Meet the band

WOOF WOOF MEOW (Our mascot, Truro)

The original Woof Woof Meow was a huge stuffed dog given to (and named by) Michael’s older brother Danny when they were toddlers. A couple years later, their mom happened upon a much smaller stuffy with the exact same design, and gave it to Michael so he wouldn’t be jealous. The mini-WWM is all that survives. He lives on Michael’s dresser in Truro, Cape Cod, but occasionally likes to go to the beach.

MICHAEL HOLT (Truro)

Michael is our not-always-fearless leader, singer, main songwriter, and keyboard player.

He got into dance music growing up in 1980s NYC: Ska (Madness, The Selecter, and local bands), Funk (James brown, Prince, and the local band Defunkt), Reggae, and angular, creative New Wave like XTC, King Crimson, B-52’s, Thomas Dolby, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Joe Jackson, and local bands The Dance and The Contortions. He later fell in love with the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti.

In high school and early college, Michael had a Ska-New Wave band called The Connotations. They played often at CBGB, and released an album on the CBGB label. WWM does a few of their songs. After they broke up in 1988, Michael got into everything from Joni Mitchell and Captain Beefheart to Miles Davis and Maurice Ravel. He moved to San Francisco to join Progressive Pop band The Mommyheads, and still plays with them. 

In 2000, Michael moved to Toronto, where he founded a festival of house concerts, and started a solo career, doing many tours and albums. In 2014, he released an original Classical album, 24 Preludes for Piano.

In 2017, he moved to Cape Cod to take care of his parents. While writing a chapter on dancing for his forthcoming book about how to have a human relationship to music in a technological world, he started hankering to play dance music again. At a party in 2021, he and Ken Field decided to form Woof Woof Meow for just that purpose. Wanting the band to be creative, musically interesting, and improvisational, they were soon joined by Lisa Brown, Trevor Pearson, and Rikki Bates.

It was late COVID, and people were missing group activities, but indoor concerts were banned. Longing for a more communal, nature-centered lifestyle, Michael hoped WWM would encourage Cape folks to gather for outdoor dancing. At their second show, he met Lisa’s bestie (and his soon-to-be partner), the holistic healer Tracy Plaut. They started organizing events to celebrate the Earth through dancing and a bit of ceremony. These became most of WWM’s early shows. 

Beyond music, Michael’s into cooking, foraging, community talk circles, and climate activism.

KEN FIELD (Truro, and Cambridge, MA)

Ken is our sax and flute player, and he writes some of our most danceable music.

Photo: Milton Bevington

Since 1988, he’s been a member of the internationally acclaimed modern music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, with whom he’s recorded eight CDs. He leads the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, an experimental & improvisational brass band. His solo releases document his work for layered saxophones and his soundtracks for dance and film. He has performed for President Bill Clinton; with Trombone Shorty, Charles Neville, and former J. Geils frontman Peter Wolf; with the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra; and with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra.

Ken has appeared throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, and has been awarded composition residency fellowship grants at the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Fundación Valparaíso, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His musical projects have been featured in The New York Times, Saxophone Journal, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Billboard, Cadence, The Wire, Orlando Sentinel, Downbeat, and many other publications. His music is heard regularly on the TV program Sesame Street.

Photo: Ian McPhee

Field is an Applied Microphone Technology Endorser and a Vandoren Performing Artist. He hosts The New Edge, a weekly radio program on WMBR in Cambridge, & WOMR in Provincetown. He is Chair of the Truro Concert Committee, President of the Board of JazzBoston, former Chair of the Cambridge Bicycle Committee, past President of Cambridge’s Board of Tutoring Plus, and a former long-time member of the HONK! street music festival Organizing Committee.

LISA BROWN (Wellfleet, and Santa Fe, NM) 

Lisa is our percussionist and back-up singer. 

Born and raised in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, she started banging on pots and pans at a wee age. She studied tabla in India and played in African drum circles, Central American salsa groups, and Jazz bands. She taught for twenty-five years at the Cape’s Nauset High School, where she founded the Exploring and Respecting Diversity class and produced a student world music ensemble. 

Lisa has recorded with folk artists and singer/songwriters Greg Greenway, Peter Donnelly, David Roth, and Linda Cullum, and shared the stage with numerous others both mighty and meek. Woof Woof Meow is her newest completely fun and creative joy, an expression of pure love for the music, percussion, and musicians in this eclectic and highly talented (and funny!) band.

Her other interests include teaching, listening, loving her wife Deirdre, starting really big projects (like an art school in Haiti, the Flying Fish restaurant, and Wellfleet Oyster Fest) and then giving them over to others who are better at them, her dog Otis, growing and cooking food, and becoming a very happy and contented older person.

Check out her teaching philosophy here.

TREVOR PEARSON (Brewster) 

Trevor is our bass player. He's also well known as a juggler for the Payomet Cirque By The Sea. Watch him in juggling action here. Longer story coming soon. 

RIKKI BATES (Orleans) 

Rikki is our drummer. She also plays in Chandler Travis Philharmonic, the Buttercups, and The Incredible Casuals. Fformerly known as The Casuals, they played every week at Cape Cod's Beachcomber club for decades, and opened for comedian George Carlin on several tours. 

Rikki is also an important Trans rights activist. She successfully sued the state of Massachusetts to gain insurance coverage for gender-affirming medical care, a win that led to similar results in many other states. Longer story coming soon.