Bill Olson Bio adapted from Bill’s Website: I was born in Attleboro, MA, and grew up in Durham, NH. I played Tuba in the marching band all through school and learned Guitar from my scoutmaster. I went away to College in Pennsylvania in 1964, where I became exposed to Old Timey music. (It was the…
Read More
This fourth episode of the Flying Shoes Radio Hour podcast involves chatting (and laughing) with the Quebecois band, Genticorum. Original members, Pascal Gemme and Yann Falquet, along with their “Genticorum 2.0” bandmate Nicholas Williams were in midcoast Maine for several days, and we recorded the show as soon as they arrived in town. The podcast…
Read More
“Mentorship in this community often looks like someone noticing you, giving you a small nudge, and then stepping back so you can figure out your own way in.” ~ Lindsey Dono Lindsey Dono Washington-based caller Lindsey Dono is a mainstay on the national contra circuit, and has been on staff at camps, weeks, and…
Read More
This third episode of the Flying Shoes Radio Hour Podcast features River Road, a trio from the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts. It was terrific to spend some quality time with Sarah-Hadley Yakir (who plays fiddle), Kristen Planeaux (who plays piano, flute & accordion) and Jesse Ball (who plays mandolin & guitar and also does…
Read More
This second episode of the Flying Shoes Radio Hour features Wild Asparagus, an influential dance band based in Western Massachusetts, and named for a feral crop in the Connecticut River Valley. Band members – David Cantieni on oboe, saxophone, flutes, whistles, and bombard; George Marshall on concertina and bodhran, Ann Percival on guitar, piano, and…
Read More
I love facilitating that much joy. I love the craft of it. I love the art of it. I love the experience of it. I think a lot of callers will talk about it like —”oh my god it’s like a drug.” You just get in it and it’s like, “How could you ever stop?…
Read More
“Every dance comes with multiple stories to it, if the caller wants to take them into account. I think…each slot we call is like a five story building. It’s got multiple stories to it.” ~ Jeremy Korr Jeremy Korr is a bicoastal caller, based in Southern California most of the year and in Eastern Massachusetts…
Read More
Welcome to the first episode of the Flying Shoes Radio Hour Podcast! Launching this project with the Pine Tree Flyers was a natural decision. We made this recording on Mother’s Day 2024, just after the band released their first album, which is chock full of tunes from the contra dance repertoire and which pays homage…
Read More
I tried not to be a dance leader. I tried to be a dancer. I tried to just be like one of the kids. And the best time would come when I stopped calling, and often nobody would be saying anything and we would just be grooving with this really great music we had. ~…
Read More
When I joined the Grange, it really did become a bridge to people with really, really different social and political views and values—really different lifestyles. And it’s not that I wanted to become like them, but I wanted to like them. ~ David Kaynor A conversation with David In this special episode of From the…
Read More