Lineup 2026
New Vintage Revelers
Fiddler Harry Liedstrand (Sweet’s Mill Stringband with Kenny Hall), banjo player Dan Warrick (Earl White Band, Thompson’s String Ticklers), and guitarist Paul Kotapish (Wake the Dead, Hurricane Ridgerunners, Hillbillies from Mars, Kevin Burke’s Open House) play fierce hoedowns, quirky “crooked” tunes, lonesome ballads, cowboy songs, brother duets, and more. Their instrumentals often favor Harry’s unique repertory of tunes with California origins. Warrick describes the bands approach to the music: “We love these old tunes and songs. We learned them, largely, the old-fashioned way: in living rooms and dance halls, by ear and on the fly, from friends and band mates. We dug up the old sources, of course. We listened hard. And then we grabbed our instruments and did our damnedest to honor the originators in our own way.” Listen to the New Vintage Revelers on Bandcamp.
https://www.facebook.com/NewVintageRevelers
Harry Liedstrand learned his first tunes from his father and later studied violin performance at the Conservatory of Music at U.O.P. He made the switch to fiddling when he began playing with Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band in 1968. Harry collected tunes from Tommy Jarrell and Burl Hammons and continues to love and learn unusual tunes. He has gathered contest ribbons from Galax VA, Clifftop WV, and California, and earned an M.A. in Folklore and Ethnomusicology from CSU, Fresno. Firmly grounded in the American tradition, Harry has recorded 6 CDs, been on the teaching staff at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and currently plays with the New Vintage Revelers and his family band. Learn more at harryliedstrand.com
Paul Kotapish currently plays mandolin and guitar with Bay Area bands Wake the Dead, the New Vintage Revelers, and Eric Thompson’s Kleptograss. He has toured and recorded with the Hurricane Ridgerunners, Kevin Burke’s Open House, the Hillbillies from Mars, Euphonia, and the Rodney Miller Band, among many others groups. Paul’s playing is rooted in the vintage rural music traditions of Appalachia, Ireland, and beyond, but it also embraces pop idioms like rock and country. By day, Paul is Music Education Editor for Peghead Nation, and he is a former editor and writer for the San Francisco Classic Voice, Acoustic Guitar, and Strings magazines. Learn more at guitarfish.net
Dan Warrick has been working at the five-string banjo, while living in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, Calif., since he was 18. Inspirations included Hank Bradley, Betram Levy, Jerry Gallaher, Paul Brown, and Paul Hostetter—along with a huge number of venerable players he’s learned from in decades of workshops at Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend. Dan has never had a one-on-one mentor in clawhammer banjo and instead learned his tunes and timing directly from fiddlers steeped in old-time Appalachian styles. He has placed first and third in banjo contests in Washington State and California.
Flat Bridge String Band
Flat Bridge is a string band led by Emma Rast and Daniel Ullom. Steeped in the vibrant musical scenes of Western North Carolina, Flat Bridge’s sound will transport you to a rowdy fiddle convention, square dance, or late-night kitchen jam session—all places they love so dearly. They hold a deep reverence for the long lineage and celebratory nature of traditional music and the community it engenders. Weaving together old-time, early bluegrass, and country influences, their concerts are thoughtfully curated to create an experience that is both entertaining and grounding for audiences.
Emma Rast (fiddle/guitar/banjo) grew up in a musical family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and she has been surrounded by old-time and bluegrass music her entire life. As a musician, she carries a powerful rhythm that reflects decades of exposure to traditional music. Her fiddling is fiery and full of groove. Her singing is heartfelt. She has spent countless hours honing her musical craft and studying fiddlers like Benton Flippen, John Ashby and Jim Shumate.
Daniel Ullom (mandolin/guitar) was raised in the arid landscapes of West Texas and Eastern Washington. He was introduced to the mandolin at an early age and been obsessed with it ever since. He has been performing and teaching professionally for over a decade and has traveled extensively across the USA. During this time, he has released two albums of old-time/bluegrass music, The Swannanoa Sessions (2022) and Happy Birthday Dewey! (2024), both of which showcase his driving mandolin playing and love for fiddle tunes.
Cliff Perry & Laurel Bliss
Cliff Perry and Laurel Bliss began as a singing duo in the late 80’s and are now recognized veterans in the bluegrass and old-time music communities, respected by their peers and loved by their fans. They began singing as a duet in the late 1980s, and together they formed the heart and soul of Southfork, a legendary Northwest bluegrass band. In 1993, they made the recording “Old Pal”, which was awarded Best Old-Time Recording in 1994 by County Sales. They released their second recording, "Spirit of Love", a new collection of old-time duets with instrumental accompaniment on Dobro and Guitar, in 2008.
Cliff and Laurel always deliver a wonderful collection of old-time country duets. While listening to them, you can tell they are greatly influenced by the Carter Family, however, they’ve also internalized and taken their own approach to the material. Old-time country music encompasses a myriad of styles and Perry and Bliss opt for a composed, straightforward approach that, like the Carters’ music, suggests an earlier era.
Bug Tussle
These long-time Seattle area musicians have enjoyed playing together informally for years at parties and campouts, and that spirit infuses their performances. Arrangements are loose with plenty of room for playful improvisation (tussling?) and inspired moments that delight both band and listeners. Selections cover a wide range: Paul Elliot’s tastefully hot fiddle tunes, Mark Graham’s splendid original songs, W.B. Reid’s vast repertoire of early jazz and jug band classics are a potent blend.
Bug Tussle old-time music sampler: https://youtu.be/CPmArz-gPxo
Mark Graham has been playing old time music on the harmonica for over 50 years. In 1968 at the age of 15 he took his lawn mowing money and spent $1.75 on a Marine Band, key of C harmonica and tried to play along with his Smothers Brothers and Peter Paul and Mary records. After being inspired in 1971 at a concert featuring Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band, Mark has played hundreds of concerts and square dances with The Hurricane Ridge Runners, The Chicken Chokers, The Brainstormers, and countless pick-up bands across the length and breadth of this great land.
Mark has studied the playing of the country master harmonica players Sonny Terry, Doc Watson, DeFord Bailey, Red Parham, Humphrey Bate, Charley McCoy and Wayne Raney and developed a powerful and lyrical style that can render a blistering, rip roaring string band breakdown or a bluesy lonesome ballad with equal ease.
Reaching back to his early musical influences Mark has written dozens of songs that have delighted audiences worldwide with their hilarity and poetic lyricism including such classics as Zen Gospel Singing, Life is Hard When You're Dumb, Oedipus Rex, The Tennessee Robot, and Moby Dick (The Bluegrass Version).
Paul Elliott grew up in a house filled with jazz, classical, and folk music, and started playing violin when he was 7 years old. After years of lessons, youth orchestras, and summer music camps he discovered fiddle music as a young teenager. His immediate reaction was “why didn’t somebody TELL me you could do that with a violin?” His initial love of old-time and bluegrass quickly evolved into a love of Western Swing music, jazz, and country, and at 19 he began playing professionally in bands and as a studio musician in the western US and Canada. Paul has since racked up a long list of recording credits that span film, television, and radio, and a long list of CDs. Somewhere along the line he also got a degree in music composition from the University of Washington, with additional months of private study in London with the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He most recently played with the legendary western group Sons of the Pioneers but he’s equally at home in a range of styles from old-time to jazz.
W. B. Reid has been playing all kinds of music with all kinds of folks throughout the West Coast and points East for many years. He is known as a fine singer, guitarist, fiddler, and also for his work on banjo-guitar and banjo-mandolin. WB's music crosses many boundaries and he's been sought after by top groups in several traditions and across several generations.
WB played for many years with Seattle's premier traditional New England contra dance band, The Rhythm Rollers, which included the great New England piano player Bob McQuillen. For a few years, WB was the fiddler with the hot old-time band, The Tallboys, and prior to that, WB was the principal accompanist for the legendary Alabama fiddler Lee Stripling until his death in 2009. He also plays regularly with a fine jug band, The Todalo Shakers, with his pals Eric and Suzy Thompson and Frannie Leopold, and less frequently with The Carolina Jug Stompers.
Dance Callers
Alex MacLeod
Alex is a square dance fiddler and caller from Seattle. An early member of the Seattle Subversive Square Dance Society, Alex has played or called for dances in barns, on boats, in fields and at farmer’s markets, in kitchens and on back decks, in taverns and in church basements, in grange halls and every once and awhile in big ballrooms with sprung wood floors! Alex learned his early old-time fiddling from the Canote brothers string band class, in Seattle, then almost immediately threw himself into organizing and playing for square dances. He learned his calling from square dance communities in the Pacific Northwest, and from national masters at events including The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and Dare To Be Square West. Alex believes that music and dance are essential parts of communities making their own fun, and strengthening connections along the way. Outside of old-time pursuits, you might find him out foraging, hunting, and hiking all over the Northwest, building instruments in his shop, or Dutch oven cooking in a campground somewhere.
Amy Carroll
Amy has been folk dancing longer than she can remember and has been calling dances since 1987. She specializes in traditional American folk dances: contras, squares, circles and play party games for all ages and ability levels. She can also lead international folk dances, and simple English country, Irish ceili, and Irish set dances. She has called at public square and contra dances, preschools, elementary schools, camps, weddings, bars, grange halls, auctions, birthday parties, the Northwest Folklife Festival, the Washington State Old Time Fiddlers Workshop, Seattle's Old Growth Oldtime Festival, Seattle Subversive Square Dance Society, and worked as a dance artist-in-residence at elementary and middle schools. Given 8 people, 5 minutes, and a few dozen square feet, Amy can create a dance.