"I'm going to go back there someday" - This Is my Con report for FKO 21

There was only one disappointment about FKO this year. I had an old tie that brought to the tailors to fix in December, specifically so I could wear it to the “Tie & Tails” party, and they decided to not have “Tie & Tails” this year. Other than that everything was Awesome.

There were about ten people I met who were at FKO for the first time. For two of them, Jill & Inge, it was their first filk con ever, and they each performed onstage (impressively I might add) in the songwriting contests. It was really great to have so many new people there.

It was great meeting and hearing Ghost of a Rose who were quite a lively bunch, and Wild Mercy’s concert blew us all away, but that still didn’t prepare us for what happens when you put the two groups together in a filk room.

The late announcement concerts (one by Talis Kimberley, and another by Mary Crowell) were quite a treat. Even though I know that’s not what it is about, every time I hear Acolytes of the Machine I think of This. It is such a great song. Talis’ concert was just as great as I expected.

Karen Linsley concert was a joy from beginning to end. I am so glad she has come back to filking. The Friday night “no-ose” circle was fun, although I couldn’t help notice that some of the songs were turning slightly darker toward the end. Friday I did sing one song A Girl and a Goose and we all Go Home. Most people seemed to be in the mood to catch up and chat more than sing.

Saturday morning I woke to a loud pounding sound, after a couple of minutes of wondering who was making the sound, and why wouldn’t they stop, my brain managed to process that is was someone pounding on the hotel room door. After another minute I managed to form a sentence. “Who is it?” One of my roommates then went to the door to find out that it was a wake-up call, which we hadn’t requested. They were pounding on the door at 5:45 am because he had unplugged the phone on the 5:30 am wake-up call that we didn’t answer. I did manage to go back to sleep

I went to the Filk Hall of Fame banquet and for the second year in a row one of the inductees is someone I know personally, which is very cool. There was no way to guess who the inductees were this year because they are all FKO regulars. While things ran long because there were a lot of speeches, they were all worth listening to. One comment that stands out was made by Jen Midkiff of Wild Mercy:

“The first time Barry & Sally asked if we would be willing to perform at a science fiction convention, Debbie’s reaction was ‘They have Music at science fiction conventions?’ and my (Jen’s) reaction was ‘They have science fiction conventions?’ ”

I already talked a bit about the first song I sang Saturday, Gabriel Gray's Song by Batya Wittenberg. That night I also sang Red Riding by Talis Kimberly and Gleam By Peter Ellis. Yes, you read that correctly I wrote a filk, my third actually.

I was also able to borrow a friend’s Bodhran to bring to the con. I had a lot of fun playing that along with some of the songs in circle. I did try to defer to more experienced drummers, so if someone else was already doing the drum part I typically switched to shaker-egg. I really do want a bodhran of my own so I can practice regularly.

Sunday I had the honor of singing in the Hall of Fame concert because “someone” requested songs that only people from the northeast had heard of. I was part of the “Mordor Pumpernickel Choir” singing Onward Sauron's Soldiers. It was a great concert, lots of songs to sing along on. The Jam session rocked.

For dinner on Sunday I let people talk me into Indian food. The food was quite good, although there were other issues with the service.

Over the course of the weekend Talis was dealing with jetlag so did not stay up very late filking. On Sunday night she did stay up, however she didn’t seem to feel up to the big crowd in the main room, so she ended up starting a second circle in one of the side rooms. It was a tough choice for me. I am a fan of large filk circles, and there were many people in the big room I wanted to hear perform, but I had been practicing a song to perform in from to Talis, and who knows the next time we will both be on the same continent, so I switched to the smaller circle.

In there I performed; Catching Asteroids By Talis Kimberley. I opened by saying that I am not strong on the tune yet, so if anyone else happens to know the song, please don’t sing along, I don’t want the right notes to confuse me.
Like Their Feet Have Wings by Gwen Knighton. I was accompanied on this song by Amy McNally and Dave Clement. I really like this because the song specifically mentions a fiddler, so I thought it was cool to have a fiddler backing me.

Talis performed her response to Witch Of The Westmoorland, which I first heard at Duckon last summer, but it was a treat to hear it again.

The smaller circle broke up about midnight, and I moved back to the bigger room which was less crowded by that time. There seemed to be a bit of an Irish theme starting, so I decided to pull out The Death Of Me Yet by Adam Selzer. That went over rather well.

Around 1:30 am I decided that I had one more song in me, so I decided to finish with Ship of Stone instead of my usual. I got out my music then looked around the room to see if anyone else was waiting. I noticed Mike Richards was sitting about 13 feet away holding a sheet of paper. It looked like he had been waiting longer than me, so I tried to convey with gestures that he should go next, he indicated that I should go next, I acquiesced. (I’m sure any Brits reading this can guess what is coming) after I sang Ship of Stone, Mike followed it with Will Ye Come Back Home?. We couldn’t have planned it better, it was a great finish, and shortly after that I went to bed.