A few weeks after Contra Syncretist launched, a friend of mine came up to me at a contra dance. She’d just gotten back from Whitefield, Maine, where The Henry Road Bandits had incorporated various other genres of music and vocals, bass, drums, and electric guitar into contra dance sets. They started with a fiddle tune and then would shift to more contemporary covers like Van Halen’s “Jump,” the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” and some reggae songs. She said I just had to go talk to Glen, who had kindly passed along his contact information when she went up to him after the set. So I did.
Glen describes The Henry Road Bandits as follows:
“The core of the band is John Pranio, his wife Toki Oshima, their sons Jamie and Sean [Oshima], Paul D'Alessio, a close long-term friend of the family, and myself. To understand how we come up with material and why we do this, it might help to talk about these folks for a bit.” As he explains, “John and Toki have helped organize the North Whitefield dance for over 15 years, and have played for contra dances in lots of ‘traditional’ dance bands. They also have played lots of other music over the years, including rock, reggae, and folk. Our friend Paul D’Alessio plays fiddle for dances, but also plays guitar in various rock bands, a reggae band, and is leader of a Cuban band, Primo Cubano.”
So how did these eclectic people all find themselves playing together? ”I met these folks 10 years ago or so while playing contra dances. They (John and Toki) invited me over to their house where they would have music parties or jam sessions...that would include a wide variety of styles, but was definitely Beatles focused. We just called them ‘Beatles Parties.’ They would set up the drum kit, some amps, microphones etc., and we would spend the day playing Beatles songs out of books. John grew up with the Beatles, and his kids have grown up with them too...learning the chords, the riffs, the vocal harmonies, the drum parts, etc....”
He further explains that the band members have a very wide skill set between them. “John plays a little bit of everything: fiddle, guitar, banjo, harmonica, drum kit, mandolin, bass; Toki plays mostly bass and guitar; Sean plays bass and some uke, but in the Bandits, [he] mostly sings. Paul plays fiddle, bass and guitar; Jamie plays drum kit, piano, guitar, bass, flute, and will probably pick up even more.” As for Glen, “I usually play mandolin or guitar. Sometimes some percussion.”
This talented crowd, however, was not the first attempt at incorporating (more) contemporary covers with contra dances. Years before, they had worked with Rick Mohr (the caller) on a project where the band played Beatles covers for the contra dance. “Having successfully integrated the Beatles songs and instrumentation into the contra dance setting, John and Toki decided they wanted to try some different songs that they've played for years. The first dance with that specific band was in December 2008. The Beatles project gave us experience in arranging pop/rock music for contradancing and having that experience and ‘know how’ made the Bandits project seem like a natural thing to try, given that we were already playing this music to some degree anyway.”
Unsurprisingly, “Squareness is a factor...it works best if the song has sections that are in 16 or 32 measure blocks...just as most fiddle tunes used for dancing are 32 bars long. If a song is based on 12 bar blues or has some ‘crooked’ sections, it won't easily sync up with the dancing...and even if you find a ‘work around’ for that timing problem...trying to remember that specific modification to the song can be a lot harder than you'd think…but sometimes it’s worth it. We did a version of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees that needed quite a bit of tweaking (...and is still kind of confusing to perform), but the song is so well known and gets such a reaction we just had to do it.”
This contributes to the eclectic nature of The Henry Road Bandits’ set lists: “Basically, if we stumble across a song that seems really fun or powerful and seems fairly close to ‘square’ we'll take a stab at arranging it. At the same time, having a variety of grooves and styles is key. I don't think we'd ever do a whole night of reggae or a whole night of Chuck Berry, etc.... although I personally would be game to do a whole night of Talking Heads.”
What, then, are they looking for in the fiddle tunes that melt into the cover songs? “There are a few things we might be looking for. The rhythm of the phrases might lead well into the ‘featured song’...sometimes we may want a certain key, so that the singer can hear what key to sing in. Generally, we're picking straightforward, well-phrased tunes that we know really well so that it’s easy for us to bend them to what we might need for a transition.”
As much fun as it sounds like they have, Glen mentions that the Bandits only play once or twice a year, and that those occasions are “an awful lot of work to put together.” He elaborates: “It comes back to that squareness issue. When you play a 32 bar fiddle tune for a dance you have piece of music that truly fits dancing. As a dance musician, you have that sense of structure ingrained in your ear/mind/fingers. You know a tune. You know its 32 bars. You know everyone will play the tune and then repeat the tune. You can relax and rely on that structure and its ‘ingrained-ness.’ [Cover] songs are different, with different structures, verses, choruses, bridges, little vamps and interludes etc....and all of that is a serious challenge to keeping track of where you are in relationship to the 32 bar structure of a contra dance. Do you vamp for two bars or four bars or not at all after a chorus? Things that are very natural to do when playing a song suddenly don't work...and keeping track of that matters...both to the band (sticking to an arrangement) and to the caller (figuring out where the dance is at).”
A project like this is not just different from the stage, calling and playing, but it’s also different from the sound mixer’s board. Glen says, “I often do my own sound when playing a dance, but when we've done the Beatles contra dance and the Henry Road Bandits projects, we've had a separate sound person. Eric Johnson has been a key part of having these projects come off successfully. Suddenly instead of 3 or 4 acoustic instruments, you have a stage full electric gear and a drum kit, and vocal mics, and people changing instruments. I'm guessing if we didn't have Eric mixing the music all night long, it would be really muddy. I've also done sound for a couple alternative contras that used pre-recorded music. That felt so different to me. On one level it’s easy...you just have one input from a laptop...but at the same time I found it frustrating. It's easy to make the music loud, but not so easy to give the music some ‘tooth’ as I call it...you can't just turn up an instrument or a vocal track...you're stuck with the mix. The music may be loud and powerful, but not really supporting the dancing.”
So does this different project make for a different reaction from the dancers? “I think we've had a pretty good reaction. A few people really don't care for it and might avoid the dance. Others prefer ‘traditional’ music but still enjoy the novelty of it. I think it depends on what a dancer values at a contra dance. Some dancers really like precision and having the moves fall into a certain rhythm and trad fiddle tunes really support that beautifully. The pop/rock music can be more confusing to dance to. Even if the structure is 32 bars, the music/phrasing might not always support the dance. Some dancers are less into that and just like the energy and the social aspect...and perhaps are dancing differently. Hearing more modern music that they're familiar with makes them ‘light up.’ Maybe they enjoy contra dancing to fiddle tunes just fine, but the familiar songs/sounds tap into something else. Maybe it involves the dancer/audience more. You can sing along with these songs. You've heard them before. You anticipate your favorite parts, and when they come around you're ‘right there’ and locked in to the music.”
Glen Loper plays with contra dance bands Rumblestrip, Frigate, and The Steampacket, and he has also recently been found playing with Rodney Miller and Bruce Rosen. He teaches mandolin privately in Portland, Maine, teaches at a music camp in Montville, Maine (www.mainefiddle.org), and is available for online lessons as well. More information on Glen can be found at www.glenloper.com. Special thanks both to him for answering my questions, and to Jillian Carnrick who originally let me know about Glen and The Henry Road Bandits!
“The core of the band is John Pranio, his wife Toki Oshima, their sons Jamie and Sean [Oshima], Paul D'Alessio, a close long-term friend of the family, and myself. To understand how we come up with material and why we do this, it might help to talk about these folks for a bit.” As he explains, “John and Toki have helped organize the North Whitefield dance for over 15 years, and have played for contra dances in lots of ‘traditional’ dance bands. They also have played lots of other music over the years, including rock, reggae, and folk. Our friend Paul D’Alessio plays fiddle for dances, but also plays guitar in various rock bands, a reggae band, and is leader of a Cuban band, Primo Cubano.”
So how did these eclectic people all find themselves playing together? ”I met these folks 10 years ago or so while playing contra dances. They (John and Toki) invited me over to their house where they would have music parties or jam sessions...that would include a wide variety of styles, but was definitely Beatles focused. We just called them ‘Beatles Parties.’ They would set up the drum kit, some amps, microphones etc., and we would spend the day playing Beatles songs out of books. John grew up with the Beatles, and his kids have grown up with them too...learning the chords, the riffs, the vocal harmonies, the drum parts, etc....”
He further explains that the band members have a very wide skill set between them. “John plays a little bit of everything: fiddle, guitar, banjo, harmonica, drum kit, mandolin, bass; Toki plays mostly bass and guitar; Sean plays bass and some uke, but in the Bandits, [he] mostly sings. Paul plays fiddle, bass and guitar; Jamie plays drum kit, piano, guitar, bass, flute, and will probably pick up even more.” As for Glen, “I usually play mandolin or guitar. Sometimes some percussion.”
This talented crowd, however, was not the first attempt at incorporating (more) contemporary covers with contra dances. Years before, they had worked with Rick Mohr (the caller) on a project where the band played Beatles covers for the contra dance. “Having successfully integrated the Beatles songs and instrumentation into the contra dance setting, John and Toki decided they wanted to try some different songs that they've played for years. The first dance with that specific band was in December 2008. The Beatles project gave us experience in arranging pop/rock music for contradancing and having that experience and ‘know how’ made the Bandits project seem like a natural thing to try, given that we were already playing this music to some degree anyway.”
Unsurprisingly, “Squareness is a factor...it works best if the song has sections that are in 16 or 32 measure blocks...just as most fiddle tunes used for dancing are 32 bars long. If a song is based on 12 bar blues or has some ‘crooked’ sections, it won't easily sync up with the dancing...and even if you find a ‘work around’ for that timing problem...trying to remember that specific modification to the song can be a lot harder than you'd think…but sometimes it’s worth it. We did a version of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees that needed quite a bit of tweaking (...and is still kind of confusing to perform), but the song is so well known and gets such a reaction we just had to do it.”
This contributes to the eclectic nature of The Henry Road Bandits’ set lists: “Basically, if we stumble across a song that seems really fun or powerful and seems fairly close to ‘square’ we'll take a stab at arranging it. At the same time, having a variety of grooves and styles is key. I don't think we'd ever do a whole night of reggae or a whole night of Chuck Berry, etc.... although I personally would be game to do a whole night of Talking Heads.”
What, then, are they looking for in the fiddle tunes that melt into the cover songs? “There are a few things we might be looking for. The rhythm of the phrases might lead well into the ‘featured song’...sometimes we may want a certain key, so that the singer can hear what key to sing in. Generally, we're picking straightforward, well-phrased tunes that we know really well so that it’s easy for us to bend them to what we might need for a transition.”
As much fun as it sounds like they have, Glen mentions that the Bandits only play once or twice a year, and that those occasions are “an awful lot of work to put together.” He elaborates: “It comes back to that squareness issue. When you play a 32 bar fiddle tune for a dance you have piece of music that truly fits dancing. As a dance musician, you have that sense of structure ingrained in your ear/mind/fingers. You know a tune. You know its 32 bars. You know everyone will play the tune and then repeat the tune. You can relax and rely on that structure and its ‘ingrained-ness.’ [Cover] songs are different, with different structures, verses, choruses, bridges, little vamps and interludes etc....and all of that is a serious challenge to keeping track of where you are in relationship to the 32 bar structure of a contra dance. Do you vamp for two bars or four bars or not at all after a chorus? Things that are very natural to do when playing a song suddenly don't work...and keeping track of that matters...both to the band (sticking to an arrangement) and to the caller (figuring out where the dance is at).”
A project like this is not just different from the stage, calling and playing, but it’s also different from the sound mixer’s board. Glen says, “I often do my own sound when playing a dance, but when we've done the Beatles contra dance and the Henry Road Bandits projects, we've had a separate sound person. Eric Johnson has been a key part of having these projects come off successfully. Suddenly instead of 3 or 4 acoustic instruments, you have a stage full electric gear and a drum kit, and vocal mics, and people changing instruments. I'm guessing if we didn't have Eric mixing the music all night long, it would be really muddy. I've also done sound for a couple alternative contras that used pre-recorded music. That felt so different to me. On one level it’s easy...you just have one input from a laptop...but at the same time I found it frustrating. It's easy to make the music loud, but not so easy to give the music some ‘tooth’ as I call it...you can't just turn up an instrument or a vocal track...you're stuck with the mix. The music may be loud and powerful, but not really supporting the dancing.”
So does this different project make for a different reaction from the dancers? “I think we've had a pretty good reaction. A few people really don't care for it and might avoid the dance. Others prefer ‘traditional’ music but still enjoy the novelty of it. I think it depends on what a dancer values at a contra dance. Some dancers really like precision and having the moves fall into a certain rhythm and trad fiddle tunes really support that beautifully. The pop/rock music can be more confusing to dance to. Even if the structure is 32 bars, the music/phrasing might not always support the dance. Some dancers are less into that and just like the energy and the social aspect...and perhaps are dancing differently. Hearing more modern music that they're familiar with makes them ‘light up.’ Maybe they enjoy contra dancing to fiddle tunes just fine, but the familiar songs/sounds tap into something else. Maybe it involves the dancer/audience more. You can sing along with these songs. You've heard them before. You anticipate your favorite parts, and when they come around you're ‘right there’ and locked in to the music.”
Glen Loper plays with contra dance bands Rumblestrip, Frigate, and The Steampacket, and he has also recently been found playing with Rodney Miller and Bruce Rosen. He teaches mandolin privately in Portland, Maine, teaches at a music camp in Montville, Maine (www.mainefiddle.org), and is available for online lessons as well. More information on Glen can be found at www.glenloper.com. Special thanks both to him for answering my questions, and to Jillian Carnrick who originally let me know about Glen and The Henry Road Bandits!
