To Be Continued ... the whole story ... or at least some of it ...

[ericcoleman]

Man ... a crazy weekend ... here is some of it ... it's long ... so get something to eat and drink first ...



2BC is a new SF con (for those of you who don't know) ... and the very first I have been invited to attend. Scary.

There must have been something drastically wrong with me that morning ... I left almost half an hour before I had intended to. Now the thought occurred to me that I could then possibly get there a little earlier than I intended ... heh ... right ... about 6 hours into the trip I ran right into Joliet ... and stopped to look at the loveliness of it's freeway system for ... well ... about the next 40 minutes ... finally boredom and nature made me get off the freeway (it took me that time to get to an exit) and I headed off cross country ... first to a fast food place for a pit stop (no ... fill'er up was not the operative word in this case) then finally (about 7 minutes later ... it would have taken me another 40 on the freeway) to the Radisson ...

It's a BIG place ... too big for a con this small ... maybe in 10 years if it grows ... but for this con .. well ... I walked a LOT ...

I was on a bunch of panels ... pretty much all with the same folks ...

The Evolution of Funny Music - with most of the dementia guys ...
They ignored some things that I thought were important ... mostly due to their absence from Dr Demento I would guess ... it was a fun panel though

Why does fandom fragment? - With my friend Tracy and a couple of other folks ... one of whom had never been to a con before ... and wasn't especially into fandom ... I wasn't sure why she was on the panel ... she wasn't sure either ...

Funny Music, the Real Alternative - Dementia guys again ...
My comments were basically that the only thing they could do was what they had been doing ... go underground and make their own nationwide scene ...

There was no music circle that night ... or the next night ... but more on that later ... I did get to hang out with geekymary some ... (fine ... go see BNL ... see if I explode !!!)

The next morning I had my sound check at 10am ... the entire hour was taken up by the guy who was going on after me ... he sat there and played ... and played ... and played ... he was pretty good (imagine Robin Trower playing SF music) but ... I woulda liked a little more time ...

I did my show at 11am (sans sound ... it was a small room and the crowd was small as well ... so I just stood up there and sang) ... a good show ... had about 7 people there all of whom listened well ... the one disconcerting thing ... Larry Niven was sitting right down front ... a little disconcerting ... but I played well anyway ... bout 35 minutes ... an all funny set ...

WYSIWYG
Product Might Be Hot
Hey Dad
Oh Shannon
Marie Provost
Trophy Wife
Bang My Bald Spot
Low Self Esteem

I think I played Bald Spot half a dozen times this weekend ... I went right on to another panel

Method to the madness! - Dementia guys again ...
About creating funny songs ... kinda fun ... even if it seemed that Luke wasn't going to let me talk about what I did ... there was a certain bit of factioning ... I wasn't part of their crowd ...

This led into the

Filk vs.. Dementia panel ... the same guys ... and me ... and no one who really was a filker ... until tarkrai showed up ... things got a little weird after that ... the Dementia guys didnt expect someone who really knew there stuff I think ... the panel went much better than I thought it would ... and turned out to be a good time. And it was very good to see Tarkrai. One of my favorite singers ...

We got out of there and hung out a bit while I had lunch ... and chattered about performing etc ... it's always nice to see him ... we caught a little of the end of the Corbin Keep concert ... I wish I had seen the entire thing ... oh well ... but ... right after that was

The Michael Longcor Concert
And oh my was it good to see him perform ... I've loved his songs for a couple years now (and I have wanted to learn at least one) and getting the chance to meet him and get a CD was a good thing ... one of the highlights of the weekend for me

The Dementia Showcase - all the folks who were there that weekend who had been on Dr D performed (including Michael Longcor) ... the show was cut short by an hour unfortunately ... but it was still a good show ... I performed well (BMBS again) ... but the highlight for me (and his show the next day was even better) was Shoebox of the Worm Quartet ... MAN this guy is funny ... I ended up with both his CDs and I've listened to them several times now ... really twisted ... imagine a mulletted behemoth channelling Salvador Dali spewing out fart jokes while backed by a synth-punk band made up of rabid weasels on crank ... I have not laughed so hard in ages ... and his solo show the next day was even better

I had dinner with my friends Mike & Tracy that evening ... and ended up wandering around looking for something to do ... eventually I wound up at the Duckon party ... where Tarkrai was entertaining. I watched him play for about an hour before he made me take out my guitar (I was actually perfectly happy to watch him) and we swapped songs for another hour at least ... it was the best musical moment of the weekend for me ... eventually some of the rowdies wandered into the party ... and we wandered off ... and I headed off to bed ...

More later

Comments

[tarkrai.livejournal.com]

Filk vs.. Dementia panel ... the Dementia guys didn't expect someone who really knew their stuff I think ...

I agree, I don't think they expected someone who could eloquently advocate filk to them. I also didn't think that they expected that a filker could not only keep up with them, but could trade gibes just as fast as they could.

Kids. alla them. *evilgrin* I reduced one to yelling, "Mooommmm!! Please make the evil filker go away!!" He was being funny. It was funny.

Of course, now I need it on a badge...

the panel went much better than I thought it would ... and turned out to be a good time.

It was a good time. :) It didn't do the icebreaking I was hoping it would- promptly after the panel the Dementia guys closed ranks once again and went off to have fun their own way. *wrygrin* The Programming head told me to play in the Dementia concert- they weren't interested in having me there. So I went elsewhere. :)

And it was very good to see Tarkrai. One of my favorite singers ...

BLUSH! Yer pretty good yerself, you know...

[ericcoleman]

Shoebox (the fella who gave us the quote of the weekend) is very cool ... I've been listening to his CDs ever since ... WAY twisted ... WAY funny ...

Both Michael and I went down very well at the dementia concert ... but it wasn't your scene in any way ... and only barely our sort of scene ... and only because we have been played on Dr D ...

So ... don't let the disappointment of the weekend chase you out of the country ...

BNL and 2BC

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing BNL twice, thank you very much. :)

**ducks to avoid Eric shrapnel**

Seriously, though, it was good to see you. Sorry I couldn't make it to your 11:00 - see my LJ for what my Saturday was like.

Response from the very Shoebox of whom you speak

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!

Speaking for myself, I didn't have any expectations one way or the other for a filker who "knew his stuff." I'm not a regular con-goer (this was my first con in a decade) and my preparations for this panel actually involved looking up the word "filk" in the dictionary. I barely knew what it was beyond that I knew Ookla The Mok (who I freakin' love) was somehow associated with it. I'd also never been on a panel before, so I had no idea what to do about that, either. Oh, and Eric, you're definitely not the only one who didn't get to say everything ya wanted to...I don't think Luke was deliberately trying to talk over everybody, but he is a very energetic speaker (and seemed to be the most prepared as well) and thus the conversation tended to center around his thoughts on dementia songwriting. I would've loved to move the conversation beyond the whole "making music marketable" thing, which is a subject that always makes me queasy.

Eric - Thanks for the kind words. Very glad ya liked my stuff!! I'll be spinning your disc today (unpacked it yesterday evening) and I'll drop you an e-mail when I do.

And Scary Filker Man...sorry if it seemed like the "dementia" guys were avoiding you. Can't speak for everyone, but in my case it definitely wasn't intentional...I wanted to look you up at some other point during the con and see some of this "filk" stuff you seemed so passionate about, and I wanted to talk about some of the points you brought up about segmentation within the filk community ("this band's filk, this band sold out so they aren't filk anymore...") because it parallels to an astounding degree the attitudes in the punk/hardcore community that I tend to hang around the fringes of. Also, I dunno if you heard about what happened to the Dementia Showcase debacle (were you there? I honestly can't recall. My brain sucks. I know you were at the Michael Longcor thingy before it...) but it was cut from 2 hours to 45 minutes at the last second due to a miscommunication between the hotel and the con people, and we were running around like maniacs trying to rearrange our set(s) around this. I didn't know you were supposed to be part of it, and I'm very sorry you were left out.

To me it actually seemed like most of the weekend was spent rushing around trying to keep up with the ever-changing schedule...with one sound guy who was often supposed to be at two places at the same time, rooms that changed every five minutes, etc., I had a deer-in-the-headlights stare whenever I wasn't on stage or at a table, and I didn't even get a chance to SEE the dealer's room. I've been told this is the way of cons. Still a fun time, though...glad I went.

Man, I'm long-winded. Anyhoo, t'was very cool meeting you guys. Hopefully we'll do this again sometime.

-=ShoEboX=-