Hopefully I’ve talked about nwcMUSIC enough that you know, but if you don’t: it’s a geekmusic festival held at the Norwescon SF convention, and I run it.

We’re having our first ever away-from-convention event in two weeks, on Sunday, October 28th, from 2-8pm. It’s a play event; what filkers would call a housefilk, what nerdcore people would call a cypher, and not entirely unlike what Irish musicians would call a session, but with people taking turns instead of everybody playing all at once.

However you count it, it’s a chance to come and play with other musicians across geekmusic genres. Or that’s what I’m hoping for, anyway. Relaxed and fun, and there’ll be snax. 😀 You can also come just to listen, but it’s not a stage show, so don’t expect anything that formal.

Email me for details! RSVPs are requested but not required, because I want to know what snax to buy. I don’t want to post the address because, um, it’s my house. We can’t afford to rent a venue yet. XD

Relatedly, remember how I posted the 80s stage fan musical Wrath Side Story a couple of months ago, recovered from dying VHS videotape?

There was a sequel. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, also recovered from ancient VHS videotape (but with far better sound and marginally better video)…

Again, the sight gags are broad enough that they work okay even with the video, and most of the humour is in the dialogue, anyway. It’s very, very silly. Enjoy. ^_^

The last day in St. John’s didn’t involve any playing at all, in the end – tho’ I did have a couple of people come up to me saying they loved that pirate song I did on Friday. 😀 This last day was nothing but soaking in the sun and hanging out at festival. PREPARE FOR PICSPAM!

Yet another sunny day on the tropical island of Newfoundland

Morning! We went to the Francophone tent. It was fun! Note the bouzouki. I always have to explain what the instrument I play is, in Cascadia, and even moreso in the States. Here? Yeah, they play that. <3

Even the Francophone tent!

Then we went to lunch, and caught some of the buskers at the Busker Festival also going on that weekend. Did I mention these people like their performing arts? This guy was hilarious:

On spikes. Not quite on fire. But on spikes.

We made it back up to the festival, and basically just kept it relaxed and groovy, because it was the end of the tour, and because the festival was just awesome, and we knew we were going to be there until close.

The Raw Bar Collective

I resisted the urge to add, “and Spinal Tap.” Barely.

When we went off site for dinner, we walked down to George Street, like y’do, and picked a place that looked good, like y’do, and one of the Irish Descendants popped in to do a set.

Yeah, like they do. Just like that, why not? It’s George Street.

Then into the our last evening before flying back! I gotta tell you, not without reservations, because I really didn’t want it to be over. At least I’d already bought THE BEST T-SHIRT EVER:

Disagree? You’re wrong. Sorry.

We saw The Once, who are an up-and-coming deal, and who – in rehearsal… played the zouk just a little like I do. Which is a first, frankly. Not identically, but I was very much in a “…I have to hear this” mood after that. Sadly, the song they were doing in rehearsal and sound check they did not do in their evening set. Dammit!

Still good tho’

And as the last official act of the night, Darrell Power’s band The Seven Deadly Sons! Featuring Young Bill Gates on drums.

Am I wrong? No. I am not wrong.

We were really interested in seeing them, since part of the point of Darrell leaving Great Big Sea was that he simply didn’t want to tour anymore. So his new band doesn’t! Not as a group, not outside the Atlantics, anyway.

Fifty Shades of Green

And everything was awesome and fun and stuff, and we were in that sleepy kind of good mood where you’re totally wiped out but in a good way, and then I heard Darrell start to say something about how he’d done something the night before he hadn’t done in ten years, and something about the way he said it made me go, “…no fucking way.”

And I wormed my way as close to stage as I could just in time for the other three founding members of Great Big Sea to walk on stage and do a number with as the old band again, just for the locals.

And us.

Because we were there. And I had a camera.

YOU CAN DANCE NOOOOOOOW!

God dammit, I wish my still camera did better video. I tried to pull the white back in, but there’s just no data there to retrieve. I looked. At least the sound is good.

And that was the last of it, the impossibly good end of the festival.. or almost the end. The festival organisers brought all of the scheduled performers who were still around back on stage to say goodbye, and this is how they did it, with the entire crowd singing along:

We Love Thee Newfoundland

Yeah. We really do.

And that’s the last of the tour posts. Next Monday? Honestly, I’m not sure yet. The last few weeks have mostly been either about nwcMUSIC – this is a crunch time for us – or getting the house ready for winter. Most of the music I’ve been doing myself has been working on my bass skills and trying some new vocal technique lessons, the kind of thing you do when your day jobs have your life. Thursday, though – DIY day! Yay! ^_^

So, I’m crazy with paperwork and stuff today, so I don’t have time for the last Newfoundland post. It’ll be up tomorrow morning, promise.

But! I did upload something over the weekend to my non-band YouTube channel. Back in Ye Daye, there was a fan stage musical parody of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan mashed up with West Side Story. Turns out this wasn’t on the internet, so I’ve taken my dying Nth-generation VHS copy, massaged the living hell out of it (and its sadly degraded soundtrack) and thus…

The Improvisational Insanity Theatre Corps, the Fish and Ships Players, and Clam TV, in extra-cooperation with CRIME and the Forces of Evil, proudly? present a battle for galactic turf: Wrath Side Story.

It was a stage musical, done with no budget at all, performed apparently at a few conventions. The video here doesn’t look great, but the sight gags are broad enough to come across anyway, and I think I’ve done some real good on pulling the audio soundtrack back in. Since I’m treating this as a restoration project, I’ve left in every frame I could, which includes some momentary audio drops on the original.

I’ve also managed to hide a lot of decay damage off the tape, partly through extending sections of good footage over bad, and partly through creative use of transitions. (A hint: the more complex the transition, the worse the damage I’m hiding.) There’s still one scene at the beginning where you lose picture, but it’s brief. There were… several. There are also some strange moments of sound sync I couldn’t fix without doing work which went beyond restoration.

If anyone with better equipment and more time wants to give it a go, I will happily lend you my VHS tape. But only if you’re serious about it. If you just want the raw rips, no problem; let me know.

One cultural note: the part of Dr. David Marcus in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was played by an actor who had previously played a character in the sitcom Square Pegs. The troupe decided it would be funny to play David Marcus as that character.

This goes entirely over my head, but it was apparently very funny at the time. So, it’s a little dated here and there – in particular, in that one decision – but I still think it’s pretty hilarious. Enjoy.

Right, back to Newfoundland and Labrador! Well, okay, St. John’s and Torbay.

We woke the morning of our third to the only rainy day we ever saw in St. John’s, and frankly, it wasn’t very rainy. But we decided to go visit The Rooms, a large museum of Newfoundland and Labrador history and culture.

It’s modelled from the outside as a collection of outsized fishing and fish-prepping buildings that every fishing family would have in the old days of Newfoundland, and there are a huge supply of exhibits – and also a large artspace showing work from Newfoundland artists. There’s also a small bookstore, where I bought a couple of histories; if you go, it’s entirely worth your time.

I took a bunch of photos of exhibits, but I’m only showing one here. Remember Red Dwarf?

Sound as a dollar-pound!

Ah, the shit you could get away with on the gold standard with fixed-exchange rates. 😀 Of course, you really couldn’t, there were all sorts of arbitrage tricks anyway, but, well, that didn’t stop people from trying. XD

Then we stopped for lunch, where there were bee-shaped light fixtures I posted on Twitter because it was CONTINENTAL DAY OF BEES! apparently, with everyone talking about bees.

Anna is not concerned about your bees.

…before it was time for the folkfest!

The Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival really got this whole trip started. Anna found out about it, and had long wanted to hear Newfoundland music on Newfoundland soil, and also, the third book in the Faerie Blood/Free Court of Seattle series is set partly in St. John’s, which means it’s RESEARCH!

Genuinely was, too. We walked that downtown like warders.

The first thing to understand is that like the Maritimes in general, and to some degree Quebec, this is a musical culture. That means music is something people do, rather than just watch or hear. It has cultural importance in a way that it doesn’t, say, here where I live; recorded music might be omnipresent, but if you do it, you aren’t generally thought of as a contributor – with the occasional and possible exception of classical. It’s frivolous, or worse. (I’ve been called a parasite at farmer’s markets for showing up to play for free.)

Basically, you have to have a special kind of magic to be accepted as that, which is something I’ve been working on.

So when you see festivals like this, don’t think Folklife. It’s not like Folklife. There’s one of these pretty much every week in the summer, when the weather permits, and people play all winter, too, and this event isn’t “for the tourists.” Tourists are welcomed, and they get them – from as far away as, you know, New Brunswick. Toronto? Well, sure, a few, once in a while.

Cascadia? Not so expected. Or that’s certainly the impression I got from the degree of shock we got at being from so very far away.

I promised a lot of video this post, and you’re getting it. This is a minute I shot to try to capture atmosphere.

Note most of all that this is not an old-people audience. Old people were there, absolutely, do not get me wrong; but this isn’t A Generation’s Thing, this is something people just do. I didn’t get a good shot of the headbanger pit at The Once’s show, but the fact that it was unironically and unapologetically there, I think, communicates the difference.

The next day was another glorious sunny day on the tropical island of Newfoundland:

And we always thought Alan was joking

Mornings at the Festival have a lot more participatory/educational programming, scattered over many tent platforms; we learned about Acadian chair-dancing podorythmie, sat in on a session, and! I even got a surprise chance to perform:

photo by Rick West, courtesy of the Folk Arts Society of Newfoundland and Labrador

…doing my story-and-song bit about how not to become a pirate, wrapped around Paul and Storm’s song “Ten Finger Johnny.” (I of course credited Paul and Storm.)

People were coming up to me two days later saying they loved my pirate song. That was awesome. 😀

But the biggest part of that day, of course, was not in St. John’s, but heading up to Torbay to see the first Great Big Sea show of the 20th anniversary tour. It was also Torbey 250, their 250th year celebration. We met up with Krista and Sile, local fans Anna knew through GBS fandom…

Actually from dinner the night before…

and got there super-early…

Queue position… 12 through 15?

Which meant we got set up here…

Front and God Damned Centre

…for the show. Now, non-GBS people won’t know that Murray Foster wasn’t their original bassist; that was Darrell Power, and he left about 10 years ago because he just couldn’t deal with the touring anymore. And Murray’s great; the boy had a lot to contribute. But we were thinking, just maybe, for the 20th, right here where he lives, maybe, just maybe, we might see Murray show up. For the 20th.

Then a gust of wind blew this literally to our feet:

I am not even lying

…the Great Big Sea setlist for that evening. Now, if you’re not a GBS fangirl, you won’t know that EXCURSION means “Excursion Around the Bay,” and that it’s in the encore, and that it was Darrell’s signature song. They’ve still been doing it since he left, but, well, in the encore? That was kind of a big fucking hint right there.

But first! Other bands! Repartee opened; they’re good, and a rising thing in Newfoundland right now. Lots more experimental and synth-rockish; I liked a lot of what they were doing, and went to their tent later; when she found out I was a musician too, we traded CDs, or, as she put it, “really expensive business cards.” It’s true. 😀

They were followed by The Trews and Jimmy Rankin. Both acts were quite good but not my thing, so we’ll skip past those. Cute roadie, tho’:

…but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what that labrys he’s wearing means…

And then, at last, Great Big Sea! The boys put on a show heavily on the trad and heavy on the goddamn well rocking – it was very much a show straight out of 1999, in a lot of ways, which, as far as I’m concerned, is perfect. To be honest a moment – their last couple of albums, while wildly successful, have really been moving towards country/folk. And, while I wish them the best of continued success – that’s not what I care about.

I care a lot about a lot of original music. I like their older originals, which were more in the Newfoundland style, and less in the western/country style. But not where they’ve been headed. So for them to do it up old-school for the home crowd? That made me extremely happy. And if I had to go to Newfoundland to see that kind of show again?

Worth. Every. Goddamn. Penny.

Here’s what the audience is like before they’re really worked up:

Hear us? We just took over on some songs. Alan would lean the mic out, like y’do, and let us go for a bit. Straight out of the Great Big DVD, honestly. It was fantastic.

And then, well, it’s encore time, and…

…guess who steps out of the fuckin’ shadows…

HI DARRELL! 😀

And he does exactly what we expected:

Aw, Yeaaaaaaaah.

And we were right there.

I’d really intended to wrap up the tour with this post, but it’s so long already, I just can’t. So next week: one more day in St. John’s, some more performance video of awesome, and some closing thoughts.

PS: have 37 more seconds of Darrell and Great Big Sea being awesome. You’re welcome. ^_^

Today’s post was supposed to be about Montréal, but I’ve been too busy on Things What Aren’t Music, and that post will take a while! So it’ll be on Monday.

Until then, I have some cool things for you!

Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering talks about the loudness wars. If you don’t know what the loudness wars are, this article will tell you. I hate them and did not participate with Dick Tracy.

Glitch Textiles is an art project to create interesting images with broken digital cameras and turn those into fabric art. I think this is awesome. It’s a Kickstarter project, but the video, and many of the images in it, are really cool.

Stained glass dice lamps! On Etsy. I want the d20.

Meet Trapwire. Trapwire already knows you. And everything about you. Check page 19 for how proud they are about diligently investigating people for not taking the same tourist photos everyone else does.

Finally, if you’re in central Cascadia, this weekend is kind of amazing with bands which have played nwcMUSIC playing big shows:

• Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps are appearing with SJ Tucker and Betsy Tinney in Kenmore on Friday night. Kenmore Community Club, 7:30pm. This is pretty much down the hill from my house, which I find kind of hilarious. lol, something to do in Kenmore. XD
• The Doubleclicks (who went over GREAT last year and I hope to have them back) are teaming up with Vixy & Tony and playing Geek Girl Con on Saturday at 8:30. That’s downtown Seattle, at the convention centre.
• Leannan Sidhe is playing with Heather and Ben at RoseWind Commons, Umatilla at Haines St., Port Townsend, Sunday at 7pm.
• Finally, Heather and Ben have a show by themselves at Vancouver Pagan Pride, next Saturday (the 18th), Surrey, 3pm. Plus there’s a house concert later, details here: http://heatherdale.com/shows/upcomingshows

What’re you doing this weekend?

First: my condolences to everyone in Colorado affected by the shooting spree early this morning. I don’t have anything to say that anybody else doesn’t, so I won’t, other than to hope that all the injured will recover well.

To business.

Remember the Trad o’ th’ Month project that turned into the album Cracksman Betty? Which, if you haven’t listened to, you should? Well, Leannan Sidhe have started a similar project. Their lead singer and songwriter was up here at Criminal Studios yesterday, for recording. Ta da:

Ain’t modern technology somethin’? Studio approval to online in six hours, and most of that travel time.

That’s me on percussion, by the way. ^_^

Meanwhile, enjoy a poster! It’s the Musicians of Bronycon! I had no idea until recently how many musicians there were in MLP fandom, but look at that thing! And that’s just from one convention!

Finally, I’ve been working on restoring a bit of lost fanac from the 1980s. I got a video ripper a few weeks ago and have been pulling things off old VHS cassettes. One of these is a 1985(?) stage-production musical parody of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan called Wrath Side Story. It’s about 40 minutes long and was performed at a convention called BableCon.

It’s extremely silly, but I think also kind of hilarious.

Not this musical, but…

Through repeated rips and a lot of massaging, I’ve got what I think is a watchable beta release. The tape was at its best a third or fourth generation copy and is badly degraded, and there are still a couple of places where video is lost temporarily right up front. But it’s only a couple, and they’re brief. I still hope to get them back through more rerips and massaging.

I’d like to see what other people think, get suggestions, things like that.

Enjoy: Wrath Side Story (now on youtube).

Back from Clallam Bay Comicon late last night – I have to say, Donna throws one heck of a house party! It was tiny, as expected, but not as tiny as I’d feared and I had a small but solid and appreciative audience on Saturday. Having it during Fun Days no doubt didn’t hurt. It was also fun to meet Mark Monlux and Kevin Boze, who were in the closest two tables next to me. ^_^

It was a bit of a weekend vacation, really. The beach is lots of fun to hike around on – it’s pebbly in some places, sandy in a few, and has terrific rockeries in other spots, particularly out where the lighthouse was. And Saturday night was beach party and fireworks night.

500 million illegal fireworks launched from this point

And everybody sold stuff! Seriously, everybody had sales, including Anna, who wasn’t even there, courtesy me taking along a few copies of Faerie Blood.

We stayed at the Bay Motel, which I was calling:

The Bay TV Phones Motel

The WiFi is a lie, by the way. Or maybe it was just us being out on the far end of the hotel. Hard to say. On the other hand, it was clean, the room slept four across three beds and a partition wall, it had a kitchentte, and I slept great for a $30 room share. I mean damn.

It’s mostly for sports fishers…

no, really?

…and the guys two doors down for us were smoking salmon they’d caught earlier in the day. There is now, for the record, a place in North America were I will intentionally eat cooked fish. This is unheard of outside Japan, but now? Japan, and Clallam Bay, at the Clallam Bay Inn. Made by Kayla. Fantastically good.

Sekiu, on the far end of the bay, is actually quite pretty too. But watch out for the statuary:

H.P. Lovecraft Memorial Signpost

Anyway, Donna’s already winding up for a second one next year. She has plans, potential hotels and indoor function space, and people are arguing about dates. So if you have opinions on that, jump in over here! And thanks again to everybody, particularly Donna for inviting and taking good care of me. ^_^

Next up: Toronto! That’ll be some amusing culture shock. The only real commonality will be the CBC. See you by Greenwood Park!

I’ve been underestimating Clallam Bay Comiket. There: I admit it. I have. There’re press releases and such now and it’s turning into a real thing even this year zero, and if it flies this year at all, it’ll be bigger next year. I’ll be there Saturday and maybe also Sunday at this point. It’ll be great. ^_^

And it’s also much further away than I thought! So I’m overnighting. I hope not in my car. ADVENTURE!

not that far away

PEOPLE LINKED TO THEIR ART! Here are the links promoted up, as promised!

Fishy has a very few hours left on his fire sculpture Kickstarter, but he’s made goal! AND – barely, as of now – the stretch goal. So this is LAST CALL FOR THE HARMONIC FIRE PENDULA! It’s cool.

Geri called for support for this effort to raise CAN$2,000 for a special-needs child’s bicycle. It sounds like a lot for a bike, but, well, special needs are what they are.

Irfon-Kim Ahmad is a Toronto musician! He records under the band name “Ramp,” and his stuff is all free-download. He’s hoping for comments and opinions! Check out the Ramp website here, or hop directly to the music page here.

Sarah Palmero has an Etsy store! It’s called Creature Comfort Craftworks and she hand-dyes yarn, spins fibre, takes requests, and occasionally makes things herself. Fabric artists, check it out.

And that’s all! Hopefully I’ll see one of you at Clallam Bay!

PS: This week’s instalment of my post-scarcity/post-RIAA music industry series – Part Four: Touring (Part 1 of 2) – went up late on Tuesday. So if you missed it, here it is.

OMG you guys Westercon was so much fun! Having Leannan Sidhe and Marcos Duran on stage with me for the show? Epic and I so need to do that again. Also, I can’t believe programming tapped me to fill in for Alexander James Adams on stuff – they ran me around like crazy and I damn well earned my attending pro badge, but in a great way. And Greg Bear called me awesome after our panel together on Sunday. AAAAAAAAAAA so much fangirl squee.  O_O /

to wit

Panels went great. I have a few things to add to the Kitting Out Cheap handout (talking of: WESTERCON KITTING OUT CHEAP PARTICIPANTS: This is your digital handout!), the alien music panel was all sorts of fun, and leading the Pirate Parade lets you go around being total jerks but since you’re doing it as pirates everybody loves it. XD I got to listen to the Building a Spaceship panel from back stage while dressing for the parade, I wish I could’ve been there for the whole thing.

Really, I wanted to go to that convention twice, once so I could actually attend it. XD

yeaaaah that webstreaming thing

I’m sorry the concert webstreaming didn’t work! It didn’t work for anybody. The video people had server issues and couldn’t get it fixed until Sunday. They should be able to get me the audio and video, however, and I’ll see how that came out and hopefully get some of it on YouTube. Both tech crews (audio and video) had to struggle mightily against travails this past weekend, and worked their asses off doing it – hats off for grace under fire to all of them.

I bought so much art. You should totally check out Céline Chapus’s work. Also Elizabeth Berrien’s wire sculpture if you can see it in person – photos give you an idea, but don’t do it justice. Also, Torrey’s Prince Zuko costume is really good, she’s nailed that whole accurate-to-the-totally-wrong-scarring-in-the-show thing, the detail work is super-nice.

Also: best convention afterparty I’ve been to in some time, a great way to end the show. Thanks all you guys! I’ll get the next RIAA/business of music post up tomorrow, and see you next weekend at Comic Sans/Clallam Bay Comiket!

Been crazy busy this week! Leannan Sidhe just left, having popped up for a few days for Westercon rehearsal, work on a new track for her Roses and Ruin project, a particularly spectacular Wednesday night live webcast hangout, and general plottery of mayhem.

Not to mention hackery.

So much speaker hackery

There’s enough to know here that I’ll write a little series on cheap home-studio build-out next month. Anyone wanting a jump on that: learn to solder. 😀

But today is YOU GUYS PLUG YOUR STUFF day! I haven’t had one of these in a while and it’s overdue. In comments, PLUG YOUR STUFF! Include links. I’ll make a compilation post next week, probably Wednesday, because Monday is Part III of the RIAA article series.

I’ll get us started with two things from other people. One: The Harmonic Fire Pendula project, over on Kickstarter. Fish at Attoparsec is doing this huge fire sculpture that makes neat patterns with flame. Here’s a video of the 1/3 scale model; the final will be three times larger:

Two: Angela Korra’ti’s Faerie Blood, for which I was book designer, and for the sequel I’m doing the book soundtrack, is now on the Nook and now also on Kindle! Since those are eBook versions there’s not much of my design in them other than cover text, but still. You can see my actual design in the print edition, once that comes off the press next week, and also in the PDF, which is specifically designed to be Retina-display friendly.

And I’ll be doing a new song from the soundtrack at Westercon. Just sayin’. ^_^

Now, ready… steady… PLUG YOUR STUFF! 😀