Housefilk!

Last weekend was time for another gathering of the Atlanta filkers! This time, our host was jingoro (Daric Jackson), who lives in Doraville.

After we got done at the Cat Clinic, we came back home for a quick lunch, and then drove over to Athens to collect khaosworks. The trip was mostly uneventful, except for when a person tried to pull out across traffic right in front of me in a 45mph zone. I slammed on brakes and wrenched the wheel and ended up in the left turn lane facing the wrong way on the other side of the median. Thank god there was no traffic waiting there or I’d have had no where to go, and if I hadn’t moved to avoid the silly woman in the SUV, we’d have t-boned her in the front quarter panel or drivers door. It would have been very ugly.

As it was, we got to Sushi Yoko (formerly Sushi Yoshi), a local Japanese restaurant near Daric’s house. They had an extensive menu, and I ended up with the matsu (a combination of sushi, tempura, and teriyaki beef), while kitanzi had the take (the same combination of foods, except with sashimi instead of sushi). Everything was absolutely marvelous, especially the tempura which was perfectly battered and the teriyaki beef, which had strips of impossibly tender steak in a light teriyaki glaze. The gyoza appetizer I ordered was also done perfectly — the best I’ve had in quite a long time.

After topping the whole affair off with ice cream, we set off to the actual filk. I got a bit confused because we were approaching Daric’s house from the north rather than the south as I’ve done the last few times I’ve been to his house, but we found it without too much trouble and got set up inside. After everyone managed to get settled and tuned and supplied with drinks and chocolate, the music began.

in attendance were myself and kitanzi, khaosworks, Dave and Signe Wegener, jingoro and his daughter Megan, mrpsyklops and his daughter Jennifer, Jerrie Adkins, thatcrazycajun and Mary Mullholland, and Michael Liebmann. Because of the small crowd, we ended up doing a traditional PPorP bardic circle, ensuring that everyone got both a good chance and a good prodding to do something. 🙂 Highlights of the evening included Terence’s “Pulp Fiction” and his unfinished Scheherezade song, Jennifer Cooke doing “House of the Rising Sun” with her father, Mary’s Jubilee song, and Matt’s Buffy rap song. I played a variety of things, ranging from Poul Anderson’s “Mary O’Meara” to Dave Carter’s “Gun Metal Eyes” (which I learned from filker0 and spiritdance). At one point, Signe did a Vorkosigan song, so I followed it up one of my own, which I recently decided was actually finished, and I’ll post here shortly. I also did “Dungeonville” in there somewhere. There was also a thread of cat songs, after Jennifer said she always heard dog songs but no cat songs. This led to a number of cat songs, including “Overflowing Catbox Blues” performed by Michael, and “I Meant to Do That” performed by kitanzi, with a big singalong on the chorus.

We had some fun with political songs, as Matt did Roy Zimmerman’s “Defenders of Marriage”, prompting me to pull out and make an attempt at “Hell Froze Over Today” by the same author. (I want chords for that….drsnark, do you have them?)

One of the things I always look forward to when having a filk at jingoro‘s house is the anime music videos he always shows. He’s a creator of these fan produced videos as well as a collector, and it’s always fun to see the creative talent that goes into making them. I’ve acquired the software to do those myself, so we’ll see if I can manage to pull one off. Lot of work, but it looks like a lot of fun!

I borrowed khaosworks‘s Canon G3 camera and took a LOT of photos. You can find them here, though they still need to be captioned. Sorry about all the red-eye. 🙂

We ended up breaking up about 1am, and headed back home to crash. The next day, after kitanzi took him on a grocery run to Harry’s, I drove khaosworks home. We had a great time, and cant wait until the next filk.