FilKONtario 22- Saturday Afternoon
Headed down to breakfast Saturday morning where we were joined by FKO Toast Waif Paul Estin and his fiancé Kate. We hadn’t caught up with Paul in quite a long time, so that was really nice. Took a spin
through the Dealer’s Room and got tempted by many things- CDs, instruments, music books, paperbacks, FKO memorabilia- but saved my money for a later spin through the Dealer’s Room later in the weekend, when I would find even more and different stuff!
(Aside: Thanks again to Phil for letting me borrow his FKO photos. Any credited photos are his and the rest are mine. You can find Phil's full FKO set here.)
(Photo by Phil- see photo link above)
Afternoon concerts opened up with one shots before our Toast, the ever-lovable Happy Fun Paul, launched into the first concert of the day. Great fun, with songs like the Irish Scientist drinking song, I’m
Judging You and the evil Be Happy song. Kate sang and played, too, and Dave added excellent guitar and bass lines.
(photo by Phil- see photo link above)
Morva Bowman and Alan Pollard were up next as the featured Canadian filker concert. Now, a bit of background. Two years ago at OVFF Morva attended a workshop UT gave about filk performance where we encouraged people to shake their fears and share their songs (not too different from a workshop that Mark Bernstein gave at FKO this weekend). At that time Morva had never written a filksong or performed on a filk stage. Later that weekend she would perform her first written filksong in the songwriting contest and walk away with the Audience Choice Award. Yay for that. So I laughed when she looked out at Jodi and me from their first ever filk concert, standing on the FKO stage, and said “This is
-your- fault!” :) and then I completely misted up when she and Alan gave this -awesome- concert which made me think of filk links in a chain and how Kathy Mar was coming to stage soon and how she told UT
when we were Interfilk guests in California twenty years ago that we would be Guests of Honour at a filkcon one day and how we didn’t believe her, but I’ve never forgotten she said that and had that faith
in us, and this all probably doesn’t make much sense, but, oh, just go and read this post from that OVFF and it does make sense.
Morva and Alan are wonderful songwriters and one can only hope the next filk project they have on their radar is a CD. Alan’s “Mockingjay” was haunting and Morva’s “Game of Thrones” filk to the tune of “The Huron Carol” was a brilliant pairing of just the right music and lyric.
Next were the Interfilk guests, a very talented duo from outside of DC. (OK, this is a challenge- I know not to use their real names, but I don’t know what name to use!) Anyway, they were both wonderfully
entertaining and cut a great figure on the stage, too, him in his roguish trenchcoat and hat and her in a satin rose shirt. They sang about Browncoats and Dorsai and I was especially taken by her Zoe song that
explains to Wash her devotion to Mal. Loved that song, so touching. She also sang Heather Alexander’s “Wanderlust” which leads nicely into one of the highlight moments of FKO this year.
(Photo by Phil- see photo link above)
The two of them will soon be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, so as a surprise he had prepared a song to sing just for her and had brought Alexander James Adams all the way from the west coast to Toronto to accompany him as he sang it to her, which is, like, amazingly romantic. Can anyone tell me the name of the song? It was lovely and she cried and then she sang the last choruses with him and I cried.
(Photo by Phil- see photo link above)
Kathy Mar finished up the afternoon with a set of songs inspired by women and the women’s issues that are part of the current American political landscape. For the first song I felt privileged to be among
the large group of women filkers who joined Kathy on stage to sing Joan Baez’s “Bread and Roses”. Kathy also chose to pass out the lyrics of her entire set list to the audience so they could sing along with
her, too. She performed old favorites like “Edward” and “Santa Monica Pier” and newer songs like Talis Kimberley’s “Spoon” and Brooke Lunderville’s The wreck of the rise of the fall of... you know the
one :). After a rousing chorus of “Drink Up That River” we were off to get ready for the Filk Hall of Fame banquet. Jodi and I knew -one- of the inductees, but the two others were surprises.
And since Phil so generously lent me his photos, let's finish with a photo of him! Here he is singing his one shot on Saturday afternoon. Looks like he's having fun :).
More to come.
through the Dealer’s Room and got tempted by many things- CDs, instruments, music books, paperbacks, FKO memorabilia- but saved my money for a later spin through the Dealer’s Room later in the weekend, when I would find even more and different stuff!
(Aside: Thanks again to Phil for letting me borrow his FKO photos. Any credited photos are his and the rest are mine. You can find Phil's full FKO set here.)
(Photo by Phil- see photo link above)
Afternoon concerts opened up with one shots before our Toast, the ever-lovable Happy Fun Paul, launched into the first concert of the day. Great fun, with songs like the Irish Scientist drinking song, I’m
Judging You and the evil Be Happy song. Kate sang and played, too, and Dave added excellent guitar and bass lines.
(photo by Phil- see photo link above)
Morva Bowman and Alan Pollard were up next as the featured Canadian filker concert. Now, a bit of background. Two years ago at OVFF Morva attended a workshop UT gave about filk performance where we encouraged people to shake their fears and share their songs (not too different from a workshop that Mark Bernstein gave at FKO this weekend). At that time Morva had never written a filksong or performed on a filk stage. Later that weekend she would perform her first written filksong in the songwriting contest and walk away with the Audience Choice Award. Yay for that. So I laughed when she looked out at Jodi and me from their first ever filk concert, standing on the FKO stage, and said “This is
-your- fault!” :) and then I completely misted up when she and Alan gave this -awesome- concert which made me think of filk links in a chain and how Kathy Mar was coming to stage soon and how she told UT
when we were Interfilk guests in California twenty years ago that we would be Guests of Honour at a filkcon one day and how we didn’t believe her, but I’ve never forgotten she said that and had that faith
in us, and this all probably doesn’t make much sense, but, oh, just go and read this post from that OVFF and it does make sense.
Morva and Alan are wonderful songwriters and one can only hope the next filk project they have on their radar is a CD. Alan’s “Mockingjay” was haunting and Morva’s “Game of Thrones” filk to the tune of “The Huron Carol” was a brilliant pairing of just the right music and lyric.
Next were the Interfilk guests, a very talented duo from outside of DC. (OK, this is a challenge- I know not to use their real names, but I don’t know what name to use!) Anyway, they were both wonderfully
entertaining and cut a great figure on the stage, too, him in his roguish trenchcoat and hat and her in a satin rose shirt. They sang about Browncoats and Dorsai and I was especially taken by her Zoe song that
explains to Wash her devotion to Mal. Loved that song, so touching. She also sang Heather Alexander’s “Wanderlust” which leads nicely into one of the highlight moments of FKO this year.
(Photo by Phil- see photo link above)
The two of them will soon be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, so as a surprise he had prepared a song to sing just for her and had brought Alexander James Adams all the way from the west coast to Toronto to accompany him as he sang it to her, which is, like, amazingly romantic. Can anyone tell me the name of the song? It was lovely and she cried and then she sang the last choruses with him and I cried.
(Photo by Phil- see photo link above)
Kathy Mar finished up the afternoon with a set of songs inspired by women and the women’s issues that are part of the current American political landscape. For the first song I felt privileged to be among
the large group of women filkers who joined Kathy on stage to sing Joan Baez’s “Bread and Roses”. Kathy also chose to pass out the lyrics of her entire set list to the audience so they could sing along with
her, too. She performed old favorites like “Edward” and “Santa Monica Pier” and newer songs like Talis Kimberley’s “Spoon” and Brooke Lunderville’s The wreck of the rise of the fall of... you know the
one :). After a rousing chorus of “Drink Up That River” we were off to get ready for the Filk Hall of Fame banquet. Jodi and I knew -one- of the inductees, but the two others were surprises.
And since Phil so generously lent me his photos, let's finish with a photo of him! Here he is singing his one shot on Saturday afternoon. Looks like he's having fun :).
More to come.