Glen Loper

(Credit to S.K. Green for the Post title)

I thought I’d mention a little show I’ll be a part of in a couple days:

Wednesday June 4th
Portland at Blue, 650A Congress St Irish Music Night at Blue”.Adams, McEvoy and Loper - (As in Glen Loper…) <http://portcityblue.com > > 774-4111

Glen Loper (yours truly) plays mandolin and banjo for contradances all over Maine and the Northeast with the bands Rumblestrip, Frigate, and Calliope. He also teaches mandolin lessons from his home in Portland and is a mandolin instructor at Maine Fiddle Camp in Montville, ME.

You may know Paul McEvoy from his photography project of contradancer portraits taken at the Belfast and Rockport dances, and at the DECDF on Friday night. Paul studied bass at NE Conservatory and has been immersed in Irish music for the last ten years or so. Paul will be playing fiddle, as well as singing some traditional and original songs with guitar. (www.paulmcevoy.net)

Tim Adams has been head of the physical therapy dept at Colby College for many years (so if you hurt yourself at the show, he can give you some advice), and been playing bohdran at Irish sessions for even longer.

They’ll be performing a set Irish tunes with some Quebecois tunes and an odd contra and old time tune here and there, as well and a handful of songs. Blue is a small, intimate club on Congress St which hosts these concerts on Wednesday nights. There is an Irish sessiun after the concert and pints of Guiness are $3 all evening. Come on down for a great evening of music!

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.