It has not escaped my attention, O Internets, that I never did actually finish the series of posts about our Great Canadian Adventure this past summer–and of course the highlight of same, the Great Big Sea show at Torbay in Newfoundland. Given that it is now several months after the fact posting about that would be anticlimactic. Especially given that we did just have ourselves the pleasure of Great Big Sea right here in Seattle, and oh my yes, it was good to have them back again.
Maybe not quite as awesome as seeing them on their home turf, but pretty damned awesome nonetheless!
All the usual suspects were on hand for the show, and in my particular case, this meant meeting up for dinner beforehand with friends for Mexican food at Pacific Place. My friend Geri came down from Vancouver since our show was cheaper than theirs, and I was happy to offer her crash space–in no small part since she’ll be reciprocating for me next month when I come up for Le Vent du Nord! Had we had time, we might have enacted a Cunning Plan, since I’d been hearing amusing rumors of a 20th anniversary cake brought to the B’ys in Portland–but! Even without such, it was almost universally an excellent show. (The one exception was my poor friend Jenny whose dinner disagreed with her, but thankfully she made it through the entire concert!)
Arrival at the Moore as per usual put me right in smack dab sight of the merch table. Which I promptly raided for my latest GBS shirt–this one, in fact. And I started running into quite a few folks I know from the original OKP as well as its current Facebook group incarnation, since people were on the lookout for my hat! Much love and many hugs to Angela R. and Helen and Julie and Martha and Lynda, all of whom I said hi to at various points during the show.
And without further ado–and a ONE! And a TWO get up now! ONE, TWO, THREE, JUMP AROUND!
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 songs on A Wolfrider’s Reflections, the album of Elfquest music that came out in fandom in the late 80’s with the blessing of Wendy and Richard Pini. She was a seriously big name filker back in the day, and I adored her not only for the EQ tape, but also for her affection for Star Trek. She actually played Kirk in a couple of fannish productions of parodies of the second and third Trek flicks–preserved for posterity now by my own belovedest of Daras! Wrath Side Story and Spock Pacific, hee. Oh, Julia was an excellent Kirk.
Her song “Horsetamer’s Daughter” was a classic. And she was frequently beautifully parodied by –Tom’s “Temperature of Revenge” to this day remains one of my very favorite filk songs. And later on, she became the first filker to ever have orchestral accompaniment on an album when she released Divine Intervention, which features a heartbreaking song about Kirk reacting to the destruction of the Enterprise, yet another of her beautiful Trek songs.
Now, the new album has more orchestral work on it and I’m really looking forward to it. I heartily endorse y’all going to pick it up, since it’s gone over budget and Prometheus Music can use all the support it can get! Go support them and an awesome indie musician and filker as well!
The full show writeup is on the way, but for those of you who haven’t already seen me post these pics to the social networks, behold! My first attempt at getting a full shot of pics of the B’ys on my phone!
These were taken from Stage Bob in the second row, so we were pretty darned close to the stage. I was able to only get a small number of good shots, though–most of the songs were too brightly lit from my vantage point to get clear shots, especially given my newbie skill level. I don’t have a very steady hand yet either.
But! I did get several kinda okay shots during “The Mermaid” and one or two on other songs as well. The sparkly thing hanging off of Séan’s mic stand is actually a mobile saying “GBS XX”, which someone gave to the band as a gift before the show! Plus, there are quite a few shots of the crowd immediately around and above me, during the intermission between sets!
Out of general curiosity I looked at the total number of tracks in my iTunes library tonight so that I could do some quick numbers.
I have a total of 8,473 individual tracks in my library. In most cases these are in fact songs, although some of the things I have in MP3 form are actually audio drama. This number does not however include audiobooks or PDFs that are also in my iTunes library.
Of this number, a total of 974 tracks are by Quebecois performers. This means, O Internets, that roughly 11% of my iTunes collection is now Francophone! To put this in perspective for you, only 677 of my iTunes tracks are by Elvis! Quebecois music now outnumbers Elvis Presley in my music collection.
Elvis. Aron. Presley. Y’know, that guy whose music I grew up listening to and back to whom I can trace pretty much every single thing that makes me swoon about music EVER.
Some amusing sub-stats–a breakdown of track counts by my top groups:
La Bottine Souriante: 167 items
Le Vent du Nord: 92 items
La Volée d’Castors: 91 items
Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer: 81 items
Genticorum: 45 items
Galant, Tu Perds Ton Temps: 43 items
De Temps Antan: 25 items
(Those last few counts are going to get boosted soon, too! Galant, Tu Perds Ton Temps AND De Temps Antan are working on new albums. I hear rumors Genticorum has one on the way, too!)
I can only now conclude that Quebec must have passed a provincial resolution of some sort, perhaps La Loi du Colonisation des Playlists d’Anna Avec La Musique Traditionnelle. Either that or it’s a genre-wide conspiracy for every trad musician within a hundred-klick radius of Montreal to send me the following musical message:
“Bonjour, Anna! Nous entendrons que t’aime la musique traditionnelle. Nous avons des bouzoukis. Et des violons. Et la très, très belle podorythmie! Et avons-nous mentionné des bouzoukis? Nous avons des CDs pour toi. Tu peux apprendre un peu français, oui? Tu apprends le français, nous vendrons des CDs! Victoire pour tout le monde!”
I have to admit, they’re making one hell of a pitch. ;D Well done, entire province of Quebec. Well done, VRAIMENT.
This past weekend, my household converged on Emerald City Comicon, along with a houseguest–a friend of mine who’d come all the way from Norway to visit us, and to attend the convention as well! (My poor friend came down with strep throat during his visit, but happily we got him treated beforehand, and liberal doses of antibiotics got him up to speed to be able to attend the convention. Otherwise there would have been SADNESS.)
Since this was my first Comicon of any kind, I didn’t really know what to expect. I’m not a huge comics reader and never have been, with the gigantic exception of Elfquest. I don’t do superhero comics for the most part, though I have a history of dabbling in X-Men from way back in middle school. These days, I am actually doing a little bit of digital comics reading, but I’ve been focusing that on the Buffy season 8 and season 9 releases from Dark Horse, as well as their Firefly and Serenity stuff. And, I’ve been amusing myself with a Star Trek run of stories adapting TOS-era plotlines to use in the continuity of the new movies. There ARE a small number of webcomics I follow as well–xkcd, Kevin and Kell, and a lovely little thing called Fox Sister.
Mostly, though… I don’t follow the big storylines from Marvel or DC. Which makes me a bit sad. I love me some superheros, but I’m hugely alienated by the ongoing sexism of the art and the storylines. So I relate a lot better to superheros as they’re depicted in excellent animation like the wonderful years-long continuity that included the Batman, Superman, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. I’ve been consistently entertained by the Marvel movie adaptations, for the most part. And as y’all know, I adored the Avengers.
So when I went through the exhibition floor at the con and saw an endless stream of female characters depicted with enormous breasts and spines twisted in angles that NOBODY WOULD EVER POSE IN EVER, all for the sake of showing off their breasts and their bottoms… all I could think was ‘yeah, mostly? This is not art intended for me‘. I was particularly sad to see one big-breasted depiction of Phoenix from the X-Men, and another of Wonder Woman with a thong so tiny she was practically nude. In both cases, the characters were depicted with dewy-eyed ‘can has sexytimes now pls?’ expressions.
Definitely not art for me.
Happily, though, there were shining exceptions to this. One was, of course, Wendy and Richard Pini’s presence at the con. Elfquest is hands down one of the most formative influence on me as a writer ever. When I had Kiri Moth do the Faerie Blood cover, in fact, I pointed her at images of Leetah and Rayek from Elfquest and told her, “Kendis looks like the child these two characters never had.” But even aside from what my brain always insists elves should look like, the values of tolerance upheld by the lead elf characters all throughout the history of the series peal through my heart. And some of the strongest female characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading about have come straight out of the pages of this series.
(If you’re new to Elfquest, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s ALL available to be read for free on elfquest.com. GO! Go look at the pretty!)
Wendy and Richard did an excellent panel about the history of the series and what we can expect from it in the future, and I happily leapt on the opportunity to not only let my friend Yngvar buy me an Elfquest shirt at the con, but to also order two more from the site now selling them. I also ordered from the Pinis a special hardback edition of one of Wendy’s non-Elfquest works, her SF adaptation of Masque of the Red Death. This, hands down, was the highlight of the con for me.
Here’s the shirt that Yngvar got me! This is a reworked version of a design I used to have on a pale orange shirt, which had the caption “To Hunt, to Howl, to Live Free”, as I recall. Here it’s been redone to be a Comicon exclusive, and I do admit to a bit of fangirly squee to see that Wolfrider with the Space Needle in the background!
To Hunt, to Howl, to Live Free (in Seattle)
That said, though, I did also find one other set of graphic novels I want to read–a three-part series called Anne Steelyard, authored by the well-respected Barbara Hambly! This thing’s supposed to be set in an Indiana-Jones-esque timeframe, only the lead character is in fact a woman. Looking forward to diving into this, too.
And we bought pretty prints of art inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, and Doctor Who. And we saw lots of awfully nifty costumes–especially my and Dara’s friend Torrey, a master-class costumer now who’s won awards at Worldcon. We found her wandering the con in her Prince Zuko costume, again from Avatar: The Last Airbender. :D
I bought two other shirts as well–both of which were Han-Solo-themed. Just to show that there was merch at this thing Relevant to My Interests. ‘Cause seriously, this shirt? How could I NOT get this shirt?
The Most Scoundrelicious Shirt in the Universe
All in all I think I still found more to relate to at ECCC than I have to date at PAX–and I’d consider doing a one-day jaunt to future cons. People who are more in comics than I am should definitely go.
ETA: Oh, right, duh, I totally forgot to mention the other actual panel I attended–the Q&A with Jhonen Vasquez, best known for being the mind behind Invader Zim, another longstanding favorite of my household. Vasquez turned out to be younger than I expected, but also hysterical–a bit of an asshole, but in a funny kind of way. He winged it through most of his panel, given that a lot of what he wanted to talk about he could not in fact do so until a later panel that should have come first, due to scheduling mixups.
Vasquez is apparently a bit weary of mostly everybody knowing him for Zim and nothing else, and isn’t shy about letting people know that. It was, however, fun to hear him talk passionately about the console games he likes, as well as discussing some of his other work.
Great Big Sea’s Facebook account announced this morning that the the CBC Radio 3 account on YouTube posted a whole MESS of videos from a concert this past November in Ontario.
Really. GOOD. Videos. Like this one of “River Driver”. Jesus Jumping CHRIST on a pogo stick, the bass on Murray in this. +50 to the sound engineers who worked this show, because I have never swooned so hard at the harmony mix on this song.
My party gathering for the show at the Moore on March 8th has ONE AVAILABLE TICKET! We were a party of five, but two of us had to back out. One of their tickets has now been claimed, but we still have one left! So if you think you might want to come to this show and you don’t already have arrangements, talk to me ASAP!
Because did I mention–SECOND ROW, Stage Bob? That’s almost close enough for the inimitable Mr. Hallett to hear us singing! So if you’ve ever wondered exactly how high I can boing when The Doyle yells VERTICAL MOVEMENT, now is your chance to find out!
And while we’re on the topic–another OKPer has just relayed to me on Facebook that she’s coming in for the show and is seeking parties interested in sharing her suite at the Moore hotel. So if you’re coming to the show (whether or not you want my group’s ticket!), and you need post-show crash space, talk to me and I’ll put you in touch with that other fan.
Great Big Sea is COMING. The Good Ship Vertical Movement will in our harbor soon! See you all at the show! :D
One of the big intimidating things for me as a newbie to Quebec tunes is that there are so! goddamn! many! of them–a problem equally applicable to Irish/Celtic tunes in general, but I’m growing to appreciate the sheer number of tunes available to an interested student!
And thanks to being pointed recently at this beautiful repository of tunes goodness and a few other fine links as well, I’ve now happily ID’d an initial lineup of tunes I can focus on. These are ones that I have confirmed recordings for, mostly–a LOT of La Bottine Souriante, but also some Genticorum, some De Temps Antan, and even Le Vent du Nord!
These tunes are:
Gigue a Trois–this is a Le Vent du Nord tune, by M. Demers! \0/
Gigue André Alain–a.k.a. 6/8 de André Alain, this is the first of the two that Alexandre of Genticorum taught me! Including it here for completeness
Gigue du Diamante Bleu–Alexandre mentioned this one when he was trying to remember what Gigue du Père Mathias was called. So clearly I must investigate whether it’s similar!
Gigue du Père Mathias–And this is the other one that Alexandre taught me! This one’s fun! Also including for completeness since I’ve played with this one already.
Hommage à Philippe Bruneau–La Bottine recorded this one! But I’ve found two different PDFs of this, and they appear to be two different tunes. I need to determine which one is actually the one that La Bottine recorded.
Jigue/Gigue de Salon–on the grounds that Pascale Gemme of Genticorum wrote it! Don’t have a recording, I think, unless it’s uncredited in one of the instrumental sets on the Genticorum albums.
Le brandy–La Bottine recorded this one, and if the mighty La Bottine recorded it, it requires my undivided attention.
Le Chat Noir–This has Andre Brunet and Éric Beaudry’s names on it on the Montreal Session site, to wit, category Highly Relevant to My Interests!
Le pommeau 1–Alexandre wrote this one! Genticorum recorded it on La Bibournoise.
Le reel des menteries–Written by Normand Miron, who I know of course from the Charbonniers. I have a couple different recordings which should have this tune in them.
Les Patins de Pauline–By Andre Marchand, recorded by La Bottine Souriante recorded on Chic & Swell. And, well, you don’t get more venerable than M. Marchand, I think…
Nuit sauvage–… unless perhaps you are Michel Bordeleau! Again, recorded by La Bottine!
Reel au relenti–By the aforementioned M. Brunet! No recording, but for M. Brunet, I make an exception.
Reel de Caribou–We’ve played this in session! Though I need to determine which of the conflicting PDFs I have is more like what we’ve played.
Reel de la tuque bleue–Recorded by Les Frères Labri.
Reel de Siamois–Again, Andre Marchand! Recording on Le Bruit Court dans la ville.
Reel des vieux garçons–Must check this against the same recording as Reel de Siamois; same as first tune on that recording?
Sheepskin and Beeswax–BEST LA BOTTINE EVER! \0/ This gets played in our session crowd, and it was played when Genticorum was here last year, and oh gods this one is awesome. Recorded on La Mistrine as well as the opening “Ouverture” track on La Bottine’s live album En spectacle.
The Woodchopper’s Reel–I think this is in our session repertoire!
Valse Bernadette–Another La Bottine, on Tout comme au jour de l’an.
Valse d’hiver–Yet another La Bottine, on La traversée de l’Atlantique.
Violon guérisseur–Genticorum! \0/ This is on the most excellent Nagez Rameurs.
Reel du Pendu–The last of the La Bottines I’m targeting! Again, conflicting PDFs, must match up against my recordings!
This, I think, should keep me happily occupied for months. SO EXCITING! And hopefully also stomp-inducing, because oh my yes I’m going to see if I can get footwork going on these things while I’m playing!
Collecting these all in one place so I can refer back to them later!
Y’all remember how I was gushing about getting to go to Memoire et Racines last summer, right? Well, I’ve had the delight of finding several videos from the show–a couple from a performance that Dara and I actually saw, and a few more of a performance we didn’t.
Videos behind the fold! Continue reading “Some shinies from Memoire et Racines!”
I got asked about this on Facebook, but thought I would post it here for the edification and satisfaction of all! If you’ve heard me speak of the wonders of cake vodka milkshakes and you’d like to try them for yourself, this is what you need to do!
You will need:
A bottle of Three Olives brand ‘cake’ vodka. Three Olives is a brand with several different flavors, and the ‘cake’ flavor is decorated with birthday-style balloons and streamers. (It tastes like somebody took cupcakes and made them into alcohol. It is delicious ALL BY ITSELF. But stick with me, my story gets better!)
A good brand of vanilla ice cream. The Murkworks recommends Alden’s Organic vanilla, but if you have other vanilla ice creams of which you are fond, by all means, use those!
Optional, if you want a chocolate milkshake instead of a vanilla one: your preferred brand of chocolate syrup. We’re using just plain ol’ Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
Milk. We favor 1% at the Murkworks, but use whatever milk you prefer!
How much to use of each thing:
2-3 scoops of ice cream
2-3 tablespoons of the syrup, to taste
1-2 shots of the vodka
1/2 to 3/4 cup of milk, to taste
Toss it all in a blender and mix thoroughly. Experiment as needed to get desired consistency.
