Episode 40 - Dave Langford

Contra Pulse

The intro and interstitial tracks from today’s episode are Hell Broke Loose in Georgia from The Latter Day Lizards’ 2002 album Sleeping on a Rock, Midnight on the Water from The Latter Day Lizards’ 2007 album Rainy Night in Montague, The Old Favorite/The Return from Paris from Childsplay’s 1994 album Twelve Gated City, Rainy Night in Montague from The Latter Day Lizards’ 2007 album Rainy Night in Montague, and Early June/Roscoe/Fiddler’s Dream from The Latter Day Lizards’ 2002 album Sleeping on a Rock. Of these tunes, Early June and Return from Paris were composed by Dave!

See the Contra Pulse website for transcripts and more. Or click here to download it directly.

And the Country Dance and Song Society for information about Contra and English country dance across the continent.

See and hear Dave in action:

• Visit these links to learn more about Dave’sbands: Big Bandemonium, The Latter Day Lizards, Les Z Boys, Childsplay, and Stomp Rocket.
• Check out this video of Big Bandemonium in action at the guiding star grange, filmed by Ray Sebold. There are a lot of recognizable faces in this video, including Ralph Sweet! And here’s another Big Bandemonium video at the Portland Raindance 2011.
• See Dave play with Latter Day Lizards at the 2020 Contra Carnivale.
• Here’s a video of Dave playing with Supertrad, the Sam Bartlett and Eric Schedler duo.
• Here is a video of Dave playing with Childsplay at The National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA. (At 6:23 you can hear Dave (off camera) play 4 beats and lead off the tune "Ways of the World.")
• You can see Dave playing with Stomp Rocket at the Portland Intown Contra Dance in 2018 in this video.

Odds and ends mentioned in this interview:

• Several people Dave mentions have been on their own Contra Pulse episodes: Sam Bartlett, Kate Barnes, Becky Tracy, Larry Unger
• Ralph Sweet’s Powder Mill Barn.
• Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia.
• Dave mentioned some of his teachers, and inspirations including Pete Sutherland, Liz Carroll, Johnny Gimble, Bruce Molsky, and Lisa Ornstein.
• Here is an article about fiddlemaker Bob Childs, who made Dave's fiddle.