Whistlepig Music

One String Short played a contra dance at Jupiter Studio in downtown Alliance on Feb. 17. That’s John in the red cap playing guitar. The next Jupiter dance will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. March 16.

These photos are from the Greentown contra dance on Feb. 11, 2012. The next Greentown dance will be held on March 10 . Read the rest of this entry »

This profile is from the Scottish American Society website and shows us playing at the former Tasters Choice in Alliance in 2002 or 2003:

http://www.scottishamericansociety.org/id35.html

See us play with guest Christiana at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAsDjfTsOI

The monthly Greentown contra dance will be held Saturday, April 14, at Greentown Community Park on Cashner Avenue just north of State Street west of the Greentown square. New England contra dancing is the precursor to square dancing, using many of the same figures, and is danced to traditional Irish, Scottish and early American tunes. All dances are taught and called, no partner is necessary, and One String Short will provide music. Teaching begins at 7 p.m. and the dance at 7:30 p.m. The dance is held on the second Saturday from September through May. Call Dennis at 330-206-0065 with questions.

  Dennis and John played on July 21 for an open house at Beech Creek Botanical Garden near Alliance. The occasion was the open house of the Amazing Garden for members and donors. Dennis and John played in the tent before the presentation and on the deck behind the Visitor Center on a sweltering, humid evening. John played fiddle, mandolin and Dennis’s new octave mandolin, and Dennis played banjo, guitar and fiddle. Read the rest of this entry »

You won’t find a wide selection of mandolins in a mainstream music store, nor will you find dulcimers, octave mandolins or concertinas. So where does the traditional musician find instruments, accessories and music? Here are some area music stores.
Read the rest of this entry »

We played a contra dance in the Huston-Brumbaugh Nature Center barn south of Alliance on a frosty October night in 2009. Here’s a link to an article with photos on the University of Mount Union website:

http://www.mountunion.edu/barn-dance

TWSB played at Plymouth Street Peddler Days in Hanoverton, Ohio, on July 9 and 10. We played on stage both afternoons and for the Saturday evening Civil War ball, where reenactors wearing 19th-century clothing wove through the lines with 21st-century people wearing what in the 1800s would have been considered underwear. PSPD is held along historical Plymouth Street in Hanoverton, a small town in Columbiana County situated on the short-lived Sandy and Beaver Canal. CW reenactors encamp in town and stage mock battles, and strolling along Plymouth past old brick buildings, greeting “Pres. Abraham Lincoln” and “Stonewall Jackson,” made me feel I was truly in the past. From left are Frank Krygowski and Dennis Kempthorne.

More on the festival is  on my blog at http://blogs.dixcdn.com/woolgathering/.

From John’s blog, November 2006:

I felt helpless, forlorn and forsaken the weekend I was nearly stranded in Martins Ferry. Looking across Route 7 to the city as my friend Mike tried repeatedly to start his car, the battery dying and the starter turning more slowly with every attempt, I wondered where we could possibly find help on a Saturday evening in a strange town. Read the rest of this entry »