If you’re lucky, you’ll hear of a square dance happening under some musty festival tent once or twice a year. The Five Points Rounders are out to change that. David Bass (fiddle), Colin Booy (banjo), Rob VanVeld (gutbucket), and Steve Kruger (guitar) hooked in with The Pinhook a little over a year ago to present a series of Rowdy Square Dances– gatherings primed for wearing plaid, shooting the moon, and meeting a batch of new friends in the midst of a promenade.
So sure, these guys know how to throw down, but can one of their own handle our five questions? See for yourself after the jump.
1. If your band were a vice, what would it be?
Drinking. Staying up late and drinking. In some circles, fiddle playing and dancing are vices, so there’s that too.
2. How did you begin playing together?
The Rounders were formed specifically for the Rowdy Square Dances, although we’ve played a few other shows since. The Rowdy Square Dance got started when Kym Register from the Pinhook saw Rob playing a square dance at Phil Cook’s wedding. It was fast and loose, and people were break-dancing between the figures. She talked to Rob and they thought it might be good to have something like that in a bar setting. David was looking for local places to play when the Freight Hoppers weren’t on tour, and he, Rob, Colin and Jonathan Thompson, (the first guitarist) had been busking together in Durham (hence Five Points) around the same time. I got called up when Jonathan moved to South America last year.
3. Describe what it’s like to play a square dance.
It is by far my favorite kind of show to play. That kind of dancing was a central part of people’s social lives 75 years ago, and it has had a huge influence on string band music. Playing dance tunes for actual square dancing makes you feel like you’re a link in a really long chain, even if you’re in a rock club with a sound system. Another great thing is that you get to play each tune for a long time, basically until the caller tells you to stop. People are too busy spinning around to really look at you, so you can really focus in on the music and bear down on it. Musically, you have a really close relationship to the audience, and you’re sort of feeding off of each other. Watching your playing move people is pretty great too. Sometimes when you look out over the crowd you just see flashes of smiling faces, blurred limbs. It looks like a congenial feeding frenzy or some mythical many-limbed beast. It’s beautiful.
4. Who/what might be a few inspirations or influences that would really surprise people?
Farmers, retired factory workers and housewives in their 70s 80s and 90s, who were/are also phenomenal musicians. I guess that isn’t very surprising for string band musicians. I learned to play while I was living up in Watauga and Ashe County, so my friends up there, and really the place itself had a big influence on me. I think that the other guys have had similar experiences in other places. I owe my appreciation of that to my family, especially my dad, a general traditionalist and bluegrass lover, and my sister, who snuck me into the Watermelon Park Bluegrass Festival in the trunk of her car when I was 12- the same summer she took me to see Bob Dylan and the Dead. Colin comes from the punk and metal scene in the Pacific Northwest. He would probably say Bakunin and Black Flag. Rob used to play bass violin in classical orchestras, and in the 1960s he played in soul bands down in Greenville. David’s parents were contra dancers and he’s been playing since he was a kid. Lately he’s been really into MC Hammer, who is one of the best flat-footers out there.
One of the great things about old time music is that it is a community- a world unto itself. There are a ton of great players here in the Triangle (a lot of whom don’t ever play in front of an audience), and after going to festivals and gatherings you get to know musicians all over, and they become sort of a second family. Rob and David both had weddings at the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention for instance. We draw a lot of inspiration from the community, from our friends and fellow musicians.
5. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? (how ’d that turn out?)
When I was real little, it would change depending on what I was into–you know, paleontologist, railroad engineer, park ranger. Later, when I was an adolescent hippie with redneck tendencies I wanted to be a farmer, or maybe a shepherd. By the end of High School, I wasn’t sure, I just knew it would vaguely involve music and spending lots of time in the woods. I’m a public folklorist now, so I guess I could have done worse.
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Keep checking The Pinhook’s site for your next chance to get square. And, by all means, give Steve a high five when you see him!