DucKon observations
Eric wrote the official band conrep, so I'm going to just kick in with my observations and musings...
Getting there before 1pm was *so* the right thing to do. It made for a much less stressful setup, and allowed us to track down the other Villians in Crime and work with them before Opening Ceremonies.
Jamming (it was supposed to be practice, but...) with sexybass really set the tone for the con. Hearing that jam, I knew it was going to be a good 3 hours that evening and a really amazing con.
"Time Warp" with sweetmusic_27, seanan_mcguire, billroper, and filkertom just was *way* too much fun. We have to do that again sometime, or something very similar.
The concert went really well. A little lower energy than some of our gigs have been, but that wasn't a bad thing. We did a lot of new material, including a slower version of "Hellraiser" that filkertom joined us for, and "Gimme Shelter" for which we hauled seanan_mcguire on stage. Can we steal her permanently?
I was a little nervous because "Whose Line" and the concert were the first times I'd played keyboards in public for...oh...20+ years. Once things got rolling though, it went well. One of my highlights was hearing sexybass's harmonies with mike46 on "This Island Earth".
The guitar workshop Saturday was small, but a lot of fun, and then dragging sexybass and sposter to perform with us at the kids concert was way too much fun. Turned into a jam session with Toyboat and sexybass trading stuff back and forth, and sexybass broke me *badly* with the last song he played. I was trying to play harmonica with him, but it's hard to play harmonica when you're gasping for air from laughing so hard.
Saturday night's circle was great energy, and it was fun joining in so often, and having people *ask* Toyboat to join in. After Toyboat had broken up I hauled out the double-neck for "Wish You Were Here"...I honestly think that was the best version of it vocally I've ever done.
Sunday...slept very late, got moving, got stuff out to the car, which was aided by having preloaded it the night before. Took born_to_me and the Bundle home, and went back to get sexybass (notice a theme here?) and hsifyppah for a run to Guitar Center...hsifyppah needed a new banjola case, and well...the two of us were...being turned loose on an unsuspecting music store. mike46 had told me that they had a Gibson Gothic Flying V for sale. I've got the Explorer (seen here) and the SG, and a Les Paul studio, but "needed" the Flying V. So the three of us took off for the wilds of Guitar Center. hsifyppah found the case, sexybass found a tuner and strings he wanted, but...sadly, the original owner of the Flying V had replaced the pickups with EMGs...ick. I *hate* active pickups on guitars. I thought about getting it then and there, but wanted to do more research about restoring it to its original condition...in other words a: could I get the pickups and b: would the cost put the guitar out of range of what I wanted to pay for it?
We returned to the con, and sposter chased sexybass and I out of the con to go eat. There was a TGIF close by that we decided on, whereupon we had a wonderful time and it was actually very hard to go back to the con. I get a feeling that the two of us could easily spend an evening at a pub sometime... On returning found out that sposter had told sexybass to buy me a steak, which is why *I* couldn't get to the bill before he did...he was waiting for it! After haunting the door of the Dead Dog filk we eventually wandered back to his room where we tuned up, and before we knew it we started jamming. sposter came down to find us and take us back to the Dead Dog, where we eventually found seats on the floor. I had to leave much sooner than I wanted to, but not before the double-neck picked up the nickname "The Beast", which I *love* because the Ovation six-string has the nickname "Wolverine" (notice another theme?). Oh, and there was great surprise that the two of us hadn't obtained more guitarage than we returned to the con with. But more on that later... :)
I very gladly left my Rickenbacker 12-string with sexybass who has promised to record guitar and vocals for our upcoming Toyboat album, shared hugs with all, and returned home. It was an amazing con, and I was very sorry it had to end. In a lot of ways this was the best con I've attended so far, and I really felt a part of the filk community.
Getting there before 1pm was *so* the right thing to do. It made for a much less stressful setup, and allowed us to track down the other Villians in Crime and work with them before Opening Ceremonies.
Jamming (it was supposed to be practice, but...) with sexybass really set the tone for the con. Hearing that jam, I knew it was going to be a good 3 hours that evening and a really amazing con.
"Time Warp" with sweetmusic_27, seanan_mcguire, billroper, and filkertom just was *way* too much fun. We have to do that again sometime, or something very similar.
The concert went really well. A little lower energy than some of our gigs have been, but that wasn't a bad thing. We did a lot of new material, including a slower version of "Hellraiser" that filkertom joined us for, and "Gimme Shelter" for which we hauled seanan_mcguire on stage. Can we steal her permanently?
I was a little nervous because "Whose Line" and the concert were the first times I'd played keyboards in public for...oh...20+ years. Once things got rolling though, it went well. One of my highlights was hearing sexybass's harmonies with mike46 on "This Island Earth".
The guitar workshop Saturday was small, but a lot of fun, and then dragging sexybass and sposter to perform with us at the kids concert was way too much fun. Turned into a jam session with Toyboat and sexybass trading stuff back and forth, and sexybass broke me *badly* with the last song he played. I was trying to play harmonica with him, but it's hard to play harmonica when you're gasping for air from laughing so hard.
Saturday night's circle was great energy, and it was fun joining in so often, and having people *ask* Toyboat to join in. After Toyboat had broken up I hauled out the double-neck for "Wish You Were Here"...I honestly think that was the best version of it vocally I've ever done.
Sunday...slept very late, got moving, got stuff out to the car, which was aided by having preloaded it the night before. Took born_to_me and the Bundle home, and went back to get sexybass (notice a theme here?) and hsifyppah for a run to Guitar Center...hsifyppah needed a new banjola case, and well...the two of us were...being turned loose on an unsuspecting music store. mike46 had told me that they had a Gibson Gothic Flying V for sale. I've got the Explorer (seen here) and the SG, and a Les Paul studio, but "needed" the Flying V. So the three of us took off for the wilds of Guitar Center. hsifyppah found the case, sexybass found a tuner and strings he wanted, but...sadly, the original owner of the Flying V had replaced the pickups with EMGs...ick. I *hate* active pickups on guitars. I thought about getting it then and there, but wanted to do more research about restoring it to its original condition...in other words a: could I get the pickups and b: would the cost put the guitar out of range of what I wanted to pay for it?
We returned to the con, and sposter chased sexybass and I out of the con to go eat. There was a TGIF close by that we decided on, whereupon we had a wonderful time and it was actually very hard to go back to the con. I get a feeling that the two of us could easily spend an evening at a pub sometime... On returning found out that sposter had told sexybass to buy me a steak, which is why *I* couldn't get to the bill before he did...he was waiting for it! After haunting the door of the Dead Dog filk we eventually wandered back to his room where we tuned up, and before we knew it we started jamming. sposter came down to find us and take us back to the Dead Dog, where we eventually found seats on the floor. I had to leave much sooner than I wanted to, but not before the double-neck picked up the nickname "The Beast", which I *love* because the Ovation six-string has the nickname "Wolverine" (notice another theme?). Oh, and there was great surprise that the two of us hadn't obtained more guitarage than we returned to the con with. But more on that later... :)
I very gladly left my Rickenbacker 12-string with sexybass who has promised to record guitar and vocals for our upcoming Toyboat album, shared hugs with all, and returned home. It was an amazing con, and I was very sorry it had to end. In a lot of ways this was the best con I've attended so far, and I really felt a part of the filk community.