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FilKONtario '97 was a great time!! Very special congratulations to Judith and Heather for heading a terrific con and for all the work they've done on FKO through the years and my best wishes to them and Carolyn and Peggi as they pass the torch for conchair next year.
Here's some of my highlights of the con that was (with additional notes by Debbie):
We went to the mini-concerts after that and I enjoyed the variety of music very much. I had only heard Mary Bertke. and Becky McGraw once or twice before, but I particularly enjoyed their Celtic music and wonderful harmonies. Paul commented that their music especially seemed to "call to my Celtic blood" :).
We left the open filk room to visit for a bit after that, but came back to catch the end of the Dorsai filk when word kept reaching us that John Hall was going to disown us if we didn't come back and sing our one and only Dorsai song "Like The Dorsai" :). Pretty amusing for a group who would hardly know a Dorsai book if they fell over it, though singing "Like The Dorsai" is always tons of fun. We love it when everyone sings "Arrrrgggghhh!" with us. [Debbie: And face it...yelling AARRRRGGGHHHH is wonderfully therapeutic!]
We moved into open filk after that and it was great. We got to sing harmony with Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers again which is always a treat. UT is getting very excited about our trip to KeyCon in Winnipeg next month, thanks to Dandelion Wine and Dave Clement's Musicians' Hat Fund! UT sang Debbie's "Hey Tom!" for Tom and Tom and Dave countered with Tom's song "Debbie-O" for Debbie- Jodi and I enjoyed singing both and it foreshadowed more "tribute" songs later in the weekend :). We got to hear the Interfilk guest, Doug Wu, for the first time and I enjoyed his harp music a lot. Paul parodied Mark Osier's "Monster and Man" and may pay for it with his life [Debbie: LOVE this parody!!!!] , if Kathy Cogswell has her way :). Mark Bernstein, Gary Erlich, Ookla The Mok, Bill Wells and others did a lot of good music. And then there was this woman across the circle from me who immediately demanded my attention from her first song because of her fine voice, good guitar work and excellent rhythms. I was impressed and wondered who she was. Then Judith came in and called her by name and I realized that I had -finally- had the opportunity to hear Talis Kimberley. By the time she finished her "book" song with Mark Bernstein, I was a fan for life. I would have plenty more reasons to be impressed with Talis before the end of the weekend!
Well, after that we stayed up talking and catching up with Paul and Rand until way too late before finally crashing at 4:00 am.
After that, Debbie went to accompany Clif and Carol Flynt on the flute in their featured concert. I was sorry to miss the concert, but needing to grab opportunities where we could, Jodi and I went back to our hotel room to work on our Debbie parody of "TechnoNerdboy". Fortunately, UT's technonerdboy, Paul, was with us and provided us with the perfect ending for the parody. We were all ready for open filk that night :). [Debbie: Clif and Carol's concert was great! I had lots of fun listening and participating.]
As I was heading down to the concerts, I ran into old filk friends of mine, Pat and Andrew Williams, who I didn't know were coming to the con! Pat and I go -way- back. I met her at the first filk I ever went to (Ad Astra '85) and she let me crash in her hotel room that night when I stayed at my first filk until 4:00am and there was no more buses to take me home :). We also hosted umpteen Toronto filks together in the late 80's/early 90's. We took off to Pat & Mario's for coffee and conversation.
Time flew by and when we got back to the filk room it was time for the Interfilk auction. The con made a good profit for Interfilk, thanks to filker generousity. And our thanks to Ingrid for buying our "Myths and Urban Legends" package! Keep supporting Interfilk, everyone! They do good work. [Debbie: Three cheers for Interfilk!]
As was proven next when Doug Wu performed his concert. I really enjoyed his combination of songs on the harp and on the omnichord. It was great meeting Doug and UT is glad to hear he'll be at The Second ConCerto, too, where we'll be GOH. Hey, any filker who offers to try to play Partridge Family songs on the harp for us is OK by me :). [Debbie: I liked Doug a lot. Wow, Allison, I'm impressed you know what an omnichord is (I didn't until you told me).]
Talis Kimberley was up next and her concert is one we'll be talking about in the local filk community for years to come. Rarely have I seen such presence and emotion from a performer. Her concert was mesmorizing. She left some people in tears [Debbie: Like Jodi!!! HAHAHA!!! I'm so cruel.] and everyone in awe. It was wonderful to get a chance to talk to her as well- Talis is a warm, generous, friendly person. I do hope she comes back to a con I'm at sometime again soon. [Debbie: This woman is *amazing*. Move to Toronto, Talis! Please!!!]
When the concerts were over we went with Paul and Ookla to prepare for our evening Rendezvous and a few of us put the finishing touches on some music prepared through e-mail for the open filk that night.
Saw most of the songwriting competition at 9:00 and there were many excellent entries. Congratulations to Howard, Diana, Shelby and Kathleen for winning awards in that competition.
At midnight, we set up for our Rendezvous with Paul Kwinn and Ookla The Mok. We also invited along Mark Osier, Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers and Kathleen Sloan to perform with us. We had a -great- time and the energy in the room was fantastic and our Rendezvous quickly evolved into a high-spirited open filk with many fine performers. Highlights for me included surprising Debbie with the TechnoNerdboy parody, "It's Always The Quiet Ones..." , singing "Merry Minuet" with Paul and Rand (we had been planning for months to do some folk music together at FKO), singing "Secret Rose" with Mark Osier, hearing Talis Kimberley's rendition of "Velvet" (wow...) and the second rousing rendition of "Debbie-O" from Dave and Tom with everyone harmonizing on the chorus :). [Debbie: I think I almost keeled over with embarrassment and shock. I had no idea how conniving my music partners could be. :-)]
Once that filk started to thin out, we moved over to the main filk room, where there was excellent music happening, too. I enjoyed hearing Kathy Mar, MEW, Gary, Diana, Kathleen, Talis and many others. Also enjoyed hearing Kevin Davies at a local filk again and hope he comes out to more filks. I really enjoyed hearing Debbie play flute with him on "The Medic Song". [Debbie: I screwed up my flute part terribly, I think. But it was pretty late and a few years since I had played on that song! I'm glad Kevin was there, too.] We also sang Cat Faber's "Song of the Stars" for the first time since hearing Alan Theisen sing it in concert at OVFF last year- we love that song. Paul, Rand and I got to sing again, too, performing Phil Ochs' "The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns"- I love that song, too. We plan to prepare some more music together for The Second ConCerto. The filk was still going on at 5:30am when we left for bed.
So, Heather Alexander is the GOH at FilKONtario next year and Don Neill is the Filk Waif. Wow :) :). Can't wait!!!
The End