Silence of the lambs…

Yes it was lug nuts in the carcasses last weekend at the more-or-less annual Lamb Roast and Bulgarian Folk Music & Dance Party upstate at Breezy Hill Orchard near Poughkeepsie NY.

Tell me Clarice, how noisy are those lambs?

Providing the uptempo line-dance frenzy was the Kabile Bitov Wedding Band, along with some impromptu jams by Balkan stalwarts Zlatne Uste (Golden Lips).

Kabile has been together for about 20 years, this particular formation a sort of a reunion, as some band members had emigrated to the US.  They take their name from their hometown, a small village located just north of the city of Yambol in Thrace.  The players/ instruments are Ivan Handzhiev (vocals, accordions), Nikolay Doctorov (kaval – wooden shepherd’s flute), Dzhenko Andreev (gajda – bagpipe), Nikolai Kolev (gadulka – pear shaped bowed lute), and Donka Koleva (vocals).  It was elder Hippie heaven – wonderful playing with a varied enough repertoire to keep you interested till that lamb was fully digested.

b.arc