Weblog & News
A Gig With The Fantastic Kenny and Leslie
We had a blast playing fast tunes for the Reno crowd, a group of over 100 lively dancers who are always full of vervy contra dance moves!
The event was held by the Sierra Contra Dance Society in the auditorium of the Historical Southside School Annex Building in Reno, Nevada. This venue has a tall ceiling, shiny wooden dance floor and a wood-trimmed stage where we performed for the dancers.
For this event, we joined up with Kenny Davis and Leslie Mink on piano and fiddle, and we called our band "Fish Tacos, Beans and Rice." The band name was a natural, since Kenny and Leslie host Celtic music sessions at a fish taco restaurant in Portola, California. So, we know who were the fish tacos and rice, the main course of our band. But, now I wonder who were the beans?
Thanks to Kenny and Leslie
It was 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 for us to learn to play tunes as fast as contra dancing requires! 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!
Kenny plays piano, and Leslie is a fantastic fiddler, a great match for Kenny's prowess. These two longtime musicians have a lot of cred, being members of the Post Industrial String Band, an amazing group of Celtic fame in Northern California.
