Last weekend’s contradance

Here’s Butch and me playing at the Chattanooga Area Contradance last weekend… Fun as ever. The first tune is “A Roof for the Rain” by our friend, Ken Kolodner. Then we take it into Bill Cheatham, which didn’t work out to be the slickest transition ever, but we didn’t end up with a pile of dancers on the floor either, so I guess it wasn’t too bad. The caller is Vicki Herndon–she’s quite a gal! I dig her energy, and she says if Butch and I behave ourselves, she’ll consider taking us out on the road with her sometime. I think we could be talked into that! Thanks, Philip Luckey, for making this video for us.

Contradance Rehearsal

Well the time has finally come for Butch and I to play for the Chattanooga contradance.  I’m excited about this because although we’ve played for contradances before, it’s always been with a group, and this time it’s just us as a duo.  That means that we get to pull out all kinds of tunes we’ve collected together over the years and throw them together in fun ways.  And I’m excited about playing for the dancers, because that adds a whole new rhythmic element to our music, which could lead to a whole new groove altogether.

Here are two clips from our rehearsal tonight.  They’re not perfect, but it’s the sound of us working out some ideas.  It’ll be rockin’ on Saturday, I’m fairly sure.  If any of you blogateers are within a stone’s throw of Chattanooga (or Ringgold, actually), I’d say you should come on out and dance a little.

Butch and Christie’s contradance rehearsal:  Blackberry Blossom into Miserlou, into June Apple:

And another, Fearghal O’Gara’s into Mississippi Sawyer into Nail That Catfish to the Tree: