Glen Loper

Rumblestrip was just down in North Carolina for their Wicked Whirlwind dance weekend. Lots of fun.  We also  just finished a six-track EP, a sort of prequel to the full album we’re working on.

You can hear some of those tunes on Rumblestrip’s  MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/rumblestrip1

There is also an new rumblestrip website under construction here, but its  pretty slim right now.

Frigate played the Common Ground Country Fair on Sept 20 in the amphitheater. Our good friend John McIntire called the dance. The weather was perfect, and it was just really nice to see all those dancers out in the sun.

Not a very original title for a post, but who cares? What a long winter! The days may be shorter in the northern hemisphere in terms of daylight, but I’m convinced the earth rotates slower somehow, or the gravitational pull of snow and sleet slows down time…I’m open to other theories if you have them.

Along with the usual thawing, leafing, and blooming that indicates spring, I had the pleasure of  watching an excavator demolish the house next door that burnt last June. It took about half an hour for the mechanical dinosaur to rip, tear, and bash the structure down into a remarkably tidy pile of debris. The crusty shell we were staring at for 11 months has been hauled away, and there’s a great big chunk of sunny blue sky in its place…at least for now.

Some good spring gigs have been popping up too. A couple benefit dances for “Relay for Life” in Whitefield and North Yarmouth, a loud, jumping, whooping dance at Chewonki, and an interesting experience at the Hyde School in Bath for their parents weekend. We were in their field house, with students, parents and faculty totaling about 500. John McIntire taught a circle dance and things were fine until the crowd got confused and started to talk. The mob of voices murmured and echoed in the cavernous, vault-ceilinged, hangar of a field house, slowly getting louder and louder. We thought to ourselves, “This is never gonna work! Its like being in a beehive!”…but then some of the faculty stuck their arms up in the air and twisted their hands back and forth, like they were dialing in a radio station. Apparently that’s Hyde-language for “shush”, because all 500 people suddenly stopped talking. I turned wide eyed to the guitar player, Fred White, and whispered a “Whoa!” The dance actually went smoothly. I was impressed.

This Friday at the North Whitefield dance we’ll be putting on a special Beatles contradance with Rick Mohr calling. Every set will feature a Beatles song with vocals, and there will be Beatles songs for waltzing… and probably some tunes for just rock and roll -shake-it-boogie-down- like -a -dork-dancing. I can’t wait. I get to sing lead on Mr Postman.

Our post-Thanksgiving trip was great. We played six contradances, a couple waltz sessions, and a house concert. I think some of us even made a little money, although after a couple shopping trips to some music and electronics stores, it was close. Liza picked up a new digital camera, so that I can post her pictures of me taking a picture of her at a restaurant in Blacksburg, VA.

We had great time in Blacksburg, staying with Shawn Brenneman and Matt Labarge. During the drive down the band worked up a vocal arrangement of the old novelty tune “Ukulele Lady, ” and we performed it the house concert . I also miraculously cured myself of some nagging hand and wrist pain by playing ping-pong.

Here’s a fuzzy but fun shot of Liza shooting a photo of me. Nat is a fiddling bystander

The Old Farmers Ball in Asheville, NC was a great dance.

While driving to Glen Echo, MD we pulled off the high way to watch the sunset.

Since that trip we’ve been recording some of our ideas that should show up on our upcoming CD . We won’t have too many dances in the next few months, but there may be some interesting photos from the Bahamas on Liza’s website.

I’m getting ready to play some dances with Rumblestrip. I’m looking forward to a little break from the cold when get a little further south.  I’ll post pics and any good stories here when I get back. 

As if keeping 8-strings in tune wasn’t enough, I’ve started a website. More to come as I fine tune my knowledge of code and web hosting through the time-honored tradition of trial and error.

 …So if things look funky…start dancing or something.