Housefilk at Sally's

Urban Tapestry's new friend (and chocolate pusher), Franklin, is coming to FilKONtario next spring! We got to know Franklin better at Filkcontinental in Germany a couple of months ago. Not only is Franklin a talented singer and pianist, but also a sweet and good-natured individual with a wonderfully wicked sense of humour.



Our trip to Germany has affected our lives in so many ways. Not only did we leave with such wonderful memories and make new friends at Filkcontinental, but it's been great to see more German filk music influencing the North Americans.

In response to my recent songwriting poll, Michael Pereckas said he did some musical collaboration with Aryana, one of the new friends we made in Germany, as a result of a post in Allison's Livejournal.

From Michael: "I'm still boggling that three Canadian women whom I've seen in person exactly once went to Germany and as a result I'm making German friends."

:-D



At the housefilk at Sally Headford's tonight, German filk came up several times in conversation and music. Heather Borean sang "The Willow", a song by Aryana; you can find more information (in German :-)) and MP3 samples from this talented German filker here. Allison sang "Still Beautiful", another Aryana song, as well as a beautiful song by Steffi called "Remember Me."

The housefilk was much fun...thanks SO much to Sally for hosting it. The filk tonight captured much of what I believe is most important about filking: the community. The focus is not on who's the most talented or on selling CDs...those with this mindset will drop by from time to time, but they miss out on the real pay-offs.



People in this community make music for the pure joy of it. If not for the filk community (through which I met Allison and Jodi), I would never have started writing songs or singing in public. I love the mutual support and encouragement in the filk community, the creativity and collaboration, and feel incredibly lucky to be a part of it all.

I tried to capture this feeling when I wrote Home to FilKONtario, and was deeply touched when the convention committee decided to make it the closing song of FKO for the past few years.

If you're interested in finding out more about filk, please do check out Filking.net (The Dandelion Report), especially the Filk FAQ. And do consider coming to FilKONtario next March 31-April 2, 2006!


Above: Allison and her husband John, at the Pickle Barrel.

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