Hey, the good folks at Wyldstyle Radio interviewed me about participatory culture and geekmusic at Norwescon during nwcMUSIC 2015, and they’ve let me know that they’ll be airing it Saturday evening! It’s scheduled for 5pm Cascadian/Pacific (6p Mountain, 7p Central, 8p Eastern). I haven’t heard it yet, so somebody listen in and let me know how I sounded, ok? （⌒▽⌒）
 

Saturday April 25th, 5pm Cascadian/Pacific

After all the Puppies mess of the last week or so, something important to me got a bit lost in the wash:

I’m taking a sabbatical from the Norwescon concom next year, but I want nwcMUSIC to live on; they need several people to take my place.

They’re going to break my job up into multiple smaller jobs, which is good and right, and needs to happen. I built that festival on force of personality, and it’s time for me to step away. But I will help. I will throw you data, I will throw you files, I will throw you everything I can.

I won’t be on the committee, but I will aid whoever replaces me, because I want this thing I’ve built to survive my departure.

So please, go look, and even if you’re not a person who should do this, even if you’re only vaguely interested, please, please, go tell your friends anyway. And ask them to tell their friends. We want the widest possible net to be cast here.

And send them all to this link for more information:

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

Again, please, please, please spread this around. nwcMUSIC has the tools, it has the momentum, it has the mindshare – it just needs a few people to step in and run the various parts. We’ve built a hell of a thing here, and it’s been a lot of fun; now help Norwescon find those right people to replace me, so we can keep this party going.

Back from Norwescon! Here’s what opening ceremonies looked like from the orchestra pit.

It’s All Bendy

And I ran into Aang and Kyoshi, who I thought I’D NEVER SEE AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAA or something:

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!

The panels I was on were really well attended, the Leannan Sidhe show I was playing went really, really well, and PDX Broadsides and Bards of a Feather made great first-time Norwescon impressions, and Saturday night was standing-room-only, but the big news for me, personally, is:

I’m stepping down from running nwcMUSIC.

This is a big deal for me; it’s been my baby, but after six years running music at Norwescon and five years building nwcMUSIC as a festival, I need to hand it to other people. I’ve built a legitimate programme here, and I’m really excited that it has momentum and all the tools are in place and everything – but it’s time for me to step down.

The position I’ve created has been, frankly, too much for one person. Certainly for non-supervillains. So there will be several far-more-manageable positions created by my departure.

There will be opportunities like Concerts Lead, Daytime Programming Lead, Publicity and Communications Lead or whatever they end up calling it, possibly a Special Events/Filkcircle Lead. There will be non-lead positions, like Concerts Second (what I’ve called “Water Fairy,” ably managed by Anna in the past), Concert Sound Engineer (replacing the most excellent Jen and John after six years), possibly Videographer (if K decides to move on as well), and so on.

It’s been very hard work, and I’m glad they’re breaking it down into more positions moving forward. It needs to be; nwcMUSIC has been personality-driven this whole time, because really, that’s how a lot of these things get going. Supervillains got FORCE OF MIND, after all. But a lot of times, that’s how these things end, too, when that personality steps away, or is killed by James Bond, or whatever. Job hazards.

But I promise this: you will not be going in unaided. I will share everything I’ve done and learned. I won’t be on the convention committee next year, but I really, really, don’t want to see nwcMUSIC go away. It’s built up into a nice community (that I want to continue to be part of, as a musician), it’s a really good educational experience for the participants, it promotes participation in your own culture, and it’s a heck of a venue for nerdy and geeky artists.

So someone – several someones – need to take my place. If no one does, it really will go away, and I don’t know anyone who wants that. So please – even if you aren’t the right person for any of these positions, cast that net wide, and pass along the news to everyone you know.

And contact Norwescon Special Events – specialevents@norwescon.org – to get involved. It’ll be a couple of months before much happens for 2016, but they’ll want a list of potential people as soon as possible. This is a big change for Norwescon, too.

I said this at the last show, but thank you again to everyone who has come and played; everyone who has come and participated; everyone who has come and been part of an audience; thanks to K Wiley, videographer, who has worked his ass off to get us livestreaming; and most of all, thanks to Jen Kilmer and John Seghers, who have been our amazing sound crew these past six years. Without them in particular, quite literally none of this could have happened.

We’ve got a hell of a thing here. Keep nwcMUSIC going. I’ll help. And contact specialevents@norwescon.org to join in, today.

Welcome nwcMUSIC and Norwescon “Home Recording 1: Kitting Out Cheap” participants! The four-page panel-notes handout you are looking for is right here.

For everyone who has seen this before (and there are several of you), this is actually a slightly new version 0.8, which revises the list of available DAWs and cleans up a couple of other bits. But it’s not a major revision.

Don’t forget that nwcMUSIC concerts WILL BE LIVESTREAMED courtesy FanSupported, so check that out here. Concerts start at 8pm Cascadian/Pacific on Thursday, 7pm on Friday, and 8pm on Saturday. I’m playing with Leannan Sidhe at 8pm on Friday, myself. Enjoy!

One day to nwcMUSIC 2015 and Norwescon 38. As part of the big show, Anna and I are both offering discount on our arts, and I’ve been making miniflyers and stuff.

Those discount codes are already active, by the way

Also, Anna has some Bone Walker posters to give away; they’ll be on the freebie table or at the NIWA table in the Dealers’ Room. You should go visit her there during the day! And, as last year, we’ll be streaming concerts via the fine folks at FanSupported, http://fansupported.tv.

My big worry is that Cascadia’s Got Talent! is the masquerade halftime show. Getting acts has always been dodgy. We’ve always had enough for a good show in the end, but generally not until right before curtain, and that’s hair-raising at best. So please, if you have any kind of talent and want to have some fun showing it off? Sign up at the con. Paperwork will be at the Information Table.

It’s running at the same time as concerts, which means I don’t get to MC my own game show. Snif. Ah well, the marvellous and talented Shubzilla will do very well, I’m confident.

Also, in case I forgot – I’m playing on Friday, at 8pm, with Leannan Sidhe. We’re doing their material, and opening for PDX Broadsides, who are very funny. Come up to the Evergreens for that and say hi!

See you there, I hope!

I had a really good time at the one day I got to go to Emerald City Comicon this year, for a lot of reasons, but in no small part because I was going as Earth Kingdom Korra, which is a fourth-year two-episode costume associated with the “Korra Alone” mini-arc where she’s going around in Earth Kingdom clothing, which meant I got to be involved in this awesomesauce moment at the Korra/Avatar Fandom Meetup:

Poor, Poor Mako
(Photo by vandroid-helsing on Tumblr)

I’ve missed public cosplay. I really have. XD

And! Next weekend is nwcMUSIC 2015 at Norwescon 38, and we will have livestreaming of the nwcMUSIC concerts again! That URL is:

http://FanSupported.tv

So be ready for that if you can’t come to the show in person.

AND! I’ll be playing! nwcMUSIC! again! for the first time since the first one, with Leannan Sidhe, on Friday night at 8pm. Show up in person or! watch at home. That’s an exclusive-or, please. Don’t show up and watch the livestream, at least not at the same time. Not even on headphones. I mean, honestly, there’s introversion, and then there’s just weird.

Anyway, more pictures maybe later today, or certainly by tomorrow. Depends upon how late rehearsal goes.

I’m playing with Leannan Sidhe at nwcMUSIC – the show is Friday evening, with that block. It’ll be livestreamed! Anyway, she has a couple of new songs, and I guess the band has joined 1972 by way of 2010? Because this happened.

Animoog is an official iPad moog emulator

I’m playing like four instruments and also doing vocals now. This keeps happening when I play with these guys, I dunno what’s up with that. But it’s kind of fun.

Is The Rogue in Vancouver about to disappear? I just got mail last night from the operators, sent out to everyone on their mailing list, saying that apparently there’s about to be a surprise sale of St. James Community Square. That will be followed by demolition and redevelopment – starting in as little as two months.

This is a hugely important venue for the entire lower mainland/greater Vancouver folk scene, and to a smaller degree, the Seattle and Victoria scenes as well. They even bring in people from the Maritimes and Quebec. If you have any fucks in your fields to give for this, now is the time to give them.

Save Saint James Community Square
Under Threat of Re-Development
Help us purchase it from the United Church

We need your support right now to save this building from the wrecking ball!

Come to the show [yesterday] and sign the petition.

Call St. James Community Square on 604-739-9373 in the morning.

Write letters of support. Pledge donations. Tell your friends. Heck, tell everyone about this!

Email infosjcommunitysquare.org
or roguefolktelus.net

This sale could happen within two months if you / we don’t act NOW.

Anna and I have already pledged support. There’s no online version of the petition that I can find yet, though they have posted an alert to the official blog – basically what I pasted in above.

Hopefully there will be more word and more specifics soon. Until then – send email and sign up to mobilise!

YES IT IS FINALLY TIME! It’s the 2015 nwcMUSIC Sneak Preview grid!

It’s a little difficult to schedule things this year, and the 10,000lb gorilla in the room is of course George R. R. Martin, and everyone has had to move around a bit. But I think we’ve come out well, on the whole.

Also, the graphic is wide this year, because reasons. Regardless, here we are!

Clicking makes bigger

Possibly the strangest thing we’re dealing with this year is the cojoining of Cascadia’s Got Talent! and the Norwescon Masquerade; Special Events asked us to be their halftime show, and we’ve agreed. And to think just two years ago we were still in exile up in the Salon.

I’m particularly hoping people come out for Kadesh Flow’s show on Saturday. He’s coming all the way out here from St. Louis, so nerdcore crew, MAKE YOUR APPEARANCE! He’s really good, and you should go listen to his stuff.

We also have our first Cypher. We were only able to wodge in an hour for it, which is too bad, but we’re glad to be hosting it, and I hope it comes together. For those who don’t know, a cypher is basically a nerdcore filkcircle, and this one is a demonstration/instructional version, and it’s our experimental effort this year. I hope people like it.

Anyway, that’s your sneak preview. See you at Norwescon? I hope so!

Since it’s been announced, I can confirm: I have accepted an invitation to be Toastmaster at Conflikt 9, January 29-31, 2016. It’s my first GoH position at any convention, and as I’ve been saying, I am confused but honoured to have been selected and I will do my best to be a good one.

Conflikt Chair Jen Kilmer asked me to pick my personal Toast title, as is tradition; previous officeholders have been Toastmistresses, Toastmaster both standard and burnt, and Toastmonsters; I have chosen Toastmuppet. Expect inordinate amounts of Kermitflail, starting right now:

The release concert on Sunday was pretty much amazing, at least from our end. We never did manage to have a rehearsal with everyone at once, but it didn’t seem to hurt us too badly on stage. A lot of people stayed through Sunday afternoon to hear us, and I cannot thank all of you enough for that.

And hoo, I will never complain about setup time for other bands again. Okay, well, I will. But not as much. We took over an hour, and that was as simplified as I could make it, and with all the advance material I could hand over handed over, and nobody screwing around.

And, of course, once again, thanks to everyone: Alexander James Adams (drums, vocals, backing fiddle), Paul Campbell (hammer dulcimer), Jeri Lynn Cornish (cello, bones, chorus), Angela Korra’ti (flute, readings), Leannan Sidhe (vocals), Skellington (lead fiddle), Betsy Tinney (drums), and S.J. Tucker (bass, chorus). It would quite literally have been impossible without you.

OH at #Conflikt8 "was everyone on stage either a Pixie or a Criminal?" @solarbirdy @ConfliktFrog @TrickyPixieBand

— SJ Tucker (@s00j) February 2, 2015

Highlights of the convention – hoo, I dunno, it’s hard to pick. Alec’s show was great, and not in that “as always” way, there was something extra in the energy that night. Having the rest of Tricky Pixie on for a few songs probably didn’t hurt anything. The PDX Broadsides won Saturday’s concert set, no doubt – they’re much better live than in their older recordings. (I haven’t heard the new album yet tho’ – I only heard old demos.) I’m so glad I’m having them in for nwcMUSIC this year. Oh wait, that’s still technically embargoed, lol. Regardless, they’re really good live. And Stringapalooza’s set on Sunday was the tightest thing I’ve ever heard at a convention, they were amazing.

I stayed through the near-very-end of the dead dog/smoked salmon; I like leaving while there are one or two holdouts still holding out, so I don’t feel like it’s really over even though it is. And there were two, and a couple of others who were just there to listen, at around 1am Monday morning, so I packed out before they could change their minds. Sunday night is particularly good as far as I’m concerned, because I’ll do any damn thing, and that includes the relevant-for-20-minutes-thanks-a-lot-guys Doctor Who song I wrote in 2013* and have performed live never, a cappella DEVO tracks, and pretty much anything anyone asks me for, rehearsed or not. I will just do the thing. And it’s great.

Also, this happened – thanks Tom!

S00j wrote a really relevant post about Conflikt and Filk in general, particularly as its position in the geek hierarchy, and you should go read it. She touches quite directly on some of the things I’m trying to address indirectly through the way I feature filk as the founding pillar of geekmusic, and the way I talk about the punk nature of their hands-on/DIY aesthetic, and the participatory culture foundation underlying all of that.

Definitely worth reading. Give it a little thought.

*: it was pretty good, too.