In the interest of fairness, I feel it is my responsibility to
\nannounce to our Faithful Horde O’ Readers that my sister sings lead
\nvocals on one track on this CD. Therefore, in order to avoid any
\ncharges of nepotism, I called in a Guest Reviewer, my roommate, to
\nlisten to this CD. Said roommate’s knowledge of filk music (the
\ngenre that Bob Kanefsky both belongs to and parodies with malice
\naforethought on
\nRoundworm<\/i>) is encyclopaedic rather than my own competent,
\nanyway. I put
\nRoundworm<\/i> on, gave it a spin, and watched said roommate
\nclosely for reactions.<\/p>\n
After about the third time he started laughing so hard that we
\nconsidered administering oxygen, I realized that nepotism or no, we
\nhad a winner on our hands.<\/p>\n
Filk music, for those who haven’t explored it before, is the
\nfolk music of the SF\/fantasy\/SCA\/gaming\/other forms of geekery
\ncommunity. While not all filk songs are about these topics, it’s
\nsafe to say that most people who self-identify themselves as filk
\nartists will be able to catch your “Star Trek” and Monty Python
\nreferences and make some of their own. Kanefsky, on the other hand,
\ntakes this
\neven further<\/i>, writing (but not performing) parodies of filk
\nsongs, which are sometimes parodies in and of themselves, and then
\npulls off the sheer audacity of getting the original filkers to
\nperform the parodies in most cases. If this seems excessive to you,
\ndiscard your linear thought patterns and start again, because
\nRoundworm<\/i> is just a whole hell of a lot of fun, whether or
\nnot you get the songs that are being parodied.<\/p>\n
Properly said, this CD
\nshould<\/i> be credited to “Bob Kanefsky And Friends,” because to
\nthe best of my liner-note-reading-knowledge, Kanefsky doesn’t
\nperform on it anywhere. Instead, his production staff brought in
\nsome of the heavy hitters of the filk\/Celtic community, including
\nHeather Alexander, Cat Taylor, Julia Ecklar, Leslie Fish, Kristoph
\nKlover, Margaret Davis, Jon Berger (the former fiddler of Celt-rock
\nband Tempest), and the bands Annwn and Ookla the Mok. (Note to
\nself. Review Ookla the Mok’s
\nLess Than Art<\/i> on here sometimes. Damn good CD.)<\/p>\n
I admit to only recognizing about half the songs parodied on
\nhere. Even so, I spent a lot of time laughing pretty darn hard.
\nSpecial note should be made of “Mutant Generations”, a pretty
\nincisive look at the homogenity of “Star Trek”; “Eternal Flame”, a
\nfilk paean to computer language flamewars; “Wise Men Fear To
\nTread”, a good argument for not longing for the Age of Mythology;
\n“Threes: Take 3”, a funny twist on the works of Mercedes Lackey;
\nand “Black Flag”, for all you folks who need to clean the kitchen.
\nI also congratulate Kanefsky for “December Of Cambreadth”, even
\nthough you
\nreally<\/i> need to know the original tune (“March of Cambreadth”
\nby Heather Alexander) to get all the jokes. Our Guest Reviewer also
\nconfirms all the Julia Ecklar parodies are evil. (I don’t know
\nJulia Ecklar’s work. I think I’ll need to repair that
\noversight.)<\/p>\n
Finally, I have to congratulate Kristoph Klover for his
\nengineering on
\nRoundworm<\/i>. It’s easily one of the best sounding filk CDs
\nI’ve ever heard, crisp and elegant.<\/p>\n
In short,
\nRoundworm<\/i> comes strongly recommended for parodists, filkers,
\nand people who just like to laugh. Good show, Mister Kanefsky et
\nal.<\/p>\n
(Oh, and sis? You were pretty damn good, too.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6350],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-36656","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bob-kanefsky","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36656"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36656"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}