Memories: John Caspell

(Photo I took of Brooke and John at OVFF in 2006)

Brooke Lunderville (John's music partner and close friend) has posted an update about what happened yesterday. She says that if people post happy memories of John in her journal, she'd print them out to show his family.

Here's what I posted:

- I remember the first time I heard John perform in open filk. I had the impression he was quiet and shy, but then he opened his mouth and out came a bawdy/funny song I had never heard before. I never thought he was quiet and shy again.

- When John started smiling with an evil glint in his eye, you knew you had to watch out.



- At FKO last month, I enjoyed hearing John help out in Juliana McCorison's concert. I remember thinking that I had the impression that John was more of a loner type when I first met him and that obviously I had been SO wrong back then. He seemed to really enjoying himself on stage, and it was a joy to watch that.



- I loved seeing John's goofy side -- this tended to come out way more when he was with Brooke (she has that influence, y'know :-D). I remember being surprised but delighted when he clowned around for a photo I took at OVFF back in 2006, which I've posted at the top of this entry. I was flattered when Brooke and John decided to use it for their group webpage.

John, you will be deeply missed.

Jonathan Coulton with Paul and Storm at the Lula Lounge in Toronto

As Jeff said last night, it was the best concert we've seen in several years.

It was the first time either of us had been to Lula Lounge. Nice venue, though the whole dinner seating vs regular seating was a bit confusing. The tickets say "Dinner reservations guarantee best seating," but this isn't necessarily true.

The best seats, IMHO, are the small tables right in front of the stage, perfect for couples. If you're a larger group with a dinner reservation, you'll be put in the booths against the far walls at either side of the restaurant. You'll still see the performers, of course, but this isn't the best seating.

The non-dinner seating is behind the small tables in front of the stage, and appears to given out on a first-come, first-served basis on the night of the performance. If I'm wrong about this, someone feel free to let me know. Also, those with dinner reservations still have to line up with everyone else.

It seemed to me that the dinner tables were given out on a first-come, first-serve basis (e.g. you don't have a specific table, no matter how early in advance you book), though I might be wrong about this. Also, be sure to confirm your reservation closer to the performance date! I called the day before and found out that they had NO RECORD of my dinner reservation. Fortunately they still had room for more dinner reservations, and our seating was good -- Jodi, James, Jeff and I had a table for four near the railing. After dinner, Jodi and I moved our chairs up to the railing so we had a better view of the stage.



Paul and Storm opened for Jonathan Coulton as well as performing a few songs with him in his set. They were HIGHLY entertaining, and their harmonies and arrangements were great, plus they had a wide variety of material. You can hear samples of their material on their website.

One of my favourites: Nun Fight. :-D

Also love the fact that they obviously knew the crowd ("Ok, now yell 'argh' PI times!" (pause as audience responds without hesitation) "Wow, that really WAS 3.14159265 times...")

Jeff liked them so much that he bought all three of their CDs plus one of their Evil Minion t-shirts.



Next up: Jonathan Coulton. I was sooooo excited to finally see him perform live, and I wasn't disappointed. I had a mental list of songs that I fervently hoped he would sing, and HE SANG EVERY ONE OF THEM IN HIS SET, WOOHOO!



His set included: The Future Soon, Shop Vac, Still Alive, Curl, Code Monkey, My Monkey, Birdhouse In Your Soul, Creepy Doll, I'm Your Moon, I Feel Fantastic, Mr. Fancy Pants, Skullcrusher Mountain, Mandelbrot Set, You Ruined Everything, Re: Your Brains, Betty & Me, First of May, plus a number of others I can't recall right now. Some of the songs were requests that people had sent him on Twitter after he had asked what people wanted to hear.

I love the amazing effects gizmo he was playing during Mr. Fancy Pants, and especially how he played it; he was obviously having a lot of fun. :-)

Jonathan called up Paul and Storm on several songs, and the arrangements/harmonies were fantastic. I especially enjoyed the rapport between the three of them.



To those who are seeing him (and Paul and Storm!) tonight: You're in for a treat.

Seeing Jonathan Coulton at the Lula Lounge tonight!

Woohoo! Jeff and I are meeting Jodi and James at the Lula Lounge tonight to see Jonathan Coulton perform. I've never seen Coulton live, so I'm pretty excited. Thanks to Tom Jeffers for giving me the heads-up about this show -- he and others are going to see it this weekend.

Paul and Storm will be opening for him. From their JoCopedia page: "Paul Sabourin and Greg 'Storm' DiCostanzo are an Arlington, Virginia-based comedic musical duo. They had formerly been half of the a cappella group Da Vinci's Notebook. When that group went on hiatus the two struck out on their own, with Paul playing keyboard and penny whistle and Storm on the guitar. " You can find out more about them on their blog.

I got hooked on Jonathan Coulton's songs after hearing Tony Fabris perform Skullcrusher Mountain at a filk convention.

By the way, don't you think Coulton bears an uncanny resemblance to my friend Rand (posing with Jodi) in the photo below?



Anyway, I've been posting some of my favourite Jonathan Coulton tunes on my Blip.fm account. Plus I'll include a few here:







Less than 12 hours to go!

Suburban Travesty...on YouTube

As I mentioned before, my music group (Urban Tapestry), were the Toastmasters at a local filk convention called FilKONtario. Part of the convention is devoted to "one-shots", which are basically mini-concerts by anyone who wants to sign up, singing one song.

One of the sign-ups was a mysterious "Esty", which turns out to be "S.T.", short for Suburban Travesty. Apparently Dave Clement, Tom Jeffers and Walter had been conspiring for a while. The little sneaks.

Dave was Jodi, Tom was Allison, and Walter was me. Well...Walter carried out his threat of putting this on YouTube, and you can also find the lyrics to "Pretty FIlkers" (words by Walter! his first filk song!) at this YouTube page as well as on Flickr.

To Dave, Tom and Walter: you guys are SO doomed.

>:-)

More photos from FKO

Photo by Gary Ehrlich.

Being a guest at FilKONtario (and forgetting my camera for the first part of the convention anyway), I didn't take nearly as many photos as I usually do at a convention. Plus I didn't think there were nearly enough blackmail photos of Walter publicly available, so I went looking.

Here are a selection of photos from other people instead. Click on any photo to be taken to the source image.

Amy McNally playing fiddle during our concert (photo by Brooke):



We love having Amy play with us. She is SUCH a wonderful musician, and so generous with her accompaniment skills. Amy often holds back her true fiddle virtuosity; instead, she matches her improvisation to the song and performer she's accompanying. As a result, she doesn't often get the limelight of a solo performer. I'd love to see her as a guest at more conventions (I just noticed she's the music guest at ApolloCon in Texas!).



I love this photo of Jodi that Brooke took, while we were doing Starsoul in our concert:



Another photo by Brooke, this time of Urban Tapestry performing "A Gown Too Blue" in our literary theme filk. Brenda Sutton wrote this gorgeous song based on Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.



I loved the "nerd anthem" sung by Rand and Adam in open filk during the weekend. This needs to be sung at every filk and/or sf convention. :-D


Photo by Allison.

Below: I -loved- Eva's entry in the FKO song contest. Photo by Brooke.



Gary Ehlrich snapped this shot of Allison's, Jodi's and my reaction upon first seeing Suburban Travesty in performance:



In this photo (also by Gary), you can see Walter with his props:



Gary caught Walter on his camcorder as well:



Speaking of Walter....

Walter played a key role in our concert during our performance of "A Neurotic Love Song." During the beginning of the song, he was hiding behind the curtain and holding out pictures of people mentioned in the song. We had practised the schtick so that I'd grab a Nerf gun and shoot Luxwana and Beverly when their pictures showed:


(Photo by Gary)

...then grabbing the Nerf shotgun and shooting Eline and Vash right after:


(Photo by Gary again)

Meanwhile, I could hear Walter making frustrated noises behind the curtains as the cardboard kept catching on the curtain fabric. Heh.

When Jean-Luc / Walter appears, of course, I go all moony. As soon as he says "Earl Grey. Hot" line, I hand him a tea cup with Earl Grey (actually just a modified plastic cup with an Earl Grey tea bag). A moment later he hands me some flowers (bought at a magic shop, the kind you can hide up your sleeve) and I toss away the teacup to grab the flowers:


(Photo by Brooke)

But then he offers me his heart (we printed out a medically correct heart) and I toss away the flowers to grab the heart. Finally, Jean-Luc asks me to dance, and Gary caught the moment where I toss away the heart to grab Jean-Luc's hand:


(Photo by Gary)

Heh.

In rehearsal, we ran through the routine several times because everything happens quickly, and we knew timing was critical.


Photo by Gary.

Anyway, it turned out all right in the end, and I didn't even fall when Walter / Jean-Luc dipped me (I couldn't find a photo of this).

For those looking for more photos and reports from FKO, visit Rafe's list of convention links from FilKONtario.


Photo by Brooke.