So I’ve survived my first small brush with the larger YouTube audience with that live video of the Skyrim song (Open Mic Night at the Winking Skeever) I posted last week, and I think I came out I think okay. Many more likes than dislikes, noticable spillover to other performance videos, hopefully one or two of those viewers made it here! (Hiya!)

That was kind of scary, because YouTube is merciless, but coming out okay is good. Almost three times as many likes as dislikes, and over 400 views – it’s not exactly viral, but it’s not bad.

If you missed it, it’s here. It’s about this NPC guard you run into while playing OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, omg, and he’s always complaining about his lot in life. This is kind of him going down to the inn (The Winking Skeever, in Solitude) and doing an open mic. Because that’s the kind of thing I find funny: briefly glimpsed and then crushed hopes and dreams. XD

Anyway, have some links:

Nick Mamatas has a really interesting post on a certain type of story structure he sees a lot.

This is an article about a contest to find exploits in Chrome, but that’s not why I’m linking it. I’m linking it because what the exploit does. Screenshot at URL. I lulzed. ^_^

James Marsters gives an interesting interview, 15 years after the premiere of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

This is going viral right now. If it’s not already. It’s in Portland, which, well, really, there is no part of that which is not Portland.

Have a good weekend, guys – you doin’ anything? Me, I’m going to a show, Bekah Kelso down in at Sidhehaven, where I played back in November. I’ve never heard her, but I know a lot of people who recommend her music. Road trip!

Hey, are any of you on Google+? If so, Leannan Sidhe is trying to use the G+ Hangouts feature for weekly bardic circle playing events on Wednesdays. Punters – people just there to listen – are more than welcome.

I’m going to try to make next week’s; I couldn’t make the inaugural last night because I was at Session in Renton. Honestly I have no idea how this works as I haven’t used it yet, but yay, experiments! She’s also doing a Monday version to see whether that works better for people. Go read her page for that.

I AM LOOKING FOR MORE SHOWS. Seriously, guys, right now I have nothin’ until July and Comic Sans/Clallam Bay Comiket. I really, really, really want to do more house concerts! Hosting is not so difficult – it’s like throwing a party – and I will and do travel. Travel days are awesome if I have time to wander around at all. You find things, like rivers, and purple mountain flower, and I mean, how else can I show people that, despite all my bitching about Skyrim, it’s kinda true:

I do

kinda sorta

live there.

And I like goin’ around seein’ it.

Watch out for dragons! （⌒▽⌒）

So at the Portland show, I actually did “Open Mic Night at the Winking Skeever, a.k.a. Anybody Got a Banjo?” and I was also trying out all kinds of new hardware and setup and stuff? And it mostly worked! The audio setup changes ALL WORKED PERFECTLY. I couldn’t believe it, but it’s true! If I can get a handle on lighting, I can make some really good videos.

But people liked the Skyrim/Winking Skeever lyrics when I posted them, so this happened:

Now I am off to Vancouver! Four days back in beautiful British Columbia! Yay! o/

Set out early north from Portland – well, early for me, like 10am – and I have photos and hopefully video from the Portland show! I hope to post a couple… if my camera stops being stupid. (Right now, it’s all BUTTER BUTTER BUTTER BUTTER and I don’t know why.)

On the way back, southwest Washington looked totally like the flat parts of Skyrim. I’m not even making that up. Thanks to a snowfall, you even had the increasing-layer-of-snow up the slopes of the foothills. I took the scenic route north – Jackson Highway / Toledo / Silver Creek / Morton / Route 7 / Route 161 – and it took forever but gorgeous and I have photos! I hope.

But since we don’t have that, at least not yet, please enjoy this parrot dancing like a maniac to dubstep.

Take that, bunny with a pancake on its head. Take that.

In addition to doing my own music, I run the pan-geekmusic festival nwcMUSIC at the Norwescon Science Fiction Convention. nwcMUSIC features a big set of panels and workshops during the day and a suite of eleven concerts across three nights. Click on those, there’s lots going on!

I’ve also got a busy personal schedule at Norwescon 35, as an Attending Professional. Here’s my list of panel appearances – hopefully I’ll see some of you there:

nwcMUSIC Open Mic (Host) – Friday, 10pm
An open-mic for music (filk, chip, nerdcore, or anything else!) and readings of new work (poetry or prose). You have two songs or ten minutes, whichever is shorter. Sign up at information! No judges here; everybody c’mon out and see what people have to sing or say.
Dara Korra’ti (M), Everybody!

Introduction to the Irish Session (Panelist) – Saturday, Noon
The Irish Session is one of the old forms of participatory music-making. Groups of musicians who know various traditional tunes meet, usually at a pub, and play together. There’s no stage, no formal separation of audience; anyone who knows the tune can join in at any time. There are several such sessions throughout Cascadia, from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia through Seattle and Portland and points south. We’ll talk a little about the history, and then we’ll just go do one. Music for several common tunes was posted at the website and is still available; we’ll have a few copies as well. But if you don’t want to play, and just want to come listen; you’re called a “punter,” and that’s fine too.
Alexander James Adams (M), Creede Lambard, G.Robin Smith, Dara Korra’ti

Find Your Instrument (Moderator, instrument provider) – Saturday, 2pm
Have you ever wondered how people figure out what kind of musical instrument they want to play? Several of our pros have volunteered to bring their instruments and introduce them to people. This is a hands-on workshop; after an introduction of the instruments, participants will be able to try out various instruments, and given brief introductions on how to play them, by their owners. This panel is aimed at teens and adults; kids are welcome, but must be of an age and attitude appropriate to handle other peoples’ musical instruments!Have you ever wondered how people figure out what kind of musical instrument they want to play? Several of our pros have volunteered to bring their instruments and introduce them to people. This is a hands-on workshop; after an introduction of the instruments, participants will be able to try out various instruments, and be given brief introductions on how to play them, by their owners. This panel is aimed at teens and adults; kids are welcome, but must be of an age and attitude appropriate to handle other peoples’ musical instruments!
Dara Korra’ti (M), Electric Children, Betsy Tinney, Steven Dixon, Creede Lambard, Betsy Mott, G.Robin Smith, Aubrey Webber

Cascadia’s Got Talent! (Presenter) – Saturday, 3-5pm
Do you have what it takes to gain the appreciation of our audience and panel of fan and celebrity drunks judges? FIND OUT! Bring your song, your work-in-progress, your shtick, your standup act, your freak show, your whatever – bring your talent to our free-form talent show! You have eight minutes, two songs, or until the gong gongs, whichever is shortest. Show us what you’ve got!
Dara Korra’ti (M), Steven Perry, Aubrey Webber, Angela Webber

There are many more programme items I’m not on, that’s just my individual pro schedule. It’s going to be a lot of fun – there will always be something to do!

In other news, GUITARRRRS INNNNNNNN SPAAAAAAAAAAACE! Turns out there’s a guitar on the Space Station. It was made in Vancouver! Lookie:

I haven’t played bass guitar much since finishing the bass parts on Dick Tracy Must Die (and particularly the bass solo on Stars). And that’s sad, because I really like bass. So I’m practicing again, with scales, exercises… and Irish jigs. Which I personally think is hilarious. Not tuba hilarious, I grant you. But hilarious nonetheless.

Here, I put up a video from the show at the B-Side!

The camera tripod was too low for the stage, so it’s all lol-hiding-behind-music-stand, but the sound quality is pretty good. I think I’m getting a handle on the sound part of this live-recording business – more than the video so far, anyway.

Next show I’ll have new and much taller tripod, and actual video camera! It’s very exciting. PORTLANDERS! The show’s on the 26th! Contact me if you want an invitation! ^_^

Oh good, something’s beeping in the server room. I hope it’s not on fire!

i see smoke signals coming from them
they say “we are out of furniture”

Hey, you guys think it’s worth posting new videos of the same songs to the YouTube channel, from different shows? Honest question. I’m leaning towards no but thought I’d ask.

Oh, also, I’ve heard some confusion: I +am not charging the host for playing their house+ for these house concert shows. I need venues and exposure liek woah; guests get asked for the $5-$10 donation, hosts do not. I usually bring a little thank-you trinket, even. Tho’ if you’re far I might need crash space.

Also, I have a show in Portland on the 26th! It’s a semi-private event but I can get you in. Email if you’re in Portlandia!

So, yeah! I kinda took the weekend off. It was nice! I played Skyrim, organised old fanac artefacts, and made many horrible noises on the viLOLin, the violin I mentioned in Friday’s post about how to build your kit for cheap. That was fun. ^_^

But me being lazy? Not what this blog is about! So: right now, I need people who will host house concerts. I know, I know, scary, too hard, frightening, run away! But I swear to you, they’re really not difficult to host! It’s like a friends party at your house, but with live entertainment. The host provides a space and their friends as an audience, and I show up and set up the PA and do my thing.

This video is from a house concert. It has a lot more talk with it than other videos, so you have context, and can get an idea of the atmosphere. People are relaxed and having a good time:

Heather Dale has a big writeup about house concerts on her website. It’s kind of a how-to guide. If you have any willingness to consider this at all, I hope you’ll read that and talk to me. I also hope people who have hosted house shows (me or other people) will vouch for it not actually being scary.

I’m finding I get a lot better as I get more opportunities to play out. House concerts definitely count. And it’s also something different, which is important.

See, I’m kind of a neophile, for better and worse. Coming out of software development, that sounds like one of those bullshit self-aggrandising lines, where it’s all “OMG AWESOME TECHLUST LOLOLOL,” but there’s a real “for worse” part, and the “for worse” part is kicking my ass. I used to play five or six hours a day. I don’t, now; it’s a couple of hours most days, and five-six hour days are very rare. That’s part of what has me poking around at the viLOLin: it’s something different. No matter how much I like something – and I really do still love this – the repetition starts to get to me.

Live shows help a lot. It’s just easier for me to put in repetitive work if I know I have a deadline, a show, a goal, a thing, whatever it might be. It feels so much less masturbatory. Not to mention the good parts about meeting people and performing and going places and doing things; all of that is awesome! But the big help is just having this work be for a reason.

I mean, if I’m trying to make up for all my lost time, I’d think I need to be at that five to six hours a day level, at a minimum. I’ve read about musicians who just go all day, particularly classical artists, and that’s the kind of quality goal I tend to have for myself. But for me, that much repetition – particularly without a specific goal – is a one-way ticket to burnout city. I’ve been there. I had a house there. It sucked.

So, please. Consider it, and talk to me. Heather’s page on house concerts is under “how to help” on her website, and that’s what I’m asking for here.

Which all turned out to be a pretty damned long blog post given that I didn’t have anything to write about an hour ago.

And how was your weekend?

So, yeah, I finally have a chance to sit down and write something again!

Friday’s show was lots of fun; thanks again to B-Side Records for having all of us! I think I scared some of the gentler fans of Leannan Sidhe and Kraken-Rohl, but really, that’s good. Muah ha ha!

Saturday and Sunday were Conflikt days. I really enjoy Conflikt, not just because of the excellent con suite, not just because it’s an all-music convention, but also because I can do all this new/raw material and nobody minds. My performances will be rough, but I can do a fleet of new material and people will listen seriously. “Open Mic Night at the Winking Skeever,” “Sad Muppet,” “Scene from a Starship on Fire,” “Get Out,” and “Getting Away with It” all got first public performances. The last of those is still a bit of a mess, but the others? Less OFD than expected! Which is good news.

“Sad Muppet” was the most fun to put together. Thanks to Sunnie Larsen, Allegra Sloman, Leannan Sidhe, and Autumn O’Leary for being the Minion Chorus and Signer for that one. It’s so much better a song as soon as the chorus actually exists – I tried to rework it into a song I could do solo, but it just doesn’t work right.

I’d say more but I’m pretty wiped out – not from the weekend necessarily, because I got huge amounts of Stuff done on Monday and was pretty high-energy all day – but idk why. Regardless, all that was great! I want to do more shows – particularly house concerts! They’re really easy and we don’t need a huge turnout – it’s like throwing a party, with entertainment, and they’re really helpful. Let me know if you’re willing to help!

More later. For now, g’night!

We didn’t talk about indie film this past Monday, even on Livejournal, but Richard Pini over on Facebook pointed out that Ted Hope certainly is. It’s worth a look over, because some of the problems are quite different, as are some of his ideas about approaches, so the compare-and-contrast might generate some ideas.

But the big thing: today is SHOW DAY! I have a nice dark set between Leannan Sidhe’s subtlety – if you haven’t heard her, she’s kind of the opposite of me – and Kräken-Röhl’s frothy steampunk-sing-a-long goodness. Come! And bring a friend – you, too, can be a minion! And who doesn’t want that? B-Side Music, 214 Stewart, Seattle, across from the Bon Marché parking garage, next to where the late and lamented Night Kitchen used to be. Shows start 7pm.

See you there!