Blog & News
Thanks to the nearly 100 dancers who came out to the June contra dance in Reno
We had a blast playing fast tunes for the Sacramento crowd, a group of fun dancers who are full of verve and creative fun moves! For this event, we joined up with Kenny Davis and Leslie Mink on piano and fiddle, and called ourselves Fish Tacos, Beans and Rice. I wonder which of us was supposed to be Beans?
Kenny plays piano, and Leslie is a fantastic fiddler, a great match for Kenny's prowess. These two longtime musicians were in the Post Industrial String Band, an amazing group of Celtic fame in Northern California. Also, it's Kenny and Leslie who helped us to get our start playing for contra dances, with me on accordion and Tom playing tunes on guitar. It was a stretch to play tunes so fast! Any musician who has played for contra dances can tell you that the dancers like it fast, and the caller will prompt the band to pickup the pace more often than anything. Therefore, as a musician we really have to have a racer mentality, and this definitely suits us! -- Mary Kay