First housefilk/filksing of the year

[d_trektone_w]

Last February I attended a housefilk hosted by Bob Kanefsky at his condo community's clubhouse. I remember thinking how I'd been looking forward to getting back into singing. Little did I know it would be nearly year from that day that I'd feel like singing or picking up my guitar much again. Yesterday's filksing, again hosted by Kanef, I had more motivation to prepare and was happily expecting others' renditions of Cynthia McQuillin's songs, too.

Braving the Chinese New Year Parade traffic that I knew would be clogging all major highways around San Francisco, it took me almost 2 1/2 hours to get to there, so I missed the first hour, having arrived at 7pm. (Drive back home took less than an hour, but it was after 1am when I left ...)


Among those in attendance were mdlbear, flowercat, chaoswolf, debmats, herefox, lilacfairy, songspinner (all the way from New Mexico! :) ), Tom Digby, Jane Mailander, Heather Stern, Jim Partridge, Carole Parker, and Bill Laubenheimer. There was chocolate, including ones with liqueur centers, chicken molé tacos, a bottle of claret from Clos Pegase (flying horse logo!) and animal crackers. I brought a little bag of plastic snakes and spread them around the food tables. No one in black lace or purple-satin-lined capes.

We didn't have a Cynthia McQuillin hour but rather did her songs and filks thereof throughout the night/morning. As an off-shoot, sort of, we also did a lot of space songs. Kanef sang a fair amount! In fact, there was a lot of singing and not so much talking, but maybe that's my hazy memory.

The Cindy songs I managed to write down while there:

Steve- "Green Passions"
(later sung/led again by Jane, whom I understand is on lj)

Jane- "One Size Fits All"

Joey- "Sweet Obsession"

Joey- "Gay Vampire Boogie"

Jane- "Dark Desire"

Joey- "Fevre Dream"

Joey- "Cross Fertilization" (Kanefilk of previous song)

Kanef- "The Chocolate Song" (a valiant attempt as we couldn't recall all the lyrics)

Jane- "Wolfling"

Joey- "Six Pack/Wolf Pack" (Kanefilk of previous song)

Jane- "Cybernetic Necromancy"

Joey- "Livin' in a Video"

Joey- "Crimson and Crystal"

Joey- "Shiny and Sharp" (Kanefilk of previous song)

Joey- "Star Fire"

Kanef- "Ain't Got No Body"

Heather & Joey- "Shadow Harper"

Kanef- "Gilda and the Dragon"

Jane- "Roots"

Joey- "Sweet Alice"

Joey- "Horses of Air"

Jane- "Bedlam Cats"

Joey- "Ruby Wine"

Joey- "Black Lace and Midnight"

Kanef- "Brown Rice and Tofu" (Kanefilk of previous song)

Jane- "Half-Blood Prince Filk #1" (filk of "Snakes")

Joey- "Sometimes After Dark"

Heather- "Child of Darkness"



Steve and Colleen



Jane


We did reminisce about Cindy, of course. It wasn't until someone talked about "Fuel to Feed the Drive" and its many sequels (which that it made me very sad. I don't think that song was ever sung, but if it was I missed it as I was in my own headspace for a little while. I got choked up while singing "Crimson and Crystal" and again during jecklar's "The Phoenix" (which was particularly unfortunate in the latter as I really needed to focus on breathing at the right times and didn't).

As previously mentioned non-Cindy songs were sung, too, and by other singers as well, despite the appearance from above I was being a filkhog. :)

Tom let us know his "Little Teeny Eyes" turned 40 this year and he sang it for us. Fun!


Tom


Got distracted and didn't take many pics after all (and as expected, Kanef did not wished to be photographed).

Consonance in a few weeks!

Comments

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good time was had by all, and Cindy remembered nicely. :)

I love Gilda and the Dragon. I wish I had a fully copy of the album it's from. As it is, I have the first 4 or 5 songs from a copy herefox managed to make for me on the back of a different tape years ago. I love to listen to the little bit I've got :)

[debmats.livejournal.com]

You should fly out for a quick weekend for Consonance...

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my boss would be SO thrilled for me to take time off , so soon after a week plus of sick time *g*

[debmats.livejournal.com]

just an afternoon on friday... redeye it on sunday. Who needs sleep??? *weg*

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I'll write about my prep, some of which was helpful in grieving and not actually fun, but once there the filksing was mostly very enjoyable.

what were the 4 or 5 songs, btw? Did any of them have electric bass or electric guitar that you could tell? Or (another way to ask this) could you tell if I sang on any of the tracks?

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Lemme see *digs out the tape* I don't have any song titles, so I'll wing it. I don't hear anything electric on there, I don't remember hearing anyone other than Cindy on there.

The first one has a chorus that starts "She's a singer in the shadows, and the shadow is death. She stands between each man and fate and her life is our breath." (or something like that). Second is Gilda and the Dragon. Third is some song about political marriage, which I think it a Darkover song cause it mentions the Comyn. Fourth is about an intelligent sword that makes its bearer (a king) kill people. Fifth song starts with the words, "I love a man, a soldier of fortune." The last one I have (what do you know, there were 6, not 4 or 5) is an Arthurian song, from the POV of Morgan le Fay.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Probably? Not in order, but ...

http://www.locksley.com/filk/filkalb.htm#Sshad

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it. :) Sean might have skipped "Love Deep As Rivers" when he copied it for me. I don't really remember, cause it was back in the summer of '98 *g*

[rabbijeffty.livejournal.com]

What's with the "Joey Joey Shoji" and "Catherine Catherine Cook"?

[trektone.livejournal.com]

No idea. :)

[onalark.livejournal.com]

I was singing "The Chieri" in spirit. :)

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was on my list. Maybe I'll get to hear you do it in person someday?

[redrob.livejournal.com]

Also in attendance, myself, and Jim Partridge.

Alex

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Yes, you were! Sorry about the omission. Did have Jim listed above in the original post, between Heather and Carole.

So how was the filk for you? When did you finally leave?

[redrob.livejournal.com]

Well, I completely missed seeing Jim in your list, so I don't think either of us are coming off very well here. :-)

It was pretty good. Several dead moments where everyone looked at everyone else to start singing, but none lasted too long, and we never seemed to wander off from 'music' to 'conversation' for an extended period.

I think we lost more people than expected to WonderCon, unfortunately.

I left around 1 or 2, I think. Wasn't paying a lot of attention to the time.

Alex