Liza Constable

It’s the band that I’ve been meaning for years to do with Nat.

Before we met, he hired me sight unseen (sound unheard?) for the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. I filled in for the piano player who had to tend to his marriage. We had a great time. A few months later, my landlord tore out the bathroom and I needed a place to live. He offered his place. I was only going to stay for 2 weeks.

Rumblestrip started out a year ago with Nat, Sam and myself, but Sam lives in Bloomington and that’s a long drive. Sam’s the greatest, I think that’s indisputable. He and Abby have a 5 year old and are also expecting a tangle of twins any day now. So, we’ve been playing dances with Glen Loper, a young hot mandolinist (he also plays the 4 string banjo and drums) from the other state we love.

I think we have a great sound. Nat’s got that energy, the reckless drive that makes him so much fun to dance to. Glen has a passion in his playing that is infectious, and both of them can be funny and daring with the music, which is everything. Dancers are lifted, dropped, twisted into the beat with insistent and well placed guitar rhythms and foot tapping for the northern tunes. A scattering of vocals in with the dance tunes, and then we end the night with a lovely singing waltz.

Glen played me some music from his collection on the long drive home from MD last weekend.

We were listening to some great tunes by Dervish. Dense, self-absorbed stuff. Here’s what I thought. Tunes for listening and tunes for dancing are different. Dance tunes have space in them; a place for the dancers to stomp, to somehow leave their mark. We are always watching the dancers. Nat is always reminding me to phrase my guitar to the dance. Some tunes fit, some need some nudges, some bomb (mostly only we notice). We change things on the fly, at 112 bpm. It’s exhilarating. To play the tunes we love, to respond to and be inspired by the dance, to the dancers, hear them whoop with joy, and move in a way that means they feel it, they get it too….

The other state is Maine of course.

It was a weak and lonely moment, sick in bed with my mac laptop, when I signed up for a myspace.com music page. Don’t do it! What a stupid looking mess! And to top it off, only one friend… But I swear I had seen some nice pages, and people I knew, like my friend Scott Nygaard and Lissa and…it had looked kinda cool. I scoured the web for ways to make it look more creative while the voice inside said: loser! One friend. Some awful stuff out there, glittering, pink dancing cats and puppies, things like that. Pimpmyspace.com: absolutely the dregs. I was ready to quit when I came across Mike Davidson @ mikeindustries.com, who was also embarrassed by the design of the myspace.com home page. He didn’t whine. (Continued)