The Hillbillies impart their sense of fun with music and the music is eminently danceable.
-- Old Time Herald

With a new album that comes close to capturing its charm, this Bay Area quartet isn't really as weird as its name implies. Mandolinist/guitarist Paul Kotapish, fiddler Ray Bierl, fiddler/banjo player/bagpiper Kevin Carr, and keyboardist Daniel Steinberg attempt to keep the folk dance music tradition contemporary. While the bottom line is providing music for square and contradancing (American and Celtic fiddle music), the Hillbillies manage to work in Latin and African rhythmic elements, rock, swing and even folk and jazz, in a show that makes as rewarding a listening as dancing experience.
-- Larry Kelp, East Bay Express

The Hillbillies From Mars, with an Earth base in the San Francisco Bay Area, play avant-traditional dance music from the hippest corners of the galaxy. They will be freshly back from their contradance tour of Russia and the Ukraine. Kevin Carr plays great fiddle, banjo, bodhran and astounding Irish bagpipes. Ray Bierl is amazing on fiddle and guitar. A fine singer as well, Ray will also lead singing sessions. Daniel Steinberg is widely regarded as the most dangerous keyboard player in traditional dance music, plays fine flute and percussion and will teach French traditional dances. Paul Kotapish plays passionate and driving mandolin and guitar that you will just have to hear to believe.
-- Alta Sierra Festival

Kevin Carr, Paul Kotapish, Ray Bierl, and Daniel Steinberg comprise the redoubtable Hillbillies From Mars, one of the West Coast's most notorious dance bands. As their name suggests, the `Billies have a deliciously disrespectful, eclectic approach, and this (their premier recording), not only swings but is full of zest, playfulness and pleasant surprises. Roll back the rug and have some fun!
-- Elderly Instruments Hot Platters!

Big favorites on their home planet, their name says it all: exciting, inventive, traditional dance music from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
-- Camp Wannadance

Their new album HILLBILLIES FROM MARS is among the freshest and musically diverse tradition based albums we've heard around here in years.
-- Freight & Salvage

This band could probably get dead people to dance. Rhythmically savvy and musically sly, this California dance band is rock-solid and devilishly funny. Some arrangements come straight from Mars, others sucker you into expecting something normal before blasting off. Kevin Carr and Ray Bierl rip it up on hot fiddle duets and each add one vocal to the otherwise all-instrumental affair. Carr also juggles banjo, guitar, uilleann pipes, and more. Paul Kotapish switches from loping, rolling guitar to truly incendiary mandolin picking. Daniel Steinberg fills things out with a kitchen sink full of keyboards, flutes, and things. The tunes, American, Canadian, Irish, French are mostly unusual and the Hillbillies freely let their world music influences leak into their sets, constantly tossing in asides from Cuba, Africa, the Swing Era, wherever, so by the time you get to the French Canadian-via-Zimbabwe Old Man Old Woman nothing will surprise you. Here's a party album for any kind of party.
-- Danny Carnahan, Roots & Rhythm

The Hillbillies are one of the goofiest bands around, full of energy that is always transferred on to the dancers during a live performance. This CD is a trifle quieter than a dance, and includes some reflective Bourrées and a nice waltz. The tunes are southern in flavor, and well-executed. Besides, who can resist a tune entitled "The Full Catastrophe."
-- Lisa's Dance Music CD Reviews