ago that we will not be playing for the March 1 Waltz Time dance at Glen Echo after all.

The good news is that the most excellent Taylor Among the Devils band, featuring Jonathan Jensen (one of my favorite composers), will provide the music that afternoon.

Contratopia will play for the Sunday evening contra at Glen Echo on March 1 and we hope to see many of you there. We will have a little more sleep than usual before that and should be rested and ready to play up a storm.

We hope to be invited back to play at Waltz Time again sometime in the next couple of years. If so we'll be sure and let everyone know.

Oh, don't forget it's not too late to order a copy of Riff City before Santa makes his rounds! See the previous entry for a link to order from CD Baby.

Happy holidays from all of us at Contratopia Central!

Free shipping at CD Baby through December 3rd

Well, not actually free, they're charging a nominal 1 cent per order for all CDs in stock. This is a worldwide offer so it's especially interesting to anyone overseas who's been wanting to buy a copy of Riff City, or any of our other CDs. You can click on the link below to go to CD Baby and order.

Riff City at iTunes

Our new CD Riff City is now available for download from both iTunes and CD Baby. That means you can click on one of the links in the previous sentence and buy a copy right now, no muss, no fuss; immediate gratification. (Now that would make a good album title.)

Of course if you want the physical, high quality CD you can always buy one from the band tomorrow night (Saturday, Nov. 8) at Tapestry. Then you'll get to see the excitement in our eyes as we thank you for getting us one step closer to recouping our investment. Plus you get a physical copy of Maria's great artwork.

Any way you choose is fine with us. We're confident that you'll enjoy the tunes.