Newsgroups: alt.music.filk
Date: Tue,  8 Sep 1992 19:45:21 -0400 
From: Eli Brian Goldberg <eg1n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: VERY abridged WorldCon Summary/Shadow Stalker      

Yes, I just got back, and while I _should_ be doing all the homework I
blew off in order to make it there, I'm writting this message...

Where to start?

Oh yeah...Shadow Stalker --- Larry seemed to find the September release
date of the tape to be rather interesting since not only hadn't he yet
recorded the tape, nor has he received copies of the songs, I don't believe
he ever confirmed that he was doing lead vocals.  I managed to catch
Fish for a while, and the fact that she couldn't remember most of the tunes
that she wrote a year or so to Shadow Stalker attest to their originality;
this is from the woman who, at one filksing...

Filker: "I'm new to this what can I do?"

Fish: "You can pick, pass or play.  You can also request a song on a topic."

Filker: "Okay; there's this song in XenoFilkia that looks neat; can anyone
sing it?"

(Fish gets it handed to her)

Fish: "Hmm...I don't think I've heard the tune for 15 or 20 years, but what
the hell..."

(Fish proceeds to play the song flawlessly and do amazingly good improvised
guitar work.)

(You get the idea...)

Onto happier things...gee...I spent most of my time huckstering for Wail
songs; there weren't any major new releases, which is why business for
most filk hucksters didn't seem to be particularly outstanding.  A _lot_
of people came by and mentioned that they loved Joe Ellis' new tape, and
even more people bought it.  Dave Clement's second tape from Dodeka also
seemed to be quite a hit, and I know Wail Songs had less than 4 copies left
by the end of the con!
Speaking of which, Dave has a 3rd tape from Dodeka coming out; it's pretty
much finished, they just need to get permissions.  It's Dave with a band.

There's also a Juanita Coulson tape in the works, a 2nd Tom Smith tape
called _Domino Death_ in a month and a half or so, and stuff I forgot.

There was also mentioned of a possibility of Firestorm getting redone by
a mainstream rock group (this wasn't from Dodeka).  I believe that name
was Queensryche... ;-)  Ask Fish...

I don't quite feel like summarizing the con; hopefully the other dozen or
so people who are on the filk echo and showed up might feel like doing that.
There was some damn good filk, loads of great concerts (most of which
I missed, anyway.. ;-), and an awesome filk book which should be available
for $3 wholesale through Wail Songs and everyone else which had 60 pages
of sheet music and lyrics to a _lot_ of amazing good filksongs, including
some of Larry's new ST songs, etc.  Speaking of which, I was very surprised
by the concert that he did with Joey; Larry seems to have developed amazingly
rapidly as a performer.  Just 4 months ago at Balticon (and at Bayfilk, to
a much stronger degree), he looked like a terrified studio musician thrust
in front of 100 people staring into his soul... ;-)  Now I dare say he
even went as far as to look _comfortable_ in front of his audience, and
he didn't even start his concert with comments like, "Now you can hear
how bad my guitar playing is..." ;-)  (It was a great concert; he also
did a gorgeous piece from Les Miz with Joey!)

It was also fun meeting all of the filk echo people; especially Mike
Whitaker who promised to teach me the Skybound Blues since last year,
and never did... (ahem!)  I was also surprised to find out how, well...
_gentle_ (for lack of a better word) Leslie turned out to be, especially
given her political songs... ;-)  I also was _very_ pleased to see Jeff
Oleheft (sp), next year's Balticon Con Chair who is bringing her over as
FG0H, bothering to stay up all night with Fish's filksing almost every night
and going to the traditinoal breakfast.  I think it's been years since we've
had such a filk-enthused con chair!  (Last year our Filk Guest of Honor
was paid for by anonymous donation.  Any more need be said? ;-)