A couple of people have asked me already if I’ve seen this video of 16-year-old David Thibault in Quebec, covering Elvis’ “Blue Christmas”. So before anybody else does, yep, seen it!

To my ear, the kid sounds like he’s trying just a little too hard to mimic Elvis’ accent and vocal mannerisms, which isn’t exactly his fault-I make that objection ( Read more... )

When I put out a call on Facebook for possible post topics for my last Here Be Magic post, I got a couple other excellent questions that I thought would be excellent post fodder on their own. One of those was on what I’m sure y’all will agree is a topic near and dear to my heart, to wit:

“How does your music influence your writing and vice versa?”

( Read more... )

When I commit acts of musical fandom, I learn tunes (and have a tendency to pester fiddle and flute players).

When Dara commits acts of musical fandom, major cities are leveled and the Cascadia Mecha Militia is deployed! Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, I give you my belovedest supervillain’s latest composition: Kaiju Meat, her ode to ( Read more... )

I said as much in my previous post, but I’m pulling this up to a post of its own because it’s absolutely worth it: I’m about halfway through The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe.

I could and should tell you that, pursuant to the previous post’s topic, this book is a) written by a male author, and b) passes the Bechdel at least twice, and this is ( Read more... )

Those of you local to the Seattle area know that Memorial Day weekend is Folklife, and ( Read more... )

This being the first of a flurry of mini-reviews of all the various albums I’ve picked up lately!

“Come What May”, by Ad Vielle Que Pourra: Mostly instrumental, but with a lot of hurdy-gurdy goodness. The hurdy-gurdy here isn’t nearly at the powerhouse level that Le Vent du Nord delivers, but that’s not a bad thing, given that I happen to like how ( Read more... )

And now, several moments of musical squee from last night!

In a move that should surprise absolutely NOBODY who pays attention to what I post for more than five minutes running, a little part of my brain demanded last night, “YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE CHORDS TO VIVE L’AMOUR NOW.”

Because y’all knew this was coming, right? I mean, what with all the ( Read more... )

Just to demonstrate to you all that every so often I do in fact listen to other forms of music besides “Great Big Sea” and “everybody in Quebecois trad”, I share with you the news that Julia Ecklar is finally releasing a new album! And it’s available for pre-order now!

For those of you unfamiliar with her, Julia’s the lead voice on a lot of the ( Read more... )

My new task to contribute to the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker: transcribing some of the more challenging sets that Dara’s putting together! In particular, the one that goes along with the fight scene in Chapter 7 of Bone Walker. That’s got some fun, fun Japanese stuff going on in it along with a heavily mutated version of “Road to ( Read more... )

PEOPLE OF ATLANTIC CANADA AND QUEBEC! There are but seven scant days until ( Read more... )