Vermillion Lies

Vermillion Lies is my latest jackpot find from my random Last.fm browsing. They're one of those bands that has such a delightful variety of styles and sounds that you never quite know what you're going to hear next. Their press page talks about their "unique brand of beauty, silliness, and creativity," and "songs ranging from lyrical folk ballads to raucous circus marches." I've been listening to their two albums on repeat for the last day or so, and I was also glad to find a number of danceable songs, so here they are.

• I Should Fly (Rotary waltz, 160 bpm) - Amazon MP3, Last.fm
  And if you can't fly, you should waltz. :-) Good contrast between verses and chorus, which is always nice to have for dancing.
• Shady (Polka, 130 bpm) - Amazon MP3, Last.fm
  Nice mandolin part in this one. Would need some shortening and maybe a little slowing down for dancing purposes, though.
• Blue (One-step, 112 bpm) - Amazon MP3, Last.fm
  One of the sisters can do a vocal style that reminds me of Ingrid Lucia (of the Flying Neutrinos), or maybe Billie Holiday, which gives it a very vintage sort of sound with the swing guiter. Plus, there's a kazoo!
• Done Wrong (Polka, 122 bpm) - Amazon MP3, Last.fm
  Similar style to "Blue," but the instrumentation makes it sound more polka-y.
• Bone Yard (Cross-step waltz, 118 bpm) - Amazon MP3, Last.fm
  Sort of a dark one, and with a lot going on the arrangement which could potentially muddy things, but I think the piano keeps the beat consistently enough to dance to.
• Global Warming (Rotary waltz, 155 bpm) - Amazon MP3, Last.fm (free download!)
  This one is probably better for listening than dancing, but I wanted to include it just for general amusement and silliness. "Everything's going swimmingly."

Box of [Fast] Ghosts

Brave Combo has been to Stanford once or twice to play for a Dance Week, and they're an absolute hoot to dance to. A partial description from their website:

Brave Combo is America's premier contemporary polka band, and a Grammy winning one at that. In the same breath, to name some but hardly all of the colors found on Brave Combo's musical palette, one can describe them as a groundbreaking world music act, a hot jazz quintet, a rollicking rock'n'roll bar band, a Tex-Mex conjunto, a sizzling blues band, a saucy cocktail combo, a deadly serious novelty act, a Latin orchestra, and one of America's dance bands par excellence.

One of their albums I particularly like is Box of Ghosts (Brave Combo's store | Amazon MP3), a collection of famous classical pieces, rearranged for accordions, horns, and dancing. A number of the tracks are danceable, but here are my favorites:

• Mozart - Rondo a la Turca - polka (160 bpm)
  Pretty fast. Richard pulls this one out when he's teaching people to do a turning two-step polka (as opposed to galloping) to fast music.
• Chopin - Waltz in C Minor - waltz (203 bpm)
  Any of you classical types out there will recognize this as Op. 64 No. 2, which is actually in C-sharp minor, but nobody else will probably care. If you thought that last one was fast, try this one. I love it.
• Rossini - William Tell Overture - polka (108 bpm)
  Okay, okay, here's one that's not so crazy fast. In fact, I'd probably speed it up a bit for dancing (and trim some of the ending as well).

Rowyn's belated St. Patrick's Day Picks

I picked these last week but didn't have time to write them up until today.

Altan : Tommy Bhetty's Waltz (moderate waltz, 145 bpm)
Altan is one of my favourite Celtic bands, and they don't play many waltzes, but this one is lovely. The song was written by Tommy 'Bhetty' Maguire, a fiddler from Kinawley, County Fermanagh, and was in the soundtrack for the movie Good Will Hunting, though not on the official CD release. The whole album, The Red Crow, is also available on eMusic.

Emer Kenny : The Chase (cross-step waltz, 120 bpm)
If you've been to a Jammix or Friday Night Waltz, you've probably heard this played. It's based on a traditional Irish tune, the Foxhunter's Jig, but updated with new-agey vocals and a steady, trance-like beat which makes it very danceable. Unfortunately I couldn't find a good download source, so the link is for the album on Amazon.

Clannad : Caide Sin Do'n Te Sin (cross-step waltz, 120 bpm)
Even though this is the same tempo as "The Chase," it has a much mellower feel. The Gaelic refrain "caide sin do'n te sin nach mbaineann sin do" translates to something like "what is that to anyone else." Apparently the tune is in a 'hexatonic' scale, which has six pitches per octave. Again, no good place to download, so the link is to the CD. You can hear Altan's version of the song, which is very different, on last.fm.

Ronan Hardiman : Siamsa, Cry of the Celts (polkas, 118 and 126 bpm)
Both of these are polkas from the Lord of the Dance soundtrack -- hardly traditional, but Irish-inspired. "Siamsa" is bubbly and infectious and great fun to dance to. The feel of the beat changes a few times (I don't know enough music theory to describe this more accurately), but that's part of what makes it exciting. "Cry of the Celts" is also catchy and energetic, with some nice fiddling. It's the tune Richard Powers plays -- heavily edited, of course -- for the Kerry Polka Sets he often teaches around St. Patrick's Day.

Graham's St. Patrick's Day Picks

In honor of the day, here are some danceable Irish tunes and songs. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

Niamh Parsons: Blackbirds and Thrushes (fast waltz, 195 bpm)
This is a great waltz, made even more interesting by the phrasing, which switches between 5-bar and 7-bar phrases (there may be some other types in there, too). Some folks might like to slow it down a tad, though.

Fresh Fish: Jessica's / Martin O'Connor's Polkas (136 bpm)
A lovely polka set from a great contra dance band. I was very disappointed when I started trying to find links to it and discovered it's out of print and there's nothing to link to. The piano player's website says to "stay tuned for a possible reissue" of the Turning of the Tide CD. Just wanted to mention these tunes anyway, though.

Nancy Kerr & John Fagan: Dance to Your Daddy (cross-step waltz or polka in 3, 122 bpm)
This is some fantastic fiddling here; it's not often you hear a slip reel (in 12/8, the way a slip jig is in 9/8). It's got a polka feel but is still effectively in 3 for dancing purposes, so take your pick, or alternate. You can hear the full track on last.fm.

Off Kilter: Follow Me Up to Carlow (polka, 149 bpm)
You can decide if you want to leave the trick ending and watch the dancers fumble or not. Fun song, though. I don't see a good place to download their music, so the link is to the CD. You can also hear it if you browse around their site (which has frames, so I can't link directly to anything).

Brave Combo: A Little Bit Irish (waltz, 240 bpm)
As long as they've got a song actually about St. Patrick's Day, we might as well include it, though it's so fast they may have been thinking slow jig rather than waltz. You can hear the song (and lots of others) on their site, and I thought at one point they had free downloads there, too, but I can't find them now.

Shostakovich Jazz/Variety Suite

It turns out that the set of Shostakovich pieces commonly known as the Jazz Suite No. 2 is actually the Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra. Either way, it's got a couple really good dance pieces in it, and a few others that are probably worth trying out. You can get the whole set, plus Jazz Suite No. 1, on Amazon or eMusic. Here's what I like from it:

Waltz 2 (of course). Richard used to play this one all the time, but I feel like I haven't heard it as much in the last couple years. Gorgeous waltz, with good jeté waltzes, redowas, and other variations built right in. Note: The version on the album I linked to above is very fast (210 bpm). I'd recommend instead getting one of the ones from the Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack. E.g. there are ones at 176 and 180 bpm.

March. This is the opening piece of the suite, and makes an absolutely delightful polka. It's 3 minutes long, which is probably why I haven't managed to get someone to play it at a dance yet, but it's at a decent tempo (114 bpm) so I don't think 3 minutes would be bad. Again, lots of nice variations, including a bit that would be very good for an extended bout of pivoting, if you like that kind of thing. (Which I do.)

The Lyric Waltz and Waltz 1 are both quite fast (200+ bpm) so they'd need some slowing down.

The Jazz Suite No. 1 has a waltz that's actually a decent tempo (173 bpm) though parts of it really just sound like harmony parts to Waltz 2 of the other suite. There's also a slightly fast polka (134 bpm).

New Songs - 24 February

Below are a number of songs I've found and enjoyed in the last few weeks.

If a song is available for legal download, a link is provided. I always pick Amazon over iTunes because it's DRM-free and higher bit-rate. Unfortunately there's a lot of music not available for à la carte downloading, and in those cases I'll try to give other purchase suggestions. If you're stumped finding a song and/or really don't want to spend $15 for a whole CD, drop me a note.

Rotary (fast) Waltz:
Graham Colton - Best Days
Roxanne Potvin - La Merveille

Polka
Zucchero - Per Colpa Di Chi Note: this is the live version; the original, which I recommend, is available on the CD The Best of Zucchero Sugar Fornaciari's Greatest Hits

Polka/Hustle
Mika - Love Today

One Step
Benoît Charest - Belleville Rendez-Vous (from the soundtrack of Les Triplettes de Belleville)