12 years of Urban Tapestry, boskone

Urban Tapestry at The Gathering, Dec/2003

Allison, Jodi and I had a successful Urban Tapestry practice yesterday in Newmarket. My right arm had recovered enough from my fall on the ice that I was able to play flute, yay!

It took me two hours to get there. First, an hour of fitful starts and stops on the underground Toronto subway system, including my train inexplicably going out of service three stops away from my destination. Then an hour on the York Transit Newmarket "B" bus, listening to my German language lessons on my iPod (only eight months left until Filkcontinental, after all!). Jodi picked up Allison and me at the bus station in Newmarket.

It's always a bit of a challenge for the three of us to get together these days because of the distance between us. I live in downtown Toronto, Allison lives in Richmond Hill and Jodi lives in Newmarket. Because of the travel time involved, getting together for a practice during the work week is a major undertaking; 3.5-4 hours round-trip travel time for what basically amounts to 2 hours worth of actual practice not counting dinner, tuning instruments, warming up, etc. It quickly became clear that weekend practices made much more sense.

If we haven't got a gig coming up, we usually try to get together anyway at least once or twice a month, along the north end of the subway line. As I have mentioned in earlier Blatherings, the three of us are friends as well as music partners, and we enjoy each other's company even outside of our musical fellowship. We meet for dinners, see movies together, cry on each other's shoulders. We have the occasional spat, but our disagreements never last long.

Urban Tapestry beaded keychains designed and made by Michelle Bottorff. Click image for detail.

This July marks the 12th anniversary of Urban Tapestry. 12 years! During a practice at Allison's place last month, we went through some old videotapes of our early performances, including the very first time the three of us performed together. At that time, we had no idea how strong the bond between us would grow, both musically and in friendship.

With Allison's husband help, we plan to put together a DVD compilation of some of these Urban Tapestry archive clips and donate the DVD to some Interfilk auctions. I'm excited about having a copy of my own. :-) If you haven't already, please do check out the wonderful 10th anniversary scrapbook that Allison put together a couple of years ago.

We leave for Boston and Boskone this week! We will be performing an hour concert, a 40-minute children's concert, instrumentalists' panel, introduction to filk panel, and participating in a Firefly panel and a "Life, the Universe and Everything" concert. Should be fun, and we hope to see some of you there! You can find out more information about the convention at the Boskone Web site .

Concert at Digeri-Douze in UK, 2000. Photo by Godfrey Joseph.

OUR BOSKONE SCHEDULE:

FRIDAY

7:00 pm Can't Take Firefly From Me

"How long can 14 episodes hold a fandom, anyway? Sure, the world Joss Whedon created in his short-lived series Firefly is a richly embroidered tapestry. And now we've got the feature film Serenity to look forward to in the fall. But just what is it about Mal, Jayne, Zoe, and the rest of the motley gang that holds our intrigue? How little source material is the minimum needed to sustain a fandom over the long haul, anyway?"

Keith R. A. DeCandido, Allison Durno, MaryAnn Johanson (m), Jodi Krangle, Debbie Ridpath Ohi

8:00 pm - Filk 101: An Introduction to Filk
Allison Durno, Jodi Krangle, Lois H. Mangan, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Erwin S. Strauss

SATURDAY

1:00 pm - Urban Tapestry Concert

SUNDAY

10:00 am - Urban Tapestry Concert for Children

12:00 noon - Concert: Life, the Universe, and Everything
"Themed concert by many performers, including Urban Tapestry."

1:00 pm - The Instrument Panel
"Filk isn't just voice and guitar; many other instruments can be and have been used. Panelists talk about the instruments they use, how they fit into a filk performance, what it takes to learn them, and show off their use." With Allison Durno, Joseph Kesselman, Jodi Krangle, Gary D. McGath, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Hillary Sherwood

Confluence/2004 concert. Photo by John Hall.

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