Fannish Music: Geek rock, Nerdcore, Filk, Wizard Rock…

[Venomous Mask]

This death metal band has many WH40K-influenced songs, most of them about the Blood God Khorne. If you like this one, be sure to check out Ironclad Declaration of War, Blood for the Blood God, Kings of Carnage, and Kill, Maim, Burn:

[kjn]

My friend Dr. Mary Crowell is also not only an accomplished musician, she's also a great comedic songwriter and avid roleplayer, as evidenced by her music video "M Is for Magic Missile"



Sharp-eyed posters might discover one famous novelist and comic-book writer as well as myself performing in the video.

[kjn]

Wizard rock is probably the most high-profile of the various fannish music genres. Most wizard rock bands are tightly focused on Harry Potter, but some bands are branching out a bit. One example is The Blibbering Humdingers, here doing a wonderful jazzy tribute to the Blind Pig of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

[Javasaurus]

While they probably don't fall into any of the genres mentioned in this thread, the band Tacocat released the song "Dana Katharine Scully" a few years back. It's a fun tribute to Dana Scully of the X-Files. Apparently the name of that album -- "Lost Time" -- was a reference to an X-Files episode as well. The video is a hoot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FShqXAqGv4

[kjn]

Thanks Javasaurus!

The thing about many of these genres is that they are as much traditions and social movements as musical genres, and depend a lot on self-identification. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a band like Tacocat had plenty of connections to various geek rock bands: a lot of them work using a similar aesthetic, and also work on combining pop culture with social justice themes.

Within the filk community there is filk: songs that are made within the community; adopted filk: songs that were made outside the community but is sung within it; found filk: songs that are made outside the community but might as well have been made inside it (and thus are ripe adoption targets).

Which reminds me of another one of the bands that move between these various traditions or genres: the mythpunk band Cheshire Moon. Here they present Piers and Gill Cawley's Child of the Library



Eric also runs a podcast called FilkCast that's developing into a great resource about all these genres.

[Venomous Mask]

A surprisingly somewhat creepy xenomorph-themed song set to the tune of Evanescence's Bring Me To Life. The channel has a bunch of other nerd stuff as well:

[kjn]

Back to comics! "The Ballad of Captain America's Disapproving Face" is a wonderfully catchy song of the dangers of not listening to Captain America.

[kjn]

I'm the first to admit that most rap leaves me cold and that I hardly know that scene. But a friend of mine gave a tip of the nerdcore rapper Mega Ran. Here is his song "Watchmen" from his record The Dewey Decibel System

[Venomous Mask]

This guy makes really good, custom 40K music:

[kjn]

For those interested in fannish music of various forms, Covid-19 has meant an upsurge in interest in doing online concerts. The Blibbering Humdingers are going to have one such tonight



Eric Distad of The Faithful Sidekicks has also started the filkstreams.org service to keep track of upcoming fannish music concerts. Right now it's mainly filk, but don't be surprised if other stuff also starts to turn up there.

And Ghu willing, I myself will be participating in the upcoming Festival of the Living Rooms that is coming this weekend.

[kjn]

Not much happening here, but here is "Do As Peggy Says" by Via Bella, the duo of Rand (of Ookla the Mok that I linked to earlier) and Erin Bellavia.



They've done a lot of other great nerdy stuff, and are also quite active with live streaming over on Facebook during the pandemic. In fact, I'm listening to Adam playing Suprema Lex on Facebook Live right now…

[TriggerWarning]

A lot of Nightwish songs I could reference. Tuomas Holpainen, their keyboardist, is the principle songwriter and composer of their music and a huge fan of fantasy and sci fi. They have a song title Edema Ruh which is in fact based on a race / group (I haven't read it) in Patrick Rothfuss's fantasy novels. He named his side project that he does with his wife Auri from the same novels. Their latest album is full of references to science and space travel including a song called Shoemaker after Eugene Shoemaker who is a very important astronomer of the 20th century.

Then there is this song which is literally based on the 5th book of Stephen Kings Dark Tower series, Wolves of the Calla. In the book a town has 7 days until the "wolves" come and the main characters of the series decide to help defend the town. Fun comic fact if you haven't read the series - the wolves actually turn out to be robots that look like Dr Doom - long story as to why. This song is like many Nightwish songs in that it almost feels like two songs smashed together as you'll notice a definite tempo change and increase in energy around 3:25.

[kjn]

Rhiannon's Lark is a one-woman band making all sorts of nerdy stuff, primarily around gaming. Here is her Doombots, which is a hoot to listen to live if you get the chance.



Another song with a comics bent that she has written is "It's hard to work together when you're awesome!".