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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. :)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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:
On the tech front, we did another special mostly-recorded-at-the-con CD this year with even more tracks. Seanan (with Paul Kwinn), Frank, Lawrence andhsifyppah did 2 tracks each; tibicina did one; mrgoodwraith did one; Vixy & Tony provided a prerecorded (yay!) track; and we recorded a sing-a-long Friday night. Because of course Conflikt is skydancer's big excuse reason to buy new sound equipment, there was some debugging-of-the-new-patch-panel during the Friday setup before recording (and before the first concert) but the CD recording went fine. (Of course, keeping quiet during the recording of some of the songs required biting lips, biting tongues, and shaking with suppressed laughter, but hey....) I'd been practicing a bit with the Mackie recording software John uses, and was able to help with the mixing. Visualize me on the hotel room couch, John at the desk, both of us wearing high-quality headphones and focusing intently on our respective laptops ...
During concert blocks and so forthhms42 and I were mostly moving mics onstage and offstage and onstage and offstage. I was always afraid of a) hitting a performer trying to get the mic close enough, and b) not getting the mic close enough and encouraging feedback. Fortunately Brooke and Callie were wonderfully kind and forgiving and do not bruise easily. We've determined I can run the board, at least for simple groups. On the "a change is as good as a rest" rationale I worked the sound board during Sunday's one-shots and the songwriting contest and let John wrestle with mics. hms42 and dornbeast also helped pack and load equipment - which is complicated since I want to be sure to keep the borrowed-from-suddenlynaked stuff corralled and separate from skydancer's...
Club sandwiches continued to be the Conflikt sound guy food staple - they stay edible at room temp for a few hours, are served in quarters which are convenient to grab, and if I remind John to eat my pickle as well as his own they don't seem to cause too huge of a smell. Plus the restaurant doesn't charge extra to have a [more lasting at room temp] green salad instead of fries.
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*
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:
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
On the tech front, we did another special mostly-recorded-at-the-con CD this year with even more tracks. Seanan (with Paul Kwinn), Frank, Lawrence and
hsifyppah did 2 tracks each; tibicina did one; mrgoodwraith did one; Vixy & Tony provided a prerecorded (yay!) track; and we recorded a sing-a-long Friday night. Because of course Conflikt is skydancer's big During concert blocks and so forth
hms42 and I were mostly moving mics onstage and offstage and onstage and offstage. I was always afraid of a) hitting a performer trying to get the mic close enough, and b) not getting the mic close enough and encouraging feedback. Fortunately Brooke and Callie were wonderfully kind and forgiving and do not bruise easily. We've determined I can run the board, at least for simple groups. On the "a change is as good as a rest" rationale I worked the sound board during Sunday's one-shots and the songwriting contest and let John wrestle with mics. hms42 and dornbeast also helped pack and load equipment - which is complicated since I want to be sure to keep the borrowed-from-suddenlynaked stuff corralled and separate from skydancer's... Club sandwiches continued to be the Conflikt sound guy food staple - they stay edible at room temp for a few hours, are served in quarters which are convenient to grab, and if I remind John to eat my pickle as well as his own they don't seem to cause too huge of a smell. Plus the restaurant doesn't charge extra to have a [more lasting at room temp] green salad instead of fries.
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*