GAFilk 2016 Concert Post!

I started a full con report, which I suppose will get finished eventually…but for now, I wanted to get this post up about our concert for any interested parties! It went really, really well overall and I once again would like to thank the concom, the guys working the sound board, Amy McNally for providing her awesome fiddling on a couple of songs, and just everyone in that audience. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to hug you all. *hug*

So, this was our setlist for the ConCom’s Choice concert at GAFilk (with notes):

Heaven on Their Minds

really, seriously, just a straightforward cover of the song from JCS. (The Original London Recording is my preferred version. ymmv.)

Pandas/Jesus

A mashup of “Pandas” by Corky and the Juice Pigs and “This Jesus Must Die” from JCS

(Storybook) Love Story

A parody of Taylor Swift’s Love Story, about The Princess Bride (lyrics here)

The Princess Who Saved Herself

A cover of the Jonathan Coulton song (minus the phone call bridge)

Actually Ironic

A few years ago, College Humor or Funny or Die did a video that adapted Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic” to make it, well, actually ironic. We didn’t think it went far enough and added some of our own little twists to it. This went over really, really well.

Ex

Dear Seanan

With Seanan in the audience! Squee! This is a parody of Seanan’s song “Dear Gina” (lyrics here, by me and Merav Hoffman) Lyrics and video from our FKO concert here.

Real

from William Shatner’s album Has Been. (which you should totally check out if you haven’t already.) This song was a collaboration with Brad Paisley. I played the part of William Shatner. Amy played fiddle. It was awesome.

Tiberius Rising

Just a straight performance of Ookla’s song with Rand on lead vocals, Amy on fiddle, and me singing a bit on the chorus.

Little Red Riding Hood

Cover of the Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, featuring me on the ukulele, alone…I’ve done this in open filk a couple of times, but I was REALLY NOT PREPARED to do it on stage. OMG. My fingers forgot how to work, and it was almost a total disaster…but the audience seemed to have a good time anyway and everyone seemed to be on my side and nobody threw things or anything!

Cowboy Secret Space Detective

with two new girl-centric verses! And yeah, I screwed up the lyrics (both in performance and when I posted them to facebook) and I am super embarrassed.

Haven’t We Been Here Before

A cover of a Styx song from the album Kilroy Was Here

View Mistress

“View Master” with lyrics modified by vixy (and tweaked here and there by Rand and me)

Cliffs of Insanity

A parody of “Green Hills of Harmony” about (again) The Princess Bride, lyrics by me and Rand (lyrics here) And here’s a video from FKO.

Obviously, links for a lot of things are provided, both to lyrics and video…I’ll get lyrics for some of these other things posted at some point.

And just in case you need a reminder of how much I never ever EVER thought I would sing in front of people let alone on a stage, you can read more in my writeup from FKO in 2013.

Oh, and do let us know if you have photos, video, or sound recordings from the concert…we’d love to see/hear them! (er, well, I could maybe do without ever seeing or hearing that performance of “Little Red Riding Hood”…)

Actually Ironic

Again, this isn’t entirely original…it just puts our own twist on something that was already out there. The italicized segments were spoken.

An old man turned ninety-eight, he won the lottery and died the next day…
of chronic emphysema from inhalation of the latex particles scratched off decades’ worth of lottery tickets.
It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay…
poured to celebrate the successful fumigation of your recently purchased vineyard in southern France.
It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late…
because the governor was too busy watching Dead Man Walking to grant clemency any earlier.
And isn’t it ironic…don’t you think

It’s like rain at a dehydration victim’s funeral
It’s a free ride to your bankruptcy trial
It’s the good advice to never listen to me
Who would’ve thought…it figures

Mr. Play It Safe, he was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He’d waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
“Now I’ll never make it to that Fear of Flying seminar”
And isn’t it ironic…don’t you think

It’s like rain flooding an umbrella factory
It’s a free ride to an overpriced car dealership
It’s the good advice from the guy who just got you fired
Who would’ve thought…it figures

A traffic jam when you’re already late…
to receive an award from the Municipal Planning Board for reducing the city’s automobile congestion 80 percent.
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break…
at the R.J. Reynolds tobacco corporate offices in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife…
to rob a soup kitchen
It’s meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife…
who happens to be the psychiatrist I recently hired in hopes of improving my luck with the opposite sex.
And isn’t it ironic…don’t you think
A little too ironic…yeah, I really do think…

It’s like rain on your wedding day…to the Egyptian sun god Ra
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid…for a stolen car
It’s the good advice someone advised you not to take
Who would’ve thought…it figures

Cowboy Secret Space Detective (new verses)

Here are the two new verses we wrote for “Cowboy Secret Space Detective”:

I want to live in Washington in a big White home
and I want to be the first commander in chief with two x-chromosomes
I’ll give the West Wing some estrogen
I’ll be the first lady to have a First Gentleman
And my run won’t be derailed by an email non-event
I want to be the first female President!

I’m gonna know my value in a world of men
And Howard Stark and I will fight against Leviathan
We’ll co-found SHIELD to keep the world Hydra-free
And I know Steve will save the last dance for me
And I’ll be a super spy like Maxwell Smart, but even* smarter
I wanna be Agent Peggy Carter!

*may change this, per Randy Hoffman’s suggestions

Thoughts on FilKONtario Part 2: the concert

This is probably going to be a long one, so prepare yourself! Get a snack; I’ll wait…

I’ve always been a performer in one sense or another. I had a not-insignificant role in my 5th grade play. I was in a community theater production of Annie when I was in middle school. I was a cheerleader (don’t judge me! And if a cheerleader hurt you in your formative years, let me apologize on behalf of all nice-girl-cheerleaders everywhere…)

I never really thought of myself as a performer in the musical sense. I had been scared off of singing by an experience in middle school (Even after getting a role in Annie, I was cut from the middle school show choir. I ask you, who does that? It was middle school, and it’s not like I went to a performing arts school or it was super competitive or anything…but I digress.) When I went to college, I joined a sorority that took music very, very seriously, and I declared myself a founding member of the “tone deaf club.” Now, to be fair, I knew I wasn’t actually tone deaf, because people who are actually tone deaf have no idea that they’ve hit the wrong note. For us, it was about being people with no musical/vocal training among people who had been singing in choirs their entire lives. I was intimidated. I wasn’t very good at harmonizing. And so, I went merrily on with my life, singing when I had to (at things like Greek Sing, or other sorority events), but otherwise, singing along with the radio or my CDs was about it.

Well, it’s probably no surprise that the longer I hung around in filk, the more people started to express an interest in hearing me sing (*coughdebbieohicough*). I protested at first, but little by little, people started to wear me down. 😉 The first time I sang at all was in a very tiny circle very late at night at GAFilk in 2007. I blame Amanda.

erin and jam banquet

Amanda is one of my co-editors at Toasted Cheese, and the reason I sort of kind of knew what filk was before I even met Rand. We had been online buds since…ummm…I’m going to say 1999? But this was the first time we had met in person. Anyway, Amanda had written a short filk of “One Singular Sensation” and she asked me to sing it with her. We practiced it a few times, and then went looking for a small circle to sing it in. So, a handful of people in that room heard me sing that night.

I think it might have been the following year (at GAFilk again) that Rand convinced me to sing a bit of a Flaming Lips song with him–not “Yoshimi,” but “Fight Test,” which has a chorus with overlapping parts that becomes counterpoint at the end. The Flaming Lips are kind of known for having a singer who can’t really sing, so I figured it was pretty low pressure. (Actually, here’s a post I wrote about that.)

After that, he convinced me to try “Yoshimi,” which would have me singing lead. We worked on it, and I sang it in a circle at FKO in 2009.

Yoshimi!!!!!

(Photo by Brooke Lunderville)

People seemed to enjoy that, so I was encouraged. Rand and I kept singing “Yoshimi” in circles, but I was a little worried that people were going to start to get sick of hearing it, so I never really pushed for it. 😉

In 2010, Rand and Adam were nominated for a Pegasus award, and Adam was unable to attend the convention to perform it. Rand asked me if I wanted to try to do it. “Um…” I said.  I agreed to work on it with him (and I think I only freaked out and had a meltdown once!) We went ahead and did it, and but for the fact that I was later informed that Rand’s microphone wasn’t working, I think it went okay.

OVFF 26 059

(Photo by Walter Korynkiewicz)

Fast forward to last year, when Tom contacted Rand to invite us to be this year’s Filk Waifs. We started putting together a list of things we might be able to sing together, as well as ideas for songs (mostly parodies) that we might be able to write. I bought a ukulele last August, thinking that I might get good enough at one or two things to play it in the concert. (that…did not happen. It will, but I was more focused on the singing. Did I mention I was nervous about the singing? I ended up taking voice lessons from a former colleague, which was a HUGE help. Thanks again, Shelley!)

Erin practising in our room

(practicing in UT’s room Saturday morning. I’m playing a melodica–also known as a hooter. Photo by Allison Durno)

Fast forward again to the day of the concert. The Filk Waif concert is the first concert on Saturday. After having breakfast, Rand and I met up with UT to rehearse a song they were going to be performing with us, and we showed them a couple of other things we were going to be performing as well. It was really, really good for me to have a chance to warm up.  After that, there were a couple of workshops. I ran one on calligraphy and paper crafts. Tim Walker ran a percussion workshop at the same time, which I am super bummed I couldn’t attend! I’ll write more about the workshop later. After the workshop, we grabbed a quick bite to eat in our room, and then it was go time!

Rand and Erin's Concert

(Photo by Debbie Ohi)

Here’s the set we played:

  • Star Wars That I Used to Know (parody of “Somebody that I Used to Know” by Gotye. Credits can be found at the YouTube link)
  • My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors by Moxy Fruvous
  • St. Brendan’s Way by Lowest of the Low
  • Actually Ironic (parody? sort of? of “Ironic” by Alanis Morrissette)
  • Dear Seanan (parody of “Dear Gina” by Seanan McGuire written by me and Merav Hoffman. Video and lyrics at the link.)
  • Crackstatic by Ron Hawkins
  • Yoshimi/Space Oddity/Major Tom mashup (Flaming Lips, David Bowie, Peter Schilling)
  • Cliffs of Insanity (parody of “Green Hills of Harmony” written by me with help from Rand and an assist from Amanda. More info in my previous post, linked.)
  • Still Can’t Buy Me Love by Ookla the Mok (with Urban Tapestry)

If you’re interested in the lyrics (other than the parodies I wrote/co-wrote, which can be found at the links), they can all quite easily be found by googling. I’m tired. 😉

I’m pretty sure it was a success. 😉 After we left the stage, Tim and Annie (who knew how nervous I was) ran over to us and gave us gigantic hugs, and everyone we talked to seemed to enjoy the performance. So…singing! Win! Right now, the “Dear Seanan” video is the only one I am aware of. I’m sure other things will appear eventually, and I’ll let you know!

Here’s Allison’s post about Saturday at FKO. I’ll have more later. Stay tuned!

More lyrics

This one is called “Cliffs of Insanity” and it’s a parody of “Green Hills of Harmony” (which is itself a parody of “Farewell to Sicily” (or “Banks of Sicily”) a Scottish song from WWII). Subject matter should be apparent. 😉 Lyrics are by me and Rand.

The lady is kidnapped and Guilder is framed
The six-fingered man haunts my subconscious brain
The rhymes of the giant drive Vizzini insane
And that word doesn’t mean what he’s thinkin’

And it’s sail, sail away from that sailboat
He may be gaining, but we’re not afraid
As we sail for the cliffs of insanity
All of the eels are shrieking

We don’t want to kill her, but it’s hard to avoid
Vizzini has told us we’ll be unemployed — >
Fezzik offers a peanut — Vizzini’s annoyed
When we get to the top, we’ll be leavin’

And it’s scale, scale, the side of the mountain
Hang on to Fezzik — the man in black gains
As we climb up the Cliffs of Insanity
All of the eels are shrieking

It’s time for a fight now, and well-matched are we
But I’m not left-handed, and neither is he
I have to admit that he’s better than me
And I’m knocked on the head when he’s leavin’

And it’s sleep, sleep, sleep off the headwound
I’ll wait for Vizzini — I will not be moved
And it’s fare ye well, ye cliffs of insanity
All of the eels are shrieking

Some fight for the glory. Some fight for the pay
But I am the Spaniard, and fighting’s my way
It’s a hard life to live, and a high price to pay
When the six-fingered man is still breathin’

Hello — My name is Inigo Montoya
You killed my father — Prepare to die
And it’s fare ye well ye Cliffs of Insanity,
All of the eels are shrieking

Video from FKO

Video of Rand and me performing “Dear Seanan”- a parody of Seanan McGuire’s song “Dear Gina” based on her October Daye series. Lyrics (by me and Merav Hoffman) are below the cut.

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