back from Conflikt

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*