Dragon*Con Filk and Comedy Music -- A Big Honkin' Thank You

[filkertom]

The last bit of LJ Dragon*Con business, I think.

On behalf of Dragon*Con, I would like to thank our incredible performers and our equally wonderful audiences. Seriously, there was a lot of great acoustic music to be had this weekend, and if you missed it, well, you missed out.

Alphabetically:

• Grant Baciocco (trumanburbank, throwingtoasters.com), who was funny as hell, as usual
• Rob Balder (partiallyclips, robbalder.com), who was as "on" as I've ever seen him
• The Bedlam Bards (bedlambards.com), especially Cedric in that fiddle-jam on the Exhibition Level (props also to Louis Lamp and the other four people jammin')
• The Boogie Knights (boogie-knights.org), who not only kicked ass during their sets but hung out at the open sings until 3:00 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights
• The Brobdingnagian Bards (marcgunn and Andrew McKee, thebards.net), who are rapidly becoming favorites of mine
• Carrie Dahlby (pixelene), who flattened the room with an amazing cover of wormquartet's "I'm Not A Girl"
• Joe Giacoio (joegiacoio.com), who (as I anticipated) boggled everybody with his guitar wizardry and great songs
• Matt Leger (thatcrazycajun), who broke everybody's heart with "A Simple Country Doctor"
• Roberta Rogow (a fan page), who brought Ye Olde Classic Filk in a big way and sounded great
• the great Luke Ski (lukeski, thegreatlukeski.com), who was everywhere, helping everybody, as well as performing his butt off
• our Guest Of Honor, Carla Ulbrich (carlau.com), who was every bit as fun and hilarious and musically wonderful as you could hope for

And people seemed to like my sets, too. :)

There were a number of special moments. The Big Honkin' Funny Music Show went pretty well, I thought, especially when Rob and I sang "Rich Fantasy Lives", and the incredibly funny opening when the BrobBards sang "The Old Dun Cow", substituting "pizza" for "beer". Joe and Carla's joint concert on Friday night was amazing, one of the best I've ever seen. The BrobBards were SRO before their concert even started. Saturday night, we were filling in for wormquartet, who had to cancel due to illness at the last minute, and Rob, Luke, Carrie, and I tag-teamed through a cover of his amazing ballad, "Great Idea For A Song". It worked really well, and jannyblue got video, so you may see that soon.

Special thanks are also in order to:

• Logan and Clyde of Emerald Rose, who ran tech on the Concourse stage and made us all sound great
• the sound crew in Regency 6 and 7 for the Big Honkin' Funny Music Show on Friday, who had everything nailed quickly, efficiently, and perfectly
• Joseph, who had me in for two songs at The Pirate Party
• Three Quarter Ale, for doing a really rockin' set at said Pirate Party
• huskiebear, Ken, Ronnie, Michael, Ian, tomreedtoon, Wayne, Sara, Judi, and everybody else who helped the artists at their tables and at their concerts
• The audiences, which were sizable and enthusiastic all weekend -- thank you so much for your interest, your support, and your applause

Anyway, that's most of what I needed to say. If you are at all interested in continuing filk/comedy/Celtic/acoustic music at D*C, be sure to e-mail programming @ dragoncon.org about it. And, seriously, you might want to mention to them the notion of changing it from "filk" track to "acoustic" track. I'm proud to be a filker, and we had spectacular musicians and singer-songwriters top to bottom, but we get kinda lost in the din of the amplifiers. ;)

Many thanks to each and every one of you,
Tom Smith
Dragon*Con 2007 Filk Track Director

Comments

[foehelm.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's Joseph from the Pirate Party! You are MORE THAN WELCOME and we really owe you thanks, it was great! I'm friending your LJ btw, feel free to reciprocate! Until we meet again!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Roger that, me heartie! :)

[foenix.livejournal.com]

Was awesome seeing you and the filking crew again this year. I hated having to run out of the Big Honkin' Music Show just as you were starting, but Marvel Zombie photo opportunities called. ;) I did swing by your concourse concert, as well as others, and as always, had a great time hanging with fellow fans and singing along.

I'm never gonna forget the McIntyre/Pizza chaos during the Bards number.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

God, thanks for reminding me of that! It had slipped my mind, but it was hysterically funny.

[voiceofkiki.livejournal.com]

It was great to see you. Hope it won't be too long before I can get to another con.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Hey Voice of Kiki! You did a great job downstairs (oh that SO totally came out wrong). I remember you as a fellow Sluggite. We'll hopefully see ya next year!

Anywho, also big thanks to Tom Smith for the thank you (I have to prepare the menu *ahem* thank you list, and you can bet that you're an appetizing part of it).

This convention was a lot of fun and loads of awesome. This is Louis Lamp, hittin the road (again).

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The feeling's mutual, pretty lady. I'm gonna try to get to GAFilk in January -- maybe we can meet up then...?

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thanks. But the real hero of the day was you, Tom. You were literally exhausted by the whole thing, but you have the thanks of everyone who was there, even those who thought that some Fairly OddParents did all the behind-the-scenes work.

I've told Luke, and I tell all the Dementia community, that I'll volunteer my services for 2008 in getting flyers, signs and other things set up for the filk/Dementia shows. I'll need the info, but I'll do the print masters and much of the printing.

Right now, I'd like to field an idea. Would you performing artists like a banner on a stand to go over the area that has the comedy and filk artists? Something on a collapsible, transportable PVC pipe stand that would go over the tables? The metal bands all have this paraphenalia, and I think it would be only fair for us to have it.

And if so, what should go on the banner? Something like "Filk - Dementia - Comedy Music"? Should Dementia Radio be mentioned? How about The FuMP?

We've got a year to solidify the details, but start thinking about it now, guys.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'll tell you this much: First, I'm not gonna be at Dragon*Con next year, so do what you feel. Carla had a very, very good suggestion: We have to call ourselves something else at D*C, something like "acoustic" or "comedy" (although I tried to get the latter in there and it didn't take). But we have to get into the frickin' Music and Performing Arts track, and that may mean registering through that avenue rather than going through the Con Chair, which is what we've been doing... but then we start competing for space with the goth bands, and we'll lose, because they put more young and, bluntly, less discriminating butts in chairs.

I felt (can't be said that I "heard" any of it, it was too cranked on the bass) songs from a number of the goth bands in one form or another this past weekend, including them drowning out the Pirate Party through the walls, and our stuff handily stands up to theirs on every front except one: theirs is somewhat better to dance mindlessly to.

Over on the dragoncon group, there's all kinds of praise to D*CTV, especially for running the Coulton "Re: Your Brains" video... but a number of us saw Adult Swim-style "jokes" about killing filkers and the like. The dolts don't realize that "Re: Your Brains" is about as pure a filksong as you're likely to find, because they've got the old stereotype about filk being badly performed Tolkien/Pern songs stuck in their pointy little heads.

Upshot? D*C doesn't want acoustic, except for their chosen acoustic. They don't want comedy. They damn sure don't want filk. If they did, we'd get a modicum of respect. They'd at least get our damn names in the program book.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you made that public, Tom. I wasn't going to say anything about it. But it needs to be heard.

Whoever does the job, I'm there to help. I still believe in the performers on the Filk/Dementia track, no matter who at D*C doesn't.

And as for D*CTV and their bumper writers, they obviously learned their comedy from Dennis Miller and other performers who consider themselves "too hip for you idiots in the audience." They are very much like the old radio DJ's who consider themselves the equal of the rock stars they played. And they were easily replaced by automated radio stations.

I know you wanted to separate yourself from the turmoil you suffered, and if my post dragged you back into it too early, I'm sorry. But I want you to know there are a lot of people who appreciate and love you, for what you do and for who you are.

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

You have a point, and I can't argue with that. I'll just say that I appreciate having had the opportunity to see you live for the last three years, and consider myself lucky for that.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Wow. After all the crap this year I was debating about next year. If you're not gonna be there, that's a big minus.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

It worked really well, and jannyblue got video, so you may see that soon.

Just got my camera cable unpacked, so I can upload it to Shinobi (my computer). It needs some minor tweaking for length, but the audio's surprisingly good and clear.

[batyatoon]

Yay, Three Quarter Ale!

You did know the brunette is my cousin, yesno?