conchord friday/saturday

On Friday morning, we discovered from the hotel that our suite was ready, so we moved everything over. Very nice room! Two bathrooms, two rooms, a giant bed plus a pull-out couch, lots of space to practise in. We unpacked and then headed to the reception, which was also a CD launch of Nancy Louise Freeman's newest project, Blues For Dumuzi, which also features Jeff Bohnhoff, Debbie Baudoin, and Maya Bohnhoff. The album was produced by Jeff at Mystic Fig Studios; I'm really looking forward to listening to it.

The hotel had somehow double-booked programming in the original room scheduled for the reception, but the confusion was quickly sorted out and another room found. The concom had arranged a yummy spread of fruit, cheese and crackers, and Nancy's CD played as background music. I enjoyed catching up with filkers I haven't seen in a while, plus met some new people.

We also browsed through the program book and read the bio that Tom Jeffers and Dave Clement wrote for us. Thanks so much, Tom and Dave! :-) We'll get you for this, of course. I'll post the bio online sometime in the near future.





Partway through the reception, Allison, Jodi and I were told that we had to switch hotel rooms; apparently the hotel had given us the room meant for children's programming at the convention. We packed up our stuff and moved to a suite on the floor above. We had just finished unpacking again when Nick came to get us for a radio show interview.

The host, Warren James, of
Mike Hodel's Hour 25 was great, very easygoing. He also had one of the most radio-friendly voices I've ever heard. By radio-friendly, I mean that if you happened to hear this guy order his food in a restaurant, you'd know he was a radio personality. According to David Okamura, Warren is also a filk enthusiast, and you can find an interview with Karen Willson in the archives.

He also interviewed Nick Smith, Leslie Fish, Mary Creasey, Nancy Freeman, and Erwin "Filthy Pierre" Strauss (the Interfilk guest at Conchord). The show is supposed to be accessible online in a few weeks; I'll post the URL when I find out more. Allison, Jodi and I always vow not to giggle when we're interviewed, but inevitably we end up having too much fun. We still have fond memories of being interviewed by Tom Jeffers for his Winnipeg radio show. :-)

Dave Weingart had sent a copy of the Interfilk songbook to the hotel, by the way, for me to take around and try to get some of the West Coast interfilk signatures. Thanks so much for supporting Interfilk this way, Dave!





Allison had the beginnings of a sore throat on Friday night. When she woke up on Saturday, her sore throat had progressed into a full-blown cold. We were all pretty worried about how she'd do in our Guest of Honor concert later that night, so we decided it was probably best for Allison to get as much rest as she could in the afternoon, even if it meant having to miss some programming.

That's one of the advantages of being in a group, I find...if one of us gets sick during a guest gig, the other two can cover. In the eight years we've been together, this hasn't happened that often. I've been sick once, Jodi twice, Allison a few times.

I was pretty pleased with how our songwriting workshop went on Saturday morning. It's always a tricky thing, having a workshop like that when the attendees have such a wide range of experience and aptitudes.

The first part of the workshop was an open discussion of a variety of songwriting topics, such as finding inspiration, the songwriting process (lyrics or music first?), collaboration. Then we worked on the practical exercise: writing a song that we could all perform in the Urban Tapestry Guest of Honor Concert!

First Allison, Jodi and I taught them the chorus of a song I had written called "If Everyone Ate Some Chocolate" as well as a sample verse to give an idea of the lyric scansion. Then everyone split up into groups to write part of the song for 20 minutes, after which we got back together and decided on the order of the verses (and a bridge, which one group had written), and rehearsed the whole thing a few times.





After a quick lunch and getting ready for the Totally Tasteless and Tacky Review, we headed down to the main concert room to listen to the Special Guest, Throwing Toasters (Grant Bacciocco). Very entertaining fellow with some great songs.

Many thanks to Jeff Bohnhoff, Nick Smith and Paul Kwinn for helping us perform Library Boy as our contribution to the TTTR. Jeff Bohnhoff played guitar with me; on whim, I had asked him to play along during a quick rehearsal. JeffB is an AMAZING guitarist, for those of you who don't know. He picked up the not-too-complicated chord structure of Library Boy with no difficulty and started adding some very cool twiddles and stuff to my basic rhythm guitar part. I was so excited I started jumping up and down.

Nick Smith played the part of the Library Boy, while Jodi did the torch song bit. Since I never DID see what they were doing during the song because I was concentrating on my guitar part, I will have to rely on the reports of an onlooker for a description of what happened. I only know that Jodi started the song looking very demure and dowdy, and then gradually got more and more torchy (took down her hair, threw off her shawl, took off her glasses, etc.). Near the end of the song, Paul Kwinn played the part of a security guard that Nick finally calls in to try dragging Jodi offstage.





Allison had to go crash in our room in the afternoon. Jodi and I had been asked by Devon Black, the wonderful Con Suite Goddess, if we could sing "Rumours About Redheads" for her. This was a song that Jodi, Rand and I had written as a surprise for Allison a while back, and I had sent it in to be included in the Conchord songbook (without Allison's knowledge, of course). Devon had travelled about 400 miles to do the con suite, and had to ask a scheduling favour from her boss at a brand-new job to do it. Thank you, Devon!!

After that, we went to check out the one shots. I held Zoë while Scott and Amanda performed their now infamous "Rudy" (yes, they brought the fish). Zoë clapped her hands and jumped up and down on my lap. The afternoon concerts were by Lynn Gold and the Interfilk guest, Erwin "Filthy Pierre" Strauss. I had never met Erwin before and was a bit nervous by the "Filthy Pierre" nickname...would I feel like leaving the room every time he sang? Turns out the nickname had origins in college, and didn't really have anything to do with being filthy. We had a chance to chat with him on Friday night; he's a nice fellow, very friendly.

Erwin's concert was unique in that he had a projector screen set up and had all his lyrics on slides, so that the audience could sing along on everything if they wanted.





We opted to have dinner in our room because Allison still wasn't feeling well and because we wanted to have enough time to warm up and do sound checks before our concert.

To Jodi's and my relief, Allison and her voice were fine for the concert. The afternoon of rest and the Dayquil helped, I think. My personal highlight of the concert was when our songwriting partipants came up to perform "If Everyone Ate Some Chocolate" with us; some people in the audience waved their imaginary lighters in the air (initiated by Jane Mailander), and the whole room ended up participating on the chorus, which was very cool. Then David Okamura started dangling a Hershey's Kiss in front of the audience. Additional comment from David: "That was too much temptation for those sitting behind me. While I was distracted by a femme fatale, Barney Evans grabbed the chocolate and made off, with me in hot pursuit brandishing a chair over my head. (He never did return that Hersey's.) ;-)"

Here are the lyrics to the song.

The other highlight of the concert was chatting with someone from the audience who was attending her first filk convention.

Many thanks also to Scott Snyder and Joey Shoji for helping us during the concert (Scott for "California Dreamin'" and Joey for "Star Sisters").

Nancy Louise Freeman's concert was after ours. GREAT concert; it made me even more excited about listening to her new album. My favourite song in the set was one about being a fangirl. Jeff Bohnhoff accompanied her on some of the songs.

The Interfilk auction was fun to attend. Our interfilk package was bought by Kathleen. Tom and Dave had contributed a unique Urban Tapestry t-shirt which was bought by Jeff Bohnhoff (I'll have my revenge, Tom and Dave...you too, Jeff! :-)).

Saturday's open filk was great. Allison, Jodi and I decided to attend the regular open filk rather than join the Bawdy song circle; as much as we enjoyed the TTTR, bawdy just isn't our thing. There are some very funny songs in the Bawdy Song Circle, of course, but inevitably there are one or two songs that just make me outright uncomfortable.

One of my personal highlights at the Saturday open filk was hearing Jeff Bohnhoff sing in public for the first time! He usually plays guitar while his wife Maya sings ("Why would anyone want to listen to me when they could listen to Maya?"). For me, Jeff's decision to try singing in public embodies the spirit of the filk community so well...people being encouraged to sing and/or perform in public who normally wouldn't. I know I would never have started singing if it hadn't been for Allison and Jodi, and encouragement of other filkers.

After Allison and then Jodi went to crash in our hotel room, I knew I couldn't perform anymore Urban Tapestry material, but I just enjoyed listening.

The atmosphere in that late Saturday night filk was wonderful, had achieved the special chemistry that open filks strive for, with everyone taking turns without bickering or competing, supporting and encouraging newcomers and shy types, just revelling in the sharing of each other's music. I especially enjoyed hearing so many filkers I had never met before, new songs I had never heard.

Around 3 a.m., I was still enjoying myself too much to be tired, but I realized that if I didn't go to bed soon I'd suffer the consequences the next day, so reluctantly left the filk room to get some sleep.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Allison feeding Casey and Riley Kwinn. Allison had been staying with Beckett and Paul in Fremont for the week before Conchord.
	Jeff Bohnhoff, Jodi, Allison, and Nancy Louise Freeman, at Conchord's Friday night reception and Nancy's CD launch.
	Scott Snyder on stage, about to help us with California Dreamin', the first song in our concert.
	Registration desk at Conchord, with Devon Black and Nick Smith.
	Warren James interviewing Nick Smith for "Mike Hodel's Hour 25".

higginbotham park

Yesterday morning Amanda, Zoë, Jodi and I went for a walk/run in Higginbotham Park, a gorgeous paved walk through a forest along a ravine. The breeze was scented with rosemary and eucalyptus, and the heat of the day had not yet set in; it was perfect walking weather. Partway through the walk, I went for a short run.

When we got back, I fed Zoë some mashed banana while waiting for the shower. Amanda makes most of her baby food from scratch, which amazes me.





While Amanda and Zoë went to a relatives' birthday party in the afternoon, Scott, Jodi and I played some music and chatted, then walked to downtown Claremont (about a mile walk), browsed shops, had lunch at Danson's, a diner that Scott used to frequent a lot when he was younger. I ordered a turkey sandwich which was fantastic but way huge. I could only eat half. Great potato salad, too, yum. Walked back home where we had some relaxing quiet time.





After dinner at a nearby salad and soup place, we drove to Van Nuys, about an hour away. We checked in, got settled in our rooms, then Scott and Amanda and Zoë (who are in the room next to us!) came over and we hung out and chatted for about an hour before they went to bed. I'm typing this at around 10:30 pm on Thursday night. Allison, Paul, Beckett and the twins are due to arrive here around 1 or 2 p.m.

Looking forward to the official start of the convention tonight!

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Cora posing with a prickly pear cactus during our walk/run this morning.
	Me feeding Zoë after getting back.
	Scott rocking his daughter to sleep.
	Amanda tests out a child carrier backpack at Target.

hanging out in claremont

Update: It's unlikely that I'll be able to update my Blatherings until after I get back, but I'll catch up then. Unless I can find easy/cheap Internet access before then, of course...

When I first e-mailed Scott and Amanda about visiting, I told them that I wasn't so much interested in seeing the sights as just hanging out with the two of them, and especially Zoë. So far, the visit has been exactly what I had hoped for: very laid-back, and I've had a chance to get to know Zoë a lot better.

She was a bit wary of me for the first half hour or so when she woke up on yesterday morning, staring at me intensely as only a one-year-old can do, sizing me up, checking me out. I must have passed the test, because she start grinning at me and chewing on my leg. Zoë's pretty adorable, I gotta say. Dimples the size of Lake Ontario, gorgeous gray-blue eyes. And when she started reaching up for me to be picked up, I melted inside. Good thing she can't talk yet, or I'd be utterly helpless if she asked me for anything.

She's even let me change her diaper! Twice! The first time was a disaster because I was so out of practice. Zoë was squirming pretty energetically so I took Amanda's cue and gently held her down with one hand while I went searching for the wipes and diapers with the other hand. Found the wipes, but I'd forgotten where Amanda had told me to find the diapers. I finally found one in the cupboard, started putting it on her before I clued into the fact that it was backwards. Still holding a cheerfully Zoë down with one hand, I grappled with the other one until it was turned around and on her. But for some reason, it kept coming off! Finally giving up, I took Zoë downstairs and pleaded for help from Amanda.

Turns out that I had grabbed a size 6 diaper instead of size 3. The parents among you are probably nodding your heads sagely. For the non-parents, a size 6 diaper was WAY too big. Zoe looked like she was diapered with an inflatable white zeppelin. Amanda took her back upstairs and put on a new diaper: a process that had taken me about 15 minutes had taken her 20 seconds. Zoë was incredibly patient with my ineptitude, however, happily doing the Gerber-baby gurgling and babbling throughout.

BUT! my second attempt at changing her was a success, yay!





But enough about Zoë for now. We had a wonderful, relaxing day yesterday. Went for brunch at BC's (I think that's what it was called. Scott? Amanda?) where I had a very yummy citrus chicken salad. Everyone at the restaurant knew Zoë by name. :-)

I got to see Scott's and Amanda's old neighbourhoods, the Folk Music Center Museum (where I bought a calimba! Christo, will you help me learn how to play it??? I could have spent way too much in this place), a VERY cool little shop with crafts from local artists (where I bought a present for Ruth, whose birthday is next month), an amazing candy store with a zillion flavours of M&Ms sorted by colour (well, maybe not a zillion, but I'll post a photo soon), and MY FIRST KRISPY KREME OUTLET!

re: Krispy Kreme. I have to say, I was pretty impressed. VERY cool to see the doughnuts being made right in front of me (so was Zoë! it was her first Krispy Kreme outlet, too). Unfortunately, the "hot doughnuts" sign wasn't lit when we visited, but we decided to drop in anyway. Watched the doughnut-making process for a while, then Amanda bought a dozen doughnuts and some milk for us and we chowed down (thanks, Amanda!). I chose a Sour Cream Glazed, my favourite at Tim Hortons, and confess that I did like it better than the Tim Horton's version (sorry, Andy and Allison). Yummmmmmmmmm. I'm still eventually hoping to try a Krispy Kreme fresh out of the oven someday.

Went back home. Zoë and I took naps. :-) I had woken up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning despite my best attempts to sleep in, but felt much refreshed after I woke up. Played with Zoë a bit, then we went out for some sushi at Tokyo Sushi. Great sushi, and cool decor...part of the floor was transparent plastic, and there was a fish aquarium beneath!

After sushi, we went to the airport to pick up Jodi. Her flight went smoothly, and she didn't encounter as much hassle at the Toronto Airport as I did, thankfully. Her luggage made it here fine, too so YAAAAAAAAYYY, Urban Tapestry has officially made it to the West coast okay!

After chatting a while, Amanda and Zoë went up to bed. I went up shortly after, leaving Scott and Jodi to catch up.

It was the perfect sort of day. :-)

We're going to do some more wandering about today, then will head up to the hotel in Van Nuys in the evening to hook up with Allison.

I took a ton of photos today and will post more of them when I get back.

california!

Woohoo! I'm in California!!

The Toronto airport was a zoo because of all the World Youth Day types going home.

For the first time ever, I got my carry-on luggage weighed, and was told that my rolling carry-on bag was 8 lbs overweight and that I would either need to get rid of the extra weight somehow (by moving it into my checked luggage) or pay a $75 surcharge. After some hurried shifting of contents at the express check-in counter, I managed to get everything redistributed to the Air Canada employee's satisfaction.

But then came the line-ups; first the line-up for the x-ray machines, then the line-up for U.S. customs. Because I was carrying two pieces of checked luggage (including my guitar) and two pieces of carry-on, manoeuvering as the line progressed was somewhat of a pain. Wait 3 seconds, then pick everything up, shuffle forward a foot, put everything down again. My hands were too occupied to pass the time reading a magazine or playing Scrabble on my Palm.

The World Youth people were in good spirits, however. I got asked several times by clergy where I was from, was this my first time to Toronto. No, I had to keep saying, I'm not part of the World Youth thing. But then I started getting grilled about my ancestral background, my parents, how long my family had been in Canada, could I speak any Japanese, etc. While I understand that they were just smalltalking to pass the time and to be friendly, I didn't really feel like spilling my life history. By that time, I was kicking my guitar along the floor with one foot instead of picking it up and carrying it each time the line moved a few inches.

It took me an hour and a half to get through check-in and customs.

The flight was okay. I am jaded now; I used to get so excited about flying. I'd take pictures of the clouds out the window. I used to listen during the pre-flight safety speech, dutifully look through the laminated emergency instruction card in the seat pocket in front of me. Now I'm usually asleep by the time the plane stops taxiing for hours and actually leaves the ground.

I still like the compartmentalized food but geez, Air Canada's really cutting back. My "hot meal" consisted of a piece of lukewarm chicken the size of my middle finger on a small bed of somewhat crusty rice, 12 chickpeas with some mysterious but bland dressing, a roll, and a small piece of carrot cake. I liked the carrot cake the best.

My seatmate was a small, older Asian woman. She seemed somewhat crabby at first, but after I helped flag down a flight attendant to get a pillow for her, she warmed up to me considerably. She reminded me a lot of my grandmother (my dad's mom, who died many years ago), and I found myself feeling oddly protective of her.

Scott Snyder was waiting for me at baggage claim. SO great to see him; we hadn't seen each other since he was Interfilk guest at FilKONtario two years ago. We had a chance to catch up a bit on the drive home.

Zoë was asleep by the time we got back to the Snyders' place (about 2 a.m. my time), but Amanda was up. I was hungry, so she heated up some leftovers for me and we talked for about an hour. VERY cool to hang out with them again!

When I went to bed, I found some Lindor and Godiva chocolates on my pillow, yummmmmm. (Thanks, Amanda!)

I met Zoë this morning! She chewed on my leg and spit food at me, so we're getting along just fine. :-)

Today's Blatherpic: Zoë, this morning.

fillmore

Hey, some very cool news from Rand. He and Adam sold some music to Disney! They wrote the theme music for a new cartoon called Fillmore, which will debut on Sat. Sept. 14th at 9 am on Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC. If you want to find out more about Ookla the Mok, check out their Web site.

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I've added the following two blogs to my list of online journals:

David Goulden was the sound engineer for the second Urban Tapestry album, Myths and Urban Legends. He duct taped my mouth shut once during a recording session because I kept laughing. Allison and Jodi were highly amused.

Jason Nolan is a lecturer at the Ontario Institue for Studies in Education. I met him through David, Scott Snyder did some online work for him, and he was kind enough to let me use part of his MOO for the Inkspot community.

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Hey, I leave for Los Angeles today, woohoo! Scott Snyder's picking me up at the airport.

I'll Blather when I can, of course, and/or will post in Blatherchat.

Today's Blatherpic:

A very old photo of Rand and Adam, in Watchmen Studios.