Filk Musicians

You may also want to see the Filk Music Concerts schedule.

Here are some of the excellent filkers you can look forward to seeing at Pemmi-Con:

Stone Dragons

The Stone Dragons flew down from their rocky weyr here in Toronto 15 years ago and they have performed as guests across the U.S., Canada, Germany and England where they won a prestigious Sam Award. Their music burns with bright flame and scales many science, fantasy, geek and gaming themes with a serious and sometimes humorous side. They strive to make their music exciting and different encompassing East Indian, folk, rock, blues, bluegrass and Celtic styles. We are extremely excited to be attending Pemmi-con in Winnipeg and look forward to performing a concert and meeting everyone.

Roberta Rogow

Roberta Rogow is marking her 50th year in Fandom. She got her start writing and singing parodies, dealing with Star Trek, Star Wars, and other movies/TV shows/books. She went on to embrace the Space Program, Historical events, and Things in Caves. Roberta was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 2013. Roberta is a retired children’s librarian, living in New Jersey.

Past accomplishments: Interfilk guest 2004, Filk Hall of Fame 2020, operator of “Festival of the Living Rooms” (which few people notice is a parody of Night of the Living Dead), singer/song rewriter, blues comedian, exponential-instrumentalist, folksinger.

Phillip Mills and Jane Garthson

Phil and Jane are singer-songwriters whose songs are based on fantasy, science fiction, science, mythology and more, sometimes from books and sometimes from wild imagination. Their concerts have a mix of funny, serious, thoughtful and silly songs. Phil’s finger-picking guitar style enhances many of their songs. He was the International Music GoH at Consonance in 2015 and won a 2012 Aurora Award for filk, for his song-writing. He has two CDs on BandCamp and Jane has one EP there, with Phil on guitar of course. Pre-pandemic, they hosted many house filks and filkers in the north end of Toronto. Jane was on the FilKONtario ConCom for years, as well as formerly on the CSSFA board. Both are also active FAWMers, the February Album Writing Month challenge (14 new songs in 28 days). Phil spends many hours learning and playing with Reaper and Native Instruments. Jane has no such musical knowledge but promises there will be mouse ears at the concert.

Gary Ehrlich

A mild-mannered structural engineer by day, Gary stalks the stages and filk rooms of Northeast conventions, singing of space flight, lunar colonies and hyperspace hotels. Gary helped run NEFilk’s Conterpoint incarnation, and is Balticon’s Program Coordinator for Filk and Other Musical Mayhem. Gary was a 2012 Filk Hall of Fame inductee.

John McDaid

John G. McDaid is a science fiction writer, folk/filk singer-songwriter, and freelance journalist from Rhode Island. A 1993 Clarion grad, he sold his first short story, the Sturgeon Award-winning “Jigoku no mokushiroku” to Asimov’s in 1995. Since retiring in 2016 from a career in corporate communications, he’s been writing full time and playing at venues around the Northeast. He was a finalist for the writer/composer Pegasus for filk in 2020 and 2021; his debut studio album, Trail of Mars, won the 2021 John Culkin Award from the Media Ecology Association. He’s currently working on a WWII alternate history novel and another filk album. On the web at Web at http://johnmcdaid.com.

Gary McGath

Gary is a long time filker from New England and an honorary member of German filkdom. He’s written a history of filk, Tomorrow’s Songs Today. (You can download a free copy at http://www.mcgath.com/tst/) His “The Mad Scientist’s Love Song ” has been nominated three times for a Pegasus Award.

Paul Kwinn

Paul Kwinn has been filking for a while now. Approximately 30 years. That’s a while, right? He’ll be playing some stuff of his own (some even relatively recent) and some written by other people. He and his guitar will be helped out by some well-known filk friends, including his spouse: harmonica-player and CD cover artist Beckett Gladney

Kathleen Sloan

Kathleen “Catalogue Queen” Sloan has been a fan and a filker since 1976. She’s been a listener, a performer and an occasional songwriter. Though she has lived in Colorado since 1989, she started filking in Ohio. Since 1994 she has served as an Interfilk director, and has been Board President since 2014. Kathleen has been blessed with many opportunities to travel and meet filkers from all over the world. In 2007 she was honoured to be inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame. You can spot her wearing her rainbow beaded name badge holder, or other fabulous beaded necklace, and she can be found doing beadwork while listening to panels or filk at just about any convention she attends.

Chris the Bard

Chris will play a set of mostly original music covering topics like zombies, D&D, Narnia and more. A little silly and a little serious; but mostly silly at FILK. Clawhammer style guitar playing and a folk musician at heart Chris will bring some solid earworms along with lots of smiles and laughter.

Bill Laubenheimer

Bill was introduced to filk by his wife, Carole Parker, on their first date. When subsequently introduced to fandom, Bill quickly found the filk room, and is still there, writing and performing.

Cognitive Disonants

Peggi has been singing since she could carry a tune, and Ken loves playing accompaniment. We especially enjoy songs of space, love, and peace.

Judith Hayman

Judith Hayman is known in the filk community largely because of her involvement with FilKONtario. She served as chair or co-chair 15 times and on concom for all the FilKONtarios up to 2022, except the first one 1991, at which she and partner Dave volunteered. She is also a writer of filk: nearly one hundred songs to date, some of which no one will ever hear. She is also a performer and has two CD’s published: Sea of Stars and Whither Go (first sold out, second available at the con).

“Decadent” Dave Clement

Dave discovered fandom in 1984 and “came out of musical retirement.” His warm, strong, clear voice is one of the most distinctive in the filk community. Few singers involve an audience as completely in their music as Dave does; he is an engaging performer on stage and in filk circles. His repertoire includes many a song guaranteed to get the entire circle joining in on choruses, harmonies, and other instruments. He plays guitar with a recognizable strong rhythm, and plays dumbek, bodhran, recorder, and whistle.

Morva and Alan

Morva is a retired professional organizer, Alan is an almost retired electrical engineer. They have been attending their local F&SF convention, Keycon, for almost 30 years, but only really got into filk music about 20 years ago, thanks to Decadent Dave Clement. They have been singing together since high school but retirement has given this vice more time so they have started spending more time singing and writing music. Morva came to F&SF the good old fashioned way through books. ( She reads almost as fast as Spencer Reid ) Alan was caught by the classic movies in the 60’s and 70’s. ( he’s really old ) So their musical inspiration is a mix of written and visual sources coloured by their folk background. They run the music hospitality suite at Keycon, the local gen-con along with the aforementioned Dave Clement and host house concerts featuring itinerant musicians from all over North America.

Erwin “Filthy Pierre” Strauss

Filthy Pierre was, by the late ’70s, already a legend. He was the single driving force behind the East Coast Singalong in the early ’70s. He could always be found, at con after con, gathering people around a piano or his trademark keyboard, and getting them singing. He was often seen behind a gaudy name tag inviting everyone to ask him about filk, and would always make time to explain what filk was to curious newcomers. His contributions don’t end with filk. Erwin is the inventor of the “Voodoo Board”, the inter-member communication method used at WorldCons which is making a return here at Pemmi-con. He is still a strong supporter of the filk community, and includes filk cons in his monthly “SF Convention Calendar” in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Filthy Pierre can still can be found at cons with his keyboard, his name tag, and his willingness to sing.