Flying Shoes Radio Hour Episode 1 – Pine Tree Flyers

February 20, 2025 Flying Shoes Radio Hour 1:02:1256.95M

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 to some of the greats of the trad music scene in New England. Each of the band members has deep roots in the contra dance tradition, and that plays out in their musicianship as well as their philosophical perspective. What’s more, they all live in Maine—which connects nicely as a starting point for this Maine-produced podcast. From all of us at Belfast Flying Shoes, Country Dance & Song Society, and Belfast Community Radio, enjoy the contra dance music and the conversation!

Show Notes

Musician websites & some topics referenced in the show:

Podcast producers:

Tunes:

  1. Lady of the Lake / Lady Walpole / Lady Ann Montgomery (all trad)  
  2. Haste to the Wedding / Coleraine (both trad)  
  3. Vidita (waltz by Katie McNally)

Break

  1. Petronella / Green Mountain Petronella / Petronella (all trad)  
  2. Glise de Sherbrooke (trad)
  3. Hull’s Victory / Douglas’s Favorite / Lamplighter’s Hornpipe (trad / either Jack Douglas or trad / trad)

Transcript

Click here to download

Shoes and the Country Dance & Song Society, in cooperation with WBFY, Belfast Maine’s community radio station, where the show airs weekly, mostly using music from the station’s digital library. This podcast version of the show features contra dance music and conversations with musicians whose talents catalyze joy and connection wherever they play, including here in Maine, where this program was recorded. Enjoy this episode and thanks for listening. Welcome to the Flying Shoes Radio Hour, a program that highlights the roots and branches of the contra dance music we love here in Belfast [Maine] and beyond, the musicians who play it with and for others, and the dancers of all ages that it inspires. I’m your host, Chrissy Fowler. Stay tuned.

music 01:14

Chrissy Fowler 05:14
Ah! Well, as you might have guessed, or as you ought to know, the Flying Shoes Radio Hour has flown south a little bit. I am sitting here in Portland Maine, delighted to be checking in and hearing some music from and chatting with the Pine Tree Flyers, which is starting on my left, for those of you who in radio land there, Emily Troll, Katie McNally, Owen Marshall and Neil Pearlman. Glad you’re here, you guys.

Neil Pearlman 05:43
Happy to be here.

Chrissy Fowler 05:44
Well, we’re doing a dance together tonight in Portland, as we’re recording this, and I’m so excited that we have a chance to sit down and talk. You guys have just put out an album. There’s a lot going on for the Pine Tree Flyers these days, playing a lot of dances, doing some concerts. I saw some great video clips of some far foreign lands. And so my, I guess my first question is, as a kind of genesis story, like beginning, like, how did you guys decide to start a band? And where did that all come from? Maybe start with that.

Katie McNally 06:14
Well, we decided that we wanted to start this band to get New England music out to a wider audience, I think, here in Maine, and where we all grew up, in Massachusetts and Vermont and Maine, we have these dances, and we love them, and then you just get outside the borders of New England, and people don’t necessarily know what we have going on here. So, we’re taking these tunes and putting them on the concert stage. We do play dances, because we think the music should never be that far removed from the dance. But primarily we’re playing concerts and festivals so that different audiences can really start to appreciate what we have here.

Chrissy Fowler 06:55
That’s such a great mission. I love it. Pine Tree Flyers says it all. The old Pine Tree State [of Maine]. Any more to say, any of the others of you want to add on to Katie’s narrative?

Owen Marshall 07:06
Well, I think there was the theoretical sort of idea Katie had. And then the first gig was actually for a friend’s wedding. I can’t remember exactly how that came together. I was the point person for the music, and needed a fiddle player. We all live here in town, so, you know, I was looking at who is here, and then, well, if I’m asking Katie, I should ask Neil. And if I’m ask, and I was like, wait. But then, we’d also, I think Katie and I had discussed sort of this configuration or some version of it, and then so we had our rehearsals for that wedding. And then, okay, this is pretty flippin fun.

Neil Pearlman 07:53
I would say it’s, it’s been, like, more successful than we could have dreamed, honestly, in terms of the reception of that. Like, we basically had played that wedding and thought, oh, we’ll be at the band now. And we did like, a live stream concert for like, BCM Fest, when in this very room COVID was going on, and we yeah, we couldn’t, like, we couldn’t do in person things. We just got together and played on the internet for that. And then the next thing we knew, we were booked at Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton, which is one of the biggest Celtic music festivals, internationally. And, like, so, people are pretty interested in hearing what we, what we have to play.

Chrissy Fowler 08:31
That’s so great! Fertile ground. That, that little seed of an idea got planted in fertile ground. So, um, so process of recording an album, you’ve all done albums before, but this is the first for the four of you all together, right?

Emily Troll 08:44
That’s right. I actually haven’t done a whole lot of recording before, so it was an extra big adventure for me to play with these guys. And we went into the studio in, right here in Portland, Maine, at KDS(?) Studios, three days, four days last April, and just took these very dear tunes, many from our childhoods, but also some more recently-composed, and played the heck out of them. And listened the heck out of them too. You know, did a lot of listening back. And I think through the process, we really began to refine more about what this band was about, definitely, and we’re really proud of how it came out.

All 08:44
Mhm.

Chrissy Fowler 09:27
Yeah, so exciting. And it’s hot off the presses too, right?

Neil Pearlman 09:30
Yeah, I don’t know when this airs, but as of this taping, it was released a week ago.

Chrissy Fowler 09:35
Wow, so exciting. Beginning of May. Um, well, what, what kinds of, what kinds of decisions did you make, in terms of what you wanted to put on the album? Emily just was saying that there are some of the beloved and dear tunes from your earlier years and your youth. And I, I know we’ve talked a little bit about some of the sets that you’re going to play on the show, so I have an inkling. But how did, you, how did you come up with, oh, well, we’ll put those on the album, or we’d like that. Or what was that process like? Kind of vetting the tunes?

Katie McNally 10:08
Well, we kind of wanted to focus a lot on, like the old chestnuts, and shine a light on those, dust them off a little bit, put them in a new context. And then, sort of like, pair them with a couple of tunes that band members had written, as well as, like, contemporary tunes. And I think we were pretty careful about sort of equal number of tunes that come to us from the Quebecois side of things, and the Irish repertoire, and the Scottish repertoire. All these different things that make up what we play here in New England. And, you know, making sure that there were some tunes that were written on on home turf too.

Chrissy Fowler 10:49
Sounds like like, so it sounds what I’m, what I’m hearing is that you were kind of digging deep into the tradition and the chestnuts, like the good old tunes, but also making sure it was a broad representation and a kind of multi faceted, yeah, not just a narrow take on that.

Katie McNally 11:06
Sure

Chrissy Fowler 11:06
I love it

Katie McNally 11:07
Yeah.

Neil Pearlman 11:07
One thing that I think we’ve, we’ve been engaging with as we’ve been developing this band, is this, you know, not everyone even is totally sure, is convinced that New England music is a thing. Like here, even here in New England, like a lot of people sort of think about it being a hodgepodge of all these different influences from different fiddle styles, like Quebecois music or Downeast Canada, or, you know, couple Southern tunes that have come up, whatever, Celtic tunes. And, but that’s not, that’s kind of the case for any tradition, is that the there’s other source materials for a lot of tunes that came in, to Quebec, to Quebec. There’s a bunch of Scottish tunes that ended up in there, and they have their Quebecois version. And so I think one thing that we’re trying to do is is sort of plant a flag on that and say, like, we aren’t just kind of a bunch of different influences from a bunch of places. We, there’s a way that we play them, and there’s a way that these tunes have changed to be played for the dancing here. And so I think part of the process of putting the repertoire together for the album was that we wanted to represent those old tunes and also some of the newer things that have been written by great New England musicians. Wanted to represent tunes that had been written or recorded by great musicians of a generation ago, that we were influenced by, and also a couple of our own tunes in there as well.

Emily Troll 12:26
And we really wanted to play tunes that you hear on the contra dance stage that are alive and doing that work right now. So that went into our tune choice as well.

Chrissy Fowler 12:34
Yeah. So ones that are yep, yeah, oh, I, oh, so exciting. I’m really excited about the dance later. Sorry, radio listeners, maybe they’ll have another chance so well, that does give me one quick little segue. I was thinking in terms of the New England tradition. I know that there’s been some connections with Maine Fiddle Camp. And, and I know some of you are, have taught and attended Maine Fiddle Camp. Is there any, do you think that there are some threads that carry over from that, like your, the kinds of things that you would play and talk about at Fiddle Camp, where it’s really focused on the Maine traditions? Do you think that that had any connection with your album?

Katie McNally 13:20
For me, so, I grew up in Westford, Massachusetts, and I was playing in a band led by Sandy Davis, called Oh Contraire. And it was a community dance band. We played two dances a month, a family dance and then a Saturday night dance. And so I played these tunes, like, so much, from, like, age 12 to 17. And there, but I wasn’t really playing with like, people my age. It was a lot of older folks in town who taught me a lot. And it wasn’t until Neil kind of dragged me along to Maine Fiddle Camp, when I was maybe like 24 or so, that I, like, heard some of these guys in the band, some other great friends, like Alden Robinson and Glen Loper and Julia Plumb, just like absolutely shredding these tunes. And I, the seed was sort of planted for me at Maine Fiddle Camp that, like, wow, we have something uniquely special here that you don’t hear anywhere else. So certainly for me, Maine Fiddle Camp was like a catalyst for this project.

Chrissy Fowler 14:25
Wow. Well, I think we should hear, I think we should hear another, another tune, if that is an option, tell us about the first tunes we played. Yeah, you played, though, because we just launched right in. We didn’t even talk about that first set. What was in that first set of tunes? Who could speak to that?

Emily Troll 14:44
I’ll speak to that. That set is actually the first on our album as well. And we call it the Lady Set because all three tunes have the word lady in them. First, we have Lady of the Lake, then Lady Walpole, and we ended with Lady Anne Montgomery.

Chrissy Fowler 15:00
All tunes that I really love.

Emily Troll 15:02
Yeah, they’re a lovable bunch. Next we’re gonna play Haste to the Wedding, we’re going to play Haste to the Wedding, along with another favorite, called Coleraine.

Chrissy Fowler 15:14
Haste to the Wedding is, it is definitely one of my all time favorite dances, and it’s my, one of my all time favorite tunes to play with that dance, because it really fits the dance perfectly, the little clappy part, clap, clap.

Emily Troll 15:29
You can clap along!

Chrissy Fowler 15:33
Yeah, all right, so I’m gonna clap quietly, though, so that it doesn’t, you know, diminish

Emily Troll 15:37
Well, loud enough to inspire your audience.

Owen Marshall 15:40
And then the second tune, Coleraine, we got from where we, reminded to play, had kind of gone through old recordings. And of course, the Canterbury Dance Orchestra recorded this one with a mighty sound of many people banging it out. So we

Chrissy Fowler 15:58
Amazing.

Owen Marshall 15:59
We can only hope to be as powerful as, yeah, the throng, many throngs of musicians.

Chrissy Fowler 16:07
We’re in a small space, so we’ll feel even more

Emily Troll 16:09
So look out.

Chrissy Fowler 16:10
All right. Well, here we go

Neil Pearlman 16:11
We tried to include a little nod to to the to Bob McQuillen’s accompaniment in that recording, too, in our arrangement.

Chrissy Fowler 16:18
Bob McQuillen, Oh, all right, well, I’m having all sorts of verklempt things. Better launch into it, friends.

music 16:24

Chrissy Fowler 16:24
Oh! Well, I had just a little brain wipe. I was so excited about those tunes that I’m I just, I’m just a little giddy over here.

Owen Marshall 16:24
Okay.

Emily Troll 19:56
(?) tunes can have that effect on people. You’re not the first

Owen Marshall 19:59
Mmm.

Emily Troll 19:59
Yeah. Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 20:01
So where should we go now in our conversation?

Neil Pearlman 20:03
Well, I mean, we were talking about the nod to Bob. Bob gets more, like another nod on the record too. He’s definitely an influence. But we, that’s kind of something as I was saying, that we liked, like to do with the record. And there’s a couple different tunes we did. We, we’re not going to play them all right now, the one, the ones that the different, nods to different people. But people can check out the album to hear others. But you know, people like Ruthie Dornfeld recorded some tunes that we really, really were inspired by, and and David Kaynor and others, but we’re also including

Owen Marshall 20:37
Sarah Blair tunes.

Neil Pearlman 20:38
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 20:40
So many great musicians. Oh, boy.

Owen Marshall 20:43
Mary Lea.

Chrissy Fowler 20:44
Oh. It’s like a who’s who. So, you were saying Neil, uh you (?)

Neil Pearlman 20:51
Yeah. So we tried to, so we tried to do a lot of that as in addition to, like, the really old tunes, and as I was saying before, like some of the newer tunes, to some some brand new tunes from people who are, who are, kind of our peers and also some of our own tunes, and say, like, we’re also New England musicians playing, and it’s kind of great to just, as someone who, like the other tradition that I mostly play, I grew up playing and spent a lot of time in, is not from here, it’s the Scottish and Cape Breton tradition. And I feel very at home in that and enjoy doing it. But I do get questions from, sometimes, from people about, like, why am I doing that? There’s no need to have that question.

laughter 21:22

Neil Pearlman 21:22
Or wonder, like, what is the tune that I wrote? What style is it like? Just because I’m from here? Yeah,

Chrissy Fowler 21:27
Yeah, yeah. So you can proudly wave your flag of New England musician, yeah.

Neil Pearlman 21:36
Yeah. And I just sort of like, maybe getting ahead of things. And we don’t want to necessarily play another thing immediately, but we are going to play like something that Katie wrote later, just kind of like set that up a little bit.

Chrissy Fowler 21:46
Nice. So good. Well, now, what about the dancing part? Earlier, we talked about how you wanted to kind of be clear that these were tunes that are, are and, were and are. I mean, were, like Haste to the Wedding is an ancient tune, and but still being played, I still ask for it, for the people who are lucky enough to work with me in those circumstances. And I I love this idea of, what I heard earlier was this idea that it was connected to the dancing, like, that, even though you weren’t necessarily, as Katie was saying, necessarily playing as many dances, more concerts and festivals, that you wanted to really link that up. And why is that important for you? Like, what’s why is that important?

Emily Troll 22:31
Well, I think it’s just in us. You know, to varying degrees. We’ve all played for dances a lot and have enjoyed that experience, of the feedback you get from the dancers. And I’m not just talking about the whooping and the hollering, because that’s fun, but you know, just that feedback loop of playing music that’s really functional.

Chrissy Fowler 22:53
Functional, meaning?

Emily Troll 22:54
Making the dancers move around.

Chrissy Fowler 22:56
Yeah.

Emily Troll 22:58
So, I think that that is just a drive that we bring to all of this music and want to share beyond that space.

Owen Marshall 23:04
Yeah, yeah. I’ll, speaking for myself, too, I’ve had some sort of crossover projects, working with people more in like the bluegrass tradition, where that would be distinctly an American fiddle tradition. But that does not have a dance component to it, whatsoever. And working in those sort of crossover bands, playing for audiences that are used to hearing bluegrass music, that’s their, their their reference point, yeah, people kind of lose their minds a little bit with the rhythmic drive that I will bring. Not to toot my own horn. But it was a noticeable, a noticeable thing, kind of like, where I think of this as, like, well, this is just how it what happens.

Chrissy Fowler 23:56
Right. Because you need to do that with contra dance, or any kind of dancing music, any any service to the dancing. Yeah, or any sort

Owen Marshall 24:04
Yeah, any sort of social, I think, like when people ask what kind of music I’m interested in and what kind of music I play, I like playing social, traditional music. And that, there could certainly be a dance component to that. But there’s also a community and social aspect of playing together, which I think is sort of the the common thread to what I like playing. And so, and this is not to cast shade on bluegrass music at all, whatsoever. I, you know, people are really excited when I’m playing rhythm, and then they ask me to play a solo, and it’s just, I can’t really paint the scene for the language that would be allowed, but apocalyptic maybe would be, soloing is a pretty messy experience.

Chrissy Fowler 24:57
It’s a different kind of scene.

Owen Marshall 24:59
Yeah. But, um,

Chrissy Fowler 25:00
Well, that’s cool that you guys are focused on the dance part and that, and the kind of, yeah, aspect

Owen Marshall 25:00
Well, but then also taking it as a performance too. Giving ourselves sort of the permission to really mess around with tempos, forms of tunes, you know, like the other night, like, we just played Money Musk with Alden, we had him up there, and I just, okay, let’s, let’s just loop this part a couple different times, because I thought it’d be musically fun.

Emily Troll 25:31
And it was

Owen Marshall 25:32
And it was, and then, like, we just don’t, you don’t have to worry at all about lining up

Chrissy Fowler 25:38
Frees you up

Owen Marshall 25:38
so you can make choices that are purely musical.

Chrissy Fowler 25:42
Yep.

Emily Troll 25:44
I would say that’s been one of my favorite things about being in the band is like these tunes that we’ve played the same way for decades, some of us, we get to find something else underneath when, when we try it, together, in a concert. Yeah,

Neil Pearlman 25:59
It’s like the one, one thing that I has been in mind for me with this band since we first started working on it, is like, um, as I mentioned, like, I also play a lot, and grew up playing Scottish music and like, something that I experienced growing up listening to that music, in the scene from over there is a lot of, a lot of artists who are making albums for the purpose of like, listening. And people who are making who are, whose bands are, exist for the purpose of like presenting a concert or on, or a festival performance. And they’re taking these tunes that are traditional dance tunes, and they’re bringing this drive and energy and excitement that’s in dance tunes, but they’re crafting their particular project with that in mind. And that’s not something I heard very much of from great New England musicians. And so as a result, I was realizing that some of these tunes that are great and exciting tunes, I have certain like, preconceived ideas about, like, them, and they don’t some of them don’t seem as cool as tunes that are just as, like, have a very similar flavor from Scotland, but like, some the bands were playing them with this intention. So, just like to be a band that’s doing that, I think that’s the way that we are slightly putting a different angle than being, like, entirely focused as a dance band. We’re not trying to downplay the dance at all. And it’s really important that the energy is there from the dance music. But to make an album and make a performance like, with an ear towards like, what’s exciting and interesting to a listening audience is really a different thing. We’re trying to, like, do that to broaden, broaden the audience for tunes.

Chrissy Fowler 27:32
Yup, it’s like, the dance part is the springboard, but then you’re like, whoo, launching off into fun little stratospheres.

laughter 27:39

Emily Troll 27:39
Exactly.

Chrissy Fowler 27:39
Mmm, yes, Pine Tree Flyers flying off. Well, so about partway through the show, I like to do a couple dance so that, in case anybody’s listening in their living room or their kitchen while they’re doing dishes or or even even in their car, they could sway very carefully

Emily Troll 28:05
Or weave

Chrissy Fowler 28:06
No, not, watch your tempo with your gas foot. Anyway, I do like to do a little couple dance. And would you guys be willing to do a waltz next? And maybe tell us a little bit about it before you play it and then, and then play away, please?

Katie McNally 28:22
Yeah, well, we’ll play a waltz that I wrote a few years ago for a friend of the family, our friend, Rosie, for her parents’, I want to say 50th wedding anniversary. It was a commission. And her father always used to call her mother vidita, which is like a term of endearment in Spanish that means my little life. So, this is Vidita.

Chrissy Fowler 32:38
Belfast Flying Shoes is a participatory arts nonprofit, with a mission to build community and cultivate well-being through the joy of traditional music and dance for people of all backgrounds and identities inMidcoast Maine. In addition to this radio program and podcast, we have concerts, workshops, a monthly community and contra dance series, other dances, school residencies, and programs for incarcerated men and for older adults. Learn more at belfastflyingshoes.org . We are also a proud affiliate member of CDSS, the Country Dance & Song Society. They connect and support people in building and sustaining vibrant communities through participatory dance, music, and song. To find out more about their camps, affiliate services, other programs, and resources for music and dance throughout North America, visit cdss.org. Let’s get back to the show.

music 33:34

laughter 33:34

Chrissy Fowler 37:47
Oh, my goodness, all right. Well, I just want to have a little a little shout out, because that, wow. I love Petronella, and I love the change tune. And I just want to say, earlier, Neil, you were saying, well, just to be clear, this is, you know, we’re starting with dance music. It’s like our roots, but we’re, you know, we’re going somewhere else with it. We’re pine tree flying off into some other place with it, like the roots and wings thing, right? Not just roots and branches, but um But I will say, right now, you could totally dance to that.

Neil Pearlman 38:20
Oh yeah. I, oh yes, I certainly didn’t mean it’s not dance music.

Chrissy Fowler 38:24
Oh my word. Phew, good thing I had to be quiet. I was, going around to the right and then balancing. Interesting note for you dance people out there, the Petronella figure that is so popular in many, many dances and that lots of people just dearly love, starts with a balance, and then you move to the right. But Petronella, the chestnut, starts with around to the right, and then you balance, which is an interesting little contrast. And you can really hear it in that tune.

Emily Troll 38:50
Mhm.

Chrissy Fowler 38:50
So okay, but luckily I wasn’t dancing. I mean, or I was dancing. Anyway, here we are, once again, a slight brain wipe, but what I wanted to make sure we talked about, though, you have this album that’s fresh off the presses. Today is Mother’s Day 2024.

All 39:06
(various acknowledgements)

Chrissy Fowler 39:09
So, this album has recently been born, and you are, you’re getting it out there in the world. And where can we find it like but make sure we say that on the air.

Neil Pearlman 39:18
Oh, yeah. Well, it’s everywhere that you listen to music, at least in this year 2024. We’ve got it on all the streaming platforms and everything. But if you want to support the band, we don’t really get any money from that. So, like, you can head over to pinetreeflyers.com and just

Chrissy Fowler 39:34
Spelled as it sounds, P I N E T R E E F L Y E R S dot com,

Neil Pearlman 39:37
F L Y E R S dot com, and you can find the, find the links there. Or you can look us up on Bandcamp. That’s where you can either pay to download the album or order a physical album, and the money actually goes to us.

Chrissy Fowler 39:54
So important.

Emily Troll 39:55
Buy your mom some music!

Chrissy Fowler 39:57
Yeah.

Owen Marshall 39:58
Well, you messed that up. It’s a little too late for that, but you can make, you can make up for it.

Chrissy Fowler 40:03
No, there’s always, belated

Neil Pearlman 40:03
You could still buy your mom some music.

Chrissy Fowler 40:05
My mom would be very happy with it. I’ll just say that right now. Okay, so pinetreeflyers.com, kind of the obvious website.

Emily Troll 40:12
You got it.

Chrissy Fowler 40:12
Great. And, um, and all your contact information is there, and they can see pictures, are there pictures?

Neil Pearlman 40:17
Pictures, all of our upcoming gigs. We got we got the I was mentioning that we got booked at Celtic Colours very early. We also got to play at this great festival in Scotland called Celtic Connections, earlier this year. And when we were over there, we got the chance to do a taping of some of our live performances with the BBC. And so there’s some videos online as well.

Chrissy Fowler 40:40
I can speak to them being very, very fun. I have to say, I did a little, did a little rabbit hole searching. I’m victim to that. I had one little link that got sent to me, because you recently did an album release concert in Bowdoinham, right?

Neil Pearlman 40:52
Yes.

Chrissy Fowler 40:52
And, and one of the organizers sent a little announcement about the concert, and then a little link to this video. And I thought, oh, there’s not just one, there’s more. So, I listened to quite a few of them.

Neil Pearlman 41:03
So yeah, there’s, a pinetreeflyers.com is a head, sort of a central place you can go for all of our stuff. And also, we’re on Instagram and Facebook. We have pages in both of those, so you can look us up.

Chrissy Fowler 41:12
Oh, so fun. Follow, follow, follow! Yay. Well, what, what else do you, like, what’s fun about playing together? What do you like? What’s fun about playing all four of you?

Owen Marshall 41:24
I’ve said to the, in this band, to my bandmates and to other people, when asked that question, that this is actually a configuration where I feel like we make each other’s jobs easier, in this configuration. We’re all pretty comfortable playing melody if we need to do that. At least, I’m speaking for myself, if I need to do that. But you know, Neil and I are little rhythm team, and Emily and Katie are the little melody team, but we can pass it around and be interchangeable. And

Chrissy Fowler 41:57
Yup, heard that on that last set.

Owen Marshall 41:59
Yeah, and that’s really kind of a fun thing, that the roles are fluid.

Chrissy Fowler 42:04
Yeah. And supportive, it sounds like.

Owen Marshall 42:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 42:08
Great. What are we gonna say, Emily?

Emily Troll 42:09
I would say too that it’s fun because we’re all fun.

laughter 42:13

Emily Troll 42:17
Like, sorry, not to say that your question is, whatever, but, um, but, I feel like there is a playfulness to this band that I really appreciate and feel very at home in. And, you know, our album is just a little captured moment of some of that. In fact, the silliest moments didn’t quite make it on the album. There was some recorder playing as I remember. We cut that out.

Chrissy Fowler 42:39
It was just a recorder quartet?

Emily Troll 42:41
No, it was just a random recorder in the studio, and Owen got a little excited about it, but, um, but yeah, there’s, there’s a silliness that I really appreciate about this band, and I think it comes out in our music. And yeah, what I was trying to say about the album is, like that was just one moment. But every time we play together, you never know quite exactly what’s gonna happen. There’s gonna be some little extra splash somewhere, that then we are all listening to each other and responding to, and we’re in constant joyful conversation.

Chrissy Fowler 43:07
Joyful conversation. I really appreciate the fun thing, because that that’s one of my little things that I like to hammer, uh, or to emphasize, to to encourage people to notice, is that this dance tradition that we do, and this dance music is actually supposed to be fun. It’s social dance. It’s supposed to be fun. And it sounds like you really, you have a little home for that little fun, little fun ensemble here. Yeah,

Owen Marshall 43:34
Yeah, this, I mean, then there’s obviously a time and place for some very serious and austere moments in music, but it’s kind of nice to

Emily Troll 43:47
Let the good times roll?

Owen Marshall 43:48
Just just be a friggin goofball.

Emily Troll 43:50
Well, I’ll say, actually, this could be a nice segue into the next piece we’re gonna play. Another thing I love about this band is we do have a range of emotions. You know, we have fun whatever we’re playing, but we’ve gotten to take some tunes that are a little more of a peppy character for dancing, and then we’ve been able to explore them at slower tempos and kind of expand on what’s there and draw out some different kind of emotional content. And so, the next tune we’re going to play is called Glise deSherbrooke, and that’s typically a schottische that folks would skip and hop around to, but we’re gonna play it a little more of a concert style, little slower, and I don’t know if I would say somber, but certainly emotively for you

Owen Marshall 44:36
Reflective?

Emily Troll 44:37
Reflective.

Chrissy Fowler 44:38
So Glise de Sherbrooke, is a, tends to be a schottische.

Emily Troll 44:44
That’s how I was introduced to it. I’m sure it has a long history before me, though,

Chrissy Fowler 44:48
Where? So where? What kind of genre is it? It seems French, Glise de Sherbrooke.

Emily Troll 44:52
Yeah, I think it’s from French Canada

Chrissy Fowler 44:54
Okay, like, as in Sherbrooke, like the the place, Sherbrooke in Quebec, maybe?

Katie McNally 44:59
I did, I did a little digging about this tune, and its origins are like pretty murky. It looks like Ralph Page kind of dug it out and published it at a certain point.

Chrissy Fowler 45:10
Yeah, Ralph Page, which you wouldn’t have expected, because he was a bit of a grouch. There’s a long list of people who got thrown out of a dance because they were dancing inappropriately. He would be, he’d be, he would not have tolerated clapping at the end of the phrase, after a current, modern day Petronella, And Ralph Page was a very influential caller from the New Hampshire, Monadnock region, but he did a lot of influencing in Boston, too. For those of you aren’t in the know of Ralph Page.

Owen Marshall 45:21
An early influencer.

laughter 45:21

Chrissy Fowler 45:23
Yes, he, well, he might have quite a, speaking of playful, there’s some amazing pictures of him in the New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music and Dance. He would go to these camps. And there’s some quite, like, rather risque photos of him. I once impersonated Ralph Page at the Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend. I was on the committee, so I had license to do what I felt like. And, and, yeah, he had, like, tassels in provocative places.

Owen Marshall 45:51
Oh, wow, nice. Oh, I am with him. I am with him. That’s a good move. Let’s take this moment. Let’s get rid of the clap in the Petronella. Get rid of it. I hate it.

Chrissy Fowler 46:15
Oh, Owen! Never knew.

Owen Marshall 46:16
I hate it.

Chrissy Fowler 46:16
We’ll continue this conversation offline.

Owen Marshall 46:22
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 46:22
Let’s get back to the point that we’re gonna play Glise de Sherbrooke, which perhaps Ralph Page introduced, you were saying Katie.

Katie McNally 46:28
It seems like he’s sort of like one of the sources that people got it from. And Glise may or may not be a real French word. So there’s that.

Chrissy Fowler 46:41
Okay. Murky does describe it. And I want to know, are you, given that the album is available in all these, like sort of virtual ways, are there liner notes on the physical album?

Emily Troll 46:54
Oh, thank you for asking.

Chrissy Fowler 46:54
Because I do love my liner notes.

Neil Pearlman 46:56
Yeah, it’s a that’s a good reason to get the physical one, even if you’re gonna mostly listen online, is we did put a lot of time into into liner notes about all the tunes, and we even had Amelia Mason write a whole foreword, talking about New England music as a genre and everything.

Chrissy Fowler 47:15
Oh, I salute you for the liner notes. All right. Well, friends again, pinetreeflyers.com but let us hear, murky roots and all, Glise de Sherbrooke.

music 47:26

Chrissy Fowler 47:26
Ahh. I have to say that was the dreamiest most majestic soaring schottische I should ever danced.

Emily Troll 51:31
Ahhh.

Chrissy Fowler 51:33
Right here on my little piano bench. Wow, wow. Okay, can’t wait to get the album, so we’ll, I know you’re gonna do a set at the end of the show, but I wondered if maybe, maybe you could talk, uh, individually or collectively, just for a couple minutes about, um, any, any little last things that you want to pipe up on. It could be an influence. Could be a favorite thing. Could be a favorite key. I don’t know it could be anything. Who would like to, who would like to just say a few things? Neil, we haven’t heard a ton from you.

Neil Pearlman 52:09
I guess I was speaking a bit about about what’s exciting. And I think that the Glise set, tune that we just did, that arrangement shows a little bit, more than like when we’re playing Petronella at dance tempo, and that, slowing that down shows a little bit of the sort of ideas that we have about that conversation between what we did with Petronella being at the dance tempo, classic dance tunes, but not played as many times as you play it for a dance but otherwise, like being right there. And then take taking another tune that’s a classic dance tune, but really taking it far afield. And that’s kind of the conversation we’re having with the music.

Chrissy Fowler 52:45
Yeah, both/and, right?

Neil Pearlman 52:46
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 52:46
I love it. Yeah. Sounds like it’s like, fertile ground, and kind of well, fun and kind of deeply creative. Like you’re you’re taking things you really enjoy doing, and then you’re saying, oh, where else could we go with this?

Neil Pearlman 53:00
Yeah, yeah.

Owen Marshall 53:01
And sometimes actually even taking tunes that we’re like, there’s no way we’re actually gonna play this in front of people. Finding those little moments, they’re like Joys of Quebec, there’s a little chord turn around that we play in there, and I’m just like, that’s actually very musically satisfying.

Chrissy Fowler 53:23
With a with a definite chestnut tune, yeah

Owen Marshall 53:26
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Neil Pearlman 53:28
Yeah, that’s been a really fun conceit, I suppose, of initially putting together the music is like picking tunes that we know are classics, and we also never thought we would perform on a stage for a concert and find, like, looking at them with fresh eyes for that. It’s been really fun.

Emily Troll 53:41
And we’ve had a great response to it, also.

Neil Pearlman 53:43
Yeah, for sure.

Chrissy Fowler 53:45
So good!

Owen Marshall 53:46
Yeah, yeah. It’s been fun to just kind of, you know, revisit this material in a lot of ways, you know, that we all kind of branched off on our own little paths from the New England tradition, and then kind of coming back to it. And then during our little break there, we were just talking about all of our various influences, and it’s just kind of, Yeah, can feel them sitting with us.

Chrissy Fowler 54:12
Amen. Um, we’re gonna, you’re gonna play a tune set to go out. Can you tell us a little bit about those tunes, what they are?

Katie McNally 54:20
Sure. So we’re gonna start with, we put this set of tunes together for a concert we did down in Kennebunk as part of a launch for a book by Paul Wells, called the Maine Musical Compendium. And he basically republished and did some research about Maine tunes in the 1800s. And we, as part of the concert, put some of those tunes in a set and performed it, which was really fun. We started with Hull’s Victory, which is a classic, a chestnut, about the captain of the USS Constitution. And we paired that with Douglas’s Favorite, which was either written by or at least played a lot by this fellow, Jack Douglas, who was a Black fiddler in the Belfast and Winterport area. He was originally from the Dominican Republic, but apparently made a big splash in Maine, and played for all sorts of events. And then, it wasn’t in the book, but we decided to tack Lamplighter’s on at the end of the set.

Chrissy Fowler 55:24
Another classic tune and dance. I love that you’re putting Douglas’s Favorite in. One of our Belfast Flying Shoes board members, very long serving board member, Alex Mann, is really interested in history, and he’s been talking a lot and looking into Jack Douglas and Douglas’s Favorite. Well, I’m going to let you launch in as soon as possible. So I just want to say again, thank you so much all four of you pinetreeflyers.com for coming and chatting about the awesome album and just, about playing. It’s been such a treat. I, as you can see, in your minds, radio listeners, it’s been great to dance around in the living room here. And before I have you launch into the tune, I do want to say this is your host, Chrissy Fowler, for the Flying Shoes Radio Hour. And I really am glad that you’ve tuned in. I hope that you will please keep on supporting community music, community dance, and most especially, community radio.

music 56:19

Chrissy Fowler 1:00:43
Thank you for listening to the Flying Shoes Radio Hour Podcast. Go to cdss.org/podcasts for show notes for today’s episode, which will have info on the musicians and the tunes they played, a transcript of this show, and links to other CDSS podcast episodes. Thank you to Great Meadow Music for the use of tunes from the album, Green Mountain, by Mary Cay Brass and friends. Please note that the views expressed in this podcast are of the individuals and don’t necessarily reflect those of CDSS, Belfast Flying Shoes, or WBFY. This podcast is produced by Ben Williams and me, Chrissy Fowler. Until next time, please keep on supporting community music and dance, community radio, and, especially, your local community arts organizations who, like the Country Dance & Song Society and Belfast Flying Shoes, help sustain musical traditions like these.