Tiller’s Folly, a trio known for acoustic roots music, will get into a groove when the band kicks off another Come Dancing Around the World series in Surrey late this month.
“We’re not really known as a dance band, but for this (performance), we are,” said Bruce Coughlan, the band’s lead singer and guitar player.
Veterans of the Lower Mainland music scene, Tiller’s Folly performances are driven by Celtic-Canadian sounds and Pacific Northwest stories ripped from history books.
On Saturday, Sept. 28, their gig at Surrey Arts Centre’s Studio Theatre is the first of four events in the city’s Come Dancing series, for ticketholders 19 years of age and older.
“Take the idea of a staycation to a whole other level!” promises an event post at surrey.ca. “You can take a trip around the world when you step onto the dance floor. With hot bands, cabaret seating, and a bar set up right in the Studio Theatre at Surrey Arts Centre, you can dance the evening away.”
Tickets for the cabaret-style show are $24 at tickets.surrey.ca, or call 604-501-5566.
Launched last year, the Come Dancing Around the World series will this year include Salsa in Surrey (Oct. 26, featuring La Orquesta Santa Lucia LFR), a Soulsha night of Afro-Celtic Funk from the city of Boston (Feb. 22) and Caribbean Night in Surrey (April 25, featuring The Phase III Steel Drum Band).
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Coughlan, who lives in Maple Ridge, has had a busy summer of performing at concerts, festivals and community events from Whitehorse to Portland, both in band and solo settings.
In Tiller’s Folly, he makes music with Laurence Knight (bass, vocals) and Nolan Murray (fiddle, mandolin, mandocaster).
As Voices of the Salish Sea, the trio adds Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright for songs and stories about the Salish Sea, as a quintet that will travel to schools across the province this fall.
“We sing stories about rumrunners, loggers and fishers, tugboat and steamboat captains and explorers,” explains a post at voicesforthesalishsea.com. “We are voices for forests and rivers… for the ecosystems and habitats in watersheds that drain into the Salish Sea. We are singing out for the ocean symphonies that sustain all life on Earth and reaching out to everyone who cares about the future of life and wants to work together.”
New for Coughlan, Knight and four others is Moondance, a sextet that pays tribute to the music of Van Morrison. They’re booked at White Rock’s Blue Frog Studios on Oct. 25-26. Other musicians in the band are Greg Stuart (drums, vocals), Adam Rohrlick (keys, guitar), Karen Graves (sax, flute, vocals) and Kyle Axeford (trumpet, keys, vocals).