jenk

Usually when the number of performers is changing up to the day before? It's a bad sign.

Usually when I ask how many vocal mics we'll need and don't get an answer, because it's not a simple question, and there's lots of debate over who is and isn't singing and who will want to speak from the stage and who can share mics? It's a bad sign.

Usually when line checks continue to door opening? It's a bad sign.

Oh, and in "never happened before and hope it never happens again", when we go to pick up skydancer's sound equipment from his storage unit and the storage facility is without power? Should I mention his unit is on the 3rd floor? And no power means no elevator? I'm not sure how to interpret that except as a bad sign.



And yet it was all perfect.



Congratulations to Betsy on a successful album launch!

1) I have been busy, mostly with work but also with life. It happens.

2) Despite busyness, this past weekend I saw Tricky Pixie twice. Also Vixy & Tony and Clint McCune's band.

3) Yes, this was a Very Good Thing. Loved all of it. Except maybe where Clint teased me with a portion of a Bruce song during sound check and then didn't sing it during the concert.

4) You can see last night's show at http://soultribetv.com, along with the Kitten Sundae (s00j , stealthcello , vixyish & tfabris ) show on 3/21, and the Bone Poets show on 2/12.

5) I am not feeling guilty for not doing work stuff on Saturday.

6) I enjoyed helping dianthus drink the bottle of viognier she got on Saturday.

7) I liked the Mandolin Cafe, even if it got a bit recursive to have Alec playing a mandolin in the mandolin cafe.

8) I enjoyed the look on Alec's face when I surprised him with a bow on Sunday.

9) I did not enjoy getting an asthma attack yesterday while helping skydancer setup sound gear. Haven't had to use my albuterol in months, damn it. (Wah!)

10) ...I would say that means it's really spring, except that it could also have been from going from wet outdoors to warmer-drier indoors and back and in and back and in and back and in.

11) Not sure my white rosebush is still alive, but the red one is covered in new growth. This is the exact opposite of last year.

12) Two days. Two days and I will be prepping for Norwescon instead of at work. I am pleased.

13) Sunday's "Zits" reminds me of my Friday evening. (My reaction was rather like Connie, not her son's.) ( Image and transcript gets kinda long, so )

If you went to the brunch at Conflikt, you got a brunch CD. My attempt at full performance & songwriting credits is here. Please comment over there with any corrections or additions ;)

Thank you for buying 30-40lb speakers. Seriously.

Should be taking back library books, replacing a worn tire and visiting the county records office (need a "realer" copy of my birth certificate to apply for a passport so I can continue to visit BC occasionally) but I stopped to check work email, and once the computer is on...

Overall the con was amazing. 11 concerts! I think it shows how new to filk I am that I'd heard Kathy Mar sing only once before. :) mdlbear returned this year with another concert (accompanied by last year's toastmistress cflute) and accompanying pocketnaomi in her first concert, also accompanied by cflute. seanan_mcguire also returned, this time as GOH. New-to-me (like that matters :) was markbernstein, mrgoodwraith, Puzzlebox (I'd heard most of the members but not the group) and Interfilk guest Lawrence Dean. Yay runnerwolf for putting together a terrific group of performers. Plus the 2-fers and one-shots also attracted really talented folks like Merav & Batya of Lady Mondegreen and Creede and so on, not to mention the band scramble and a hilarious songwriting contest.

(Hey, the ETA if I order the birth cert online is only 2-3 days? Should've done that. Done that. Also ordered Mom's death cert so I can see which birthday it has. Whee, can write more....)

The variety was also great. We had filkers pulling from many musical styles, including jazz, country, blues, celtic, folk, and rock. The Saturday night concert block really emphasized the variety:

1. Marian Call doing her folk and jazz and Firefly songs with tfabris providing guitar, Amy's fiddle, and Marian's wide variety of percussion (including a manual typewriter).
2. Frank Hayes, our toastmaster, pulled up a stool, his guitar, and some lyric sheets, played one or two intro songs, and asked, "So what do you all want to hear?" Most of the hour was requests.
   
3. seanan_mcguire had what she termed a "build-a-band" with folks pulled from the Seattle area, the Bay area, and Wisconsin - but they played rock more tightly and together than some bands who play together every week, and yes, they were fantastic. I'm afraid to ask how many hours of rehearsal went into that set.

I heard good comments about the other programming, especially Seanan's improv workshop, Tony's deconstructing songs workshop, and C. D.'s "the weird chords" workshop.

On the tech front, ( wow this is getting long )

On the open filking front, I actually did make it to the closing filk ("smoked salmon") this year, and I even took my instrument - mostly because I've been playing along with CDs at home, and always miss it when I don't have it. Of course with playing along to a CD I can take time to experiment and go through lots of icky noises while finding nice noises. At the filk I mostly did very quiet plinking to see how my guesses at accompaniment would work without actually inflicting it on others :) But hey, at least I didn't have a panic attack just walking into the room with it, like I did at Rusty. And I was able to lend my tuner to Amy McNally Saturday night... maybe I should start packing it in the tech bag for music events, not just the fiddle case.

I even sang a song. Eep. *retrospective panic*