Album Notes

Hotpoint plays for contra and square dances.
That's about it... some nice waltzes to get us through dance weekends, a hambo if someone begs for it. We're not a concert band, but when it comes to playing for dancers, we pour everything we have into the music (and then some!) We've been together a long time, and get along pretty well.

We're a midwest contradance band.
Sam Bartlett said of us: "They sound like a contradance band that's never heard another contradance band!" and we take that as a compliment. We write a lot of our own tunes, and play a lot of other contemporary tunes written by friends. We are also really into zen-trance oldtime tunes, where the band sounds like a swarm of locusts.

Although we think the band is better than the sum of our parts, the parts shake out as follows:
Mark Burhans on fiddle
Hilarie Burhans on clawhammer banjo
Mark Hellenberg on percussion and banjo uke
Marlene Shostak on piano
Nick Weiland on bass

As many of our fans know, we have a mission: "Make 'em Go Wooo!" We hope to continue to make you go wooo every single time we play for you.

We've played at quite a few dance weekends in the past. Some of them are, in no particular order:
CALIFORNIA: Dance Awakening, Santa Barbara Harvest Moon, NBCDS Hotfoot, Monterey Foggy Moon. NORTH CAROLINA: Gypsy Meltdown, Spring Dance Romance, Feet Retreat, Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), Still Dancing. OHIO: Pigtown Fling, Mayapple Stomp, Winter Warmup, River Rendezvous.GEORGIA: Atlanta Dance Weekend. MICHIGAN: Dawn Dance, Spring Dance Heritage, Wheatland Traditional, Looking Glass. KENTUCKY: Dance Trance, Berea Spring Weekend, Louisville Balance the Belle. VIRGINIA: Charlottesville Dance Weekend. WEST VIRGINIA: Augusta Dance Week, American Fall Dance Weekend at Buffalo Gap, Footmad Fall Festival, Wild Wonderful Dance Weekend. MISSOURI: Solefest, Columbia Dance Weekend. ALABAMA: Blue Moon. MONTANA: Bear Hug. NEW MEXICO: FOLKMadness Music & Dance Camp. NEW YORK: Rochester Thanksgiving Weekend. FLORIDA: Snow Ball, Black & White Ball. TENNESSEE: Memfest, Music City Masquerade. TEXAS: Bayou Bedlam, Fire Ant Frolic; PENNSYLVANIA: Pittsburgh Fall Weekend; SOUTH CAROLINA: Palmetto Bug Stomp, Harvest Moon Monster Mash. WASHINGTON: Seattle Dancing Fool Weekend. ONTARIO, CANADA: Owen Sound Spring Fling, Hamilton Country Dancers Spring Weekend, Toronto dance weekend.