The Lizards are a New England based dance band featuring a trio of musicians fervent with the desire and talent to ignite flames under dancing feet. With a wide ranging and hopelessly eclectic repertoire including everything from Irish and Scottish traditional jigs and reels to Balkan, blues and swing tunes (often juxtaposed next to each other) the Latter Day Lizards bring excellent musicianship, playfulness, drama and unrelentingly infectious rhythm to their dance performances. With Peter Barnes on piano, guitar and flute, Bill Tomczak on clarinet, sax and drum and Dave Langford on guitar and fiddle, they blend swing, rock-and-roll and jazz influences with traditional foot-stomping dance music to make an innovative, spontaneous and rhythmically inflammatory sound.

The members of the Lizards come from diverse backgrounds within the traditional dance world and have been hired for dance events, festivals and concerts from California to the British Isles. Peter Barnes has been playing piano, flute and assorted other instruments for dancers for an embarassingly large number of years, and has been invited to most major contra, square, English and vintage dance events throughout the United States. He currently works with the bands The Lizards, Bare Necessities, and Yankee Ingenuity. Bill Tomczak has been playing clarinet for folk dance of one kind or another since 1979. He has recorded with BLT, Wild Asparagus and Yankee Ingenuity and appears on the recordings Cascade of Tears and Gypsy Wine with Mary Lea and friends. Dave Langford is an experienced and versatile fiddler and guitarist and fiddle teacher from the Boston area. A veteran of 20 years of playing for public dances, weddings, parties and late night sessions, Dave combines multiple styles of fiddling with fierce energy and drive. He has been a staff member for music and dance weeks at Pinewoods, Buffalo Gap, Ogontz, Agusta and Christmas Country Dance School at Berea KY as well as dozens of weekend long events around the country.

Shared among all the Lizards are decades of experience in getting people's pulses racing and feet moving. For more information, please visit their website.

Bag o' Tricks is one of caller/dance author Bill Olson's favorite bands. After this weekend, it will be one of your favorite bands, too. A favorite of dancers from their home base of Seattle to the east coast, Bag o' Tricks delivers great tunes, spontaneous moments of euphoria and music that makes dancers' feet move.

Sande Gillette, violinist for the Seattle Symphony, assembled Bag o' Tricks to pursue her passion for fiddling. Sande combines technical skill, talent, and joy to transmit tunes to dancers compellingly. She also plays inventive English country dance fiddle with Tricky Brits (Bag o' Tricks' English alter ego). Guitar/mandolin/citternist Dave Bartley infuses solid musicianship with excitement from his rock-and-roll days and a dizzying broad vocabulary of genres and styles. A prolific composer of contradance tunes, Dave is also a member of the avant-contra band KGB and several other Balkan and world music ensembles, and has played on stage with the Seattle Opera. Anita Anderson has over a decade of contradance music experience and expertise in Scandinavian music, girl-group swing, and do-wop. Her syncopated, harmonically complex use of the keyboards and improvisatory style has caused many a dancer to reach dance nirvana. When not behind the keyboard, you'll find her tending a small but intensively-planted garden.

For over 20 years, Ray Bierl has been playing the fiddle music of North America and the British Isles to appreciative dancers in the San Francisco Bay area and beyond. He is also an accomplished guitar player and singer, in styles ranging across the spectrum of American traditional music. Cowboy Dancing, his well-received recording of songs and fiddle tunes, has recently been re-released as a CD. He also plays with the contra dance bands Hillbillies From Mars, Swing Farm, and The Earls.

Craig Johnson has been playing piano at community dances for over twenty years and has been on staff of more camps in the Bay Area than he has any hope of remembering. He's also been spotted playing accordion for any number of morris and sword teams, leading singing sessions at dance weekends, and performing sundry odd jobs for BACDS and CDSS. A Bay Area native, he's remained steadfast in San Francisco--despite the questionable economy.

Carlo Calabi has been playing guitar and singing old time country, folk, cajun, bluegrass, cowboy, and English drinking songs and sea chanties since he was a coyote pup in 1963. He works part-time as a vineyard and winery mechanic, is still trying to finish his castle, and is a member of The Cajun Coyotes.

Carlo's song-leading has been delighting Spring Weekend attendees for over ten years.