Eric's House Of Ego

Ok, new songs that will be performed at the Cap show!
11 To 12
Don't Look Now
Navigator
Hot McGonagall (ok, not new, but not played at a Chicago show yet)

And maybe two more if we get them done!

Susan will be joining us for a few songs!

I will have some new toys with me!

Any requests? It's just a few weeks away!

Hmmm, I'm a little busy this weekend.

Concert Setup and Sound Checks (Friday) - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm - River AB (Programming - Media)
Concert setup and sound checks for Bill & Gretchen Roper and Cheshire Moon.

Cheshire Moon Concert - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm - River AB (Programming - Media)
Cheshire Moon is the fanciful collaboration of trickster bird Lizzie Crowe and crazed magician Eric Coleman. What began as a simple joining of two talents in song circles, and occasionally during the mad-hatter antics of Eric Coleman on stage, whipped and frothed into the most likely of pairs. Eric’s love of punk, folk and prog rock gives them an eerie, otherworldly sound, while Lizzie brings the voice of that otherworld to life in chorus and verse. Together they bring about a torrent that is as playful as it is lightly sinister, all wrapped up in a pretty little beribboned box. Do you dare to open it?

SF/F Music that Isn't Filk - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 11:30 am to 1:00 pm - Birch A
Science Fiction and Fantasy has inspired more music than just filk. Artists such as David Bowie, Rush, Styx, Radiohead, the Flaming Lips, and Janelle Monae have incorporated genre tropes and stories into their songs and albums. We discuss some of our favorites.
Ooh, I'm the moderator on this one!

Forgotten Role Playing Games of the 1980s - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm - Birch A
Do you remember Paranoia, Space: 1889, or Champions? This panel will reminisce about some of the best role-playing games of the 1980s other than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

Concert Setup and Sound Checks (Saturday) - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm - River AB (Programming - Media)
Concert setup and sound checks for Toyboat and Il Troubadore. May be able to start later... this is my "worst case" time slot until I have confirmation from Dave Ifverson of how much time we need.

Toyboat Unclogged! - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm - River AB (Programming - Media)
The question Toyboat is most often asked is "Why are the guitars distorted? Is there something wrong with the guitars?". So, due to underwhelming demand, Toyboat will leave their electric instruments at home (except for Raven, he'll still bring his organ, we tried to get him to play the accordion, but he just looked at us like we were crazy, still, he always looks at us like that) and bring … yeah … acoustic guitars, standup bass and real drums. There is still no safe minimum distance.

Last night in the filk circle at CAP (geeze) I asked Lizzie to marry me. For reasons no one (other than she) can work out, she said yes.

She is moving in a month (exactly, we should be to my our place by this time of the evening if all goes well). The wedding is still being worked out, but looks to be, most likely, in late August in the Chicago area.

We are both very happy.

Would You Like To Play Game?
This Island Earth
Sunset Boulevard
Sucked Through A Wormhole
Reach For The Stars
Merlin
Poolhall
Hellraiser
Uplift
Banned From Argo
Rocket Launcher/Gimmie Shelter
Zombie Mama
SOAW
Mary O'Meara Blues

It sure felt like a train wreck. There is a recording. I'd like to hear it just to see if it sounded better out front. Between the stuff with the station and everything else, it's been a pretty bad con.

See some of you in 6-7 hours. If anyone feels like giving me a call during that time, feel free. Headsets are your friend when you spend as much time driving as I do.

The bad stuff (let's get rid of that first)
Nervousness over my first show in awhile (which led to me being a basket case much of Thursday and Friday)
Bronchitis (which sent me to bed most of the day Saturday)
A dead radio station (may it live again)

The good stuff
As mentioned before, my show with the ever so lovely and talented sweetmusic_27.
Howling Boat (or Toy Beagle) pulling a show out of our ... ummm, doing a show on the fly to fill in time. The 4 of us had never played those songs before, and I think we were pretty darn good.
TWO filkertom shows, both different, both brilliant
Two visits to my favorite holy place
YUMMY indian food with good friends Saturday evening (at which point I started feeling better)
sweetmusic_27's solo show ... I had no idea you could sing like that
tollers's solo show ... But I already knew you could sing like that
harperjen's solo show ... see above
The three folks mentioned above and their show Saturday night, I only saw a bit, but man it was good.
Being able to play with my band in a couple different contexts.
Some nifty news that a few of you have heard, and that hopefully if it comes off a lot more of you will hear toward the end of the year (hey, I gotta be vague sometimes)

It was very much a hot and cold weekend. Much of it was pretty bad, but in the end the high points far outweighed the bad parts.

And I am back to the Chicago area this weekend for Toyboat practice, then off to Marscon the following weekend for a Toyboat show in a small room ... it's gonna be ugly folks.

I am here ... I can't say I think much of the hotel yet, but it's only been an hour or so.

Time to go track down my badge, and find where things are.

See some of you real soon

I'm playing a show at Capricon. Yeah I know that I said I wasn't going to play solo shows, but what can I say, they asked me. 3:15 Friday afternoon.

It will also be broadcast live on Radio Capricon so anyone who can listen to internet radio at 3:15 on a Friday afternoon can listen to it (as well as a bunch of other nifty concerts, check out the schedule).

I'm trying to work out what I want to do. I think that I'll dig into the songbook a little deeper than usual, stay away from the usual stuff.

So, what songs should I do, considering that I want to stay away from the stuff I do all the time? Is there some song on one of my CDs that you want to hear live? Is there some cover song that you have seen me do live or in a song circle that you'd like to hear?

Help me out with my set list ...

It was a very fun circle tonight. Great music all the way around.

The highlight for me was filkertom doing Dervish. I want to state for the record, as I said just a bit ago ... Tom, that was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I know you think you bobbled the lyrics, and yes you did, just a tiny bit, not enough to matter. The main thing was, MAN does that work well with just your voice and your guitar. I forget sometimes what a great singer you are, and you certainly proved it in the circle tonight. It gave me chills, and the room's reaction backs me up. IMNSHO that needs to go into your regular set.

That said I played, or was involved in the playing of three songs, well, three and a half.

WYSIWYG - I think that was the best version I have ever done and a lot of it was due to the help of the room. Everyone played along and folks even sang along.

Sunset Boulevard - as part of Toyboat. I need to work out if I can deal with singing this along with gundo while I play the drums. Even though at the last practice he sang it wonderfully, I really LIKE singing this.

Amy the fiddler, who I think is on LJ, but I am too lazy to go look right now, did a fiddle tune, which leant itself to some of the stuff I do in Hides, which it melded into once she was done. She joined in and so did Jim, who I don't think is on LJ. Jim has generally been too shy to play much in the circles, but he took over the rhythm completely on Hides, driving the song REALLY FRIGGIN HARD. I change tempos a lot when I play Hides, so this took me WAY out of my comfort zone, and that was a very, very, very good thing cause it ended up, while loose, one of the best versions in a long time. Probably the best since Andy and I did it at the circle at Duck.

I needed that, I really did. I feel much better then I have much of the week ... now to try to get some sleep.

Angel is on the radio right now playing some very cool, very dreamy stuff. I think I will leave it on for a bit.

I did a serious set tonight at the open mike and my oh my did it feel good.

One I Chased Away
Things You Never Know
Perfect Moments
Roman Wall Blues (Auden/Harvey)
Shake That Thing (Alex Harvey)

I have not played Shake That Thing in front of an audience since my house concert at the Palatine Air Park sometime about a 100 years ago. I had problems placing the rhythm right here and there (hey Bo Diddley) but generally I thought it was a good version.

Perfect Moments went well, except my guitar was having some neck problems, so the note that walk up during the verses were a little muffled. I was finishing the song and thought, since I was in DADGAD, that I needed to go right into another DADGAD song, so I started wandering into Roman Wall Blues. I had my lyric book out, since the first two songs are a little dusty, and reached over with my left hand, since I was just droning on the strings, and turned the page RIGHT to Roman Wall Blues ... that was cool.

I think I said this tuesday after my set there, I'm starting to feel like a musician again. I'm not trying as hard and that feels really good. I've been feeling kinda bad about music in general lately, and the sets this week have done a lot toward setting that right. So ... (and we'll see if anyone replies this time) what sort of set should I do this weekend at Cap ...

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