Published on Dec 29, 1998
Outside my existence as a Daily Vault reviewer (yes, there is
something outside it), I am a somewhat active member of the
‘fen’ community. For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘fen’ is a
collective noun for SF fans, gamers, convention goers, SCAers, and
weirdos. Yet for many years, I had managed to -avoid- filk music,
the soundtrack of fen. Filk is folk, but with a twist — it’s
handcrafted music, new or parody, that is distributed mostly by
word of mouth through SF conventions and filk events, usually
involving SF, fantasy, pagan, or humourous themes; Internet
distribution has become very common, as many fen are also computer
users. Musically most of it is folk or Celtic, although
rock-filkers, country-filkers, and at least one rap-filker exists.
See
this
site for more information than anyone needs about filk.
Enough academia. Let us get to the meat of the matter: Tom Smith
is the man responsible for making me
like filk — nay, actively enjoy it, and want more. Smith is
called ‘The World’s Fastest Filker’; he has been known to write
compositions at SF conventions to order while stopwatches tick, and
his faculty for verbal and musical puns is astonishing and
occasionally painful, often reaching Tom Lehreresque
proportions.
Digital Acoustic Compilation is his new greatest hits
(sort-of) CD. It includes tracks from his first two albums,
Who Let Him In Here? and
Domino Death; redone acoustic tracks from his experiment
into keyboard-accompanied music, “Plugged”; and a couple of early
songs he re-recorded for aesthetic reasons. The production and
engineering on this CD are an improvement over normal filk. (Much
filk tends to sound like it was recorded in someone’s bathroom.
Sometimes it is.)
Smith’s sense of humour and timing is exemplary, and his
selection of targets for parody is keen, reminding me of a
guitar-bearing Tom Lehrer. “I Want To Be Peter Lorre” is a
side-splitting look at old movies and who usually survives them;
“My Unicorn Song” neatly deflates the cult of the monohorned beast;
“Return Of The King, Uh-Huh” sends Elvis to Middle-Earth; and
“Operation: Desert Storm” is an insiduously funny tribute to one
lone desert warrior. (Note for the patriotic: this song is NOT
about the United States military).
Laughs aside, what raises Smith above the legion of puerile
Valdemar fans with guitars is his serious side. “Starlight And
Saxophone,””Mandela,””Rocket Ride” and the dark-edged “PQR” are all
excellent, but two tracks stand even above those: the faerie story
“Storm Dancing,” whose haunting melody will echo in your head long
after it is over, and the magnificent Jim Henson tribute “A Boy And
His Frog.” There aren’t too many songs that make me cry; this is
one of them.
Not everyone will like filk. The relentless in-jokes and varying
production will turn off many; it requires an appreciation for
guitar folk and science fiction at the same time, also difficult at
times. But there are very few real songwriters in the world; Tom
Smith is one of them, a bearded SF geek with a pen and a stopwatch
who turns out music with substance and style.