Archive for the ‘shows’ Category

going out with leannan sidhe

I’m going out with Leannan Sidhe this weekend, which is normally awesome good fun times. But this time, I’m actively worried. There are a bunch of different alarms and alerts up telling people to stay home and stay indoors and the forecast high during the days I’m going to be out is around 43°C, which is right around 110°F.

And laugh all you want to – I’ll destroy you first – but yes, Solarbird the Lightbringer has heat issues. And this isn’t the kind of thing you’re supposed to blog about, everyone will tell you, you’re supposed to keep it upbeat and confident in a music blog, and I’m actively kind of frightened, because 30C is a bit hot for me, and we’re shooting well past that and past “hi, I’m passing out now” territory and into “why am I doing this” zones.

Plus, we’re camping. There’re no hotel rooms around for less than $600. Well, that’s not technically true, there are, at hotels with reviews that talk about bedbugs, which is to say, there are no goddamn hotel rooms.

Normally, this is all quite fine, I’m fond of a bit of camping. But the lows are, like, 24C, which is, um, like 75F? The outdoor low in the shade is a temperature I find a uncomfortable for sleep.

I’m not kidding when I say I’m really nervous about this. Not in that isn’t-this-exciting way, but in that passing-out-on-stage-is-a-real-possibility way.

Yeah, so, that’s no fun. Here, meet Paper Jam Shatner. I found him while looking for something else completely unrelated and I have no idea why Google showed him to me. Paper Jam Shatner will only make sense at all if you watch a lot of Gravity Falls, but hopefully, that’s you.


kkkkkkgkkkgkgkgkgkkgkgkgkggkkkngnnnnnN!!

actually, chrome worked out pretty well

Guess what finally showed up in the post:

I’m happy with the chrome instead of the black I’d originally wanted – I worried the chrome on the frame wouldn’t match that on the vehicle itself (because I have seen it in different colour temperatures) but yay, that worked out fine. ♥

Rehearsal today. Getting ready to head out for shows again soon. Yay!

all the angles, all the con

Anglicon! The first in some time, which is why it’s Anglicon: The Regeneration. They wound down the previous version of Anglicon just in time for Doctor Who to return to the air – thus winning the Best Worst Timing Award for 2006 – and it’s taken ’till now to get it running again. Having contributed to the Kickstarter a couple of years ago, I had a membership!

First: very odd being at the Norwescon hotel for Not Norwescon, like it usually is. Lots of other non-fans around. Anglicon clocked in at around 950 members (would guess something like 2300 gate count, eyeballing it?), and at times a crowd that size in a space that large did feel a bit rattly. But despite that, this first Regeneration Anglicon was in fact larger than all previous editions, so that’s definitely a win out the gate for them.

I did indeed get to play, on Saturday night. The new-to-performance Doctor Who song seemed to go over really well. This also made my first go at performing with the giant cheap tablet I’ve talked about, and out the gate I’m very much in a WHY DIDN’T I DO THIS BEFORE?! mood. Having such a larger selection of material available was unmitigatedly awesome. Out of nowhere, I ran into Fae Wiedenhoeft, a musician I’d met when I was first starting out and hadn’t seen again since, attending her first convention; we ended up throwing selkie songs back and forth at each other, something which absolutely couldn’t’ve happened had I just brought a single gig book, or just my own material.

(Hi Fae! Loved your pieces. <3)

I have to talk about Katy Manning for a minute. She played Jo Grant, companion with the Third Doctor (Fop Doctor). As a result, yes, she’s up there – she’s nearing 70.

But you know how you’ll talk about older people being “spry” when they move around well, particularly for their age?

Katy is not spry. Katy is athletic. Katy moves like a 35 year old. Katy has a grip that will crush iron. I am totally serious here. When I went to get that autograph in the top picture, she ended up looking at that Second Doctor sonic I built, and when she handed it back to me, I grabbed it expecting a weak grip, and dropped it, because no.

She’s also a hugger, and hugged me, and Anna, and pretty much everybody, and I’m just sayin’, that’s not a Grandma Hug. I would not be surprised if she could lift me. It was kind of awesome.

Talking of sonics, I got a chance to analyse a Dalek, and the readings I got will definitely help build out the next model:


That Tickles

Pleasantly, two people recognised it for what it was – once I called it out, anyway – one each day. Everyone was surprised by how many different things it does – two kinds of noises, a blue light, and particularly the tactile feedback. I quickly figured out the trick was to hand it to someone and say “Try it” without warning them about the buzzy bit. You do that and people go, “Oh wow.”

A few people told me I should manufacture them, that I would make boatloads of money, but, yeah, no. I don’t fear much, but the BBC licensing bureau? I know when to pick my fights. (Talking of, I ran into Ernst Blofeld – he’s not Guild, obviously – but we had a short pleasant chat and he has my card. It goes without saying that I have no photograph.)

Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), it turns out, is an absolute hoot.

He’s been doing these for quite a while, of course, so he’s got loads of practice. But he does it well, and has interesting stories, some of which are of course quite recent. He made good fun of David Tennant (“Oooh, I’m young, I’m attractive, I’ve got pointy hair“) and got a lot of questions about his Big Finish Audio Productions work (loves working for them, is now acting across multiple ranges, will take pretty much any part they feel like offering), and the 50th Anniversary Fivish Doctors Reboot special.

I’d had no idea he’d been in their Dorian Grey series, but apparently he’s done a fair bit of work in that line, as well as another which eludes me at the moment. He’s also been keeping his hand in via small English films, and did a guest spot in “The White Iris,” the latest episode of Star Trek Continues, a fan production that’s been making waves lately. So that was all good fun.

For some reason they had a spot on Sophie Aldred while she was on stage:

It makes for a nice dramatic setup, I suppose, but it’s hard to get her face not washed out while keeping the backdrop. Since I failed, here’s the other exposure level for you.

She’s mostly been voice acting since her Ace days, and, like Colin, not just for Doctor Who-related work. But she spoke a good bit about all the problems with just trying to keep the show going in that late era, with BBC management wanting it gone, and the low-even-for-Doctor-Who budgets of the era.

She pretty much stepped away from stage/screen acting to raise her kids, and has only been taking voice-acting work for several years. But she did mention that she recently took on a screen agent again, now that the kids are growing up, so maybe we’ll see something out of her on that front soon.

Cosplay focused on the modern doctors. I did see a very good Rose, and a pretty good Sarah Jane Smith, but wasn’t in a photo-friendly environment at the time. Dalek Clara made an appearance, as did many, many modern Doctors (and two of my Shemp Doctor! I was surprised), and, of course a whole patrol of Daleks.

Plus K-9, who was, as always, a good dog.

Large copies of these photos are at my photostream like usual, of course.

There’s a fair lot of discontent over the most recent series in the modern Capaldi doctor – lots of unhappiness with the scriptwriting, and I’m not the only one who bailed on last year midway through. Thank goodness for Big Finish is all I can say to that. But I hope Peter Capaldi gets some better scripts – I’d like to see his take on things when the writing’s not such rubbish and not have to wait for years like, well, Colin Baker did.

Anna will no doubt write up her own report, and I’ll probably eta this to add a link. And here’s Anna’s report. Were you there? If so, what’d you think?

eta: I wrote up a bit of a build report on the sonic screwdriver, too. Lots of photos.

Anglicon starts today

Anybody else going to Anglicon? I’ve never been to a Doctor Who convention before. I’ve been working up a new song, I’m planning on doing it Saturday.

It’s not a concert, I’m just going as an attendee. But there’s programming space for playing, so I’m takin’ them up on it. 😀

eta: I got my second doctor-style sonic screwdriver working! Video on Tumblr. It was a near thing, too, I’ve never made a sonic before. More difficult than I thought!

The fun part is that it’s all modular inside, little AA-battery-shaped-but-shorter subelements that stack on each other. I could in theory make more elements and even swap them out live and actually have that change behaviours. I probably need to do that. 😀

nwcmusic needs new personnel

It’s a good time to spread the word around again: nwcMUSIC needs new personnel!

nwcMUSIC is the geekmusic festival I built at Norwescon; I ran it for five years (six, really, but the first year wasn’t the real thing yet) and it’s become a thing, which is awesome. But after six years at it it’s time for someone else to till that helm (that’s a phrase, right? I think so) and there are several jobs available.

So please, I know most of you have heard this before, but I want this thing I built to keep going, so if you haven’t passed it along already, please do so now, and ask your friends to as well. Or, hell, even if you have, do it again. Particularly on Facebook, you have no way of knowing what your friends will and will not see.

And for the record, I will help. With data, with knowledge, with everything but actually running it. I have a lot of institutional knowledge to pass along and I want to hand it over.

More details and breakdowns are at the original post, here:

https://crimeandtheforcesofevil.com/blog/2015/04/back-from-nwc2015/

Spread the word!

working on applications

Working on venue applications; got invited to a couple, actually, and those are highest priority. Wow, I’m bad at this part. I need some better promotional photos, too. Like, any.

So have some photos from the trip down to the shows in Oregon last week! I took 101 the whole way, and it took much longer than Mapquest, Google Maps, or I expected, so I didn’t get as much hiking in as I wanted. But I did stop for a little.

The bridge over the Columbia was under a fair bit of renovation on the Oregon side, but the waits were not very long. If they’d been longer I might’ve got out and taken more photos. But it wasn’t, so I did not.


Abrupt Elevation


Girders!

I’m not the only one who thinks this looks like a Viper launch from pilot viewpoint, right? Doing a Viper-tube launch from a Raptor was pretty weird.


Green Squadron Leader, Launch

HI COWS!


COWS

I remember when we had air. It’s nice there’s a museum to it.


Well, That’s What It Says

This was the only time I got out and actually hiked a little. (A very little. Like, a mile. But it was steep.) I’m very disappointed because I took another panorama of the ocean that I know I took, and… it’s not in my camera. I don’t know where it went. Still, have these.

Bigger versions on my Flickr account, like usual.

Anyway, not so many photos as other times. I’d like to do 101 again, even if it is kind of freaky to go through So Many Tourist Towns in Oregon. It’s kind of like getting a tour of all the different models of Potemkin villages, and then every so often you hit a town which is Not For Tourists and Out Here For Another Reason Goddammit and you can really tell the difference.

I just wish I’d had more time to stop and hike more. Ah well, hopefully next time.

And back

I’m back! First long-range test-flight of the Raptor went well. As did the shows, I got invited a few more places, so did we-as-Leannan-Sidhe – thanks again Newport, Toledo, Glastonbury!

Not so many pictures this time. I’ll post a couple later. But I did make friends with a moth.


Hello I Am Moth I Like Your Shoelaces Did You Steal Them From The President?

It was very one-sided. Mostly on Moth’s side, to be honest.

And off!

And we’re off – six shows in Oregon with Leannan Sidhe. See you when I see you – hopefully in Toledo or Newport or somewhere on the coast!

the perils of touring

…I just realised I’m going to miss the U. District Streetfair here in Seattle for the first time in … decades?

Seriously, I’ve gone to this thing since forever, more or less. I’m not originally from the U. District? (I don’t even know where I was born?) But I’m from the U. District. And Streetfair was always just a hop over the hill to the Ave and then STREETFAIR! which means summer is here, in a way Opening Day never did for me, even though I go to that too sometimes, and there’s way too many foods and booths and vendors and clothes and street performances and and and…

…and I’ll be in Oregon doing shows with Leannan Sidhe.

Which is awesome. Don’t get me wrong. If I had to make that decision intentionally I probably would. Probably.

But… streetfair. snif.

you're done; stand down now

You know you’ve been running a festival too long when you find you’re reflexively doing crowd-counts at somebody’s wedding.

It probably didn’t help that they had The Heather Dale Band in for the show nuptials, but still. XD

(Hi Ben! Hi Heather! And congratulations to Naomi and Glenn!)

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