Detached notes

The BIB editor writes:

Thanks to Paul Lee for the news that the next Musiclee.ie show at the DC Music Club (20 Camden Row, Dublin 2) will be this coming Friday (8 May), starting at 9.00 p.m. The featured performers are singer/songwriter Sarah McQuaid, fiddle maestro Gerry O'Connor, and Breton guitarist Gilles Le Bigot. Footage of O'Connor and Le Bigot playing together can be seen on YouTube. McQuaid's wide repertoire includes Appalachian folksongs, and instrument freaks may be intrigued by her guitar.

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Thanks to Wendy Connolly for posting on 'Bluegrass in Ireland' an eight-minute video (also on YouTube), filmed at a contra-dance event, with a sound track in which dancers explain why they love contra. As it happens, shortly before I saw this video the latest issue of The Old Time Herald magazine arrived, with an article entitled 'Dare to be Square' by Phil Jamison, old-time musician, flatfoot dancer, and square-dance caller based in Asheville, NC.

Phil, who played at the Omagh festival some years ago with the late Ralph Blizard, looks at the distinctions between modern and traditional in both the contra-dance and square-dance fields, and the extent to which they overlap with - or stand apart from - the old-time music community. Is contra dance 'the kudzu of the traditional dance world'? Find out in OTH.

More info on Phil Jamison can be found here.