This page will be updated as new information becomes available
List of filk performers at Confluence 2015
Featured Filk Guest
Brooke (Lunderville) Abbey is a banjo- and banjola-playing pharmacist from Canada. She writes extremely serious songs about giant squid, antihistamines, and LiveJournal – and she won the 2009 Pegasus Award for Best Filk Song for her most serious song ever, The Wreck of the Crash of the Easthill Mining Disaster.
Special Guest
Roberta Rogow: Roberta Rogow is the author of the four “Dodgson/Doyle” mysteries. She is currently working on a new series set in Gilded Age New York City. She also reviews juvenile mysteries for Mystery Scene magazine and is a performer of science-fiction-themed filk songs. She recently retired from a 37-year career as a Children’s Librarian in New Jersey’s public libraries.
Other filk performers:
2d6: In the year 20XX, two beings (Cliff B and DJ Stuck Down A Mineshaft) came together to form the ultimate rap duo. Together, they rock the nerdcore hip-hop genre with their rhymes about video games, tabletop role playing, fatty foods, Jerry Seinfeld, public radio, weekdays, diseases, bleeps, bloops, etc.
Juanita Coulson is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, active fan, and fanzine editor. She has also been widely known in filk music circles since the 1950s for her musical performance and songwriting; she has been nominated for several Pegasus Awards for her filking. For thirty-three years, she co-edited the science fiction fanzine Yandro with her husband Robert “Buck” Coulson. Yandro was nominated for a Hugo Award every year from 1958 through 1967; it won the award in 1965, making Juanita one of the very first female editors to receive a Hugo. She was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 1996 and the filk community voted to award her the Pegasus Award for Best Writer/Composer in 2012.
Dr. Mary Crowell has taught piano and composition for over twenty years; she also composes, transcribes, and arranges music and enjoys accompanying other people on piano and occasionally clarinet. She enjoys filking and gaming with good friends. Mary has released two filk albums of her own, is a member of the filk bands Three Weird Sisters and Play It with Moxie!, and has appeared on lots of other fannish recordings. She has won Pegasus Awards for Best Gaming Song, Best Writer/Composer, and Best Performer. In 2003 she performed live accompaniment for that year’s Confluence play and we’re glad to have her back.
Singer/songwriter Bill Davis is a fixture of northern Virginia’s folk-music scene but has been known to write numbers based on Larry Niven stories and assorted other SF and fantasy topics. Please welcome him for his first SF convention appearance!
Sean Faust: If you were to combine the essence of Pink Floyd with the energy of 90s rock such as Live and a live free-form format like those of The Grateful Dead and Phish, then sprinkle in a small dash of classic progressive rock a la Rush and early Yes, you would begin to understand the oeuvre created by songwriter Sean Faust. Sean walks his own path. Refusing to surrender to musical barriers, Sean combines his passion for all things music into a distinct sound that is unmistakably his own.
John “Bear” Hall has been an SF fan and a filker since 1976 and a member of the Dorsai Irregulars convention-security organization since 1988. Now that he’s retired from his day job, he gets to spend more time sharing excellent music with the community.
Kim the Comic Book Goddess is a serial balladier and podcaster from Northeastern Pennsylvania. She records music and essays under the name Comic Book Goddess Productions that are sometimes hard to classify and, frankly, rarely actually mention comic books any more. Her podcast, Geek Pantheon and Your Moment of Kim, has mostly been on hiatus since being named a finalist for 2009’s Best Speculative Fiction Comedy/Parody Podcast. She’s lent a voice to many of the projects that really should be your favorites and is happy to lend you a few songs at Confluence as well.
Beth Kinderman is a progressive-rock-influenced folk singer-songwriter based in Minneapolis, MN. Since 2008, Beth and her band the Player Characters (present at this year’s Confluence in the form of Dave Stagner) have performed at numerous SF conventions in the upper Midwest and have released five albums of original material on a wide array of geeky and filky topics. Her current project, “The Hero’s Journey,” is a concept album in preproduction based on the works of Joseph Campbell. Confluence 2015 marks her first time performing somewhere other than the Central time zone!
Dr. Sibylle Machat (or, in short: Sib) is – in no particular order – a fan, a filker, a teacher, a writer of things, a reader of books, a university employee, a doctor of philosophy, an amateur photographer, a hiker, and currently living in Washington, DC, where she is doing research at the Library of Congress for her second book. Her songs tend to be funny rather than serious, as she enjoys creating creative interpretations of various languages and popular culture artifacts.
Mikey Mason (a nationally touring standup comedian by trade) made a splash on YouTube with the video for his song “She Don’t Like Firefly,” which spurred the recording of two of his crowd-funded geek rock/comedy albums. He recently completed his third geek album and an EP of non-comedic songs inspired by Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods. Mikey’s work has been featured on sites from DrDemento.com to Nerdist.com to Time Magazine’s Techland. He has made multiple appearances both on NBC and at the legendary House Of Blues and has performed at conventions across the US.
Partners in K’RHyme is a musical duo consisting of Randy Hoffman, Confluence’s long-time filk-programming coordinator, and Kira, creator of Confluence’s program books for many years. They’ve performed at many other SF and filk conventions throughout North America, but this is the first time they’ve performed at their home con.
Stranger Ways is a dark modern folk band based in greater Boston. They play a mix of traditional and original music with heavy harmonies and a macabre sense of humor.
Super Smash Opera: Put Nintendo’s most beloved characters and opera’s most recognizable tunes in a blender (plus live singers, puppets, and projection screens) and you get “Super Smash Opera.” It was created by Zombie Opera founders Bonnie Bogovich and Liz Rishel and debuted earlier this year at MAGfest; Confluence is honored to host the show’s second performance.
At Confluence 2015, Judi Miller will once again provide her own unique brand of American Sign Language interpretation for selected concerts.
Staff
Randy Hoffman, filk@parsec-sff.org